Thread "Rant, moan, rave and share - for all your chatter, natter, ETCETERA! 2013/2014" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 10:12PM, Dec. 6, 2013

I have completed my yellow hat after thirty-six hours of crocheting. At first I wanted to make it really slouchy but I ended up with a very snug fitting beanie. It felt so nice to give my eyes a break from the glaring computer monitor and focus on something without the eye strain.

HippieVan wrote:
Arm knitting

Cool! I just looked that up online and it looks so intense, like you need to use your entire arm to make a scarf. I have a box of yarn that is filled with some unfinished crochet projects that I will complete eventually. It's just that some of these projects require complete isolation due to the amount of counting for each round.

Thank goodness it's Friday of this stressful week. Hopefully you hear back from your Professor by next week. Good luck on your exams/papers!

ozoneocean wrote:
…Unless it's not a comfortable situation, then you take that to the police…

There is a saying I learned from a teacher in high school: "Sexual Harrassment is when ugly people flirt with you. Otherwise, it is just flattering."
Eventually, I was proven wrong in college where I met a few attractive men who turned out to be incredibly creepy weirdos (beware the Physiological Science grad students!).
–
And nice color scheme, it is very professional.

lba wrote:
Dov

Americans in the USA grow up in a very prudish culture. I know because I grew up in it. The media needs someone like Dov to counteract the puritan way of life and if exposing what he does behind closed doors fuels a response, more power to him, because I can bet money he is not the first man to jack the beanstalk in front of a woman in Los Angeles.

Also, yes, their shirts are horrendously expensive.
.::.
Oh, and can I just express how much I love bar soap? I have been using liquid all of my life and just recently switched to goat's milk soap and the simple Ivory bar. I have so much soap in my cabinet, you would think I was starting a Fight Club.

Posted at 2:12PM, Dec. 7, 2013

That's a cute bear with a cute hat. And quite easy on the eyes. :)

Posted at 1:12PM, Dec. 8, 2013

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
There is a saying I learned from a teacher in high school: "Sexual Harrassment is when ugly people flirt with you. Otherwise, it is just flattering."
Eventually, I was proven wrong in college where I met a few attractive men who turned out to be incredibly creepy weirdos (beware the Physiological Science grad students!).

Yeah, how people act is such a huge part of their attractiveness anyway. There was a guy a while back who I was kind of vaguely interested in, and he started coming on to me WAY too strong and throwing out barely-veiled sexual remarks whenever I was around. It took no time at all for me to completely lose interest.

You finished that hat pretty fast, btw! I will post some photos of arm-knitted things later on.

—

My little sister and I had kind of a crappy day yesterday. So we were sitting on the couch and lamenting, and I was watching the Pogue's Fairytale in New York video because sometimes I like to make myself even more sad(and also it's a great song). For whatever reason The Darkness' christmas song was in the related videos, and my sister had never heard of them. So I showed her a bunch of their videos and it totally cheered her up. :) And today I went out and bought a whole bunch of new yarn, which always makes me happy.
Hooray for happy things that make bad days less bad!

Posted at 10:12PM, Dec. 8, 2013

I'm awfully tempted to try knitting. As a child I was always amazed when my grandmother did it. Table covers, coats, etc… all from a couple spools of thick string.

Posted at 9:12AM, Dec. 9, 2013

Quack! I managed to fall on my tail bone this weekend… stupid stairs. Luckily nothing broke but the doctor couldn't rule out spraining or cracking or anything. The worst part is that everything hurts except standing or sitting. Oh well nothing that painkillers and comfy pillows can't handle.

in other unrelated news, I've turned in my thesis on male-circumcision…

Posted at 6:12PM, Dec. 9, 2013

Ahahahaha, Kawaii! "Jack the beanstalk! Ha!

————

Hippie, ah The Darkness were so cool before they went full hipster. :)
Back in the day with that Christmas song and all the rest, that was gold!

———–

Gullas? Circumcision? ooo… That's seriously your thesis subject? o_O
I hope your arse-bone recovers!

