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

Posted at 8:04PM, Apr. 6, 2014

kawaii wrote:
Hippie! You need to work at that phone case kiosk if your custom painted cases look that good. Acceptable age ranges are hilarious. They fluctuate depending on how old you feel. I know I draw the line at anything older than my parents, that would just be too awkward.

Thank you! ^_^
My upper age limit is definitely affected by the fact that I still live with my dad and little sister, so they always see or at least hear about the people I'm spending time with. I'm sure my dad would have a conniption if I was dating a guy more than say, ten years older than me. At that point I think people are at a different stage in their lives and it wouldn't work all that well anyways.

ozoneocean wrote:

Aw hippie. :)
Guys are so bad with signals. Either we read everything as a flirt or we read nothing at all. A radar full of false positives or one that only reads a blank- it rarely ever works as it should.
Nice phone cover!

——————–

I'm having fun fixing up the comedy skit for the latest Quackcast! Hopefully I don't make myself sick this time trying to get it finished on time! Banes and I are getting batter as actors I think :)

Ugh, tell me about it! Meanwhile I'm getting nothing from the guys I've been trying to flirt with. :P
I think there might also be a "level of comfort" element involved, though. I'm probably less nervous (and thus more charming) around guys I have no interest in.

You and Banes are pretty darn good at doing different voices! I can only do like five voices: kid voice, old person voice, man voice, affected lady voice and neutral voice. Just enough to make reading aloud less monotonous. :)

Posted at 7:04AM, Apr. 7, 2014

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
It has been almost twenty years since I last partcipated in a novena, but it is when the family of the deceased spend several days praying the rosary and reading the bible to pray for the soul to get out of purgatory and into heaven. There was a passage about circumcision during one of the readings, which was somewhat inappropriate, and people could not stop laughing while reading it.

There's a passage with THAT in it? Either I don't pay that much attention during our Novenas, or it's been edited out. Most likely the latter as I've never heard anything about… THAT…

And as far as "signals" go, I'm extremely terrible at it. Let's just say if a woman screamed "I LOVE YOU" to my face and really meant it the impact would be… zero… I'd probably think she was kidding… hence the terrible joke I always tell where a woman would have to club me into unconciousness then drag me to her cave (thanks for that image, Kawaii). :)

Posted at 10:04PM, Apr. 7, 2014

Thanks Hippie! Banes and I really went to town on this week's Quackcast- out in a couple of hours… :)
My hair is at an awkward length… To stick with it and grow it longer or get it cut short again? I don't know. :(

Posted at 5:04AM, Apr. 8, 2014

Great voices in the Quackcast. Banes you should be more goofy with the Ed Wynn characterization. And you made Abt sound like Dieter from "Sprockets" Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
Too bad your AI robbed you of the glory of being the first to walk on the sun's surface. (You gotta go at night!) Old Polish joke.

It's almost like they're making me do work at work! Rather than goofing off in the shack those contractors are making me weigh trucks! Eek! And then they piled up another responsibility on the post. Since two of the guys at tower are irresponsible dingbats we can't let them know the post has internet. So, they can't access the email for all the crew and gate lists they need to have for the post. So my post gets them all as email attachments and I print them out and have the mobile security bring them over. Awful when you can't trust $10 an hour employees not to do stupid things with equipment so you have to pile up the work on another person who supposedly is that responsible.
eh, He don't know me very well do he?

My mother's operation has been put off until May so my sister can finish her presentations as the interm prewident of the New Jersey Busniness and Industry Association. The board got some new members last year and they made everyone else notice that her boss was an idiot. Hopefully she gets the job because she has been bascially running everything behind his back the past few years anyway.

Posted at 8:04PM, Apr. 8, 2014

It's probably a good thing that I'm almost done school for the year, because my attention was definitely starting to wander in the last couple of weeks. I'm working on a take-home exam question related to the global division of labour and was thinking "Why don't I remember anything about this?" So I flipped to the relevant lecture in my notebook and did I find my usual thorough notes? NOPE. Minimal notes and pages full of Mighty Boosh-themed doodles!

