Thread "2016 Rant/Share/General Discussion Thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 2:11AM, Nov. 25, 2016

Canada totally celebrates Thanksgiving. It is very similar to the USA Thanksgiving, but earlier in the year.

Posted at 5:11AM, Nov. 25, 2016

Lonnehart wrote:
I wonder what countries other than the U.S.A. celebrate Thanksgiving…

I was told the British also observe Thanksgiving, also earlier in the year: July 4

Posted at 3:11PM, Nov. 25, 2016

Well, curiosity nearly sated. Just one other question… England celebrating Thanksgiving? Did they always have a Thanksgiving tradition or did they lift it from across the pond (Canada I can understand having the tradition I think)?

I'm so slow… I remember watching the movie Zorro: The Gay Blade as an adult long after I had watched it as a child. It was then that the meaning of the title hit me… I still enjoy watching that movie though. It was so funny watching the legendary Zorro wearing other colors and wielding a whip. Yikes..!

Posted at 4:11PM, Nov. 25, 2016

You could say it has a biblical origin. After the flood left the Ark on the mountain, Noah and the family had a feast of thanksgiving. It happens in other places in the Bible so it's a tradition that when one comes through a rough ordeal one has a feast to give thanks.

But like all such practices it is more prevalent than just the bible. Lots of cultures gather to share a meal after surviving an ordeal to thank whatever they think controls such things. The US just made it a national holiday during some particular dark days for the country. American presidents have been proclaiming days of giving thanks since Washington. The Continental Congress proclaimed a few during the Revolution. Crowned heads have been proclaiming them as long as there have been Crowned heads.

Yahoo, we won a battle, feast of Thanksgiving! We had a good harvest after a few years if famine. Feast of Thanksgiving! New heir to the crown, Thanksgiving. Oh wait it was a daughter. Scratch that.

Posted at 10:11PM, Nov. 25, 2016

Lonne, Britain does not celebrate it, hahahaha!
Ayes was having a laugh with you about the revolutionary war ;)

It IS an American only thing- and maybe Canada, but let Banes, Hippie, and Ash weigh in on that…
——————-

The BIG DD meetup will now be NEXT week!
On the 3rd of December!
It's the 3rd Meetup
And it's the 300 HUNDREDTH Quackcast!

So you see why I changed the date. ;)

We'd like to hook up on Google Hangouts if we can.

Hope as many people as can be can make it!

Posted at 10:11PM, Nov. 25, 2016

Just so you know Lonnehart, my remarks about a feast of thanksgiving for a new heir and it being cancelled because it was a baby girl was an actual event in British history. A real British days of thanksgiving. Britain just doesn't have a national holiday called Thanksgiving. But Waterloo and Trafalgar day both started as national days of giving thanks for the glorious triumph of British arms.

Other nations just don't have it on the calendar as the fourth Thursday in November with that whole Brownist Pilgrims in Plymouth thing. We all know the first English thanksgiving in America was in Jamestown, and the Spanish had a few in their colonies before that. Yippee, life is good! Let's give thanks and share a meal. Make sure to tap as many hogs heads of booze as you can! We could starve the day after tomorrow…

Posted at 10:11PM, Nov. 25, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
Lonne, Britain does not celebrate it, hahahaha!
Ayes was having a laugh with you about the revolutionary war ;)

Heh… I should've seen that. So I'm going to guess that July 4 is a sore spot in British history? :)

Posted at 12:11AM, Nov. 26, 2016

Lonnehart wrote:
ozoneocean wrote:
Lonne, Britain does not celebrate it, hahahaha!
Ayes was having a laugh with you about the revolutionary war ;)

Heh… I should've seen that. So I'm going to guess that July 4 is a sore spot in British history? :)

More of a running gag. They could easily have retaken the USA in the War of 1812 but wise heads prevailed in Great Britain. The US was Britain's great trading partner and market. And with the US independent they didn't have to pay any upkeep and could instead make lots of money on the interest of loans made to the US government. The US as an independent country was more profitable than as a colony.

Let the colonials have their arrogant Anglophobia, we know who is really in charge. Monroe Doctrine of no European interference in the Western Hemisphere was totally enforced by the Royal Navy
Rule Britannia.

And most US presidents and Secretarys of state knew it.

Posted at 9:11PM, Nov. 27, 2016

I have been SO scatterbrained today in such unusual ways. I was trying to work out why I kept on making unusual mistakes and overlooking routine things over and over then I realised it was the strong headache pills I took yesterday for my migraine. Sometimes the narcotic ingredients can really screw up your brain the day after- not because they're directly affecting neurotransmitters, but because things are over acting in response to the previous effects.

Posted at 12:11AM, Nov. 28, 2016

Unfortunately, I know what it's like to be scatterbrained. I have a hard time getting organized. Even worse, I have a worsening short attention span. It's like my brain keeps changing channels just to stay intere… OOH!!! SHINY!!!

Posted at 1:11AM, Nov. 30, 2016

I'm scatterbrained at the moment, too much going on and things like my computer are going wrong. In my infinite wisdom I decided to make things easier by getting very, very drunk last night. Two hours sleep and I woke up remembering I hadn't done a featured comic for this week. It was one of those things that I kept trying to do and got side tracked every single time.

Posted at 4:11AM, Nov. 30, 2016

Great feature man! You really pulled that one off! :D

Posted at 5:11AM, Nov. 30, 2016

Hey, last time I checked, we were called Drunk Duck, not Sober Duck.

