I thought if anyone would get that, it'd be you, achilles. I just had a hunch.

but, what if he turns into a monster?

You're going to feel like a prize numpty if your chosen candidate turns out to be a holocaust denier or some such before polling day.

You Americans are lucky. I had to settle for napkin labeled "Dion" at a Shell.

Canadian politicians are not interesting enough to appear on Slurpee cups.

Jesus Christ, don't make this into another goddamn political debate. Also, lame for hijacking the beginning. Cheap trick.
Otherwise, keep up the good work.

I am a proud member of the Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle Party.

The party platform involves not much more than the weaponization of space.

I would be the first sad bastard in line to become a Space Marine.

i will both support and fund your "bloody coup initiative."

for the children, of course.

now all we need are some top level former officials with an axe to grind, anyone have contact info for colin powel and mr. and mrs. joseph wilson?

FactsPolls are meaningless. You could use factspolls to prove anything that%u2019s even remotely true!

You know, the worse you make me feel about voting, the less I want to vote just to spite you. When Puff Daddy is busting down the door with a gun, I'm gonna blame it all on drskradley.

Make sure you scream "AL QAEEEDA!" when Diddy comes through the door.

I have a feeling that this is because DrSkradley is Australian, and here in Australia voting is mandatory. I'll agree that sometimes, mandatory voting is stupid (like in the most recent local government elections - I actually have no idea who I even voted for, there were just nine independents) but it's basically the fundamnetal tenet of democracy that everyone votes. Not some people. Not just the people who feel strongly about the election. Everyone. Is it a mild inconvenience to vote? Suck it up. You have to. Although it probably helps that our elections are usually on weekends, and I am given to understand that yours are not. I don't care. If you don't vote, you don't give a shit about democracy. Did I just say if you don't vote you hate America? Maybe.

By the way: by "mandatory" I mean "if you don't do it you'll get a $26 fine and a warning that next time it could be more than that."

God bless Australia.

While an interesting concept I support the radical plan of having fewer people vote. In fact, I want everyone else to just plain knock it off and leave it up to me. I'll do all the voting from here on out. Won't that be a lot more convenient?

No, you Aussies are the cunts for being such suckers. Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that in Australia there are no computerized voting machines. No machinery at all - just pen, paper, and eyeballs. Come on, I am waiting.

Wait, is it a problem that there are no voting machines? There aren't, in case that was a legitimate question, the votes get recorded on computers but they are looked upon by people and written upon by pencils. I don't get it. I know we are kinda "behind the times" but at the same time, the computerised versions in the States have no hardcopy backups. They are entirely untested. Stupid stupid stupid.

Anyways, the reason "everyone voting" is vital to democracy is that the idea of democracy is that the party in charge represents the opinion of the majority. These days the majority tends to be less than significant, but at least it is the actual majority of the public, not just the majority of the people who could be bothered to show up at the polls.

A) There are only a few jurisdictions in the States that use entirely paperless voting machines. They are indeed jurisdictions led by stupid people.

B) The States is not a Democracy. It's a Republic. I think your second paragraph is entirely irrelevant to the intended functioning of the government of the United States. Sorry.

I used to agree with this philosophy. Then I grew up, became formally introduced to the World at Large, and redacted my stance. Some people have no idea what's going on in their own country, and the thought of one of the douchenozzles I've met who can't even name their own prime minister actually showing up to vote scares the hell out of me. (Fortunately, these people are not voting; they will never vote, ever.)

Hi randombeing. I'll try and do bbcode properly next time.

I think the low voter turn out in the States is due to the long-winded American political campaigns. Compare them to Canada, you get some perspective. In the States, the candidates have been running since like January, and both parties have been preparing for the election for a lot longer than that. The Canadian election was announced less than 2 months ago. The vote is in 2 weeks, and then it will be over. You guys in the US still won't have a president until late January.

Voter turnout in Canada is 76%, whereas turnout in the states is 54% for a congressional election, and less than that for a general election. People are just sick of politics by the time the election rolls around.

Gee Dave, that sounds kind of... "elitist".

The ensuing arguments summarized here.

I totally expected to be redirected to a poor photoshop of Irondave fellating a line up of history's most hated political figures, then.

Or perhaps Rick Astley singing that he was never gonna give me up.

But does it sound... "incorrect"?

Not at all. I was just surprised to hear you make that argument, since I imagined how you might respond if I had said the same thing. How do you think it would tilt the results though?

I think when you are talking about a US Presidential election, there is no way to know how higher turnout would effect results. Since my view is that the uninformed come in all political stripes, any analysis would have to assume an awful lot, and the outcome would mostly be a result of the assumptions. The Electoral College mechanism and the roughly evenly-divided nature of the US now make the whole idea basically a crapshoot.

Ray got sucked in, too.

As it turned out, I didn't have any lames to give. I was told to "do something nice for a change". The nerve!

I haven't been able to lame anything since like January. I wouldn't very much anyway, but sometimes I'm tempted and click the button, only to be faced with the idea that I have to actually write out what I find so lame about the post in question.

