64 Comments

I and my 2 housemates all got it at Christmas (end of my big family Christmas reunion; guests are fled to hotel and B&Bs.) We had considered ourselves immortal. ...With the new meds plus the shots,

we were all up and about (and testing negative) in about 4 days, and we aren't young..

Expand full comment

Sending healing vibes.

Expand full comment

Paxlovid. Get is ASAP

Expand full comment

Not really. You think of myths, myths involving flies, you think of Aeschylus (or I do, anyway). And I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that Pence won’t have lunch with any woman not his wife. But no one could possibly forget The Fly. It won the debate.

Expand full comment
founding

I guess being the richest man in the world (at the time) comes with the license to mess with your kids' lives by naming them X AE A-XII (originally X Æ A-12, but “Æ” and “12” violated California law, so had to be dropped ) known as "X" and, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk ("Y"). No Billy or Betty for Elon. Clearly too common. Better to name your bouncing baby girl after the supercomputing term exaFLOPS, or the ability to perform 1 quintillion floating-point operations a second. That way, she can cause hundreds of eyes to glaze over during her lifetime with the explanation not only of her name, but of what a quintillion and floating point are. Now that he's focused on making another name for himself (delicacy prevents me from uttering it here...), there apparently won't be a "Z." Although with 10 kids (at last count), maybe he'll just start at the beginning of the alphabet for convenience sake.

Expand full comment

I’m a longtime collector of bad names that I see in the news, or (from very, very long ago) run across while taking sports scores for the agate. Dorcas and Scholastic are positively melodic. How about Vegina and Philandrea?

Expand full comment

I'm noticing your hair style (I use the term loosely) and I'm wondering if this is a choice, or did your head get caught in the elevator doors or something. Hmm. I guess this is more of a question, you can ignore it if you wish. Curious in Pennsylvania.

Expand full comment

Well of course the name "Clisty" sounds yucky. It suggests "clyster." Did you not know that word or were you being uncharacteristically shy of anal humor?

Expand full comment

I better start reading the other comments first.

Expand full comment

Regarding great-great aunt Clisty's name, and its vaguely medical sound, "clyster" is a rather old word for "enema". So there's that.

Expand full comment
founding

As someone who follows developments in medicine maybe only slightly more than Gene, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I completely missed the initial announcement of the Kourtney Kardashian breakthrough in vaginal health and sweetness. Yes --- there is now "Lemme Purr" gummies, consisting of pineapple, vitamin C and probiotics to target vaginal health and pH levels that “support freshness and taste.” As the reality TV personality-cum-gynecologist puts it on her Instagram channel: “Give your vagina the sweet treat it deserves (and turn it into a sweet treat).” Yum!

Expand full comment

I went to Carnegie Mellon University, and being a design student, had some of the same professors that Andy Warhol had when he was there. One told us that the first indication that he was weird, was when he presented a painting of a man picking his nose.

Expand full comment

"Anyone who tells you each day how many steps he has taken will find that in hell, his Fitbit resets to zero every night at 11:59 p.m. (Karen Lambert) "

I think it should revert to zero after every 10th step.

Expand full comment

Gene, you may be right about "Dorcas" being THE worst name. It's godawful. "Scholastica" is right up (or down) there too. Maybe my #2, "Blois," isn't that bad after all. Hmm. After trying to say it out loud, spit it, actually, I'm thinking, "Yes it is that bad."

Expand full comment

Everyone I know (which isn't many people) with that name is not American. I'm sure it's perfectly fine in the Philippines and similar countries.

Expand full comment

In French, Blois is a normal place name. Of course, spelling the sound in English would be blwah, which doesn't run trippingly off the anglophone tongue. On the other hand, there is a town far in the east of France with the lovely name of Montbéliard. It has a German name, too: Mömpelgard. I find that hilarious, but I'm like that.

Expand full comment

I too have always found that funny. How lyrical the French pronunciation of a name will sound, but our translation resembles cursing. The two versions of Gilbert crack me up. Blois pronounced her name Blow•is, like Lois with a B.

Expand full comment

And the worst pronunciation would be Bee-Lo-is, although I suppose in junior high, the Blow-is version would have been begging for abuse.

Expand full comment

My uncle hated “Bertha”. I couldn’t disagree. And what’s with Armgard?

Expand full comment

Okay, I feel compelled to tell the story about a bunch of diplomats. An American says to a Spanish-speaker, "One of your most beautiful words is 'mariposa'." The latter says, "Or in French, 'papillon'." And the German says, "Und vat is wronk mit 'Schmetterling'?"

Expand full comment

Eek, neither can I. Isn't Armgard a Goa'uld on Stargate SG-1? It's hard to tell until their eyes glow or they use that kidnapper telephone voice.

Expand full comment

If evacuation is required, the toiled is conveniently nearby and unobstructed, at least by a door

Expand full comment

"...a bear that was killed after eating a human." Lead-in to a joke:

Two friends, one from Russia and one from the Czech Republic, were hunting bears. They surprised two bears, who attacked the hunters and ate them. The bears were then tracked and killed by government agents. In the autopsies, it was discovered that while the female bear had eaten the Russian, the Czech was in the male.

Expand full comment
founding

Sorry Dave, as the self-appointed Referee of Puns and Other Crimes Against Humanity, I will unfortunately, as they do for a serious foul in the "Beautiful Game," have to give you a red card and send you off.

Expand full comment

If I'm getting a red card, I'll leave you with another. This is a true story.

A friend lives in a flat on an old wharf on the Thames River in London. She once found an injured duck on the shore, took it home and nursed it back to health. The duck ended up following her around her flat and quacking. I told her, some people think ducks don’t make good pets, but that’s just an evil canard.

Expand full comment

I THINK I would have gotten the first runner-up if the punishment had been worded slightly differently. "Fly" instead of "Flies."

Expand full comment

I got it right away snd chuckled.

Expand full comment

I agree, although eternity with one fly on your head is a less than half-assed punishment. How about eternally reliving that dastardly lunch with one fly on his head? And each time he asks for the check, what comes out instead is, "Waiter, there's a fly in my coup." Nah, still far from Hell-worthy.

Expand full comment

I took it to mean that because he got one fly before dying he has at least done it once already

Expand full comment

LOL, as they say.

Expand full comment
founding

Maybe if he'd said "In your silver hair" instead of all over your body? Or "who is not your wife [whom you call "Mother"]. I dunno.

Expand full comment

What can I say? As it happened, I thought of Aeschylus.

Expand full comment
founding

You are clever indeed, and my suggestions are from an ignoramus [me] who just missed the boat. :)

Expand full comment

If Rhymes-with-Dense had lunch alone with a woman, he would be commiting matricide in his heart.

Expand full comment