Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for June 03, 2022

Okay, my face looks much like Elvis’ in panel three (complete with the readers). Gray, yellow and green squares?

I am in the same bowl of catfood. Errr, boat! Same boat.

Beatrix, after about half an hour of this: “Burt bet me five bucks you couldn’t figure it out.”

Elvis, warning don’t get hooked on Wordie. It addictive. Stay with print not electronic communication. OK, phone and text are acceptable, but need to limit the latter.

A friend of mine let me look at her “smart” phone after she pulled up a news article on it. While I read it, I noticed another thing that caught my interest, so I tried to check it out. It was one of those stories that take up several pages (short paragraphs on each page, go to next page, rinse, repeat for several pages… i.e. click bait). I read 3 pages and a popup took me off the story. I couldn’t find that story again. I even tried to search for it on my computer, but couldn’t find the story.

I love that Beatrix made “flash cards” for Elvis.

I have not played Wordle, so I was not familiar with the squares.

I think Elvis will catch on eventually. Partner did. However, this has become a bone of contention. I thought once he learned to use his smart phone (okay, he has maybe half-learned over the past year) that he would stop yapping about me “keeping my nose in the phone” (I really don’t). He still does that, while he plays solitaire on the phone for hours at a time! And still tells me to "look up xxxxxxx on your phone) instead of doing it himself!

Bea the school ma’am, teaching her students.

I’m going to start off the toe beans fanatics here, Beatrix toe beans in first and last panel!!! HeeHaw!!! So cute!!!

Elvis will take a long time to learn how to use the phone.

Perfect Elvis face in panel three. Who do the crew need to text and phone (for work reasons) other than Burt?

I love it when Elvis wears his spectacles. ❤

Elvis (worried) fangs.

I’m the opposite, fascinated with all the technology even though I’m old. I don’t use my phone for a lot of things though. I’m not nearly as comfortable using it as I am my laptop or even my tablet. If I’m going somewhere for hours like sitting with my father in law at the hospital, I take the tablet. It’s just easier on my eyes and arthritic hands. Bigger buttons, bigger screen, easier to hang on to. But as much as I love the technology, I miss the quieter time when I dialed a phone and got up to change the channel and… sigh

I wish there was a way to block all those posts what’s the point? Do people NEED some sort of validation for the game to count?

I was very much like Elvis, and was very stubborn about getting a Cell Phone! Pretty sure my face twisted up with a major scowl, just like Elvis, when I was trying to figure out my first cell phone!

OT: My choice of class for Puck (Life Domain Cleric) confirmed on Instagram!

Mini charts!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Ah, panel four and Bea’s “pom pom paws.”

Wordle, my friend. Wordle!

Elvis is the very face of someone overwhelmed by technology, but Beatrix is helping him figure it out while being a supportive friend. Still, understanding Puck’s Wordle obsession will probably be far easier than whatever Lupin is doing.

Oh dear, I feel very old!

Oh Elvis! It will be okay! His face in panel 3 says everything.

Uh oh, the Wordle trend got to Puck.

And thus the world has gone mad

You know, I’ve realized that part of the “don’t understand smartphones” problem isn’t so much age related (though it can be part of it) but rather the fact manufacturers all just assume everybody already knows how smartphones and everything on them works already, and thus don’t bother providing especially detailed instructions on how to operate them, leaving users to, more or less, figure it out themselves.

I can say this, because when I, a thirty year old who’s certainly familiar with modern tech, recently got a new smartphone, I found myself a little like Elvis and feeling a little loss trying to figure out some of the phone’s functions, because it was set up as if the manufacturer just assumed I’d already understand everything about how it worked.

I felt just like Elvis when friends started posting Wordle scores with no explanations on Facebook. It took a while to find out what it was, and I still don’t know why they think anyone cares about their score.

Meanwhile, Back on the Nile

Elvis-Anum: Puck, can I show you my latest report on the pantry inventory?

Puckmosis: Wait just a minute. I’m doing the Glyphle puzzle in today’s Daily Scroll.

Elvis-Anum: Don’t you need the key for that?

Beatrixia: I’ve got it right here, Elvis.