It's worth pointing out that I just got lamed for never laming anything

I think many people wished it was really something simple and chicks' lower halves would be all "Good Times" no less.

"Seriously baby, it's the Venus Butterfly. It'll be great, don't you worry. All the models in Paris are doin' it."

Or a Quarter Pounder meal, some tongue depressors, and a scalpel, all telling you how far down your throat to put the tongue depressors while she starts carving "ugly" into her thigh.

Dude, too far. This is the Colonel you're talking to, don't bring up the Competition.

Dear the Colonel,
I am a skinny man who is considering becoming a heavy-set man. Any council you can give is appreciated.
Yours,
Zebra

Glad to help. Here's what you do:

Eat and eat and eat. And when your stomach is about full to bursting, and it's screaming at you that you can't eat another bite?

That's when you tell it to shut up, and keep on eating.

(clap clap) Bring Monsieur a bucket.

What is the meaning of it all?

fourty-two

Someone actually described the Butterfly to me years before LA Law aired. I have tried it (or at least a variation), and it worked OK, but not as well as depicted on LA Law.

Well, now YOU have to tell us what it is.

(He obviously isn't doing it right.)

What we need is more Science!

It was described to me as simultaneous manual stimulation of everything your hands can reach on a lady's bottom. Why a "buttefly"? Put your thumbs next to each other and wiggle your hands and fingers. That should be enough instruction for a go-getter like you, achilles. Don't be afraid to also involve your mouth. In stimulation, I mean, not speaking.

That is the most perfect thing to find on sale at a Japanese store EVER.

<head explodes>

Oh, that's right, it's School Holidays. It all makes sense. Party on sir.

"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

[IMGS OFF]

So, is Winston British-style flipping us off, here? Because in every other photo he's doing it the other way around. Also, shame on you, HW

I know! Putting up bunny ears behind his mother like that!

That was the original 'V for Victory' sign, he changed it to palm-outwards fairly early on.

I can totally see his handlers. "No! He did it again. Will someone get Winsty on the phone and remind him it's palms out! Please! We lost five points last time, we just can't keep up with the polls if he's goin' keep doing this shit."

That's what he's thinking. Just look at that smirk.

Also, V-chub for caring about your civic duty.

I think the chances of a candidate winning by one vote are actually nonexistent, what with the electoral college and all. I don't think that can happen.

But yeah I agree with you in the main I think

True, except when you remember the obvious fact that nothing anyone ever does can possibly matter in any way. Don't forget about that.

Of course. Which is why I never vote :)

The dictionary definition of resignation. Best when served with a hardy side dish of cynacism. Serve cold. Bon Apetit!

Mom, don't look. I'm about to chubby theirateturk. I know it would break your heart

I'll agree it felt dirty and yet, liberating.

That's what his girlfriend said when she was stumbling out of the locker room...

Voting and littering are not the same at all, but the false mindset of "What can but one person do?" applies to both.

Not in the same way, they don't. And that mindset has little to do with anything (it's not my reason for not voting). All decisions come down to cost/benefit and whether it's worth doing in that regard. All things considered, it is not worth it for me to vote.

To give you a littering example (to demonstrate the concept in a way that you seem to want it demonstrated): If I am swimming in the ocean with a piece of garbage in my hand (don't ask, thats just how I roll, baby), and I see someone drowning, it is no longer worth it for me to find a garbage can. I will litter that shit right into the ocean and save a life.

This is an extreme example, but it applies to voting, just on a much smaller scale. The garbage can is voting booth, and the drowning person is other shit I can do with my time.

If your mind works properly, the only problem you can have with my outlook is that I am sharing it and passing it on to others, which has an impact outside of whether I vote or not. Just remember that I'm not the one who brought up politics in the Achewood comments. I only replied to the political bullshit that pollutes the few escapes I have from it.

And I bet you brilliant motherfuckers don't even see the irony in downvoting/censoring what I have to say while you're supposedly supporting this "everyone gets a fair say and it counts!" mindset.

This is my last comment on the matter. We should remember that we all love Achewood and so are probably not all that different. If I could talk instead of type comments, I could say it in a tone of voice that you don't misinterpret and get pissed at. Achewood, go.

With all due respect (and barely a trace of true bitchiness), would any or all participants in this political conversation be interested in continuing things over here?

I mean, I won't be there, but it may be better suited to all of this.

Just a thought.

Oh, and OFF THE FUCKING PIGS! That may be the closest thing I have to a political conviction these days.

Unless you vote, I will fully ignore any future bitching on your part about the state of the government. I don't care if you elect for the "wrong guy" and he fucks up, just don't complain if you're not gonna vote.

What if I don't vote because I consider myself to be exogenous to the model of you petty people.

Defacing the ballot works too.

Meh [/shrug]

The fact that you find yourself exogenous is far less workable than the lack of desire to vote.

