Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 04, 2020

Turn off the phone and get an old fashioned alarm clock.

Reading the strip on my phone right now.

User of a flip phone, and proud of it!

Yep, that was the plan.But the phone is in my hand.ta ta, ta ta, ta ta, ta ta, ta taMaybe Stephan could do an entire strip in rhyme?

I leave my phone on the charger at night. In another room. Where I can’t even hear it signal for incoming texts or the like, though I do hear it ring for spam calls…

Check out face-a-spiraling-night-instead-of-a-book.com

I’m doomed.

Is the pandemic the best thing that ever happened to this strip?

I have “Do Not Disturb” set to activate from 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM. Calls from my contacts will still come thru.

If phones would just be phones again, I wouldn’t be able to read your comics, Pig.

And down and down and down and down and down and down we go.

Jimi Hendrix

i guess i should be glad that i have no idea what they’re talking about…

Way to go pig. We can follow your life in the newspaper. Of course I couldn’t leave this note.

I use a PC to surf, as the phone screen is too small for me!

Pig is right, when did all this happen? It seems like it was such a gradual change from surfing the net at home on a big box computer in the ’90s and early 2000s and having a Motorola bar phone that would be able to send monochrome texts which eventually became a flip top phone with some limited 2G technology (like those old Sanyo/Samsung ESPN sport phones that were around in 2005-2006) . Next thing I know I was sporting a Blackberry but still used my laptop for most thing internet related as the Blackberry was 3G technology but that qwerty keyboard did make texting and chatting something i could do anywhere and then came the smartphone and then the 4G technology and everyone became like Goat or went off the grid…… All the incremental changes added up changed our society as we know it and I doubt if anyone can put a specific date on when it actually happened, only the realization that one would be severely hindered if one left home with out their smartphone or tablet nowadays…..

My phone is an old flip job that only makes phone calls. This is no accident.

I totally agree, Pig! The first smartphone was really a Pandora’s Box in disguise!

Pig that is why I have a flip phone. The screen on a smart phone is to small and it is hard on the eyes . Use the Laptop for the big screen. Use of the laptop also limits the time spent on the internet. With that said ….. Croc Power ! Wonder if Larry Croc has a smart phone ?

“Doom spiral”: finally, an adequate descriptor of my life.

…frantically collecting old nokias with NO internet over here. I forgot how cool it was for typing the messages without Looking.

It’s not a phone, it’s a handheld computer that can happens to be able to make calls.

I know a guy who turns his cell phone off before he goes to bed, and doesn’t turn it on again until after noon the next day.

In the ole Trump vs. SleepyJoe, my investment advisor sent me a forecast that begins like this:

“ A second term for President Donald Trump would likely feature a continuation of the pro-growth policies from the first term of his administration, and importantly for financial markets, a continuation of the status quo. Markets don’t like uncertainty, and while Trump’s negotiating style has been unpredictable at times, his commitment to lower taxes and deregulation may provide a consistent, market-friendly policy environment. We look more closely at what a second term for Trump could mean for the economy and markets”

Times a ticking…..

Check out today’s Ink Pen

Surely the answer is to avoid social media..

Its easy, the thing does come with a power button. Turn it off, and it never ever goes in there. I turn mine of well before I even get near bed time. And the phone would never go in there. Never have used an alarm ,but there are plenty of options. No phone zone.

My wife and I are in the middle of a news/facebook-free week. It’s glorious. I’m even skipping the editorial cartoons this week. I plan to ease back into contact with the world by only checking news sites once a day for a while. I don’t plan to open facebook ever again. We killed our TV years ago and never acquired the twitter virus. This should reset my level of irritation over things I can’t control to a manageable level again.

Read before bed? But he’s already IN bed.

I leave my phone in my home office when I go to bed, and yes I read real books.

Read a book on your phone!

So sick of cartoonists cracking on smartphones. It’s not funny or original; it just makes you sound like a grouchy old fart.

Looks like Goat is not so above it all.

Over the years, Pig has become the voice of reason. That says something about OUR world, but I’m not sure what.

You can read books on your phones. Among the ones I got downloaded on my phone right now is a Tom Clancy action-thriller, an Neal Asher sci-fi book, some fantasy light novels and the most recent FnAF tie-in book.

Yeah, I got a lot of different interests.

“What is a Doom Loop in the Context of Economics?”, somehow doesn’t fit, Dearest Google.

Have no cell phone, smart or dumb; just a landline. But I still can fall into that Doom Spiral on my desktop without any trouble….

I’m patiently waiting for the long promised dystopia. Still waiting.

I started doing what Goat did because all my books are stored away.

give me a phone that is a phone, a camera that is a camera, and a book that is a book.

Man, that was brutal, almost made me cry, THANK THE LORD I WAS READING IT ON MY IPHONE!!!!! :D

I have a flip phone that is just a phone and a clock radio by my bedside. I will never have the “widows hump” because my neck/spine is always erect!

Don’t forget to leave yourself at home,if you go on vacation

Been there, done that way too many times!

Is it me, or is Pastis making Goat more like the others in this strip? (I would have rather he did a pun strip like in today’s ‘Overboard’, only his might have been better.)

Flip phones are still available and work just fine.

No phones are permitted in my bedroom. No TV either.

Simple – just read books on your phone!

Phones are for watching cute animal videos, and people playing games, and watching scores of people reacting to the same songs that you like.

Have you no self-control? Just put the phone down! Or get one that really heats up when you use it. When it’s too hot to handle, you’ll drop it for sure!