Small & Big

Hey. You know how it snowed? And there was snow on your car? Well I’ve got a surprise for you. It‘s not any more! I know. Let’s jump up and down. How’d the magic happen, right? Well I went outside in the cold and cleaned it off. You're very welcome, my pleasure, no trouble at all. I almost enjoyed being outside in the fresh air. Anything for you. Oh, by the way. Just a small thing. In the future, maybe after the rainy season, you may see a tiny bit of rust. Like a line of it here and there. Mostly on top of the car but also on the hood and trunk areas. Roughly where snow would be if your good friend here hadn’t cleaned it off wayyyy back in winter. Brrrrrrr, right? Gosh it‘s cold. From the shovel scratches, silly. You shovel snow, you don’t kiss it away. I was shoveling the sidewalk and the next thing you know I was being helpful to you. Steel-bladed shovels work great! Yeah, let’s go see how great it looks. Look there. Isn’t that friendly, that one almost says “Hi!”

I can‘t decide. Which is a better profile pic on Tinder? Me as the madam of an 1800s Gold Rush town or me standing behind you at the bank thinking about cutting my toenails later? Choice A) Madam of an 1800s Gold Rush town Choice B) Me standing behind you at the bank thinking about cutting my toenails later Vote by commenting.

Dear Plimouth Sentinel, I can assure you that the statue toppling of our earnest and forthright town forebear, the Honorable Judge Moses Carbuncle, onto the town green was an unintended consequence of the zoo stampede, mostly of the hippo. Let us accept this as an act of Nature in truth, and on the insurance claim. Please permit me to explain the events as I encountered them for it is my hope that my fellow citizens will see clear to forgive and, perhaps more importantly, to forget what was previously announced in this venerated newspaper. As you know we experienced quite a snowfall last Monday night. You’ve heard of everything going black? Well everything went white. Ha ha! I, like my agreeable neighbors, possess a driveway that I employ traveling to and fro. The following morning I brought out my trusty Massachusetts Snowplow, a white pick–up truck I call Wendy, and proceeded to clear my driveway. As you know, the Massachusetts Snowplow is less plowing, more smushing. There is...

“For one of my son’s plays he had to write up a little bio. His bio says he's been acting since he was five. He's nine. No way, I say. He insists. He has been in a lot of plays. He was the lead in ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ They changed it to ‘Sleeping Handsome.’” —Anonymous

“Like many girls, our oldest was a piece of cake. She woke one morning a few months before her third birthday and declared that she was going to wear 'big girl underwear.' Just like that, she was done. Our boys, however, paid us back with interest. Both of them had to be dragged into the bathroom and cajoled with promises of presents and special treats. Our middle boy would only sit on the potty if he could listen to '70s-era country music. To this day, every time 'Rhinestone Cowboy' comes on the car radio, I involuntarily check the back seat.” —C.J. Kaplan

Dogs get all excited when we come back in the house, it doesn’t matter if we’ve been gone three weeks or three minutes. Some scientists see this as evidence that dogs (heh heh, first I typed it “dongs”) cannot distinguish the passage of time, that neither Mr. Wigglebutts III or Miss Poppy doesn’t notice the difference between three minutes and three hours. Hogwash. The real reason is dogs are happy to see their people. Happiness, pure and simple. How do I know? Your dog told me.

“A typical lactating Holstein produces about 150 pounds of waste—by weight, about two-thirds wet feces, one-third urine—each day.” Henry Fountain, New York Times

When you're interested, you find what you're interested in everywhere, eh? Because you always "look interested." Never thought of Time as a humor rag but I'm interested in humor so I came across Joel Stein's review of the KFC's Double Down sandwich, the one with fried chicken substituted for bread buns. Do they still sell that? I got to this part and laughed out loud: Here's a fun diagram by illustrator Jason Lee on how foods would be eaten if the bread part wasn't included:

The following romantic vows are suitable for pretty much any nuptials. I promise to cherish you forever but will snatch the last cupcake for myself. For the rest of our blessed life together I promise to get our anniversary wrong by at least a month.  I won’t listen to your advice until it’s coming out my mouth. {Farts that sound like} “Never. Hog. My blanket.” I will become vegan for two years. (It will feel much longer.) A love of Shakespeare will provide untold opportunities for me to mispronounce weird words in public, like swoltery and quatch. My vocabulary won’t get gooder I pick only you, and my nose. I will never tighten lids or close cupboards but I will always love you. (Should you ever become trapped in said jar or cupboard, You’re welcome.) People shed. Expect to find my loose hairs knotted around your junk. Unless they’re yours. I promise to rewrap chocolate bars to appear there’s nothing been eaten. Once a week, when you least expect it, I promise to sl...