If you wish, try living in complete isolation from us petty people. That means, eat only food you grow yourself, use only tools you build yourself, dispose of all of your trash and waste and other by-products of living on your own land, pay no taxes, earn no income, use only electricity you generate yourself with equipment you build yourself - Or just get that you are part of extended systems that are as much a part of you as your ass and mouth and hands, and without which you have no real life. Then decide if it is worth declaring your desires, no matter how individually feeble or misguided, on how you want these systems run and managed.

You don't have to exercise either, and over time, even if you do, you'll put on weight, so why bother?

Lamed not because you don't vote, but because you are not voting for the wrong reason. Don't not vote because you are only one person. theirateturk is completely right - you have no idea what you are talking about in that second paragraph.

I am all for looking at voting from a scientific perspective - that's why I'm not voting this year. I hope to vote in the future, but not in this election.

However, when you make the argument that your vote almost never counts, you are flat out wrong. Polls are inherently statistical in nature: The purpose of the election poll is to determine who America really wants to be president, and the best way to do that is to get the largest sample size possible. By voting, you are contributing to that sample size. You are not voting for your candidate, you are voting for America (my god that sounds corny in retrospect... but I can't think of a more concise way to make that point).

The way I see it, with that reasoning, you shouldn't vote if and only if you genuinely do not know who should be president. Personally, I am at a point where I have heard enough contradicting "facts" from both sides that I have determined I will not know whether I believe McCain or Obama would make a better president. It is my hope that I will be able to discern a clearer truth in future elections (though I doubt it will be an entirely clear truth), and I will vote then, when I can properly choose.

But if you do vote, your vote always counts.

Fortunately, they disagree on enough major issues for me to decide who I prefer. Now, McCain vs. Ron Paul would be a tough call...

Why is voting considered such a patriotic act and donating money to candidates considered borderline sleazy?

My vote for Barack will add nothing because he's already going to win my state by about 20 points, but I'll get to wear an "I Voted" sticker and tell everyone that my opinion matters because I pulled a lever that didn't benefit my candidate at all.

If instead I donated money to him, it would actually help him pursue votes in swing states that matter - but nobody would say I had done anything patriotic - all I'd get is my name published online for purposes of public scrutiny and suspicion. I know the donations (both which candidates and the amounts) made by some of my friends because they are published online - we wouldn't do that with votes, would we?

BOO TO THAT

A wasted vote is something entirely different, but imagine how much less of a mandate Bush would have had if every Gore voter turned up to vote and he got even more raped in the popular vote.

That's true. I don't say there's absolutely no value to voting in a locked-up state, but I do think it's odd that we elevate voting so much when there are other ways of being politically involved that actually make a difference.

Sometime I would like to see a summary of American voter turnout in states that were considered "in play" at the time of voting. I think we get an unnecessarily bad rap for our turnout when our biggest states (Texas, California, New York) are basically set in stone.

Actually, I was interested enough in this to go get some real facts to see if I was right - and I kind of was, kind of wasn't.

Go to page nine of this[url=www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf]Census Bureau report[/url]. It shows turnout by state in 2004.

This isn't quite as much of a spread as I'd expected, and all this is complicated by the fact that there are other races in each state that may affect turnout, but I think the principle holds true - our turnout numbers are dragged down by the (very large) locked up states.

Wow, my first BBcode gaffe. Actually upon inspection I can't tell what's wrong with it. I'll go simple:

www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf

So what you're saying is that the electoral college system is the reason people don't vote as much? Or do you think that it is basically ok.

Uh. Y-yes?

My vote for Barack will add nothing because I live in Arizona, in a very red district. McCain is guaranteed to win my state. Doesn't mean I can't make a dent with the local candidates though.

plus, those "I voted" stickers get you laid

What if you don't vote because you don't believe in government?
Does that still make you a lazy and impotent cunt?

No. It makes you a lazy and impotent anarchist.

Welcome to my world.

Yeah, I've been a bit put off by these false promises. GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME ONSTAD.

Panel 17: All I care to know about anatomy

It would be a more efficient lookup to say Panel -7 (from the end)

wisdom-rock it so hard a man forgets who's on the penny

What's a penny?

Half my point.

The death of that kitten made the gorilla sad, if I remember my Reading Rainbow episodes correctly. Aw. :(

oh come on tripleG that was funny

[IMGS OFF]

What was that thing supposed to do? It looks like a radiator in this picture, but I doubt he needs a radiator for his eyes. Did it give him heat vision powers?
Never was into Star Trek.

He was making a fashion statement. Arguably a recent fashion statement is copying it.

[IMGS OFF]

GAH THOSE AREN'T SUNGLASSES SHIIIIIIT THEY MAKE ME SO MAD

Max Headroom says: Cool.

Of the few episodes of Star trek I've seen it was something to the extent of him being blind unless he wore the visor, but it appears to be more of a product of '80s sci-fi fashion than anything else.

He was blind, and the visor let him see, to an extent (it was more like infrared than actual sight). In Star Trek: First Contact, though, technological advances had allowed him to replace his visor with some sort of cybernetic eyes which allowed him to see even better than people with normal vision.