Puckmosis: I’ll guess Horus.

Bea: Ooh, you got all the letters, with just the middle two out of place.

Puckmosis: It must be hours.

Bea: Yes! Well done, you!

Elvis-Anum: This is all very interesting, but I don’t have hours to wait for my report.

Puckmosis: Oh, sorry, Elvis. Give us you report

Elvis: Well, Thomios needs some more graham flour, chocolate, and marshmallows for his dessert feast tomorrow.

Puckmosis: Do we have any idea how we can obtain them on such short notice?

Sound of giggling in the background

Elvis: Yes, but exactly how will remain a secret.

Because, as with a lot of people, it’s easier to play with the formatting than send meaningful messages.

People used to exchange letters, which required time and thought. Now, we have become such an inarticulate, um, … society … that’s it … that we have apps suggesting thoughtless answers to pointless messages for us.

Wordle is a sinister plot by English majors to take over the world. You remember “those” kids in school…always reading, always with their hand up, and always ruining the grading curve for the rest of us. We made jokes about English majors in College…“Look, they are hiring waiters, more English majors entering the workforce.”

Well, laugh no more. The English major has concocted a simple game to take over the world and we are powerless to stop it! Wordle will subjugate our free will and allow English majors to rule the world. Such an easy game, so addictive, but just see what I found when I put some of the words together from past weeks!

Yeild – World – Agent – Robin – Begin – Final – Grand – Order

Need I say more? We are powerless in the face of such diabolical cunning. I for one, salute our new English major overlords and promise to help them round up the non-believers, and make them toil; re-copying the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary by hand.

All Hail English Majors, Huzzah!

OMC. I am bookmarking this strip (and the rest of the arc.) I have a friend who will be forced to have a smartphone or have to not have a cellphone. They are not unlike Elvis in regards to the phone. I’m hoping Bea will present smartphone basics in an accessible way to the “I don’t want to, you can’t make me!” crowd.

OT – theological supposition…

Oh dear sweet Elvis- I am the same as you about cell phones!!

Elvis is online completely

Bea gives her lessons so sweetly

Tonight the light of Bea’s love still applies

But will he text Puck tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure

Or just a moment’s pleasure?

Can he believe the magic of replies?

Will he still text Puck tomorrow?

- Carole King / Gerry GoffinWill You Love Me Tomorrow – The Shirelles

OK, I may be reading too much detail in, but it sort of looks to me like Elvis’s glasses are reflecting the screen, because the bluegreen in one lens is different from the green in the other. And they rather match Bea’s instructional flash cards.

That’s my assumption, that this is another example of Georgia’s eye for detail!

Don’t worry, Elvis, you’ll get the hang of it.

OMC, she brought FLASH CARDS!!!!

Poor Elvis! I have to say, I am a technology NUT! I started using a computer in 1986 and fell in love! I had a {gasp} Eagle with a dual disk drive (no hard drive) and added RAM to it myself. It was the cute little bugs that you just plugged into the motherboard. Easy as pie. I did my own computer stuff for years until I just couldn’t keep up and/or didn’t have the time.

I have had a cell phone since 1999 and have had the same phone number all those years, just changing types of phones throughout the years. I started with a flip phone. Went to a smart phone a few years later. I love my phone, have a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop computer.

My husband is a luddite, and I have to constantly tell him how to use his phone and his computer. Very Elvis like!

I repeat my quote of Montgomery Scott from yesterday—and I think the plumbing analogy is particularly apt.

Love the fangs!

Time to get styluses for the boys.

So is it a Boomer thing (proud Boomer here) or just a time management issue that I don’t understand why anyone would spend time paying a game by themselves when they could be reading a good book?

Type TAKE AWAY THESE IDIOT PHONES BEA, Puck. Don’t be foolish.

I’d much rather spend my spare time reading a nice, fat book.

Whoa—either ELVIS or LUPIN would fit exactly into Wordle—their names, anyway. (Sorry, Puck—though PUCKY would!)

Personally, I’m addicted to Wordle … and similar games with multiple simultaneous words—Dordle (2 words), Quordle (4), Octordle (8).