Holiday Distractions, Dirty Pets, and Time to Vote for Your Favorite Cartoon Caption

December 18th, 2016

Holiday Distractions, Dirty Pets, and Time to Vote for Your Favorite Cartoon Caption

Many people find it tough to concentrate at work this time of year. So much to juggle:

Holiday parties.
Shopping.
Travel plans — specifically, should we go with DEET or picaridin?
Lots of high-carb, high-calorie foods stealing blood from our brains. Maybe too much eggnog or punch doing the same thing.
Kids on vacation, with their demands for sustenance, adult supervision, and entertainment.
Many critical work support people already away, with out-of-office messages implying that they’re not reading their email (but you know that they are).

Even our pets are distracted. After a crazy weekend of New England weather, starting with bitter cold, then a day of wet snow, and now a Spring-like thaw, Boston dogs and cats who ventured outside today are in bad need of bath.

(And yes, that was just an excuse to show off that magnificent picture of Louie. Click on it for full effect, I dare you.)

Plus, you have the distraction of our latest ID Cartoon Caption Contest, which generated so many outstanding entries that our powerful advanced humor algorithm was unable to limit the finalists to just three candidates this time. Even after we tweaked the settings, the powerful supercomputer churning through the entries kept overheating. We almost had to cancel today’s post and substitute a lengthy rumination on whether you should say Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) or Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare (MAI).

(Short answer: the former.)

So here’s the cartoon, plus the top four choices. Vote now before 2016 is no more!

(Drawing by Anne Sax.)

HIV and ID Observations

An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
all matters medical, and some not so medical.

December 18th, 2016