Hi and Lois caption challenge

[Hi and Lois modified, January 6, 2011.]

My wife Elaine suggested that I turn this Hi and Lois panel into a caption contest. So I have. Take your best shot in the comments. And please, keep things relatively clean. I know, I know: Ditto is dripping all over the floor. But still I ask: keep it clean. (My mom reads my blog.)

I’ll send a pair of Black Pearl erasers to the winning entry. Or entries, maybe. I’m making this up as I go.

Please post your captions by 12:00 p.m. Central Time / 6:00 p.m. GMT, January 8. (Central Time=GMT-6.)

January 8, 1:15 p.m.: The winners have been announced in the comments.

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[Hi and Lois corrected, January 6, 2011.]

Two minutes in the free Mac app Seashore and the ketchup is ketchup-colored. But now I sort of understand why they went with black.

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[Hi and Lois, January 6, 2011.]

As Elaine says, they must have run out of red.

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Pet Sounds cover, reimagined

Art by Andrew Kolb, from 33.3 Art Show (“artists and designers reinterpret and reimagine existing album covers”). It’s a lovely cover, but a bit generous to Mike Love (second from the right) hair-wise.

(via Boing Boing)

Anne Francis (1930–2011)

Long before Anne Francis was Honey West, she was Anne Dadier to Glenn Ford’s Richard Dadier (“Mr. Daddy-oh”) in Blackboard Jungle (1955). The above endorsement appears in the 1955 Pocket Book edition of Evan Hunter’s novel The Blackboard Jungle (1954). My copy cost 15¢ at a library sale.

Anne Francis, TV and Film Actress, Dies at 80 (New York Times)

Firefox v. Internet Explorer in Europe

StatCounter Global Stats reports that in December 2010, Firefox became the most popular browser in Europe, with 38.11% market share, compared to Internet Explorer’s 37.52%:

“This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share. . . .

In North America IE still retains a clear lead in the browser market with 48.92% followed by Firefox (26.7%), Chrome (12.82%) and Safari (10.16%).

Here at Orange Crate Art, Firefox leads, with 31.6% of recent visits, followed by Internet Explorer (30.6%), Safari (15.6%), and Chrome (14.6%). How do I know these things? Via my StatCounter stats.

Firefox overtakes Internet Explorer in Europe in browser wars (StatCounter Global Stats)

A Mac PDF tip

Gleaned from MAC OS X Hints: To speed up a slow-handling PDF, resave the file using Save As. What results is a much larger but much faster-handling file.

This tip seems especially useful with PDFs from Google Books.

Good free calendars

Like sands through the hourglass boxes in a grid, so are the days of our lives. Which means that I’m a sucker for a free calendar. Here are several good ones:

Compact Calendar 2011 David Seah’s calendar-in-the-form-of-a-spreadsheet fits a year to a page, with no divisions into months.

PDFCalendar This customizable calendar is great for the student or teacher who needs to map out a semester on one page.

TM Micro-Mini Calendar I’ve never had occasion to use Claude Pavur’s ultra-minimal calendar, but my inner child finds the idea of it irresistible. The Micro-Mini is no doubt the choice of ten-year-old secret agents everywhere.

UNIX calendar command The UNIX command cal is handy for making a three- or four-month calendar to tape into a notebook. Thanks to Hawk Sugano for sharing his knowledge.

One more: I’ve made a plain and dowdy 2011 calendar, three months per 8½ x 11 page. That’s a sample to the left. The font is Gill Sans Bold; the colors are Licorice and Cayenne (otherwise known as black and dark red). If you’d like to download the PDF, click here.

[With apologies to NBC’s Days of our Lives.]

New Year’s Resolution Generator

If you’re stuck fumbling for a resolution or two, you might try Monina Velarde’s Resolution Generator.

The first thing I resolved to do in 2011 was to remove my name from the creepy wesbite Spokeo. Here’s how (via Boing Boing).

Now what? Oh, yes, more tea.

“[T]he city’s one big night”

One hundred years ago: “Thousands Turn Out in New Year Revels; Throngs of Merry Noisemakers Stretch from 23d Street to Columbus Circle,” New York Times, January 1, 1911.

Happy New Year to you, reader.