———–

Sooo, the 2013 DD rado play, The Third Duck, is halfway finished. This week's Quackcast had issues so I will have he play ready for Thursday instead of a Tuesday Quackcast. ^_^
It took this long to do because… life. It happened to DD and it happened to everything and I have a lot to do always. It can be hard to parcel out what creativity I have into neat bundles of productivity sometimes… But hopefully the play should be a cracker! I'm working hard on it.

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 9, 2013

gullas wrote:
Quack! I managed to fall on my tail bone this weekend… stupid stairs. Luckily nothing broke but the doctor couldn't rule out spraining or cracking or anything. The worst part is that everything hurts except standing or sitting. Oh well nothing that painkillers and comfy pillows can't handle.

Oh man, good luck. I hurt my tailbone when I was a preteen (I was pretending to be a mermaid on some rocks at the beach and slipped, lol) and it never really got better. I have to be careful about how I sit or it starts bothering me again. And I keep a cushion on my desk chair so it's a bit softer. It suuuuucks. Part of it might be my fault because when I'm not thinking about it I tend to sit rolled back a bit, though. So hopefully you fare better than I have!

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 9, 2013

@gullas
Ouch! Lucky for modern day homosapiens, we evolved to the point that the tailbone is vestigial thanks to our Cro-Magnon ancestors. I hope sleeping is not painful, unless you learn how to sleep while sitting or standing. You should take advantage of all those natural hot springs in Iceland and just soak for a day.
Re: Thesis subject- Congratulations on completing your paper! I am sure it will make the cut.

@ozoneocean
Two years of working in an elementary school has trained me to use toned down euphemisms for everything and anything.
I am exicted to hear this year's Radio Play. If it takes two days to complete it, then it will be worth it.

@Lonnehart
Just start knitting. I am sure you can buy some string and knitting needles somewhere in Guam. I know crocheting is very popular in the Philippines. Youtube is full of tutorials, etc.

@HippieVan
Yes!! New yarn is the best thing ever. Some brands are scented, some are super soft and others are coarse. I prefer worsted weight, natural/synthetic/blended, and inexpensive.
.::.

Most recently, I have been working on a yellow and gray scarf in the style of the early Harry Potter films. I wanted one ten years ago before I knew anything about crocheting, so I am now realizing a decade long dream. It also dawned on me that I would likely have been sorted into Hufflepuff, which is rad because I like the house colors and badgers are badass.

Posted at 11:12PM, Dec. 9, 2013

@Ozone and kawaii

I'm looking at it from a biological perspective and from religious-historical context. Mainly because it is not common here in Iceland nor are people fammiliar with it to begin with.

@hippewan
Well it's day three so either I've got more used to the pain of sitting down or it's actually turning a bit better.

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 10, 2013

Yay - the Radio Play's coming. THE RADIO PLAY'S COMING!!

@gullas - Glad it seems to be healing OK. I had a similar episode awhile back. I was walking down our wooden staircase one night, wearing socks, and slipped. The bump-de-bump bump (as I bounced down each step on my tail bone) brought the whole family running. They were aghast! I had been carrying a glass of red wine and it splashed all over the white walls. A scene from American Horror. The walls are now painted a light cinnamon and my tail is just fine.
So it's kind of an off-week when it begins with holing up in a hotel because a snow storm has drivers sliding around, stalling, losing traction. There was an 18-wheeler that had slid across the highway exit ramp to the bridge I needed to take from Delaware to NJ. Nobody was able to get off that highway for that bridge, and the 2 exit lanes had to merge back into the highway traffic, which was speeding along at 3 miles an hour because you just never knew when an accident was going to make it single lane traffic. Back roads were not an option, even if I knew the area.

So we got home yesterday, which made it feel like Sunday and I'm still not caught up with the calendar. Or my work. But no accidents!! so I feel like I'm ahead.

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 10, 2013

Kawaii, Katch is a real badger fan too :D
Nice scarf!

