Thread "Happy 2019! General discussion thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 4:06PM, Jun. 25, 2018

I also don't do physics, but do cute creatures! Why do Bats get so much hate!! This guy is adorbs~

He was so patient (or likely traumatized). Showed me his teeth once, and then I scooped him up and he went limp. Which was either "I give up. Go ahead and eat me." Or "I'm just a dead bat here. Nothing worth looking at. Move along.) Then he carefully folded his wings up as I put him in a box, and he didn't move for an hour. -_- I'm glad he wasn't hurt. My dog thinks all furry things are puppies.

As for other conversation, it's funny what we learn for the sake of creation. Not astrophysics, but I have become more informed about ballistics. And rules of some sports. And emergency procedures and chain of command – which was a required course for work, as was first aid and CPR, but it's useful in my writing.

When I was a teen, I tried writing a space opera. It was terrible. Worst cliches around. There was a "chosen one" being hunted by interdimensional assassins and everything. (Hollywood probably would have loved it. I abandoned it like a hundred other projects.)

Posted at 1:06AM, Jun. 28, 2018

bravo1102 wrote:
Can't ever admit you don't know what you're talking about…

North Americans have a very narrow view on words like "cheerleader" and "mascot", that may be were your problem is. :D
The particular bizarre collage/highschool sport culture that birthed those concepts in the way they you understand them doesn't exist in the rest of the world so naturally I do not think in the same terms as you and so it's also unnatural for me to express myself in the same way, BUT I can understand why you DO think in them.

It's like me saying: "I just had some biscuits with margarine and Vegemite on them". Or "The liberal party are a bunch of conservative wankers!"…
Ironscarf might say "Oooh err Matron, when you bend over I can't half see your pants!"
-Various words have different meanings across culture and those change the meaning of sentences and expression.

Culture influences language and expression more than we realise, even though we're all English speakers and we imagine we share the same global culture.
Increasingly I find that very important to remember, especially when speaking to people who have English as a second language who might be even less aware of the cultural differences between English speakers.

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In other news it seems that DD may be getting the comment reply notifications stuff soooooooon. It's taken so long and so much testing.
And HTTPS.

Posted at 4:06AM, Jun. 28, 2018

I noticed when the site "blinked" and suddenly the comment notification showed up!

There are some delays with reply buttons and ones towards the bottom of the page are really slow. Or it could be my phone. My internet and connections lag because of demands on the service.

Fine print. Read the fine print.

And you know this development is a HUGE incentive for you lurkers to comment so creators see new comments showing up and get their egos boosted!

Posted at 6:06AM, Jun. 28, 2018

bravo1102 wrote:
I noticed when the site "blinked" and suddenly the comment notification showed up!

There are some delays with reply buttons and ones towards the bottom of the page are really slow. Or it could be my phone. My internet and connections lag because of demands on the service.

Fine print. Read the fine print.

And you know this development is a HUGE incentive for you lurkers to comment so creators see new comments showing up and get their egos boosted!

Yes, comments and replies are slower now. They used to be scary fast.
It must be because of the new system.
I'm thinking it's a pretty good trade off though

There will be different links and notifications in the top bar soon too when Alexey changes that.
See them on the test site here:
https://next.theduckwebcomics.com/

Posted at 9:06AM, Jun. 28, 2018

Great stuff Ozone and Alexy!! The comment system is so cool, I got giddy when I saw a little "1"

Posted at 10:06AM, Jun. 28, 2018

So glad that now when I binge read archives I can leave comments and know the creator will see them! Will probably make me a more active commenter.

Posted at 12:06PM, Jun. 28, 2018

Guess this is another reason not to delete my crappy finished comic archive. I can finally see when there are new comments as opposed to my previous semi-annual revisit to see just how awful the stuff was.

Posted at 2:06PM, Jun. 28, 2018

bravo1102 wrote:

…And you know this development is a HUGE incentive for you lurkers to comment so creators see new comments showing up and get their egos boosted!

Were you ever in sales…? :D

Posted at 2:06PM, Jun. 28, 2018

Oh Nos - now we're less likely to click on a comic to just see if a reply has been made to our comments. That's gonna reduce creators' page hits 0o0

Back it out Noooooowww! :D

Seriously it's an awesome feature I'm gonna love!

Posted at 12:06AM, Jun. 29, 2018

Check out the links in the top bar! Those are my fave bit! Especially the icons 😁😁😁😁😁😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😁😁😁😁

Posted at 1:06AM, Jun. 29, 2018

KimLuster wrote:
bravo1102 wrote:

…And you know this development is a HUGE incentive for you lurkers to comment so creators see new comments showing up and get their egos boosted!

