The first part of knowing everything

Did you lose track of Time by xkcd after the first day?

You can read the whole thing here at your own pace (warning: 3099 frame comic, not for a single sitting). Full dialog, and comic in video form, here on explainxkcd.com. And now at last the full story is revealed, including when it happens, where it happens and how fanatically detailed Randall was when showing the stars in the night sky.

As usual, what I like most of all are the characters -- nameless, pragmatic, smart, taking care of each other unsentimentally but without fail.

I am in love with frames 1071 -- 1073:







YES YES YES YES YES.

Requiesce in pace, Rafe

Once upon a time when the world was young, I got two little black kittens for heisenbug's birthday. They were like furry little cat larvae, so we called them grubs. It helped that they looked kind of grubby sometimes, and they also went grubbing around in things when they weren't asleep in a pile.

They lived inscrutably but perhaps happily with us for eight years... and then one of them died... and then the other one got sick... and then on Tuesday he died too. Goodbye grubs. End of grub story. No more grubbing, no more grubs. :_(

As you probably remember, Hobbes left us earlier this year, in March. We are now officially down from three cats to one. It's quiet. The litterbox is disturbingly easy to clean. When I snuggle with Nala and heisenbug in bed, it gives me flashbacks to 1999, when I first did the very same thing and was sure that was all I ever wanted in a family. Really, they still are a kickass family and I love them to pieces, it's just that I was used to needing more cats on the bed before I could smile and say "wow, that's everyone"...

For a long time we were a DITCH -- that's Dual-Income, Three (or Two) Cat Household -- and now we're having a little identity crisis. But we want to keep it simple for a while. Nala likes being the only cat, anyway, her supremacy in the household undisputed. She is easy to maintain, solid and noisy and very alive.

Here's a nice peaceful video heisenbug made of Rafe and Hobbes together a couple of years ago, doing what they did best: not much of anything.