I have a question: In this stars-are-drowning-children scheme, what do the Big Stars mean? Bigger families?

Everywhere you go, with every word you say, Stephen Fry is giving you a freaked out glance.

In that case, I am required to notify you that Messr. is actually a sarcastic way to call someone conceited, Messrs. being the appropriate plural of Mr. Good day, sir.

I think the Stephen Fry avatar is particularly appropriate since he recently admitted to having manic depressive disorder.

Or rather, I recently watched a documentary about it which could have been made years ago. Who knows.

Well, I knew he was manic depressive, but... How... how is that appropriate? Is it appropriate for, like, me? Or the situation?

I suspect he realizes that any foreign person trapped in an argument with Stephen Colbert would be so crushed by the overwhelming superiority of the United States of America that he would be cast into the utmost dysphoria.

Considering Stephen Colbert's wonderous grasp of things that are excellent outside of the U.S. and his acute self-awareness of the U.S's horrific foreign policy, your comment has the worst synergy with your Avitaricon ever.

That or you're missing: [sarcasm][/sarcasm]

Yeah, I'm not sure why, but I thought the "he" in gormster's first sentence referred to me.

...pretty retarded, in retrospect.

More like [incharacter][/incharacter]

I missed a subtle joke on the internet?! Me!

*sigh*

My name is Philippe. I am 5. I am learning about Hobos!

No.

Woo, yeah! Looks like Waco is the children-drowning capital, though. Austin moms need to get to work...

I was thinking it looked like Dallas had the big star... HELL YEAH, METROPLEX!

Dallas is not that far south...yay!

To be fair, it's worth noting that Texas is the second most populous state in the US. The screamers per capita award appears to go to Mississippi.

or maybe it is just hidden by Beef's speech!

who knows, there could be drownings happening in upstate New York as he speaks and we will never know. :[

Nah, upstate New York is all mountains and frozen bodies of water.

They just leave the kids to freeze there.

Same in the Northwest -- anybody remember Diane Downes?

You're thinking of the South, or possibly the Midwest.

I was actually kind of comforted by that.

the line in panel five made this one Great Great Great!!

Last two panels are the funniest panels with just text I have ever seen.

Beef really cares, things about the bigger picture... but it also makes him throw up, so...

Er... how?

he meant panel 11... his upper lip, specifically. I noticed it too. It's weird. Also, what the hell are you doing responding to a year old comment? How could you have the audacity to assume someone would reply? Well... you got LUCKY this time...

Whenever I wake up too early, I also start thinking morbid thoughts. "I wonder if anyone I knew died while I was asleep."

Poor Beef :(

that is exactly what i thought.

:-(

hopefully he will recover soon w/ Molly snorgles.

austin!

Moving there next year! Good to know Achewood peeps will be around.

Yeah I'm going to just hazard the guess that Austin has one of the highest percentages of Achewood readers for American cities.

Yep. I read it, and so do a lot of my friends.

Let's all give a round of applause for Austin.

Austin's a good town. Very few children drowned by their mothers. That's Houston.

apt description

Stats don't lie. You can't just go around putting bug stars on maps without some kind of science, and we all know about science.

The funny thing about people from Austin is whenever they are gathered together there is basically always a spontaneous applause for their treasured city. We are a people who love ourselves and each other and have this amazing pride in our choice of location. And right we should in some ways; I for one have never felt at home anywhere else.

PS:I think I got some lames up there for implying that Onstad might have ever done something someone didn't like. Sweet.

Well, here's a chub for posterity. For Austin.

I talked about Austin before I scrolled down.

I feel left out of this, because I wasted my whooo.

That's cool and all, and rest assured I wasn't the one who lamed you, but writers rarely make fun of cities in direct proportion to their dislike for them. If that was the case here, Onstad's most despised city would be Austin, and his second-most despised city would be Clovis, NM, which seems unlikely. Not that I know what he was up to, but many writers make fun of the cities about which they have mixed feelings, not which they stone-cold despise.

P.S. Your city keeps West Texas and the Louisiana Coast in poverty that it might experience the power of Manhattan-priced beers.

We... We're making the South poor by drink decent beer? Is that it?

So you admit that people from Austin are yankees? You'll never beat Perry with that attitude.

I still have no idea what you mean. At all.