Excellent use of tuition money, Hippie Van. :P

ozoneocean wrote:
My hair is at an awkward length… To stick with it and grow it longer or get it cut short again? I don't know. :(

I think your hair looks pretty good short, but I seem to remember you weren't all that happy with it last time you had it cut.

Posted at 10:04PM, Apr. 9, 2014

Interesting stuff about the 'signals' from people out in the world.

I think I'm relaxing more…or giving off good vibes, maybe? It's weird; sometimes people seem off-put by me for no apparent reason (which is kind of distressing. It really bugs me). And sometimes things seem good. And normal. And even better than just "good" and "normal".

Today I was chatting with these gals at the gas station and it seemed like I was getting…I won't say "signals" but it seemed like there was a "pre-signal" thing going on. I managed to make them chuckle a little and left.

What could I have done from there, though? Asking for a phone number or date and risking looking like a creep is a guy's duty, and when I manage to do it (the asking out, not the creep thing) there's a rush of confidence, even if it's a "no". I don't do it nearly enough.

There didn't seem to be enough of a "spark" created to take that step today, anyway. When there IS, I'm determined to take that step as often as I can. I've ignored that part of life too much lately.

Duckside, I'm way psyched to be finally doing this wacky story I've been thinking about since before I even began posting the comic! It's a lot of fun!

I wake up at 4:00 am to post my pages, too. Which is…a slog. And kind of enjoyable. Still, I hope we can get that update thingy worked out at some point…

Posted at 10:04PM, Apr. 9, 2014

Love the Dixon Bainbridge pic! I love that guy's acting too :)
He was great as the second version of the boss in The IT Crowd :D
Saw a bit of him in that "Dark Place" series too, not bad their either. I love that '80s uppercalss toff persona he affects.

Thanks for the hair advice too. Heh, I'll see how much it irritates me before I feel definitely need a change of style. Maybe I WILL go short again afterall.

—————–

Hahaha Banes, it's always that next step that's the hard part. Going for coffee is probably a good one, that way you can ask for the phone number too…
No, no, no, ask them if they'd like to model for bottomless waitress! Winner! :D

Posted at 10:04AM, Apr. 10, 2014

i was surprised late last night/early this morning to find out that my comic was featured :3

Posted at 12:04PM, Apr. 10, 2014

haircuts

How long is an awkward length?

The difference between a good haircut and a great haircut is one week. I used to go to hair salons that spoke zero English because I did not like all the chit chat that goes on in regular salons. Then I learned that communication was key and sometimes the hair stylist know the best suitable style for you hair than the fancy picture you point to in a magazine.

You can always take a photo and use these haircut silhouettes to see if the style suits you.

If you just want to keep growing it out, Vitamin B supplements help speed up hair growth, rotate out your shampoo, maybe change your facial hair, or experiment with a new vibrant color!

hippievan's doodles on class notes

My favorite part is the silhouette of the little person in the cage with the words "SAVE ME!" scrawled across the side.

JoeL_CQB's feature

Yay! Congratulations again. I am glad Oz featured your comic. Ghost Operators was on my feature watchlist, as well, and you definitely deserve it.

Signals

1. First check for a ring or even a sun tan mark where a ring should be on the left hand.
2. Do not ask person out if it looks like you have been drinking and have an empty pitcher of alcohol sitting in front of you.
3. If it was at a gas station, you have nothing to lose, because what are the chances of running into each other again?
4. You can always say, "I make comics!" Then give a link to your comic. That always works…(・・?)

–

I used Google Hangouts for the first time last weekend. It is amazing that multiple video chat windows can be used now. It felt like the early days of the Internet when I was experiencing chat rooms for the first time 19 years ago.

Posted at 2:04PM, Apr. 10, 2014

@Joel: Congrats! Your comic looks really neat so far. :)

ozoneocean wrote:
Love the Dixon Bainbridge pic! I love that guy's acting too :)
He was great as the second version of the boss in The IT Crowd :D
Saw a bit of him in that "Dark Place" series too, not bad their either. I love that '80s uppercalss toff persona he affects.

