Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 19, 2009

Such an anti climax…..

Bubbles need some good mushrooms as accompaniment.

Some days are like that!

one of the most fascinating things i ever saw was an act on the tonight show back when Carson was hosting called something like “bubble magic” (not too sure if that was the actual name). i just remember the guy blowing cigarette smoke into bubbles to make them more visible and linking them and even making various shapes by combining them. it was really cool, but Calvin would need a lot more practise to get to that level.

Even life is like that !

Calvin, some things work better if you don’t try so hard to do them. :)

ninmas: Happy Belated Birthday! Stuart Gathman: What a horrible story! Talk about the cops way to overreact! I remember a bathroom break that I took when my son was little to find the door wide open and my neighbor with him in hand saying someone came over to visit her. Another time after he had his own twin bed I checked on him and he wasn’t there or anywhere in the house but the door wasn’t open that time. I still searched the yard calling his name and checked with the neighbors and no one had seen him. I came back in the house just to see if he doubled back on me and was playing a grand game of hide and seek. I went in his room and heard a snoring sound. He’d woke up and it was too bright and couldn’t sleep so he crawled under the bed! My husband and I just played bubbles again today. I got one of the foot wide wands with the dish at Price Chopper at the beginning of the summer. One of the cheapest and best toys I’ve bought for her. It works great and we all take turns making these huge bubbles and she chases them. She makes sounds likes she’s watching a fireworks display. The bubbleblower came with Imperial’s Miracle Bubbles and it’ really thick which I thinks helps alot. We’ve been through two gallon bottles so far!

Ahoy there, Calvin. If ye be lookin’ for some adventure, join me for some swashbucklin’ me hearty!

Was he hoping for fire works?

At least a small scale explosion….

BIP ? So they do generate a sound .

…yeah, very impressive =DD

@yyyguy I’ve seen something pretty similar, tho’ not on the tonight show, maybe it was the same guy… I was pretty cool tho’ ;)

All I remember from doing this as a kid was all the bubble mixture down your hand and along your arm drenching one of your sleeves, the bubbles themselves never seemed to behave themselves… Calvin I simpathise :)

yyyguy, I guess you are referring to a performance by Tom Noddy (find him by searching “bubble magic”). One good example of what he can do is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcraIOkc2ZU

Sorry Calvin. No explosions–they just pop.

What I have seen was called a bubble cube. He grouped six bubbles together, then carefully pushed a straw in to the middle and blew smoke in. There was a bulging cube shape in the middle.

Don’t let anyone burst your bubble, Calvin! “Is That All There Is? - Peggy Lee “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” debuted in 1918. Anyway, life is more than bubbles. PTL

“Wheeee.”

This is reminiscent of life in general. “Bip” “Weee” Remember the old song Julie London use to do called, “Is that all there is?” Well, yep. That’s all there is. The artist, Frida Kahlo, wrote her own epitaph. It went something like “It was interesting, but I’d never want to do it again.” I guess that was a round about way of saying” Bip” “Weee.”

I used to do a bubble experiment with my college students (Elementary Education majors) when we studied light waves–kept them enthralled for 30 minutes or more. You tape a clear plastic lid on top of a flashlight in a dark room and use a straw to blow bubbles from the mixture you put in the lid. The bubbles are gorgeous and intricately combined. The experiment is at http://www.exploratorium.edu/scienceexplorer/bubdome.html if you want to try it or just Google the word bubbularium

Calvin, there is a lesson in love to be learned here but you probably won’t learn it either.

Want to have fun with bubbles? Get the catnip scented kind and blow them at Hobbes. The tigers I know love it!

Some idea in life is a wonderful sparkling star, it bursts like a soap bubble and only the memory stays, but the membory is excellent!

Bubbles would be alot more fun if they had fangs and claws.

My grandpa used to say, “Never expect any more than you get and you’ll never be disappointed.” Think of that often. Words to live by!

Love the expression in the last panel!! LOL

Wow Dino, 2 Gallons…. did you by any chance do a bubble count on that consumption…. Inquiring minds want to know. lol

….and for those of us old enough to remember such things, there was Lawrence Welk’s “Champaign Music Makers” bubble machine. “Wonderfula, wonderfula”.

My cats ignore the catnip bubbles…. they want the real thing.

Fun: try blowing bubble outdoors once the temp goes below freezing… they freeze almost instantly.

Ludekuize many thanks for the link. It was, indeed, Tom Noddy who I saw that time. I remember Paul Daniels’ Magic Show as well. I have a vivid memory of his son doing Houdini’s water torture escape on the show, and also a hokey “Loch Ness Monster” episode filmed at the Loch. I’ll probably go back tonight to watch it again, wish I knew how to save it.

from 2 days ago: Wiseguy411 said, 2 days ago ……..

Oh and Stede_Bonnet … Youth is wasted on the young. Amen to that Wiseguy, When I turned 60 is when I really started having fun!

Sometimes the simplest things in life are the most rewarding. Unfortunately Calvin will never grow up to learn this.

grammahotsho, my own motto is: “Expect nothing. You’ll never be disappointed.”

i bought one of those giant bubble wands for my youngets son when he ea 1 1/2 and took him out to play withthem, scared the living heck out of him

Carmy : it took me a little while but i finally figured it out

happy national pirates day

Ludekuize: My thanks also for that great link - I had never seen Tom Noddy (Attercop? Bilbo?) before and enjoyed it. Poor guy could never do his act in California now, not with that cigarette.

Huntermoon: Your link no longer works, it seems, but I googled it OK - I’ll have to try that.

@Huntermoon, Back in “the day”, there was a whole book on Soap Bubbles and the sort of science you could do with them. Including cylinders, bubbles inside bubbles, cantenaries, and I forget what all. Fascinating!

Didnt dancers use bubbles at least in movies ?

Ahoy, bald716, apparently you still didn’t get it, since it is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arrrrgh!

All praise to the FSM. May you be touched by his noodly appendage!

At work, I often have to give a brief hearing test to very young kids. Bubbles have saved me many a time. Nice distraction that keeps them from yanking the test probe out and screaming.

Welcome to the real world, kid. Someone always out to burst your bubble.

I always enjoyed blowing bubbles.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Ludekuize, Thank you for the link, that was fascinating!

JonD17: Sorry we get too caught up in the my granddaughter’s reactions to count the bubbles. I’d say we probably blow a couple a hundred a night and we started in April so as a rough estimate I’d say 34,000 bubbles and counting!

On the subject of bubble blowing fun an elderly friend of mine died five years ago. She was in my water workout class at the YMCA and lived in my mother-in-laws apartment building. My mother-in-law’s patio was by the pool and they’d all gather there in the afternoons to chat and swim. My friend was a real cut-up and one day showed up with a bottle of bubbles and everyone laughed so hard taking turns blowing the bubbles. After my friend died I went to the store and bought 30 bottles of bubbles and gave everyone from the workout class that went and the apartment building in the church parking lot before we went in. As my friend’s casket went past the pews on the way out the girls positioned at the ends started blowing bubbles and we continued until they loaded her in the hearse.

Had a friend that took an acetylene tank and a bubble maker and make acetylene filled bubbles…They really POP!