How to Apply the Laws of Physics to Personal Relationships: Vol. 3 Nuclear Reactions and Arguments

In my old stand-up act, I was the butt of many of my own jokes. The whole point of those jokes was that everyone, me included, knew that what I was saying was stupid.

For example:

“I believe that childbirth is the most painful thing anybody ever does voluntarily. Ladies, I give you that one. That said, you do have to admit, we men are taking your word for it. No man has ever had a kid, came back to the rest of us, and said, They’re telling the truth! That’s why I say we men should band together and tell women that it hurts to pee standing up.”

Problem was, if the audience thought I was just an idiot (which happened more than once), they’d assume I meant what I was saying, and they would “register their displeasure.”  Often, the shouting would begin before the punchline. One time just hearing a male say anything about childbirth set a woman in the audience off, causing her to end up publicly arguing against my stated position that childbirth is painful.

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How to Accept a Compliment That's Directed at Someone Else

Panel one features yet another friend who only appeared once or twice because I was displeased with the quality of my drawing. She actually requested to be in the comic, so I grabbed a camera, then asked her to do the usual set of poses new I needed for the comic.

“You’re talking to someone.”

Click.

“Good, now you’re confused by what they’re saying.”

Click.

“Great. Now you’re angry at them.”

Click.

“That’s all I need.”

In her case, we got two poses in, and she said, “I feel stupid doing this.”

My response, “Hey, you volunteered,” did not make her feel less stupid. I did get a pretty natural looking anger pose though.

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How to Maintain a Good Mood

One interesting thing about being a morning person is that enjoying mornings makes the other people around me enjoy their mornings even less. As the people around me get grumpier and grumpier, it tends to put a damper on my good mood, which acts as sort of a natural braking mechanism, stopping the vicious cycle before someone tries to strangle me.

Another interesting thing I can tell you is that in the first panel my left hand appears to have been replaced by some sort of trilobite.

Note from Missy: I don’t have much recollection of these old strips, so for the most part I’m reading them again for the first time. And for some reason, me in that second panel running the same checklist and announcing it made me laugh until tears squirted out my eyes.

How to Find an Innovative Solution to a Seemingly Intractable Problem

Four panels of me arguing with a wealthy man who has terrible hair and questionable theories about global climate change. It was funnier to me eight years ago, for some reason.

How to Get Vindication

For years, YEARS, I told that story, and I got called a liar more times than I can count. I always wondered, why would I want to make a story like that up? Did they think having seen this ridiculous, disgusting spectacle somehow made me feel like a big man?

“You think you’re cool, with your sports car and your successful career? Well wait until you hear my tale of gore, degradation, and animal husbandry! Then we’ll know who’s cool!”

Anyway, I’ll include a link to the relevant clip of Dirty Jobs, but I don’t recommend that you watch it.

https://youtu.be/klWeg2VDNPE?t=23

How to Analyze a Song

Since his death, I’ve sort of discovered David Bowie. See, by the time I started paying attention to music that my parents didn’t like (that is anything but Waylon Jennings or polkas), Bowie was in his “Dancing in the Streets” phase, which did not make me want to dig into his back catalog.

Shortly after he died I watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and spent two weeks driving Missy crazy humming “Life on Mars.” That song really strikes a chord for me. It is, after all, the freakiest show.

Note from Missy: Dang, now I want to watch Labyrinth. For the 50th time.

How to Make It Clear That You're Joking

This is one of those comics where I know that my intention was that three loafish full-grown men talking about ponies and boys was funny, but looking at it now, I can see where this comic might be construed as homophobic. I figured that in this case it would be more productive to admit to it and make my position clear than to just sweep it under the rug.

I will say this, though: Tiger Beat is an inherently funny name for a magazine. It doesn’t matter that it’s about teen idols. You could rename the Journal of the American Medical Association Tiger Beat and it would be just as funny, if not funnier.

