Recent Comments

1. over 8 years ago on It's All About You

   It’s not his fault; walking through doorways causes forgetting.

2. over 8 years ago on Phoebe and Her Unicorn

   I still can’t understand why the interrobang hasn’t taken off — it serves a useful function, and we’re not restricted by the keys on a typewriter anymore.

   So what is up with that ‽

3. over 8 years ago on Pooch Cafe

   Well, since Poncho is next to him, that takes care of one of my worries if someone rings my bell in the middle of the night. My first thoughts are:

   “Have the dogs gotten out and into trouble?” (they sleep in my room but have a dog door to the back yard).

   and then

   “Is my car on fire?”

4. almost 9 years ago on [Deleted]

   Citation, please, for your purported studies about middle-schoolers. Really, I would like to look up the actual studies and read that research (which is not the same as reading what some popular source says about the research).

   These assertions from you and DavidHuieGreen about the reasons for, and outcomes in, middle school just don’t seem sensible to me on their face. It all seems to rest on an assumption that every child goes through puberty over the summer between 6th and 7th grade, on schedule and all at the same time…

   But I’m not going to say that your allegations are definitely untrue without doing some actual investigation of data from valid and reliable sources. Because I like learning about what is actually true rather than just feeding my confirmation biases. So, while I am very doubtful of your assertions, I acknowledge that I could be wrong and if you’ve got good evidence of that to show me, then I will gladly change my mind. So please, point me to your evidentiary sources.

5. almost 9 years ago on Pooch Cafe

   Yes, definitely take note of mabrndt’s instructions on how to resize the image. It is funny, but until s/he scaled it down, I had no idea what it was — way larger than my screen size and I’m on a big old desktop! This is my screenshot:

6. almost 9 years ago on Non Sequitur

   @GiantShetlandPonyare you being politically correct or just being polite?

   Yes, this is largely about being POLITE. Most of the people who rail against “political correctness” are basically saying they’re annoyed that they’re now expected to be polite, even to people who are not like themselves. They miss being able to ignore everyone else’s feelings! It’s so much effort to have to consider what things are like for someone who isn’t in the majority! They feel under attack if their 100% dominance of a culture’s language and rituals is reduced to 90% — waah waah, we’re being persecuted!!

   That said, I do think this sort of obnoxiousness is far less prevalent “in real life” than it appears to be on television and the internet. The always-offended-bullies are (thankfully!) not that numerous, they’re just really loud.

7. about 9 years ago on Luann

   Um, how do Crystal and Tiffany have emojis of THEMSELVES? The emojis are sort of like a font, an alphabet of pictures. The pictures seen by the recipient are the same as those sent because the two people’s phones have the same standard emoji character-set, the same “alphabet.”

   You can read my words here because we use the same alphabet. I couldn’t make up my own unique alphabet “letters” and expect your computers to show them to you as I intend; your computer doesn’t have those “letters.”

   Similarly, even if you could make your own “custom emoji,” it wouldn’t show up for the other person because it wouldn’t be in THEIR phone’s emoji set.

8. about 9 years ago on [Deleted]

   Are you disappointed that it’s not a real blanket? Because the sausage often is made from pig.

9. about 9 years ago on JumpStart

   It is also worth noting that anxiety about what you eat can produce the very same symptoms linked to gluten sensitivity: stomach pain, irritable bowels, acid reflux. Thus, for some people, following the gluten-free fad reduces their anxiety, so they can also attest to “successful” alleviation of their symptoms.

   .

   Just relax and enjoy your bread, people!

10. about 9 years ago on JumpStart

    One of the things that keeps this fad going is that an appreciable chunk of people have undiagnosed Celiac disease. Research suggests that close to 1% of Americans may be affected by celiac disease, but only 17 percent are diagnosed, which means 2.5 million Americans might be living with undiagnosed CD. When these people go on a gluten-free diet, they DO feel better! So there we get more “success” stories.

    But for the remaining 99% of us, a gluten-free diet does nothing to improve health. So if you think you might be sensitive to gluten, just get the test for Celiac (initial screening is a simple blood test) before you go making radical changes to your diet.