Were you ever in sales…? :D

Retail for too long. But its actually from CBT and leadership/instructors classes. You like what someone does? Tell them. You slavishly follow a comic? Tell the creator. A kind word in the right ear can mean so much.

Posted at 6:07PM, Jul. 4, 2018

Dog woke me at 4 am because there was another bat in the house. I put it in a box outside my window like the previous one (I'm on the second floor), but it was still there in the daylight, so I brought it inside for the day.

Just finished releasing it into the night.

Spent the day trying to figure out what crack or hole I might have missed, putting tape around my window fans, shoving paper towels into loose places around window frames.

I am extremely grateful to my dog. If I had slept through a bat in the house, safety procedures would require the bat be destroyed and expensive rabies vaccine treatment for me. (Dog is vaccibated. Like $20 for him, potentially thousands for a person.)

Last year, my dog discovered a leak in the walls of my RV and may have literally saved the whole thing from ruin.

Good dog.

Posted at 7:07PM, Jul. 4, 2018

usedbooks wrote:
Dog woke me at 4 am because there was another bat in the house.

You'll end up EXACTLY like Nick Cage in Vampire's Kiss ;)

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 6, 2018

Guys, since we're talking sales, don't forget to PQ me for a twitter feature. This Sunday's slot is still open.

Posted at 9:07AM, Jul. 8, 2018

Tantz was 100% right about Avatar.
So very right.

Oh, it's an extremely well made film in every respect apart from the theme which is as heavy handed as you can get. Fully automatic 25mm depleted uranium 2000rpm cringe-cannon!
Hardcore cringe.
And Titanic inspired theme music which was nassssty,

Basing those aliens directly off of first nations peoples, even down to the hairstyles and the bone necklaces was OH-MY-GOD level cringe. I wonder if there are other planets out there where the aliens are just carbon copies of human ethnic groups with animal faces and rainbow skin?
Pink Tutsi Warrior mongoose people!
Green Scottish ogres… oh, that was Shrek, opps…
Purple Pygmy possums!

Posted at 6:07PM, Jul. 9, 2018

What I remember most about when Avatar came out was how in November all the reviews were calling it the greatest movie of all time, and a lock to sweep the Oscars, and then by January it just got a few technical awards on the actual night.

Buyer's remorse set in real quick on that movie.

Posted at 4:07AM, Jul. 10, 2018

Gunwallace wrote:
What I remember most about when Avatar came out was how in November all the reviews were calling it the greatest movie of all time, and a lock to sweep the Oscars, and then by January it just got a few technical awards on the actual night.

Buyer's remorse set in real quick on that movie.

I can imagine that.
I also have to wonder why the y had an Aussie in the lead role. Can't Americans hear when he constantly flubs the accent? XD

Posted at 10:07AM, Jul. 10, 2018

ozoneocean wrote:
Gunwallace wrote:
What I remember most about when Avatar came out was how in November all the reviews were calling it the greatest movie of all time, and a lock to sweep the Oscars, and then by January it just got a few technical awards on the actual night.

Buyer's remorse set in real quick on that movie.
I can imagine that.
I also have to wonder why the y had an Aussie in the lead role. Can't Americans hear when he constantly flubs the accent? XD

We don't care! We have Brits playing the lead roles of Southerners in the Walking Dead!! They do a pretty good job too, IMO. It's funny, I remember in the American Godzilla movie (awful but not the point…) a French Soldier pretended to be an American by doing an Elvis Accent (and it worked)!

Posted at 1:07PM, Jul. 10, 2018

KimLuster wrote:
ozoneocean wrote:
Gunwallace wrote:
What I remember most about when Avatar came out was how in November all the reviews were calling it the greatest movie of all time, and a lock to sweep the Oscars, and then by January it just got a few technical awards on the actual night.

Buyer's remorse set in real quick on that movie.
I can imagine that.
I also have to wonder why the y had an Aussie in the lead role. Can't Americans hear when he constantly flubs the accent? XD

We don't care! We have Brits playing the lead roles of Southerners in the Walking Dead!! They do a pretty good job too, IMO. It's funny, I remember in the American Godzilla movie (awful but not the point…) a French Soldier pretended to be an American by doing an Elvis Accent (and it worked)!

Haha, it sometimes makes me laugh hearing english actors do american accents and vice versa. When I first saw Spike in Buffy I thought James Marsters was going for an Australian accent. Similarly I recently watched a new series with Michael C Hall from Dexter doing an english accent and he flubbed it a lot but when he got it right it was spot on. It still seemed odd hearing him speak with out his natural accent. Also whenever I see James Marsters in anything other than Buffy I think he sounds odd WITH his normal accent.