Note from Missy: Huh, I didn’t see the possible homophobia angle on this either. Likely because I equate ponies and boys with 12-year-old girls. It feels the same as when I, a middle-aged woman, joke about being a 12-year-old boy because I giggled at a fart joke.  (Changing topic: I seem to recall that Tiger Beat had some of the best pull-out posters of dreamy ’80s dudes. Way better than Sassy or 16. Though in hindsight, those magazines all learned their centerfold game from Playboy and Penthouse, which feels disturbing in its own way.)

How to Better Yourself

I LOVED the original Japanese Iron Chef. This comic commemorates one of my favorite things that ever happened on the show. They claimed that the Chairman was boycotting the show because his Iron Chefs had lost several matches in a row, but I’ve always assumed that he looked at the special ingredient and refused to have anything to do with it. Anyway, they made poor Hattori-San . . . well, see for yourself.

https://youtu.be/fyfvs-7ljIQ?t=2m49s

My favorite part is how the guy doing the translation sounds embarrassed to be saying what he’s being made to say.

Note from Missy: Around the House of Meyer, we will still occasionally say the word “piglets” in just that sad tone of voice. Also, OMG, how did I forget about “I had my Eustachian tubes tied, now I can’t hear kids”? LOL, Scott Meyer. LOL.

How to Keep Your Job in Perspective

Being a rodeo clown might not be the worst job in the world, but it’s close enough that most people see it as such. It’s dangerous. You have to wear a humiliating costume. Your workplace smells terrible.  Some guy in tight jeans makes a huge animal mad, then you protect him from said angry animal. Go through all of that and at the end of the day, you watch the guy who made an animal mad for the longest get a trophy.

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How to Deal with Something You Dread

Phil Collins once told a story that I think about often. He had read an interview with Roger Waters (formerly of Pink Floyd) in which Waters said something less-than-complimentary about Genesis. Phil called him and asked what the big idea was.

Waters said, “I’m sorry. That comment was supposed to be off the record.”

Phil pointed out that that didn’t really do anything to minimize the insult.

I don’t know why I like that story so much, other than that I find it comforting that these super-successful rock stars still behave just like the rest of us.

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How to Advertise Windows Vista

I upgraded to Windows Vista immediately after it became available, and kept it until Windows 7 came out. Sure, it had a few quirks that were weird to get used to, but the only real complaint I ever had about it was that I got sick of constantly being told by people who hadn’t used it how bad it was.

This strip was made during what I like to think of as the golden age of Hodgman, back when John Hodgman was playing the PC in the Get a Mac ads, and writing books and doing interviews in his guise as the world’s foremost expert in the field of “complete world knowledge.” If you’ve never read his first book, The Areas of My Expertise, I strongly recommend it.

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How to Correct a Coworker's Behavior

A long time ago, I worked at a Blockbuster Video. One day, the manager told me to break down some boxes. After the manager left the room, a coworker said to me, “You know why he tells you to do stuff like that? Because you’ll do it.”

At the time, I thought, That’s why I’ll have this job longer than you will.

Of course, it was a job at Blockbuster Video. The chain no longer exists. And even if it did, I wouldn’t want to still be in that job. Maybe I’d have worked my way up to managing the store, but that didn’t look like a very good job either.

I think I had a point when I started writing this. It might have been that I had a terrible job, which required me to do boring and unpleasant things, but that by doing it well I at least was able to stave off the ignominy of being fired from it.

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How to Defeat a Lie Detector

It has been proven time and again that the polygraph doesn’t work.

That said, they are kinda brilliant.

Think about it. If you’re being subjected to a lie detector test, it means that the person using it on you believes it will work. Telling them that it’s an unreliable pseudoscience is exactly what they’d expect a liar to say, so you can’t say it without making yourself look dishonest. Saying nothing about the lie detector’s uselessness, on the other hand, implies that you believe it might work, which just lends credence to its eventual result.

After the test, if it says you were lying, saying that the test proves nothing just makes you look even more guilty. If, on the other hand, the test says you were telling the truth, you’re not going to tell them it’s wrong, so false findings of honesty never get contradicted.