This will probably only make sense to someone who has achieved substantial Weeaboo levels but my Dudes and I used to joke that some of the Star Trek movies were basically like Star Trek: Endless Waltz,* especially Star Trek V when the characters all had those ridiculous turtlenecks as part of their uniforms.

*Here, the Weeaboo refers to the Japanese anime film Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. While movie tie-ins to popular cartoons are commonplace in both American and Japanese milieu, Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, a film based on a TV series of the "giant robot/pseudo-philosophical war story" hybrid-genre, was notable for an explicable cosmetic decision made by the artists and producers. For an apparently unclear reason, all of the giant robots or "Gundams" in the movie had different designs and more advanced weaponry than their TV counterparts. Even a flashback from a scene in the TV show where a Gundam appeared had been redrawn so that the newer design of the Gundam appeared. The film seemed to be asserting that the Gundams had always been designed that way.

Weeaboos have debated the meaning of this decision for the past decade. Some apply Occam's Razor, saying that this was a cynical marketing ploy to get fans of the show to buy even more action figures and model kits. They cite the 1980s animated film Transformers in which it has been documented that a principal reason for the killing of several of the characters was to make room for new characters that children would beg their parents to purchase.

Others have applied symbolic meaning to the gesture, reminding viewers of dialogue delivered by one of the show's villains, Treize Khushrenada, who considers war to have an aesthetic beauty, even projecting this theory onto the whole of humankind, implying that the reasons for war are even more cynical than glory or honor, but for the opportunity to see explosions and gripping battles. Khushrenada cited the very design of giant robots as being more an aesthetic decision than one of military strategy. For this reason, and several other similar scenes, Gundam Wing was considered a postmodern literary work that commented insightfully on the "giant robot" anime genre, making it in some ways, Japan's Watchmen. It's popularity gives credence to the theory that over the past twenty years, Japan has been in a constant state of cumming on its own balls.

Uh...
okay

Doesn't matter if it did or not, I'm fucking sick of hearing about it every strip, a propos to nothing in this thread!

Fooker, don't know if ya' noticed man, but there is a strip up there ain't got nothing to do with you getting head in the airport head. No matter what more you say about it, the Assetbarians will either believe it, or not, and frankly care less with each protestation.

What your missing is that Assetbar added a new feature! Used to be, when you marked a comment lame, it prevented you from doing anything else to that comment ever again. Now, it tells you that you found the comment lame, but it still allows you to ignore the user!

Yeah. But you know I never ignore anyone, and almost never lame. (I have promised to never be one of the first three lames anyway.)
Still, nice to see Assetbar getting smoother.

Well, I was excited about it.

I'm glad to report that you can also ignore a user after marking a comment as spam, but you can't do anything after giving a chubby.

Well, who would ignore after giving a chubby?

Also, I too try to avoid ignore, lechatbotte. I've only ignored a couple times, and that was when somebody posted several really tall spam comments, thus necessitating more scrolling than I would stand for.

I'll try not to do that anymore. <Lowers head meekly in shame.>

I have chubbied the Good Doctor's post, then ignored him.

I read about it in a book on how to improperly kill mice, puppies, and Curley's Wife.

Well, someone ignored fooker. I found him lurking about my ignore list, brought there by the JIA.

It's true, he is somehow ignored by me and I didn't facilitate it, either. I guess 1984 was right...

I don't remember the exact post from the assetbar_admin introducing the auto-ignore thing or whatever it's called, but I thought it had more to do with accumulated lames than accumlated ignores.

Maybe the assetbar_admin should make this new function clear in the ignore list description, since not everyone may have read the original notice?

To all those people who want to read the comments of those people that are auto-ignored, just remove them from you ignore list.

Yea, I think the benefits outweigh the consequences. All you have to do is check the very bottom of the comments on the strip where it shows your collapsed ignores. If you see any names that don't look like aiu clones, you can ctrl-click on the name to view their profile, and click on the number by "comments" to view the first few words of all their recent posts. Then unignore or keep ignored as you wish.

Quote:

I didn't mean you'd want to ignore a post-chubbied user, just that all the links on the comment are turned off at that point. Which highlights the fact that there is nothing here that is the opposite of "ignore user." Maybe we could get a feature that highlights all the comments made by our favorite users? No, we can just use the "find" function in a browser. How about something that auto-chubbies spinynorman whenever we log in?

Shhh! You're not suppose to know about that!

Just out of curiosity, why exactly don't you want to be one of the first three lames? I thought the whole point of the lame system was so that Assetbarians can filter out stuff like the eighth iteration of the airport story and they didn't have to bother telling the dude off about it.

On a completely unrelated note, this one time I got a handjob at a Greyhound station. Oh yeah.

Great question, Nerdinexile. The last time I actually handed out a lame, I saw it as being in defence of someone who didn't need defending. On re-reading the lamed post, I found that it was actually fairly funny and undesearving of the lame. I realized that in the heat and passion of the moment I had acted a right proper imbecile! So, to clean it up, I randomly chubbied the next three remarks from the gentleman I had undeservedely lamed, and foreswore ever being one of the first three lamers on a post, thus ensuring that heat of the moment wouldn't win the day again!

