Tag / Dan Piraro

by zbicyclist

Still Taxing After All These Years, Schedule 1-A

Yes, this is a repeat, with some new additions — like that US tax form, which has added new complexities this year. So we’re splitting it into two parts, like Schedule 1 has become Schedule 1 and Schedule 1-A.

The short form deserves a geezer alert, as it was discontinued years ago. There’s a 1040-SR now for seniors — the only difference is that it’s printed in larger type.

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/extension-of-time-to-file-your-tax-return , the instructions to file an extension, might come in handy if you’re like this woman.

It’s not going to work, Larry.

Actual IRS tax tips, if you need last minute help: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-tax-tips including, for example, ways to pay over time.

by zbicyclist

Still Taxing After All These Years, Schedule 1

Yes, this is a repeat, with some new additions — like that US tax form, which has added new complexities this year. So we’re splitting it into two parts, just as 1040 Schedule 1 has become Schedule 1 and Schedule 1-A.

The short form deserves a geezer alert, as it was discontinued years ago. There’s a 1040-SR now for seniors — the only difference is that it’s printed in larger type.

Actual error message from IRS.gov on the day tax forms (and estimated payments) were due, April 17, 2018. Not funny. Note the difference in the set of dates cited for the outage.

Typos continue in 2026. Here’s a notice from January, 2026 that suggests a form was corrected in the future.

(This wasn’t from the IRS. This is a notice from a well-known brand of tax preparation software.)

by multipleciduers

Sunday Funnies – LOLs – March 1, 2026

Not really an LOL quality joke, but an opportunity for a comment. Should the trope of “doctors have bad handwriting” be retired? (Doctors whose bad handwriting was relevant are likely all retired as well.) Nearly all prescriptions are either sent directly to the pharmacy, or printed out from the computerized medical record. That medical record itself isn’t handwritten notes anymore, but notes entered on a computer in medical English — not entirely readable, but for a different reason.

It’s like jokes involving pay phones.

This week I got birthday greetings from my four siblings — two days before my actual birthday. This happens every year. I used to correct them, but it never made any difference. Now I just go with the flow. Perhaps they really know, but it’s a minor practical joke on their part.

by phsiii

Casting about for understanding

From travelgirl again:

Seems to be my day… guy is asking for a podcaster with what looks like someone lying on the ground surrounded by people…

I almost feel like I’m old enough to be screaming “get off my lawn” when I don’t get some of these jokes :)

Uh, right. The fact that the gawkers are all white might be a clue. There’s a longstanding meme that podcast audiences are largely white, though that seems to be changing: a quick search suggests that “The percentage of white podcast listeners has dropped significantly from historical highs, with figures around 58-59% in 2024 compared to 67% in 2014”. I guess that’s a meaningful change, though it’s only slightly over a 10% drop. I did like a line I heard where some guy said, “I’m so white, most of my sentences start with ‘I was listening to a podcast…'” I might be guilty of this myself at times.

Notwithstanding all that, I still can’t get to anything resembling a joke?!

by zbicyclist

Typo

Mitch4 send this in: “Momentary CIDU / then OY after you get it.”

I’ll order the Bombe from Acme bakeries.

In other news, Olivia Jaimes has announced her retirement from the Nancy strip after 7 years. (This doesn’t surprise me; in the past months she seemed to have hit a stretch where she was running out of ideas.)

The strip will be taken over on January 1, 2026 by Caroline Cash, who did a few Nancy strips during Jaimes’s 2024 sabbatical (July 22 through August 11, 2024).

This one’s a clear nod to classic Bushmiller gags, one of which I posted a few days ago.

More here and here.

Dan Piraro had this curious take on Nancy a couple of days ago, although it’s not clear this was at all related to the authorship transition.

by zbicyclist

Poorly drawn, or efficient?

They don’t draw them like this anymore. This is a Rex Morgan from 1955.

Or this Buz Sawyer from 1977:

Jef Mallet has some thoughts on the subject (July 10, 2021):

Stephan Pastis and I have been friends quite a while — both Frazz and Pearls Before Swine were in development at the same syndicate at the same time and launched one right after the other in 2001. Stephan occasionally teases me in his strip, mostly via Jef the Cyclist, and once in a great while I tease him back.

Pearls has been a great success. It’s well earned, and I’ve never been jealous of that success. But I have, occasionally, wondered why I was putting all that effort into posing, composing, positioning and shading my characters when, apparently, it’s not really all that necessary. Perhaps an experiment was in order.

So there you go. If nobody notices today, I can forgo the detail work. On the other hand, I’ve already learned from the experiment that it doesn’t save me that much time. It just saves me time spent shading, which then gets poured into other busy work. In other words, I have a problem, but it’s my problem and I might as well make the most of it.

Without shading:

Previous day:

and this recent one — which shows he kept shading (and brings us back into CIDU territory):

Terry Beatty’s 2025 Rex Morgan has a lot less detail than the 1955 version, but still a lot more detail than, say, Pearls Before Swine, as befits a strip that’s still a continuing story rather than a gag strip.

by phsiii

It’s a miracle!

JMcAndrew sends a set of related cartoons:

The last two are obviously just different versions of the same joke from the same cartoonist, even if they’re 14 1/2 years apart. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or not.

These all remind me of an axiom I was taught long ago as a relationship test: Have lunch at your prospective partner’s house and ask for mayonnaise. If they present Miracle Whip–especially if they aren’t even apologetic about it–RUN.

Miracle Whip is to mayonnaise as carob is to chocolate. As someone else once wrote, “Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate. It is not an acceptable substitute for anything except, perhaps, brown shoe polish.”