The polygraph doesn’t work, but the logical conundrum that keeps it in use works all too well!

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How to Simplify a Task

I have an electric toothbrush. I use it twice a day. I’d like to say that I do this because it’s good for me, but if I’m being honest, it’s more likely because I get to use my fancy electric toothbrush.

I have this theory that men are more likely to go for anything if it involves a power tool. That would certainly explain why the only form of house cleaning I can manage any sort of enthusiasm for is vacuuming.

I see there’s some sort of electrified flossing machine available too, but I fear that might be a bridge too far. I’m easily distracted, and I’d hate to see what it could do to your gums if one of those bad boys got away from you.

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How to Travel Back in Time to Deliver a Dire Warning to your Former Self

I made me and my past self not like each other because I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t. That guy was an idiot, and he’d probably think I was some old know-it-all who is on his case all the time.

For those of you who have read my books, that may sound like a certain two characters both named Brit.

After I did this comic, I threw together the comic below, which extended the conversation, and includes a reference to the game Psychonauts. I’m happy to include it here, but in retrospect I should have left well enough alone.

Note from Missy: Is it just me, or are the fonts weirdly small in this one? And is that possibly because of the eighteen tons of text that got squeezed into panel four? And while I’m asking questions, why does this one have a 2006 copyright date, while the others surrounding it are 2008?  Hmmm. At least I don’t have to ask why I have a sudden desire to listen to some They Might Be Giants.

Note from Scott: Yeah, this comic got put in the wrong spot in the overall posting schedule, so it's running here instead of its original order.

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How to Reveal a Shocking Truth to a Person Who's Not Ready for the Truth

This comic is still one of my favorites, and has permanently altered my perception of the Muppets.

Note from Missy: I feel like this might be the first appearance of my “rooster hair.”

Note from Scott: I believe you're right.

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How to Cope When You're Feeling Old

Yes, that is a drawing of my mother, and no, she doesn’t really ride a scooter everywhere. We would just rent her one when she’d come to visit us and we’d go to Walt Disney World.

I am a HUGE fan of renting the slowest member of your party a scooter when you visit any vary large theme park. Yes, it costs extra, but the benefits outweigh the cost. The scooter allows the slowest member of the party to effortlessly keep up, gives the entire party a chair that travels with them, and gives the most physically feeble person in your group the super-human ability to carry everyone’s coat, multiple purses, and a cooler.

I know that sounds as if I’m advocating using your elderly parents as beasts of burden, but that’s not the case. I’m advocating using them drivers. The vehicle hauls all of the cargo. They’re basically just like Han Solo! Who doesn’t think that’s cool?

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How to Select a T-Shirt

This is one of the few comics that where I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I came up with the idea. As with many comics, the idea for the third panel came to me first. It is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had.

While making custom Infini-Tees for people didn’t work out, I am proud of the fact that I gave it a shot, and seeing my shirts on Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage was a big thrill.

And before you ask, no, I’m not making them anymore. As I said a few commentaries ago, it was just too challenging making acceptable likenesses of people I’d never met. The problem was even worse on the Infini-Tees, because the image was repeated six times at different scales.

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How to Apologize When You're Not Sure What You Did Wrong

I’m not going to get into a lot of detail here, because I don’t have to, but we’ve all seen an example or two of the classic, “I’m sorry people’s feelings were hurt” apology recently. It’s a gambit that works beautifully, as long as the person you’re apologizing to isn’t listening, or thinking much about what they hear. If they do listen, or apply even a little bit of critical thought to what you say they’ll realize that you might as well have told them that you’re sorry they caught you.

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How to Take a Nap

I tried using an eyeshade for naps during the day. I couldn’t sleep with it on. It turns out I don’t find being blindfolded relaxing.

I once worked with a comedian who said he couldn’t sleep in a hotel unless he had all of the lights on and the TV blaring full blast. I can only assume that he slept better knowing that other people couldn’t sleep at all.

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