Gullas- the study of cockology! Hahaha, not my cup of tea… The circumcision thing is interesting though I suppose. From what I've read it's been part of a lot of religious practice, particularly Jews and Muslims, stemming from some primitive medical traditions. I think there are various African cultures that have some bizarre and painful male circumcision practices too that are religious/traditional with no medical/health origin.
And throughout the centuries it's been a part of medicine on and off because of venereal disease, and fashion.
According to the latest literature medical circumcision is one of the more effective practices at reducing the transmission rates of HIV in Africa.
That's what little I've heard about it anyway… For people and their relationship to it though it mostly comes down to their own experience with it- if it's unusual to them they don't like it. If they grew up with it it's normal.

Posted at 11:12PM, Dec. 10, 2013

I read on the Reykjavik Grapevine that Iceland and other Nordic countries feel very strongly about this issue that they are willing to fight for a ban. It is actually a current topic of debate. I think the main issue is if there are people from certain religions living in Iceland (I know that Sweden has an upsurge of new immigants) that would frown on a law outlawing one of their oldest practices and beliefs.

Posted at 12:12AM, Dec. 11, 2013

@ozone
It's actually the study of foreskin-ology ;) But basically that's what I found out although in the 18th century it resurged for men and women alike as a sort of remedy for mental ilnesses(for example masturbation) and backpain… And there are some more primitive tribes out there that have their own different methods. One is particularly brutal is where the foreskin is crushed "off", that sometimes can lead to more bits getting squezed so in order for the boy to become somewhat more 'acceptable' in the tribe, a whole emasculation surgery/method has to be performed on him.

@kawaii
Yeah, both the head of pedatricans and the Children's Agent (a goverment agency deticated to the rights of children) here along with their similar representatives in Scandinavia recently signed a pretty harsh statement that condemns rutine ritual circumcision…

Posted at 9:12AM, Dec. 11, 2013

"Kroff Dinner!"
This is just too perfect. It captures the essence of how I imagine the Quackcast (at least when ozone's hair was longer).

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 11, 2013

Ugh, why are brains so stupid sometimes? I met a guy at a party a little while back who I really liked, but have no real way of meeting up with again (other than by chance, I guess). But my brain is like "Nooope, I love that guy and couldn't care less about the hundreds of other fellas you see every day at uni. This makes perfect sense."

—

First exam tomorrow. I can't wait to get these over with and get on to Christmasy things instead of being cooped up and studying all the time!

Posted at 8:12PM, Dec. 11, 2013

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:

"Kroff Dinner!"
This is just too perfect. It captures the essence of how I imagine the Quackcast (at least when ozone's hair was longer).

Ahahahahaha! That's genuious! That is the two of us SPOT on! wow!

Oh, EVERYONE SHOULD CHECKOUT THE LATEST QUACKCAST!!! https://next.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/

—————

I know what you mean hippie… it's some primitive part of the brain that fixates on stuff, not just potential mates but everything else too, it's like: "WANT"
And it just obsesses… I get that with this this damn fetish for my perfect hussar uniform I have. Even though it has no practical aplication and I have no where to wear it, it's still "WANT" @_@
But with people, yeah, it's annoying. Probably best to ask for phone numbers or email or something if someone piques your interest, just in case. You don't have to contact them, but if your brain says you must then at least you have a way of doing it. And maybe just having a contact method will be enough to short circut the "want" fixation and you won't even get to the stage of calling them…

Posted at 1:12AM, Dec. 12, 2013

I'm going to use that as the default image for future Quackcasts!

Posted at 3:12AM, Dec. 12, 2013

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Re: Thesis subject- Congratulations on completing your paper! I am sure it will make the cut.

… you seriously wrote that? HILL-larious!

Posted at 7:12AM, Dec. 12, 2013

So the other night I had a dream where Ayesinback came to my house to demand I start working on the DD Radio play 2014. And I was like DD Radio Play 2014? And she said yes and showed me cover page. Right and why did I answer the door…

The things the brain comes up with sometimes.

As for obcessions? Yeah I jst blew $300 better spent on other things on more model kits. How do I mange to do this? Just have to have that kit! Yeah I just have to add that Grille ausf M to the collection.

