Several years ago someone discovered that if one removes all the speech bubbles from the comic strip Garfield, it becomes oddly surreal and much more interesting than originally intended.  Garfield shows little emotion, behaving exactly as a real cat would.  Without Garfield’s verbal provocation to justify it, Jon’s harried interactions with him become somewhat disturbing, oftentimes even depressing.  This, to me at least, is a huge improvement over the original concept of the strip.  You can see a bunch of examples of this treatment here.

More recently, someone has taken it a step further and removed Garfield from the strips altogether.  This modification moves Jon from the role of the more traditional “cat owner,” walking around talking to his pets as if they understand him, to that of a somewhat disturbed individual struggling with loneliness and desperation.  In the prior modification, Jon’s unprovoked pessimism seems out of place because Garfield is standing there smiling all the time; without Garfield being present at all, however, it ramps up to new levels of disturbnicity, bordering on schizophrenic. This is a significant step forward, making the strip into something I actually look forward to seeing, despite the blatant copyright violations involved in it being presented to me.  You can view and subscribe to them here.

These two modifications got me thinking…

Since the removal of speech bubbles improved the strip so much, and the subsequent removal of Garfield even more so, I feel it’s up to me to take the strip to the pinnacle of interestingness:

There you have it: confirmation that the removal of elements results in a better Garfield experience. The more elements you remove, the better it gets. I’m not sure of the logic behind this, but I suspect that it comes down to the fact that Garfield really sucks.

Hey, remember when I mistook John McCain for John McClane, linking to livefreeordiehard.com as his campaign page? Well now, COINCIDENTALLY, Twentieth Century Fox Films has done the same thing, even using “Yippie Kay Yay America” as a slogan like I did, linking right from livefreeordiehard.com with a bumper sticker graphic very similar to the one I made. And how were people getting to livefreeordiehard.com to see the advertisement? That’s right, those thousands of people were getting there because I had the common decency to link them there.

Stephen Colbert may have made Mike Huckabee (and Conan O’Brian made Stephen Colbert (and John Stewart made Conan O’Brian))), but it’s clear that it is I who made the viable candidate that is John McClane.

Granted, I never followed through by making a full-on campaign page because it was too much work for a stupid joke, but it gave Fox the opportunity to show that there is NOTHING TOO STUPID, provided someone comes up with it for them first. On the plus side, their site looks JUST LIKE the one I was going to make, so that’s all good. I particularly like the quote about John putting himself in his opponent’s shoes. I’d link to it, except that unlike my version of the site, theirs is entirely flash and impossible to use.

Anyway, to the people at 20th Century Fox I only have one thing to say: “You’re welcome.”

In case you haven’t already heard: Stephen Fry is now podcasting as well as blogging.

If you do the podcast thing, and I suspect you might, Stephen Fry probably belongs in your subscriptions. Frankly, I am a bit surprised that Jim Dale isn’t recording an “American” version for us U.S. listeners, but for that I am glad.

Isaiah 11:6
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat

I’m not sure which is which, but clearly the end times are upon us.

Had a mini road-trip today, during which I invented a new type of turn signal. Rather than indicating to other vehicles on the highway that I intend to change lanes, this new signal will indicate to them that they should do so. This is most useful when people are attempting to merge onto the highway, and would solve a constant frustration of mine. Seriously, people can’t merge on their own, and I feel that an additional signal would go a long ways towards solving this problem. (Initially my idea was for the indicator to CAUSE the other person’s car to change lanes, but I’m not sure that even I would be able to use that only for good — let alone all the idiots that can’t merge on their own in the first place.

I’m not even going to charge money to license this technology; I feel the good this will do for mankind far outweighs the potential profits from it. You’re welcome, world.

In other news, we’re off to an ‘adults-only’ member night at our local Museum of Science and Industry. A quick peek at the website has taught me that it’s not quite the evening I had imagined when D sold me on the idea a few months ago; rather it’s just an evening where no one under 21 is admitted so the adults can enjoy fancy appetizers and ‘sciency’ cocktails. My imagined version was much better, but the real one sounds like it might be fun too. What’s better than Chinese dinosaur bones? Slightly tipsy rich people to appreciate my sophisticated ‘bones’ humor all evening.