To you,

Cheers,

Ben

P.S. Cheers?  I admit that this is much better than “Regards” (which doesn’t make any sense no matter how I twist my mind) as a way to end a written message but what are you actually saying?  Would you like some cheer?  Yes?  Well here, have two.  Cheers.

Cheerfulness is nice but what if I want to wish somebody joy or maybe some anticipation or surprise.  Lets try it out.

Dear person 1,

Milomony plomony ploop.

Joys,

Ben

Dear person 2,

Slishbilly plonxiwarbles pazint.

Anticipations,

Ben

Dear person 3,

Bax flintow vuz.

Surprise!

Ben

(Is it just me or were those made up words awesome?)

I’m starting to warm up to the idea.  I think I will start closing emails with other nice emotions in the future.  I’m glad we had this little discussion.

Relaxations,

Mr. Boyd

To all those related to one or more mothers,

I think the greeting on the card should be “Merry Mother’s Day, Mom!”  It flows off the tongue so much more nicely than “Happy Mother’s Day”.  That is all I have to say about that.

Two things that aren’t quite comic material but that I thought were interesting today as I participated in a lovely drive into Washington state with my wife:

1. Power/telephone lines.  So, one of the first guys to put up power lines across the country back in the 1880’s possibly may have been a chap named Arnold.  Arnold may have had a sense of humor.  One would think that most folk back in the day wouldn’t actually know what Arnold was doing if they happened to run across him out in the country alongside the road.

“Hey there, whatcha doin’,” asks a farmer? “Just putting up some new fencing for those giant sheep they’re bringing over from Africa in a few months,” says Arnold. I don’t know what the farmer says next.  This is partly why it isn’t comic material, that and it probably isn’t funny to most people.

2. Birds have it so good in the “going to the bathroom/washroom/restroom” department.  Anywhere they happen to be in their daily travels and they need to go, there is no worry about how far it might be to the next rest stop or gas station or anything.  They just go.  The second it crosses their mind that they’ve got something to do, its done.  I saw an eagle unload on a car dealership.  I really did.  It was more expansive than I would have expected but it was an eagle after all.  He/She didn’t think anything of it.  Beautiful clean cars below?  Not a concern.  Gotta go?  Done.

A bird probably doesn’t have any idea that the stuff goes anywhere at all.  As far as they are concerned it just disappears.  They probably don’t even know what it is except that if they are in the nest when they get that feeling, then things go horribly wrong if they don’t fly away before it is done.

Here is the “gotta go” logic chart for birds:

Gotta go?
  If NO then – Do nothing.
  If YES then – Am I flying?
    If NO then – FLY FOR YOUR LIFE!
    If YES then…well then nothing. Done.

Anyway, Merry Mother’s Day Mom!

Good day people with eyes,

I’ve been thinking about eyes lately.  Eyes are things that I didn’t look at very closely for most of the beginning of my life.  My dad told me I was making a mistake and should be paying closer attention to eyes.  So I did.  That is the last I thought about it until a few weeks ago.

I was looking somebody in the eye when I noticed that I was really getting locked in on that eye.  Really focused.  I couldn’t move though because the person I was talking to was looking me in the eye too and they would notice for sure.  Then, I realized this was stupid. (I don’t actually have mental problems.  I just have things about me that could become mental problems if I was stupid enough to let them.  I’m relatively smart though, so, … no mental problems.)  Nobody cares if I switch eyes while they’re talking to me.  I don’t even think they actually can tell if I switch eyes or not.  So I did.  I wasn’t quite as comfortable after that though so I switched back.  Light bulb.  I have a default eye that I like to stare at on other people.  It is your right eye.  (That’s right, I’m talking to you.  I stare at your right eye when you and I are talking.  Think about that next time you see me.)  I immediately had to take a poll.

So far I’ve polled 16 people including myself, 13 males and 3 females.  Oddly, all of us are right handed. (Odds of that happening: 0.9^16=18.5%.)

