How to Calm a Friend Who Has Made a Disturbing Discovery

There are several places to read about this, but there was a great deal of controversy around novelty testicles for trucks, focusing on two men who both claimed to have invented them. Here’s just one of the many articles about it.

Here’s a very NSFW podcast where I first heard about it.

I just love the idea that at some point some guy was probably driving in his car, saw a pair of fake testicles hanging from the back of the truck in front of him, and shouted, “Hey, they stole my idea!”

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How to Take a Proactive Approach to Your Health

Again, the dialog in panel one is based directly on a conversation I had with a coworker. He told me that he was healthy precisely because he hadn’t seen a doctor in twenty years. I suggested that he might have countless undiagnosed illnesses. He countered saying that if he hasn’t noticed them at all, how bad can they be?

My answer, “Deadly! They could be deadly! One of them could kill you any second,” didn’t impress him. He told me I was paranoid, which, ironically, is a treatable condition.

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How to Help Someone See Their Own Faulty Preconceptions

This is completely unrelated. It broke my brain, and I need to share that with all of you.

This is far from the best sketch they ever did, but it will demonstrate how young Scarlett Johansson is, how old Conan O’Brien is, and by extension, how old many of the rest of us are.

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How to Define Your Artistic Legacy

I wouldn’t have added hair to my self-portraits under any circumstances. I find the act of hiding baldness far more shameful than baldness itself.

Also, I saved a great deal of effort by only having to draw a single curved line instead of a full head of hair. For the self-portrait artist, baldness is just more efficient.

Note from Missy: This comic made me want to watch Tim’s Vermeer again.  Available for rent from Amazon and YouTube Movies!

How to Tell People About Your Profound Insight

I have never smoked pot. Reading example of the kinds of thoughts I have when stone-cold sober, you can see I never needed to.

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How to Understand the Effect Your Influences Have Had on Your Life

There is no end to the life lessons one can draw from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.

Here are but a few more examples:

When buying a birthday gift, booze will be more appreciated than a book.

If you are searching for a planet that’s hostile to life, don’t beam down to it yourself to have a look. No good can come of that. It is, after all, hostile.

Don’t fall prey to 2-dimensional thinking.

You can get away with the most ham-fisted secret code imaginable if you distract the listener by insulting Kirstie Alley for no reason.

If you’re going to kill Kirk, you’re going to have to go down there. You’re going to have to go down there!

If you maroon a homicidal revenge-obsessed maniac, maybe check in on him from time to time.

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How to Correct a Common Misconception

My understanding is that the Russians ended up buying a supply of space pens from Fisher as well.

One technology the Russians had that we wanted when the Soviet Union collapsed was their ejector seat tech. They had much better ejector seats than we did. What that said about their planes is for you to decide.

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How to Decide Whether to Rent or Buy

We really were apartment shopping, we really did tell the leasing agent that we didn’t need to go out on the patio, as we would not use it much (and it was July in Florida), and she really did just stand there, on the patio, refusing to move and repeating over and over “No, seriously, you have to come check this out,” until we finally knuckled under and joined her outside in the humidity.

We did end up renting the place. It was a brand-new building. The day we moved in I had to go to the rental office to complain because the peephole in the front door had been installed backward. The rental agent and a prospective renter waiting for her appointment and I all had a good laugh about the Seinfeld episode about the reverse peephole, then we lapsed into a silence, looking at each other awkwardly until I said, “But no, seriously, can you please send someone to fix it?”

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How to Give Someone Guidance

Panel one made me laugh out loud. It’s not often a pun qualifies as gross. Well done, past me.

The real person upon whom I based the character Athena is a delightful young woman I worked with at Walt Disney World. By chance, I bumped into her and a guy I also worked one day when I went to a movie theater. I was there solo, and as fate would have it, they just happened to be going to the same showing of the same movie. We all ended up sitting together, then I took their pictures in the lobby to include them in the comic.

Most of you reading this are probably thinking that I rudely hijacked these two young people’s date. I was worried about the same thing and surreptitiously offered to get lost, but was told emphatically that I should stay. And anyway, if it was a date, the lack of romance was not my fault so much as the fact that they went to see Jackass 3D.

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How to Express the Fact That You Are Offended

It will surprise few of you that my favorite band is They Might Be Giants.

For obvious reasons, this comic reminds me of one of my favorite songs of theirs. Friends, I hereby present: “Madam, I Challenge You to a Duel.”

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