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

bravo1102 wrote:
So the other night I had a dream where Ayesinback came to my house to demand I start working on the DD Radio play 2014. And I was like DD Radio Play 2014? And she said yes and showed me cover page.

A dream, ey? Did you ask Judy? You've been very tired … Reality blurs …

If I had time, motivation, even talent, I'd like to do a comic entitled Reality Blurs. It would be auto-biographical, bravo would show up every so often. Most of you would, popping out of Hippie's van like drunk ducks from a clown mobile. Why – that could be the next radio play! Not an omnibus. A Drunk Duck Clown Bus!

But what am I doing?! Let's not start talking about DDRP 2014 without a full obeisance to the DDRP 2013. Was it the anticipation, or was it The Best DDRP Yet? Either way: magnifico!!

— wildebeest obeisance

@gullas – not every place in the world has a fully stocked Phallological Museum http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/icelandic-phallological-museum. btw Ducks: if you want to google it, be sure to use Phallological or you could end up in places you may not want to be. I know whereof I write.
Quite a spiffy-looking museum; it makes one believe there's some communal interest in the subject matter overall. Is this why I think vikings are cocky? Or was it just the THOR flick? dunno

— more wildebeests, cavorting in the snow

I have the front, back, and one sleeve done of the sweater I'm knitting for my son's Christmas gift. Do I (again) forget about Christmas cards/letters and go all OCD to finish it with a slight chance of success, or just accept a lack of time (again) and get on with the season. dunno. dunno much (other than obscure trivia about world museums).

Posted at 6:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

ayesinback wrote:
If I had time, motivation, even talent, I'd like to do a comic entitled Reality Blurs. It would be auto-biographical, bravo would show up every so often. Most of you would, popping out of Hippie's van like drunk ducks from a clown mobile. Why – that could be the next radio play! Not an omnibus. A Drunk Duck Clown Bus!

Can you start the Reality Blurs comic on The Duck, like, right now? It would be this fun collaboration comic for drunk ducker's to cosplay as each other's comic characters for kicks and giggles. We could take magic trips to other countries via HippieVan's bus (a la The Magic School Bus) and watch Of Monsters and Men perform in Iceland; visit the Phallological Museum in Husavik; and visit other Drunk Ducks all around the world! (Of course, the A-Rated, Robin Thicke-esque version of the comic, Reality Blurred Lines, would end up racking up massive page likes and end up in the top 20 on the site.)
PS–knitting: you are making an entire sweater? That is a feat! I have been working on my scarf and am currently on my sixth day, a whole sweater would take me over one month.

@gullas
I cannot get enough of those snippy puns!

@bravo1102
TREAT YOURSELF. You are the tank man, so you need to have a Grille Ausf.M model in your collection.

@ozoneocean
On clothes-Sometimes I find myself on Amazon online shopping for articles of clothing that would assemble this perfect "uniform" I could wear on a daily basis. Only, I tend to buy a minimum of 3-5 quantities of the exact same article of clothing.
On hussar uniforms-TREAT YOURSELF! You deserve it!
On Quackcast pic-DO IT! I have the original images and can generate a beard if/when you decide to grow yours back.

@HippieVan
On guys-I guess the mind is fascinated with "what could have been" and meeting a perfect stranger and having no contact is more intriguing than meeting a not-so-perfect stranger at a bar who chain smokes a pack of American Spirit in one sitting and buys two pitchers of beer for himself (RED FLAG). College guys were tricky…most of the ones in my department liked the same type of men I did. Still, there is always facebook and you might have a mutual friend with the guy in question.

Posted at 7:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

Apparently one of the constant nightmares I've had over the years is now coming true… Want to live off the land while generating your own power, water, and food? Well…
http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/
http://offgridsurvival.com/survivalgardenseizedanddestroyed/

So now if you're not connected to the power grid and don't have piping for the water/sewer services and are growing your own food, the local government in the area can get you arrested and/or kicked off your land. You still own the land. You just can't live on it unless you're connected to the city services. So now living "green" (using non polluting sources of power/water, etc) is becoming illegal. Even funnier is that when the head of this "project" was questioned he remained silent. That raises a HUGE red flag for me.