Oh boy! It's time to stop taking graphic design so seriously. All-natural, free-range and gluten-free, Design Funny: A Graphic Designer's Guide to Humor is an entertaining yet practical guide to the lighter side of the design profession. Inside you'll find inspiration, advice and visual gags from comedy juggernauts The Onion, Comedy Central, Funny Or Die, MAD magazine, JibJab, Cheezburger, as well as dozens of top creative agencies, talented freelance designers and professional comedians. “This book is perfect for design nerds. This book is also perfect for comedy nerds.” — Emily Flake, Cartoonist, The New Yorker This book a great! I loved it! It's pack–full of explanations and great visual examples. Discover how you can use 42 principles of comedy to transform your visual communication from ho-hum to ha-ha. Find out what your client or boss needs to hear in order to buy into your funny ideas. Learn astonishing facts about design and humor theory from scie...

Put some cartoons on t-shirts. Fun gift idear. Take a gander at the first... ducky head angel thing at http://pawluh.wix.com/smallandbig

This is great. Humor writer and author Tim Bete presents:  How I converted 7,000 hours of work into $10 hard cash and then turned a single stupid idea into $37,000. He discuses publishing, editors, ideas... helpful stuff for any writer. He presented at the 2012 Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. Runs 58 minutes. Warning: Enjoy!

Each player acts as their own team; i.e. three players equals three teams. Ball gnawing is encouraged. Football must be transported by mouth ONLY. Transportation of ball by mouth with other players attached is permitted, so long as others are also attached, by mouth, to ball. Should ball roll into a hole, anything goes; i.e., head bonkings. If a player stands upon football, no other player may touch it EVER OR ELSE. Any player wearing a leash may clothesline all players, including self. Players signal a Personal Time Out by laying down and end it by getting up. Number of Time Outs is limited to infinite. Players may draft sticks into play, like in pinball where extra balls come on the field for no reason. Game ends when players notice a squirrel or bird and run off.

Update: He did it! Keith Knight got funded for his Michael Jackson project, with the help of good people like you. In fact, on April 6, 2012 he exceeded his $40K goal. I've long appreciated Keith Knight. He's the man behind one of my favorite cartoons, Life's Little Victories . Keef is giving away three old illustration sketchbooks, he will draw you into an upcoming published cartoon, he will come to your town and present his famous slideshow (I have seen it, it is great) and cartooning workshop, he will lip sync a Michael Jackson song in your living room — all because he was a teenage Michael Jackson impersonator, and he wants, no, NEEDS to share this story with the world. Pledge to support him in this 2-year endeavor the whole world needs right now, laughter, and in return he'll give supportors cool stuff like the above and more. For as little as $5! Check out the details of his project over at Kickstarter and the related news story at USA Today . Hurry! This ...

What You Need For This Project 1 Broom 1 Dustpan 1 Floor Directions Using the broom, sweep dust, dirt, and debris into a pile. The tidier and more perfect the pile, the better. In fact, go ahead and thoroughly sweep your entire living space. Does the tidiness make your heart sing? Perfect. Wait 30 seconds. From out of nowhere a curious puppy appears, sniffing the pile. Before you can say “Oh no!,“ they are sitting on it, licking it, rolling in it, throwing it, just whooping it up. Your living space is ruined! Make a grab. With a forward motion of your arm like you’re scooping a puppy into a dustpan, scoop the puppy into the dustpan. Congratulations on your new puppy. You should probably move. Note Also works on kittens.

  Astronaut or space alien?   A little of both. This is Doppler, one of my dogs when he was a pup. He got dried tongue licks around the entire inside perimeter of his plastic cone. Scientists are still studying how this is possible.

Look for kindness, for love, for hope and joy and you will find them. Here are five stories to keep you in the mood, from HelpOthers.org : Today You, Tomorrow Me Flowers That She Couldn't Smell Home Is Where The Heart Is, Even For The Homeless Remembering Kindness 41 Years Later A Beautiful Act Of Pay-It-Forward You can read all ten stories of 2011 kindnesses at  Top 10 Kindness Stories of 2011 . Do you have a kind act you've performed, experienced, or even heard of? Please share it. Tell HelpOther.org about it here. Here's to twelve months of kindness in 2012!

But that's nothing compared to what Simon's cat accomplishes... I love everything about Simon Tofield's Simon's Cat cartoon animations: the writing, the sound effects, and especially that they're drawn in simple black-and-white outline. You can really see how a simple, well drawn line, moving through time, can express mass and volume. So well done. Watch more adorable feline atrocities committed by Simon's cat at www.simonscat.com and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/simonscat .

"I can't let (my parents) know I have super powers. They'd only worry." This is the first cartoon my pal John Fountain did. It's called  The Tantrum and it aired on Nickelodeon at like 3 am on a Sunday at the dawn of the 21st Century. It is autobiographical. This is the first time I've seen it because SOME people don't tell some other people stuff. As far as I know it is the only instance of Putting Out Fire By Giving It The Raspberry. A pity. (If the military jumps on it they'd call it POFBGITR. That's pronounced "PUFF-bah-giter" and help generals say "puff" more.) Without further a-doo-doo here's The Tantrum: Also, Fountain's better half has a good blog called To Kid or Not To Kid . Will she or won't she kid herself? Go there and peek.