I hope that answers it. (Now, aren't you sorry you asked?)

He's like Superman, but small and impotent.

I don't get it?

...neither does tiny, blank-shooting Superman

That image made me do a :(

He's Auto-Ignored! Yay!

I'm willing to sit through one more iteration of the airport story, but only on the condition that it is in Bel-Air form.

Fooker,

Come on over here, baby girl, and I'll fuck ya so good you'll forget all about yer little stories.

I'll fill ya up with some HOT WHITE NON-FICTION, BITCH!


I'm free Friday.

Excuse ME, Assetbar - I understand he's acting like a douche, but I didn't ask for you to ignore Fooker for me!

Last time I checked this was the Inter-Net and I had some rights!

Didn't you see the post explaining that a while back? Assetbar automatically ignores really lame people now. I haven't really noticed it because no-one that can be cared about has been ignored.

I'm sorry Fooker, I can't care about you. At all.

Rights, no.
We do have tubes, however.

Anybody else think that they're building an internet when they play "Pipe Dream"? It's as if I died and became Al Gore

He has the right to remain silent, apparently.

I find this to be annoying too. Which Assbar Emperor candidate cares about my petty whims? Where can I vote?

For fuck's sake! There's like thirty people on my ignore list! Where the fuck did they even post?

Check some of the names of those people though... mainly AIUbots.

Admittedly, but at least eight are not obviously so. I set my lame threshold to 1000, I want to be able to read rubbish should I so choose. What abitrary limits has assbar set?

This was my original complaint when the JIA was announced. I can skip what I want, and don't need a filter to protect me. The request then was (and still is) the ability to opt out of the JIA machine in my profile. It has not yet happened. I can, however, report that my Ignore list remains in pristine shape, and I will still be able to read fooker ad naseum.

I figure you're in the minority for not wanting to ignore asstards, and this (if it's a choice between jia for everyone and jia for noone) is the best option on average.

I only ignore if their content isn't even relevantly annoying, just taking up space. Alreadyinuse occasionally says something interesting, his ______ASS_BAR____ accounts do not.

dog, i thought the head was... awkward? this post is just all kinds of wrong.

If it's wrong to fill Fooker up with hot white non-fiction, I don't wanna be right.

Get over it, go to the airport more often.

crazy? i was crazy once.

Hey, every man must have his day in the first-post sun.

The heat is blinding

But Teodor isn't most dudes, is he.

Not really, no. He ordered Foie Gras in an arabic voice coming out of his friend's beard during the throws of having his can rocked. That's pretty much not a most dudes thing.

*throes

I imagine he would spring for the filled cake with lots of ornate frosting, on an occasion such as this. Perhaps something with custard.

The custard will be added after the fact

gross.

your comment out of context, yet in conjunction with your avatar is hilarious

I thought yours was a crab

Everyone always does.
Everyone always does

There really needs to be a baked goods exchange. Or at least futures contracts for cookies.

I could not envision sheet cake as anything but bedsheets made of cake. The logistics of which are beyond me, but I'm sure would suffice for Ray's needs.

Since Ray is now a breast man... are the cakes for his can?

Damn, good call. I thought he meant to gesture something like "two seconds, please" but this is the winner of the Badass Games we're talking about here.

Definitely not good-natured. You can even see the tip of his down turned brow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign

Not sure who that reply is meant for, but I'll ignore it in their stead.

That is the best plan given the circumstances.

Let's run with it.

A-Team for Assetbar. I pity the fool that messes with the Commodore.

all other sex acts are heretofore considered jibba-jabba.

I ain't doin' the Commodore on no plane, Hannibal...
[IMGS OFF]

Dear all: Sorry for the damn picture size. Whilst I do not wish for lames, I will understand if they are rained freely about my head. Yours, etc.

WIENER SUPPLY

chubbied for misty water-colored memories that cause me to giggle uncontrollably.

I pity the fool that lames you!

THHBBBBBT

Ack.

u stink but i [heart] u, doc.

Chocolate chocolate chocolate!

MEN ARE MESSY! I AM TOO FAT! MY LIFE IS SO CLUTTERED! ACK ACK ACK!

Syndicate me, Universal Press.

did anyone else see Andy Samberg do a Cathy on SNL? It was like falling in love with him all over again. :0)

that being said ACK I CAN'T FALL IN LOVE WHEN I CAN'T EVEN WEAR A BIKINI ACKK THE LOCKHORNS ARE DRIVING INTO THE CHANGING ROOM

LORETTA YOU ARE A BAD DRIVER AND ALSO YOU COOK FOOD BADLY WHY ARE WE MARRIED LET'S GO ASK THE MARRIAGE COUNSELOR BUT OH NO I'M BEING STUBBORN AND NOT VERY HELPFUL!!! LET'S ASK MARMADUKE WHAT TO DO

WOOF WOOF I'M A BIG DOG THAT GETS IN THE WAY OHHHHHHHHHH MAN

Anyway. When was this? Last week? I don't watch TV on account of my roommate's TV is broken and can't really get cable but can still hook up to his Xbox.

lasagna

That's what he wants you to believe.