I haven't seen Darkplace, I will have to watch it! He and Rich Fulcher (Bob Fossil) also did a show called "Snuff Box" which is…very odd. There's something about Rich Fulcher that I just find inherently funny, though.

—

As far as haircuts go, the worst mistake I ever made was getting bangs. Definitely learned a lesson there. If you don't have straight hair, you have to be prepared for a year-long commitment to straightening/blow drying them every single day. They never warn you about these things though…one of these days I'm just going to ask the hairdresser to make my hair so it will look nice without being straightened, blow dried, or having any product put in.

Posted at 5:04PM, Apr. 10, 2014

this is the life we live right?

Posted at 4:04AM, Apr. 11, 2014

heh thats awesome.

Posted at 11:04AM, Apr. 11, 2014

It wouldn't matter what he said, it was the jacket and the sunglasses. And it doesn't hurt that the two guys were trying to impress her with the exploits of their RPG characters.

Posted at 12:04PM, Apr. 11, 2014

heh.
i got a call from my bank today. apparently somebody got my debit card information and tried to go on a spending spree. Too bad for them I don't have any money in the bank account.
HA HA! THE JOKES ON YOU! …. I'M POOR!

aw….

Posted at 10:04AM, Apr. 12, 2014

Great advice on the hair Kawaii.
@Hippie - I haven't had a fringe (bangs), since I was little… It'd be nice to try one again. My hair is always too long for that to work right.
I will look up Snuff box because I like Rich Fulcher too.

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Joel, that cartoon was hillarious! It does depend on your audience though, seriously… While most people will say "what's a webcomic??? o_O herp derp derp", there are some beauties with brains who know exactly what one is. :)

——–

I got a huge silver skull badge for my busby! Yay! All the way from Germany from guys who specialise in making pickelhaubes and various Prussiian reproduction uniform bits and pieces. This thing is quite large and very thin, almost like silver plastic, but it's certainly metal… stinky, easily tarnished silver actually. I am SHOCKED it wasn't all bent up and flattened out in the post since all it came in was a little bubble wrap evelope.

When I get my sabretache back I'll have to organise a proper photoshoot. The skull really does set off the whole black and silver theme nicely. The braid on the hussar jackets is like a ribcage afterall.

Posted at 8:04PM, Apr. 12, 2014

webcomics getting girls

Generally I would be pretty interested in a conversation, at least, if someone told me they did webcomics. That's only happened once, though, and it was someone I already knew I wasn't interested in.

ozoneocean wrote:
Great advice on the hair Kawaii.
@Hippie - I haven't had a fringe (bangs), since I was little… It'd be nice to try one again. My hair is always too long for that to work right.
I will look up Snuff box because I like Rich Fulcher too.

I found a picture of what happened the last time I got bangs, about two years ago. I had two days of beautiful swoopy side bangs courtesy of the hairdresser and then washed my hair in the evening and woke up with this (also accompanied in this photo by my lovely first-thing-in-the-morning face, sorry about that):

Posted at 4:04AM, Apr. 13, 2014

@Joel- I really hope your financial situation improves, inspite of all those theives! ^_^

@Hippie- that fringe is fantastic!!!

Posted at 10:04PM, Apr. 13, 2014

Well, back home now. That last trip was almost anything but enjoyable. Seeing my father off isn't as good as being able to get in some last words before his passing. *sigh*

Well, at least my youngest brother's kids like me… maybe a bit too much. My siblings think I'm great with children. I think I'm a tad bit too easy on them. And it's never easy for me when the niece sees me laying on the couch watching TV, then crawls onto me and falls asleep for FOUR HOURS!!! And I end up not moving so she can sleep… and being poked fun at by the rest of my siblings (including her father). T_T

Posted at 3:04AM, Apr. 14, 2014

It's starting to get warm and sunny after the looooong cold Ice Age we had for a winter. So out comes the hats. Damn top of my head burns that easily.

