Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for October 22, 2023

Marigold is more childish than young at heart. Yes, there’s a difference.

Marigold is clearly immortal, but we’ve seen her as a child a few times, so we know she’s capable of aging.

Depends on which definition of age you mean. There’s chronological age, which is how long your physical body has been in existence. There’s also biological age, which measures the state of the body’s natural growth and aging process. And finally, mental age, which is the total amount of time your mind has been conscious, adjusting for normal sleep periods.

And then, there’s calendar age, the difference between the time of your birth and the present moment. The only one that could potentially be negative if time travel is involved.

Does Marigold have an oversized disc collection?

I prefer having physical media rather than keeping my stuff in thin air where it can disappear.

Is there anyone looking to buy it?

Besides, it’s worked for vinyl LPs!

As long as CDs still sound better than MP3s I ’m keeping mine. I PAID for all that music. For similar reasons l kept my LP collection.

Rookie! I still have VHS tapes!

Marigold is Timeless.

Wait, wut? Marigold has stated “I am old” on more than one occasion. Clearly, the world according to unicorns is confusing, period.

Not old, experienced!

I am really old, I still have many record albums!

That is because it is full of music beyond time!

“Fun” fact: CDs, DVDs etc. erode.

Vinyl etc? Nope. Still good.

I still have a case of 8-tracks, I must be ancient.

Dam right I am.

Some of us still have cassettes and 8-tracks.

The main problem with digital media (and yes, CDs are digital), is finding (and running) devices that will read the media. Analog media had a bad tendency to deteriorate with time. This a BIG problem for the National Archives. If not in a really dry place (like the desert) , even parchment deteriorates. Stone tablets and hieroglyphics generally don’t deteriorate because they are witten in stone, but the information rate is VERY low.

I still have my stash of music CDs. I admittedly don’t pop them in to play anywhere as near as much as I used to, but I like having hard copies of that sort of stuff, that way I don’t have to simply trust “the cloud” will really be there always and forever and never, y’know, fail one day and take all the data stored on it with it.

I still have my CD collection, but I ripped the songs I like from them ages ago.

.

Remember the rules of data preservation, kids: 3 copies of your data on 2 different media, 1 copy being off-site.

The answer is ‘no’.

Neither old, nor young, living beyond the constraints of mortal time, living always in the now, forever experiencing the joy of the newfound world.

Time IS relative. Our existence in our corporeal state is limited but apparently Marigold as a magic creature is not. Our next existence, after this one, will also be magical, I hope and pray. Only time will tell….

Okay, but are we just going to leave out the fact that all of today’s panels go so hard?

Maybe wormhole aliens would understand.

As I read this, my head slowly turns to the CDs on the shelf that my family still have for some reason…

I am still hanging on to what’s left of our LP collection, plus what’s left of my cassette collection. We are still getting CDs. Proud Luddite here!!!

Marigold has hung on to her leg warmers.

Just yesterday my son asked me if I still had the Flash Gordon movie on VHS/DVD that he’d watched many many years ago – he left home about 30 years ago. I said I had no idea – I’ve had a quick look but haven’t found it yet! I actually still have DVD/VHS player, but don’t use it much, like my record and cassette players.

Unless you have compact disc media pressed in the 1980’s those will likely outlast the streaming services that have the rights to the same material.

IDK about more or less confusing, but the older I get, the more I appreciate this:

Man is the glory and the joke of the universe – Goethe? (though google didn’t confirm that).

I like this one. Plus, unfortunately I can relate, as the dust-covered shelf full of CD’s in the basement can attest.

ive seen santa monica place rise and crumble (repeatedly)