Posted at 1:07AM, Jul. 11, 2018

They're actors. Doing dialect is part of the job. When done well its amazing but most of the examples here are pretty pedestrian. Ever see Robert Duvall in the Seven Percent Solution?

When asked why Xena was done in American accents as opposed to New Zealand "because American accents are the easiest for a new Zealander to do." As well as being the easiest to understand for nearly all English speakers from decades of being bombarded by American media.

And it provides a great living for dialogue coaches.

My favorite is Kevin Kline in French Kiss. He does Frenchmen so well. And ever see Jack Palance act in a foreign language as opposed to reading lines phonetically? He was fluent in French, German and Italian.

Its acting. ;)

And there were all kinds of vintage British movies with a token American character doing the worst American accent imaginable. And how many Brits and such made their living in Hollywood? Errol Flynn was a New Zealander, Cary Grant a cockney and Maureen O'Hara was from Ireland. There are times you always hear that Irish inflection no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Ain't nothing new. Its acting. :)

Posted at 2:07AM, Jul. 11, 2018

bravo1102 wrote:
Errol Flynn was a New Zealander

No, he was pure Aussie, born in the state of Tasmania ;)
Unlike Russell Crowe who's an NZedder and often gets confused with an Aussie, or Mel Gibson who's pure American but lived here in Aus for a few years in his teens.

We're mostly talking about BAD acting though :D
Bad accents

On that note Errol mostly only did Australian or English accents. I can't recall him doing a bad American one.

Posted at 2:07AM, Jul. 11, 2018

ozoneocean wrote:
bravo1102 wrote:
Errol Flynn was a New Zealander
No, he was pure Aussie, born in the state of Tasmania ;)
Unlike Russell Crowe who's an NZedder and often gets confused with an Aussie, or Mel Gibson who's pure American but lived here in Aus for a few years in his teens.

We're mostly talking about BAD acting though :D
Bad accents

On that note Errol mostly only did Australian or English accents. I can't recall him doing a bad American one.

You're right. Tasmanian. He did plenty of movies where he tried to convince audiences he was American or Canadian. I got confused because in one movie where Errol Flynn is portrayed he's called a kiwi and goes off on the guy beating him to a pulp. I think it was The Aviator about Howard Hughes who used to party with Flynn in Hollywood.

Try watching Robert Mitchum in Legend of the Lost (?) He does an Australian accent, fairly competently, but you can't over it's Robert Mitchum so it sounds awful. There's also one where he does a great cockney– but again it's Robert Mitchum and it sounds so fake.

Then there's the great Tony Curtis. No matter what exotic locale he was in, playing a Viking or a Cossack, he always sounded like a nice Jewish boy from da Bronx. "We're gonna attack da castle" But audiences ate it up.

Did you know that Bernard Cornwell changed the whole origin and description of Sharpe to allow for Sean Bean's broad North British accent? The character was originally a Londoner and later it was put in that he was sent to an orphanage in Yorkshire.

There are any number of American actors who are from the South who worked very hard to overcome their twang.

Posted at 4:07AM, Jul. 11, 2018

Sean became way TOO Northern in the later episodes of Sharpe, it sounded silly.

Speaking of bad accents: Nick Cage in Vampire's Kiss. It's so weird… Some sort of mix of the surfer dude he played in Valley girl and a parody of a New York businessman. It's bizarre.

I LOVED him in Raising Arizona a the year before, where he speaks in an accent the Cohen brothers invented. Sort of Georgia sounding I think (apparently), nothing like an Arizona accent, so they say.

Posted at 4:07AM, Jul. 11, 2018

There was an episode of Sharpe done in Yorkshire and he just let loose. :D way too much. And then he did a version of Anna Karenina. I hear those Northern Russians have very broad accents. It was a disaster.

At the exact opposite end is Rutger Hauer. He sounds more American than some Americans. All the right inflections.

And poor Jeremy Kemp. A beautiful British accent and a career spent playing Germans. Since some movies had native Germsn actors with the real accents, directors made non-German co stars put on German accents and sometimes the results were nearly comical. George Peppard and Marlon Brando especially.

Posted at 9:07PM, Jul. 11, 2018

John Wayne as Genghis Kahn. :)
I could never take Hugh Laurie seriously as "House". so WEIRD to see him do an American accent, even though he was good at it, unlike Ian McShane in Deadwood. OMG he's horrible at accents. Love him as an actor though.
Rutgar is SO boring now. I was sad that he lost his accent. Arnold Schwarzenegger had the right idea. Rutgar got baaaaad advice.

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How is the comment notification thing working for people?