Posted at 7:11PM, Nov. 30, 2016

I believe I am the only total abstainer around here. The proposed name for the rival sober site was recovering water fowl.com For obvious reasons it was never launched.

Posted at 8:11PM, Nov. 30, 2016

Bravo-

I am totally a teetotaler. I have been yelled at because of it, but I am that one friend that remembers (everything).

The military tanks were out driving on the main roads on base today. The tankers in full uniform were riding on top and I must say they look so cool.

Posted at 9:11PM, Nov. 30, 2016

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Bravo-

I am totally a teetotaler. I have been yelled at because of it, but I am that one friend that remembers (everything).

The military tanks were out driving on the main roads on base today. The tankers in full uniform were riding on top and I must say they look so cool.

The number of teetotalers just doubled! ;-D

Posted at 5:12AM, Dec. 1, 2016

I abstain every day, apart from the weekends :)
And then no more than 3 or 4… Migraines are a HARSH mistress.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
The military tanks were out driving on the main roads on base today. The tankers in full uniform were riding on top and I must say they look so cool.

Quite the warlike steeds!

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 1, 2016

Tanks are by far one of the sweetest rides we have. They're way better than the crappy light armor I get to play with. I get the US Army M1117 "ASV", also know as "that godd**m thing", or a "coffin on wheels".

I keep going through this cycle every friggin' month, where my student loan companies all decide to take their money on the first of the month at the same time. And of course, since banks always process outgoing charges before incoming credits, I wind up $500 in the red with overdraft fees that they won't reverse despite my pointing out that this happens every month because they don't wait 2 damn days to let the money enter my account. The rest of the month is spent scraping all the money I just lost back together, only to watch it wiped out again the next month because of the same crap that I just spent several weeks on the phone attempting to avoid happening again. And people wonder why I don't have any savings, and why I'm always an angry, stressed out jerk around the beginning of the month.

Posted at 8:12PM, Dec. 1, 2016

Yeah tanks are sweet rides. Two hours of maintenance for every hour of operation. Riding on top because all the dust gets sucked inside and you can't breathe. Seventy tons of death dealing genius that requires more loving care than a spouse. Combat arm of decision that an NCO has to spend every waking minute making sure no one is slacking off. God, I love the stench of diesel exhaust on a cold morning. That's the true scent of victory. Helicopters over flies, armor takes possession.

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 2, 2016

Living without glasses for the first time in my life is a wonderful experience. However the pain and discomfort can be excruciating. Rub my eyes to get the sleep out if them and feel like I got poked repeatedly in the eye for a few hours. And then there is post operative sensitivity to changes in the barometric pressure. Owowowowow…

And I work at night. Around trucks and bright headlights. Too loud. Too bright. But I look so cool in sunglasses at night. Owowow.

Posted at 10:12PM, Dec. 2, 2016

The new Bravo1102:

This is your life now man.
Time to get your jackets retailored… it's gonna be hard fitting them over your giant shoulders.

Posted at 1:12AM, Dec. 4, 2016

I am so done with talking to people who lack abstract thinking ability.
Sorry moron, the world is not black and white, language is not scientific notation where each word has strict, single, quantifiable, universal eternal meanings. What YOU understand from a statement is not necessarily what was intended you stupid bloody halfwit, you lack the ability to understand nuance, intention, or context because you are a fool with the reasoning ability of a house pet.

It's funny that poetry is one of the oldest celebrated art forms and yet even thousands of years later modern people still have so much trouble understanding that language is not simple 1+1 mathematical symbols.

Posted at 4:12AM, Dec. 4, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
I am so done with talking to people who lack abstract thinking ability.
Sorry moron, the world is not black and white, language is not scientific notation where each word has strict, single, quantifiable, universal eternal meanings. What YOU understand from a statement is not necessarily what was intended you stupid bloody halfwit, you lack the ability to understand nuance, intention, or context because you are a fool with the reasoning ability of a house pet.

It's funny that poetry is one of the oldest celebrated art forms and yet even thousands of years later modern people still have so much trouble understanding that language is not simple 1+1 mathematical symbols.

I'll miss talking to you too.

If language was like that dictionaries would have one definition for each word and every dictionary would be identical. Too many variables to reduce language to mathematics. Language is a highly complex relationship of logarithmic variables that would fill hundreds of chalkboards with mathematical symbols.

That's why there are lawyers and huge libraries of law and precedent and language to remove all doubt as to the meaning of words used in contracts and law. You really can argue the meaning of "is" in a contract. There are that many nuances to language.

Posted at 5:12AM, Dec. 4, 2016

Indeed.
And English is particularly expressive because the amount of borrowed words gives us synonyms and homophones to use creatively in all sorts of ways to indicate a hell of a lot of subtlety. Simile, metaphor, and kenning expands it even more! Not only the use of direct words but the imagery that symbolises them.

You can not communicate literally without sounding like a robot. It is up to the listener/reader to interpret the correct meaning using context and the intentions of the communicator.

I find people who use a lot of sarcasm are poor communicators- they tend to assume that the intentions of others are always as nasty/disingenuous as theirs, and their own concept of verbal humour is nothing more than a crude barrier to communication.

Posted at 6:12AM, Dec. 4, 2016

Happy Birthday, bravo1103

Have a sweet ride. :)