Watched a very recent harem anime or as my friend and i call it the anti-harem harem. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukanai. Outrageously funny satire but still very tender especially the second season. I liked it a lot.

Also saw Rachel Weitz's portrayal of Hypatia in the very interesting Agora. Not bad depiction from all sides of the fanatical Christians, establishment Christians and pagans caught in the middle. Some inaccuracies but did capture 4th century Alexandria pretty well. Nice depcition of humans struggling to define their world.

Posted at 5:04AM, Apr. 14, 2014

Your recommendation for the Tank anime was a good one so I'll be checking out Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukana too. :)

I watched all of Mahou Sensei Negima. It's about a 10 year old magician that has to teach at a girl's school for some reason. There's dodgey harem implications there- It might just be my limited modern Western perspective but I really hate the age irrelevant pan-sexual aspect of some anime, and this one had that in small doses. But it also had a reasonably well developed characters and good writing: enough to keep it compelling and for me to keep watching more episodes all the way to the end of the series!
- what I normally do is just ignore the age crap as best as possible.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, the really interesting thing with it was the tone change towards the end: most episodes had been very frivolous and silly, but towards the end there's a tragic death of a main character and it really surprised me how well the reaction of the other characters was played out; very realistic I thought! The pathos and tragedy, that brittle front of false joy you put up to try and get through the day with other people around, the guilt and self recrimination that bubbles to the surface when set off by the most innocuous things… all that was there. A very successful contrast.
Makes me think of your situation Lonne.

Posted at 10:04AM, Apr. 14, 2014

Bravo, that cartoon is hillarious!
-A bit raunchy too
Fricken funny! ^_^

I wouldn't say it's reverse harem though, so far it's a normal harem setup… I'm on episode 4.

It's also called "haganai" and can be found here: http://www.animetycoon.net/anime/haganai/

Posted at 12:04PM, Apr. 14, 2014

Ah, the little Magician comic. I remember reading about how the creator of that manga (he created Love Hina, a romantic comedy) wanted to create a shonen manga. You know… action and stuff. But the publisher wanted him to make ANOTHER harem series. So he got around this by giving the comic he wanted to make some harem elements. And it's worked out for him.

He would've kept on writing/drawing the series, but ended it early due to the publishers supporting (and pushing to implement) a law that essentially allows publishers to "steal" the manga creator's creations. Kinda like how Marvel and DC comics in America have this contract with the artists that ensures the characters they create belong to the company and not the artists. It apparently didn't succeed or it would've made big news.

Heh… it's hard not to weep. Emotion somehow overpowers me when I'm alone. It'll be some time before I can fully accept what has happened. It keeps me thinking as well. Like how to get out of my current job to get something better, preferrably something with benefits. Sure enough I find out that the company I work with has expanded to armored cars and we're being given one benefit…. health/dental insurance. I'll probably only take the dental due to my VA benefits already covering the medical side of things…

Now if only they could add paid leave to the mix…

Posted at 12:04AM, Apr. 15, 2014

And now my system is running Windows 8.1 Despite the merchants warnings that my system may be compatible, the installation went almost without a hitch. It'll take some time to get used to this thing…

Posted at 3:04AM, Apr. 15, 2014

Lonnehart wrote:
Heh… it's hard not to weep. Emotion somehow overpowers me when I'm alone.

That stuck with me for a long time after my father passed. Try to focus on the happy memories for now which is what you still have as opposed to what is gone.

Watch lots of comedy. Empty headed adventure works too, but avoid anything with estranged parents. You could start crying in the middle of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade of all movies.

Posted at 3:04PM, Apr. 15, 2014

Thanks, Bravo. I'll take that advice to heart. Still it won't be easy as I went through this when my mother passed on around 15 years ago just two months shy of 60. And hopefully my uncles and aunts won't be going anytime soon…

Oh, great. I knew I'd lose something when installed Windows 8.1 I'm glad the installation went smoothly and I'm slowly learning my way around this OS, but now I have to recreate the Minecraft world I was working on. I wish I had kept the world seed file in my other hard drive. Recreating it would've been so much easier.