...it's the little typographical symbol used to indicate a new paragraph or train of thought in a text.

The modern-day convention of indentation indicating a new paragraph actually derives from printers leaving enough space in the text to allow rubricators to hand-draw pilcrows. When the speed of printing technology eventually outpaced the rate at which human hands could add drawn notations, those spaces were left blank and became symbolic in and of themselves. Nifty!

Today's rather unassuming note also kicks off Butt Week: I apparently drew five different butt-related doodles during the last two years (because butts are inherently funny) and have decided to group them together for your viewing (dis)pleasure. Non-butt posts will resume on Sunday.

[drawing of a saggy pilcrow with text "Is this a pilcrow, or the bottom half of a stick figure with a really big butt?"]

I don't remember the exact context for this. I think his coworker left a mystery gift on his desk, and I joked it might contain bees.

Panel 1: "Awww, someone left a treat for me...
[digital drawing of a closed paper bag from Dunkin' Donuts]

Panel 2: ...I wonder what it is...
[the paper bag is now open]

Panel 3: ...Beeeeeeeeeees?!!!"
[15 letter B's in various fonts fly out of the bag]

Speaking of things I leave on his computer for him to find, here is an example of other dumb things I do to surprise him...

This idea first hatched when we were watching through the entire backlog of Chopped:
Every few episodes, a contestant would toss an over easy egg on top of whatever dish they had made (sometimes on purpose, but usually to help distract from / cover mistakes underneath).
Each time this happened, the judges would be absolutely beside themselves with amazement - raving and fawning about how innovative the chef was for "elevating the dish," as if they were all perpetually-surprised goldfish who had never encountered a runny egg before.

Apparently, "elevating a dish with eggs" is a trending topic in the culinary world. There is even a NYC food zine called "Put A Egg On It."

While I agree that many foods are improved with the addition of an egg (home fries, burgers, rice, etc.), the absurdity of the current hype and marketing around such a simple staple just makes me laugh. It's like, I hate to break it to you hip modern chefs, but I'm fairly certain people have been putting eggs on food since the discovery of birds.

[digital drawing of a creepily excited fried egg saying "Put me on you!"]

I'm pretty sure this was another case of him not wanting to eat the snacks I packed in his lunch.

[anthropomorphized cheez-it holding its arms out for a hug and proclaiming "Love me!"]

You already know my mind goes weird places.
One day I thought, "If animals can blep because they have tongues, what about shoes?"

[digital drawing of an anthropomorphized boot with its tongue sticking out. Text reads "Shoe Blep"]

The Vex-Files, episode 9

The Vex-Files, episode 9

The Vex-Files, episode 8
(inspired by this commercial)

The Vex-Files, episode 7