I was being hyperbolic, and the Yankee-Perry business was purely a joke, in case that was unclear. I assumed that Texans would have some idea what I was talking about, and your question was poking fun at how overwrought I am. Please feel free to consider me overwrought when I've explained myself, as I intend to get bored before you do.

First, Austin is a technological hub, which is fair enough, though that's not as big a slice of the economy as it used to be. It also has Texas' big State University (I know you know these things, public forum and whatnot). Because of that University and (to a much greater degree) the fact that it houses the massive and wealthy state government, it attracts all sorts of investors, but especially real estate investors who wish to work in the state of Texas, with its leasing laws so famously biased towards landowners. These real estate investors will live in Austin, and buy land in rural, especially west, Texas. We then have money flowing "up" from impoverished west Texas to further stimulate the solid Austin economy.

As for Louisiana, I refer to the oil investors of Austin, and the partitioning of the oil resources of the Gulf of Mexico unfairly in Texas' favor.

Both those things are also true of Houston, with one huge difference being that Austin is actually a pleasant place to live, and Houston isn't even a pleasant place to smell from a distance. And the University of Texas at Austin does stimulate the economy statewide, as well as make a legitimate contribution to world knowledge. Parents throughout Texas send their bright and ambitious kids to Austin, where they pay 50% more for a Newcastle than they would in Albuquerque, money that comes at least in part from their parents, elsewhere in Texas. That's a small scam, and those parents know full well they're coming out ahead with UT. But again, it's money flowing "up."

Okay, I sort of get it now, but you got to admit, it is indeed a long and winding road of logic from talking about beer prices to the real estate, oil partitioning, and University-funded industries of the South and Southwest.

US 290

baZING-G-G-G-G-G

That's spinynorman! He's funny! He's not usually in my bedroom, though.

Wow. I think my head is going to explode with all of the information I'm currently trying to process.

That's such a perfect encapsulation of the 4:32 AM experience. Unless you're in college, in which case it means you should get to bed before the fucking sun comes up.

I think that at least two times most days, more if I take a nap. (First post-midnight, second at seven AM, and from then on upon waking.)

It's also what I think when I wake up on every day that doesn't start with an "S".

Connecticut: the best place not to drown your baby.

Connecticut women have the maid do it.

Zing.

sign me up for so much spam!

Just a little tweeking, and you've got youself a haiku:

Damn fucking weather
Coming into our country
Taking our jobs

Holy crap... I wrote that before I saw your next post about haikus...

I'm totally freaking out right now!

Your picture is a dude with his head up his own ass! It took me sooooo long. To find out. But I found out.

Before I thought it was a ninja in a black mask with a turd on his head.

Your picture is a tasty snack! I knew right away.

Oh! Oh, I see it now! Man, maybe you shouldn't have made it a black background? That's really hard to see.

15 points to the first person who figures out what or where my pic is.

"Mondrian ceiling" would be a good band name

Hooray for the Beatles!

One way ticket, yeah

I love baffling sound.

how does a child scream if he or she is underwater?

insta-chubbied

errantly-lamed
I accidentally clicked the lame link rather than its chubby neighbor, and now I want a do-over.

I seem to get a lot of accidental laming on Acheworld nowadays!

But it's all right, you get a chubby for owning up to it.

that is a sound of nightmares

'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!' being screamed hysterically from the door is also a sound of nightmares.

69 now. Freud might have something to say about this.

hedonismbot>>pro ASAP ago

...masturbating furiously

Got your back HB.

Ha ha ha, oh those Wise Guys...

All coming from Chicago on Mafia business, all dunking people's heads in deep fryers, all getting lame shows on HBO...

No mothers drowning their children in Kentucky or Tennessee? Is it because of the lack of indoor plumbing?

As a lifelong Tennessee resident, I would like to point you to the above comment about Louisiana.

I hate it when it's 15 seconds ago...


forever.

As a man of science shouldn't Beef make a noise blocking device to put over his head so he can heave in his own bathroom. Some sort of Barf Bowl. Like a divers helmet, but bigger. Oh but where will he keep it. I guess it's just too much hassle.

this is classic beef, man.

Have you guys read Chris Ware's stuff? Onstad talks about him a lot, and I think his influence is really shining through in these all-text panels.

I love this book