Now I have no idea if those articles are true or not, but if they are it's a very scary thing to me.

Oh, well…

Posted at 8:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

Lonne- I would take those stories with a massive amount of grains of salt. :)
The people doing that site are already anti-government so their perspective is skewed hugely. For al we know the woman had contravened the law or was planting on land owned by someone else, or selling her medicines commercially.
With the other example the man could have been dumping his own sewage waste into the water table… Proper removal of waste water is taken extremely seriously by government agencies because the risks are serious.

As to the woman's "Medicinal" plants, that's such a joke man. Unless she has advanced pharmacological knowledge and is also trained in biology and chemistry she does not stand any hope at all of producing useful medicine from her plants.
Traditional cures were pretty ineffective when that was all they had in the past, but they were better than nothing. Medical technology has moved on vastly now- we know what doesn't work and we've isolated the stuff that does, made sure it's safe, determined how exactly it does work, and provide it in dosages where it works best etc.

With her plants, she was likely just being a fool like so many before her. There are very few truly REAL and useful medicines you can make easily from plants without lab equipment and the knowledge to use it.

————

Kawaii- Ah, uniforms, that reminds me of an aspect of my job!
As a kid I would always do things like design the ideal uniforms for my "army"… what badges the officers would have etc.
As part of my work now I sort of do that for real, but for miners rather than soldiers! Ha! Mining companies are very paramilitary in their uniform and organisation, it's interesting. They have caps embroidered with which mine and affiliated company they work on, jackets and shirts with the same thing, with notations saying how long they've worked with no accidents, patches showing which sort of machinery they work with… And much more.

——————-

And that brings me to something else I've thought for a while- in design there's this mythical maxim "FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION", but it's always misused and has become almost a complete myth… Even when it was first proposed, people treat it as:
"Form should look like the concept of function"
It's basically a pure excuse for another typoe of decorative design. You make something odd looking and awkward, or minimal and spare, and use the "form Function" mantra as justification.

But that doesn't mean the maxim is meaningless just because it's so abused- A lot of military and architecture tech has a certain beauty to it and I realised that in that case form often really does follow function- so there is a beauty in that you cen see how every part relates to each other part in a logical, useful way and creates the whole- it's a sort of mechanistic determinism.

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Of course, the A-Rated, Robin Thicke-esque version of the comic, Reality Blurred Lines, would end up racking up massive page likes and end up in the top 20 on the site.

Ahahahahah!

This comic idea reminds me of back in the Top Drawer days (for those who don't know, it was an anything-goes part of the forum that got shut down for obvious reasons) we had a comic called Top Drawer High starring DDers.

I think my character should be kind of like a dalek. Like I've got this lovely magical hippie van exterior, but one day you guys look under the hood and AAARRGGHH!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/79/Dalek_Caan_Mutant.JPG" alt="">

—

Oh man, I'm having one of those times when I wish I could quote more than one thing without my post going completely bonkers. I've seen you do it, ozone - what's the trick?

@ozone: I don't know much about design, but that's a great point about military/architectural stuff!

@ayesinback: I am also amazed by your knitting skills! As I've said before, I very rarely have the patience to finish a whole scarf.

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 12, 2013

Lonnehart wrote:
RE: Article - "Medicinal Herbs"

I was waiting for someone else to reply before I chimed in on this one.

The article did not mention exactly which herbs she was planting in her garden. Chances are, she could have had a species of medical cannabis for her "bad back problems" or "glaucoma".

The difference between Eastern and Western medicine is that Western medicine relies on chemical compounds (such as the ones Ozone listed above). If she was using Eastern remedies and plants in her garden, she could have risked an ecological disaster by introducing an invasive species into Tulsa, OK, which would have been put the eco-system at risk. Some urban cities forbid people from planting directly in the regular ground soil because the ground water has been known to carry toxins in the water.

The definition of "living off the grid" used here is known as "squatting" in other parts of the world.