Climbing the Third Stair

This morning's xkcd comic is very charming. Go look at it here.

As I was studying it, it occurred to me that xkcd takes full advantage of being a webcomic--I never know from one time to the next what shape the comic will occupy, because it doesn't need to be any particular shape. It's electrons on a screen, not ink on paper, and so there are no issues of it 'fitting' into a particular space. I don't think this makes it automatically better than webcomics that use a more traditional layout, just different. And given it's subject matter, nifty.

My workplace frequently produces amusing (to me anyway, but I am easily amused) conversations and I think I need to start carrying a notebook so that I'll remember them long enough to recount them here. Yesterday had multiple instances of such, and two of them stuck in memory.

(Two of my fellow department managers, discussing food):
L: What did you have for Thanksgiving? You are a vegetarian, right?
JL: I used to be a vegetarian. I'm not anymore.
L: Oh, really? What made you stop?
JL: Ribfest.

(Myself and a Deli staff member who has an Associates degree in chemistry):
MD (speaking to someone else): ...so Newton's law of thermodynamics are--
Me (interrupting): Newton didn't formulate the laws of thermodynamics. He formulated the laws of mechanics.
MD: OK, so the laws of thermodynamics--
Me: You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game.
MD: That's not how I learned them.
Me: There are fancier ways of writing them out, but that's what they boil down to.