No, no, it's true. We spent about 20 minutes on move-in day trying to hook it up. Last year was about the same: we just forgot to sign up for cable so we never found out that this same TV couldn't even hook up for whatever reason. But we but use the XBox so it's all good.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR ANOTHER EXCITING INSTALLMENT OF "THE LIFE OF NICE-ON-WATER"
NEXT TIME, NICK'S STANCE ON TATER TOTS: GLORIFIED HASH BROWNS??

hash brown pods

Basically.

I was actually making a Bill the Cat reference but ok.

I thought so but I was scared to say anything!

So scared.

oh what kind of fool am i


a PLUM fool! ;_(

It seems that you're the only one that you have been thinking of.

delicious

English muffin?

I'm so cool I adapted to both interpretations.

Yeah, I caught that. I think my favorite Bloom County is the one where Binckly finds out that his father's insecurity closet contains a Jehovah Witness pit bull. Nasty little fellow in a tie, all "Let me come in and chew on your leg for a few hours!" Lol!

Too many favorites. I have the Opus collection (featuring Opus in Sunday comics from Bloom, Outland, and the eponymous current thing) and there's so many good ones. I think the one where the alien comes and watches Jimmy and Tammy Faye is up there, and a few Christmas/ Birthday ones. And anything with Bill.

I got it.

we don't syndicate that one here.

Does the Star do that one autrepoupee?

heck no, it was sort of a clever series, so it's not really a natural fit for the Star.

But if you guys ever need to catch up on Mary Worth and Ziggy, we've got you double-covered!

If you're referring to Bloom County as "sort of a clever series," my opinion is that you need to read more of it and read it closely! At it's worst, it's extremely clever. At it's best, it's god damned genius.

I mean to ask this yesterday, but... am I missing something with Opus? I usually take a look at the comic syndicated in Salon, and it seems to mostly consist of trite and ham-fisted political truisms. Which I guess is a fair description of Salon in general, but still.

Hi, long-time reader, first-time poster. Berkeley Breathed lost it quite some time ago. I check out the Opus strips every once in a while and am almost always disappointed. When he's not ripping himself off wholesale, he's writing strips that are less subtle than political cartoonists on a bad day (see "trite and ham-fisted political truisms"). Maybe I've just had a bad sampling, but, hell, even Outland wasn't really that good.

It's a shame, I guess. Bloom County has always been my favorite print comic strip (and is number 2 behind Achewood overall), ever since I was wee lad, and even with all its faults, I always thought it was slightly better than say, Calvin or the Farside.

Anyways, go to your local used bookstore and you can probably find the old Bloom County collections (I believe they're still out of print and no big memorial collection has been put out, a la the Far Side and Charlie Brown).

Well, I guess I'm behind the times. I've never heard of this Opus. All I know is that Bloom County changed my life and Outand was at least decent. If Opus is as bad as everyone says it is, that makes me sad. I'll find it and judge for myself, as I do have a very deep soft spot for the work of Mr. Breathed and it is possible that it'll still strike a chord with me anyway.

Reading only comics written by Chris Onstad for the past year and a half has left me dumb to the world around me. I don't really mind.

Yah. Opus swam over the shark.

Three words to remember when buying books on-line:

Bloom County Babylon

I would like to say here that I also found that Opus sucks so hard that it has made me question in restrospect the quality of Bloom County. I really enjoyed the latter when it was first appearing in the 1980s, but I think it would be wrong to put it in a class with The Far Side or Calvin and Hobbes.

Well, it's not easy to say why I prefer Bloom County to Calvin, but one reason would be the characters. As much as I like Calvin & Hobbes, ultimately you have a very small cast, occasionally you get the parents, the neighbor girl, the teacher, or the bully. That's pretty much it. I've read through the Calvin collections dozens of times, but after a while they all start to look the same. Breathed had a larger cast to work with and often brought in new ones or got rid of old ones to help out. I can more distinctly remember Bloom County strips and arcs.

This is hard to explain and sounds stupid to say, but stay with me (or don't): I always found Bloom County to have more imagination, more fun, be more like a comic than Calvin. As nice-on-water says, it has "spark." Now, don't get me wrong. Bill Watterson obviously had fucking boatloads of imagination and everyone loves to pretend that they were as inventive, funny and crazy as Calvin. Watterson is a great cartoonist and really an incredible writer. He might, overall, be much more consistent than Breathed (and I'm only counting Bloom County-era Breathed). I've always respected his position against "selling out" and not merchandising, etc., as I often tend to side with that often oversimplified viewpoint. I love the fact that C H is almost a philosophical tract (please, don't read too much into this comment, achilleselbow), and can be as dark as it is funny.

But Breathed always seemed like he had more fun, and that will always show in the comic; to me, at least. Breathed has a shitload of flaws: he lambasted Jim Davis for basically creating Garfield as a merchandising tool, then went on to merchandise shit himself, if just not as much as Davis. But he also made fun of himself for it. He could be annoyingly preachy at times, but these episodes seem to go as quickly as they arrived.

