Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for January 11, 2010

You and me both, sister.

Neither was I….

Benn there– don’t know….

I’m hoping my mother will cling to this attitude….

Don’t let it get you down… your grandparents weren’t meant to understand the telephone.

But he wants to!!!!

What’s to understand? You just put up all your personal information, add eight million people you may never have met as friends, and, as Fish Stix said, bombard them with every idle thought of everyone. Fun huh?

It’s not that different from this forum, really…

to view today’s CLEO AND COMPANY side by side puzzle, go here

https://i.postimg.cc/d3FcTqKZ/FTDdig-Horizontal.jpg

Camilla, Charles is experiencing FOMO.

Claude, give up comparing Cleo to other dogs. Hmph!

Ok… here I am… but where is everybody else?

(besides Nighthawks, Dennis and Tigressy, I mean.)

I’m late… but I have a perfectly good excuse.

Honestly, I do.

I’ll think of it in just a minute, OK?

I didn’t need to be here on time to make a side by side, cos Nighthawks did the puzzle that way.

Which goes to show you what I’ve been saying…. using the side-by-side isn’t cheating, or taking a shortcut…

it’s the form in which the puzzle was meant to be seen.

Just because that part of my job was already done, though….

it doesn’t mean that I can slack off on the rest…

and the semi-anonymous animation-solution-maker PERFECTIONISTA is stel on the job as well.

Today’s puzzle seems more difficult than usual….

but don’t give up too soon.

On the other hand… I wouldn’t stay at it forever to find nine differences…

Because I really think either they’re not all there… or I’m not.

Okay, okay… I realise those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive….. so et me rephrase that…

Whether or not I’m all there… I only see eight differences.

I always do the puzzle before I let myself look at the gi…. er… animation solution….

In fact that’s part of the reason I’m late…. I was refusing to give up…

but I finally peeked…. and I only see eight here too:

https://i.postimg.cc/k4kRw4dT/FTD-1-11-2020-version2a-AB.gif

Tigressy… you said you got them all…. do you want to post a list?

Maybe you found something I’m missing.

Or anybody else who sees nine in the puzzle or animation solution….

Let me just add that I know for certain that there are NINE, and that the “caterpillar” one you think is a difference….is NOT.We will post a master list later today. Happy solving!

The ninth is fiendishly subtle…well done!

So far I’ve only been able to find 5 differences. Still looking. Still wondering why Sherpa hasn’t been fixed and is still saying 2019. Maybe a portly person, who yesterday, said that he was leaving, lied about that as well as lying about fixing Sherpa. Maybe his wife won’t let him do anything.

ᴘʀᴇsᴇɴᴛs

sᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ⚐ ⚐ ⚐ ⚐ STELBEL SAID TO BE NICE SO I’LL BE NICE! ⚐ ⚐ ⚐ ⚐ ᴇᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴ

Saturday “Or Not” Non Solution

   1.  Top panel: Smokestack is belching diesel smoke. Bottom Panel: Smokestack is belching hot air about timing of “legendary Sherpa rebuild”.

   2.  Top: Bone is ossified remains of old Sherpa website. Bottom: Cheapskate C&C producers refuse to pay for real bone – steal bone from Gary Larson’s cow instead.

   3.  Top: Cleo is digging to find something purplie to add to today’s cartoon. Bottom: Actor in Cleo suit is GoComics’ engineer searching for lost plans to “legendary Sherpa rebuild”.

   4.  Top: Claude’s big toe pays homage to Lou “The Toe” Groza (Cleveland Browns placekicker and O-lineman 1946-67 (R.I.P.)). Bottom: Claude’s big toe swollen from kicking the door to GoComics’ suits’ offices to make them open and answer questions about disappearance of Cleo & Co. and launch date of “legendary Sherpa rebuild”.

   5.  Top: Snail-like movements of backhoe are metaphor for pace of “legendary Sherpa rebuild”. Bottom: Cheapskate C&C producers refuse to pay for real backhoe – steal and rebuild float from Tampa’s Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl parade instead.

   6-9.  Highly technical. Only MontanaLady, who’s in heaven (no, she’s not dead; she’s in San Diego); Perkycat, who said NOTHING about copped capered kippers; Tigressy, who knows a Caesarean operation gone slightly wrong when she sees one; SusanSunshine, whose sister owns her phone; StillTheBelle, who wants katina.cooper to be more positive; and the mysterious katina.cooper, who ain’t havin’ any of it, would understand.

In truth, Charles, Bookface wasn’t made for YOU!

Cleo does love her powerful motors! I’ll bet she is a fan of monster trucks too!

Ooh, I know a difference! In one panel the clods are dirt. In the other panel, there’s Claude.

I think I’ve got all nine, but the verdict will have to await the semi-official semi-anonymous animation solution semi-.gif.

Until I saw the gif, I thought I had all 9. Now I can only see 8, and the ninth one was only a spot on my screen! So, I’m not sure if we got them all or not.

But, no one else mentioned the cute faces in the pile-o-dirt.

Good puzzle, Nighthawks. Always fun on a cold Saturday morning.

Well, I only got 8. I didn’t have a spot on my screen. Looking forward to the ‘list’. Cute faces in the dirt?? Someone needs to get some help for MontanaLady……I guess I don’t have enough imagination.

Found it!

OK – it’s not official, but….

SPOILER!

chimney

bone

shovel

fence

snout

sky

smoke

shoe

caterpillar (not the brand) – space in the middle of the chains

Sorry, everybody…

As I said… my fault.

But it was the SKY, that started all this.

I can see it on my phone or tablet.., but my little 14" laptop has just about the same resolution as my 2010 smartphone had…

only farther from my eyes, and at a slight angle.

I can barely see the color fade even though I know it’s there.

I DIDN’T see it at first…

But what I did find was an earlier version of this puzzle, where one of the differences was a spelling change in “Dogerpillar”… but it was removed from this version.

So I thought there must really be only 8 differences now….

But I wasn’t sure… so I asked…

Tigressy provided the list I asked for… then I realised it was too early.

She deleted it for me… But I forgot to delete my comment above it (it was 4am)…

StelBel saw her Caterpillar reference and thought it appied to the long gone spelling error….

Sigh…

Maybe slapstick.