Results:

Default to other persons right eye: 9

Default to other persons left eye: 4

But that is only 13.  What could possibly be going on with those other 3 weirdos, you are asking yourself.  Well, nothing really, they just wouldn’t commit to any eye being a default eye and they think they constantly switch from eye to eye.  Hard to say for sure though because who actually thinks about these things until I ask them.  It was almost universal that people hadn’t really thought about their eye staring habits before.  I found a couple kindred spirits that have had similar thoughts though.

The most interesting thing I learned is that 3 of the aforementioned polled people, whether they had an eye that they were more comfortable staring at or not, generally would focus on a feature of the face other than the eye.  For example, eyebrows, bridge of the nose, lips, wrinkles (I made that one up, probably true though), or even a small puff of air a foot or two in front of the eyes at hand.  In case you are starting to think otherwise, I know these people to be non-shifty folks.  Trustworthy and whatnot.

So now I want to poll you too. 1. Which eye do you default to?  Four choices a. other person’s right b. left c. you switch back and forth constantly d. you focus on other parts of the face. 2. Are you right handed or left handed?

I’ll be adding this poll to this site eventually.  For now though feel free to poll everyone you know.  If you are not sure how to conduct this poll see below.  Also, if you run across any other variations on the 4 options listed above I would be very interested in hearing about those.  Thank you.

Helpful tip for you to use for the rest of your life: If you are having a conversation with somebody and you can’t think of anything to talk about this usually has interesting results, “Which one of my eyes are you looking at?”

Hey,

I hope the last comic wasn’t too morbid for you.  What can I say?  Snowmen shouldn’t play hit hockey.

You know what is even better than various combinations of cocoa beans, cream and sugar?  The answer, of course, is various combinations of strawberries, cream and sugar.  Why don’t you stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Fact of the day: I don’t often make myself laugh.

Cordially,

Engineer by day, sleeping person by night, and occasional comic writer,

Benjamin Boyd

You know what?

It is getting really difficult for me to start these emails a different way every time.  I will persevere though.  I am not beaten yet.   I will continue to come up with original greetings.

This is the part where I think about what to write to go along with the comic I am sending you.  I am listening to an acappella group right now.  They are pretty good…mm…that was some nice harmony.  I wish they would tone down the human percussionist a bit though.  They probably don’t because then they wouldn’t really need him anymore.  He’s probably their friend so they can’t ditch him.  He’s probably a really nice guy.  He must be if they’re keeping him in the group.  Now I am jealous of this acappella group for two reasons; they sing really well and they have an awesome friend.

Good night,

Ben

P.S. I feel self conscious about the semicolon I used in that last paragraph.  It doesn’t seem quite right but I don’t think a comma could do the job and an outright colon seems like too much.  As you already know by now, I’ve left it in.  Normally I would look up basic English grammar online and get it “right” but this time I’d rather write this p.s.  Besides, in the long run grammar is defined by the people that use it, isn’t it?

Attention Please,

If babies knew how to use signs, that would be my first pick.  It would be paper thin and extra durable, perfect for use by a baby.  This is the way I see it.  Baby gets hungry, considers crying, instead raises sign, “Attention Please!”  Etc.  I think that would be a big hit with mothers everywhere.

Today’s comic was inspired by a real wireless network name in my neighborhood.  It was there for months.  I always thought if you didn’t know whose network it was and you tried to respond it could get interesting at the next strata meeting if you lived in a townhouse like I do.  You could even have a really slow conversation with you-wouldn’t-know-who via wireless network name.  Miscommunication guaranteed.

Greetings: words to establish intent to communicate.

Now I am going to write a message to you,

I think that the very fact that you have received an email at all should be greeting enough.  Inside the email there isn’t much point to adding another level of greeting.  A greeting should establish the intent to communicate and also how formally you wish to interact with somebody.  I suppose the arrival of an email doesn’t set a level of formality so maybe that doesn’t work.  Well that settles nothing.  Now I don’t know what I think about this.  I bet some of you wish you could unread this paragraph.  Well you can.  Its called time travel and I totally believe it is possible.

Is there anything that doesn’t have something funny about it?  I don’t know the answer to that.  I’m looking into the holocaust to find out.  I’ll let you know what I come up with.