Watterson, for all the wit and imagination in his characters, always seemed to be writing like this kind of feeling was a distant memory to him (I've always thought that, towards the end of C H, it got more preachy, stuffy, angry and less fun, especially). His humor sometimes seemed a little clinical.

Sorry for all that verbal effluvium. Basically, it always seemed to me that Breathed enjoyed what he was doing, and that came out in his work. I can't say I ever felt that vibe from Watterson.

Onstad seems to have found a pretty healthy medium between the two.

I always thought Bloom County was just a Doonesbury wannabe. Different strokes, I guess.

i liked his messy and vibrant art, but was too young to really enjoy the political nuances

Eh, the artistic similarities have always been annoying and hard to ignore, yeah, and it's not exactly a stretch to say that Breathed's more subtle political jabs and satires didn't often seem a little too Trudeau-esque, but I think there's enough originality in Bloom County to give it a little more pull than just being a Doonesbury rip-off.

But, yeah, different strokes. I certainly won't blame anyone for liking Calvin & Hobbes/Farside or a few select other comics better than Bloom County. They're all great.

Why can't both be true? Every day's a different mood, and I honestly wouldn't want to choose a world without C & H, Farside or Bloom County (although I'll agree older C & H is better). Can't they three just be great contributions to my life, and our culture, and leave it there?

Flanders: Well, I guess this is a case where we'll have to agree to disagree.

Principal Skinner: I don't agree to that.

Mrs. Krabappel: Neither do I.

The only thing that makes me regard Calvin and Hobbes and the Farside and Peanuts higher (other than the fact that I grew up on C&H and I even like it more than Achewood, and it definitely shaped my sense of humor and writing style etc etc) is that it's so dated. Celebrities are outright named and depicted and for us now, its age shows. It's still funny but dated. Not as sharp as when it first ran.

And Opus is just...too modern? It leans completely on the current administration and whathaveyou and I just don't go for it. It's the same basis for a joke every week (not the same joke, but same source).

No, the current Opus is definitely missing the spark Bloom had, and which I still say Outland had for a while.

*yank* dramatic *BWAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

Oh hey maybe that's supposed to be like CSI: Miami?

Holy glorious hell.

YES

I imagine removing a pince-nez with that kind of force would be much more painful than Connie lets on here.

the winner of the badass games don't flinch when removing his pince-nez.

I'll chubby that, but where's the curved eyebrow in the last panel? I want my curved eyebrow!

oh, it's totally there--Photoshop just kinda blurred the brow at this distance...
Guess I should have penciled it in a la Divine...

Chubby for randomly mentioning Divine

perfect timing

Really, I didn't know there was a British style way to flip the bird.

wait, like, from hot fuzz?

jog on!

Actually from centuries before that, but yes, it is a British film, and they did use it in that scene.

If he was truly old school he would have cocked a snook.

That's an accurate anatomy chart and can be used for instructional purposes.

That is truly the limit!

what would it take for the "good times" to also colonize north of the belly button?

Weed.

Duh.

in retrospect, i see that question should never have been asked. i apologize, assetbar.

No need to apologize. I was a bit amazed that it was only below the belly button. Man, the whole body is built for "good times" when you're doing it right!

Angel dust, then?

That's not what I'm talking about! Straight, clean sober, if you're doing it right, it's "good-times" from crown to toe.

Todd! Is that you?

Hey, everybody; Rowboat is Todd!

That was the most perfect thing to say ever!

See ya' in Hell's toilet! Good luck on the quiz!

>Splut!<

"I should not have used my credit card for that."

I can't think of a better way to acknowledge a screwup. It is the new "D'oh!"

Winner: Rowboat.

I hope Ray at least tells Beef. This doesn't have to be in a strip, I just would hate for something like that to come between them.

you know he will. this is the dude that locked his homey in a makeshift elevator to listen to his love shenanigans

Get the Fanflow premium content, if you don't already. I ain't saying anything more.

Dramatically removing one's sunglasses is basically the thing of revealing a harsh truth.
CSI, Achewood, That one episode of Scarecrow and Mrs King, The Matrix, The time the bishop told me I couldn't go to seminary...
Actually, he didn't so much take off his sunglasses as his Zuchetto, but same thing.

dont forget airplane! where he actually has two sets of glasses such as here

This week, have some style; remove all of your sunglasses with a definite "%u2014YANK%u2014."

(After seeing this, I laughed out loud for a good ten seconds straight. Damn you, Assetbar. Damn you.)

Before I saw "YANK." I was all, "What. Is that some type of robo-command? Are you a robot, usversusthem?"

I wouldn't even know how to pronounce "%u2014YANK%u2014."

Tear up the planks! The something something tell-tale heart! I confess everything!

(It's just an m-dash.)

No alt text? What the hell?

Alt text: Seriously, T. Get your mind out of Ray's commodore. (for some reason its showing up on the main site, but not the assetbar site)

They must have fixed it, because it's working for me now. Just so you know.

"Seriously T, get your mind out of Ray's commodore."

What the fuck IS that guy in panels 4 and 7?

Room service.

Woodchuck? Groundhog? Guinea pig? Capybara? Too skinny for a beaver.

He seems all nice and stupid, but I bet he'll bite the crap out of you if cornered.

Could be a rabbit, what with his ears all tucked up in the hat. Dumb Bunny!

I'd agree with either a 'chuck or rabbit-

That dude's front teeth are so prominent,
even his knock has a speech impediment!

>KNAK KNAK<

It is the Bostonian knock.

Daymmit, Matt Daymon, stwop knakin' on my daym cah!!!

*(my impression of gladi8orrex as a Nor'Easter.)*

He didn't knock. He just chomped loudly.

when room service knocks, it makes the sound of Curly of 3 Stooges fame.

He's obviously a naked mole rat.

Well, ok. Obviously! (?).

Dumb Ratty!

I think its just a teenage cat with bad buckteeth. dude is earning money for some braces seeing all kinds of mad things at a hotel

Something about him reminds me of Jai in the Sky. Possibly the composition.

It's the incessant smiling of someone who gets paid to turn off their brain and serve customers.

Not to mention the gratuitous second panel shot showing him doing nothing in particular.

One of these days there'll be a strip where all the characters take off their masks and are revealed to be furries.

The truth is even more disturbing.

I initially thought it was Vegetable Brain, fallen on hard times.

I initially thought you said he fell on lard times, which would be an interesting fate.

Boy are the theories of what a commodore is gonna flow like maple syrup across the flapjack of assetbar tonight.

The whipped butter of anatomical logic melting beneath its hot enticing gooeyness, melding into one and adulterating the side dish of bacon and mushrooms and I want some breakfast.

"Adulterating?" I think not, doctor.

I think so.

The present participle of "adulterate".

....unless you were claiming that the butter/syrup combination is meant to be combined with bacon/mushrooms, in which case I would also disagree.

The butter/syrup combination is CLEARLY meant to mingle with the bacon/mushrooms (and/or grits if that is how you roll) and no sane man is prepared to say otherwise.

Bacon (plus) Syrup is awesome.

Are we back to this conversation?

I stayed out of the last one, I think, so I decided I couldn't miss this one.

Politics, breakfast...diametrically opposed, are you two.

At least we both agree on the quality and stamina of your mother.

Yeah. She's got neither.

On a different note, Happy 7th Birthday to this fine strip.

Get it away from him! He is only five!

ADULT HUGGGSSS!

The emphasis is on the "U," you big ham.

Pronounce like so: Huuuuuuuuuuuuugs.

...not if you ask my wife! *hey-o!*

(okay, I'll stop)

hamscout, are you... (*removes sunglasses quickly) fooker

ohmigod fook no!!
Please don't ignore me, David Carussetbar!

chubby instead

It's kinda like, when you pick up your sons from scout camp, it is likely not a good sign when the first thing they ask you in the car is "Dad, what's a hermaphrodite?" You start to get the feeling that things didn't go well that week. . . .

(This is a true story. It didn't happen in an airport.)

It wasn't bad that way. Just that Movie Night featured Fellini's Satyricon, a film guaranteed to provoke questions among the young.

Lamed for thinking you are smarter than Chris Onstad without even opening up Photoshop. C'mon, now. Doc Rostov, bless his soul, is rolling in his grave right now.

What is this "pay phone" of which you speak?

What is this "speak" of which you speak?

That was eerily nonsensical, and yet lingering on the edges of rationality. What you have now spoken, you cannot unspeak!

Once a car radio said to me: "When God tells you something, He can't take it back."

I'm sorry. I thought He was like, well, God or something. I don't think the car radio can tell Him what He can and cannot take back.

But if God needed to take back something he said, that would imply he made a mistake.

I don't think so. He's God. He can be imperious. "Then I said 'Yes', and now I say 'No'. Deal with it!" No explaination offered.

I mean, seriously: He sees a lot bigger picture than we do. What looks like "doesn't make sense" to us, has its reasons. Sometimes, we just need to take it on faith. Like Abraham and Isaac.

The End! No moral!

Anyone with bible-knowin' would tell you that God often deliberately tells lies, for shits and giggles.

"Eerily nonsensical, and yet lingering on the edges of rationality" would actually be a pretty nice epithet.

I believe that is verbatim what my second-grade teacher wrote on my end of year performance review...

(Or maybe it was what my high school creative writing teacher wrote on my final paper. No, that was: "You're quite funny, and very terse.")

I got that one too, except it was "and very tense"

And there was a post-it attached saying "See Me"

And it smelled of massage oil

Do you mean epitaph?

Yeah, it's a bit too long to be an epithet.

Oh, I wasn't trying to correct. Just pointing out that it would make an amusing epitaph, as well.

I didn't know there was a limit on the length of epithets.

It would make a provocative epitaph though.

All T wants is a time good enough that it makes him forget who is on money.

Ray, you know he will never have that. Show him a little compassion!