She went down last October in a pouring driving rain.
The skipper, he’d been drinking and the Mate, he felt no pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.
There were just us five aboard her when she finally was awash.
We’d worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost.
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again.
Well, the owners wrote her off, not a nickel would they spend
“She gave twenty years of service, boys, so let her story end
“Insurance paid the loss to us, so let her rest below”
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock
She’s worth a quarter-million afloat and at the dock
And with every jar that hit the bar we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!
For we couldn’t leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.
She’d saved our lives so many times, living through the gale
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave
They won’t be laughing in another day. . .
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Ah, now for a round of “The Wreck of the Athens Queen”.
We were drinking down to Reedy’s house when first we heard the blow
It seemed to come from Ripper Rock, so bold forth we go
And sure enough a rusty tub could just be barely seen
As her stern was high up in the air we made out “Athens Queen”
O! The lovely Athens Queen!
Enjoy the time off and giving all of your fans WWS(Waspi Withdraw Syndrom) you SOB. j/k have a great week off as we patiently and jitterly await your return.
Well, this is a first; no guest art. Now as we stare at the same rectangle with writing on it for a week, we’ll appreciate the times Paul went to the trouble to line up guest artists. Maybe, we’ll also remember that some of those artists were treated less than kindly at times.
Well poopsticks. On the one hand, this is a good thing. Less distraction from work. I don’t have to try to remember to check this comic when I’m home Thursday and Friday (I’ll be distracted enough since I’m getting married Saturday).
On the other hand…I hate waiting..
Enjoy your well-deserved break Paul! I’ll check my hardcopy comics to see which of your books I’m lacking and buy what’s missing if I can.
The “lucky” guy is a man I met via eHarmony over 4 1/2 years ago. We’ve been dating ever since. He only just popped the question in April this year, so it’s been a headlong rush to the altar since then.
Don’t worry, SoWhyMe. I’m pretty sure that the condition isn’t contagious. Besides, I figured I already earned that reaction simply for being female and interacting with you.
Oh no, no. Were I to comment based on your being female, I would have said something like “he has my deepest condolences.” No, that was based on my view of marriage as a lifestyle. Anyway, statistics indicate you’ll find out about it soon enough and perhaps recall my comment.
Of course, maybe you’ll be quite happy 20 years from now, looking back at my warning with a self satisfied smile thinking how wrong I was (yeah, that was really hard to say with a straight face).
LOL…fair point there. But I guess this is the one time in my life where I’ll play the odds and take a gamble. My parents are still happily married and December will mark their 35th anniversary. I can’t help it if things like that make me believe there’s a good chance I won’t screw it up.
Then again, I have two cousins on their second marriages (one of whom has had to work really hard not to have that one in divorce) and an aunt and another cousin who are on their third marriages. I’m well aware that these things happen…I just hope they don’t happen to me.
Thanks to everyone for the congrats…but I just have to say, Stigmartyr, that you made me smile. Why? Because I actually used the word “beau” in a card I wrote for a co-worker who is also engaged this morning…and as I wrote it, I realized I never hear that word used anymore, which made me a little sad. Thank you for breaking the dry-spell.
We will get there when we get there! Don’t make me pull over this website, young man! I will turn it around and go back to the previous page, and then you’ll never get there at all! [/end reformatted rant from childhood]
I’ll bet you want to hop into your tardis and jump to October 24, 2011, somewhere with Earth internet access. only to end up in October 14th, 1991….before Wapsi Square. at least this time you won’t have promised a little girl you’d be back in 5 minutes.
Wapsi and Doctor withdrawl. *shudders* at least I have my last year of earning my Master’s degree to distract me. lol.
you mean there’s actually a college course and eventually a DEGREE for being “The Master”?!… i thought he was just some poor shlub driven insane by the guys stuck in that time-bubble thingy from the last time-war?
I’m not sure why, but I kind of like having the week off be all official and not hidden behind guest comics. I guess I feel like you -should- get time off, and feeling like there always has to be something shiny here every day no matter what kind says you shouldn’t.
Anyway, I can still wish that you have a great week off, while reserving the right to eagerly await your return, can’t I? ^_^7
So, I move into a new apartment at the start of September, right? And I finally get an Internet connection just last week (long story, don’t ask). So I’m going through my Favourites list, catching up on my webcomics. Get to Wapsi Square yesterday, only to find that Paul is taking a break for a week.
So yeah…either my memory is crap in the mornings (or just in general), or I’m an incredibly habit-based creature, or both. Totally came to this page this morning forgetting there wouldn’t be a new comic…even saved it for last of my morning comic review so I could linger over any comments made on the page while I worked through my morning office routine. *shakes head* I’m a goober.
just like how we (the readers) are still here commenting on the fact that we are here commenting on the fact that there isn’t a comic for the rest of this week… :cheers:
I resisted until today. I missed your wedding announcement because of it. Congratulations. Guess I’d better check everyday from no on. Never know what else I might miss…
yeah, that’s the only thing i don’t like about how the site works. i have to completely re-read every single comment just to see the one new comment that was posted in line with all the others (like THIS comment will be). if it were to be set up so that the newest reply or new comment was always at the bottom of the page, then all I’d need to do is to look for the last comment i remember reading then read all the ones after that… especially if the post count jumps by only one or two since i last looked… oh well, can’t win them all.
Okay, I have never gotten the rss feed here to work consistently. The first time I go to it, any given day, it works fine. But anytime after that, I always get the same page, no new posts listed on the rss feed. So I use that pretty sparingly…like once a day…
Do you manually refresh it when you go to it? Most are set to refresh every x-number of hours, but that often doesn’t work right, so I click the manual refresh associated with the feed (not the refresh associated with the webpage).
I get no sort of ‘extras’ when I pull up the rss. Just a comment at the top of the page that
“This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.”
You can collapse or expand the ‘branches’, but that’s it.
I’m using Windows 7. When I click the icon which allows me to choose between “add to favorites,” “Feeds,” and “History,” and I choose “feeds” it gives me a list of the feeds to which I am currently subscribed. When I hover the pointer over a given one, I see a “refresh” symbol to the far right. It’s this symbol I click to manually update the feed. So the symbol is not on the feed page, but is there in conjunction with the feed selection drop down menu.
Well, I just recently finished the two worst days I’ve had out here in the seven years I’ve been doing this.
I can only attribute that to no Wapsi…but I will wait and see how the week goes before I actually sue or anything…
Bad news for you: suing the cause of your addiction historically is not very successful, especially when that addiction is (1) free, and (2) not physically addictive.
my roommate did a paper on that in college for business ethics. the reason the lady got as much money as she did was that Md’s had settled out of court MANY times before her for the exact same thing and they didn’t change their ways, she did some research apparently and decided to follow thru with the court case… but she originally asked for a lot more than she got. the judge punished Md’s with the fine, but said that she was a goober and he wasn’t gonna give her the whole amount she asked for though…
Not precisely – originally she asked for, basically, her medical expenses plus something like 25% more to cover future expenses.
McDonalds offered a ridiculously small settlement – less than a tenth of her expenses, i think – and they went to court.
The huge award was well in excess of what she was asking for (even after raising her demand two or three times every time McDonalds tried to stall).
The huge award was the jury taking what she was asking for and piling on punitive damages, etc.
She was originally asking fro something like $25K which, if McDonalds had been smart, they would have paid in return for a complete non-disclosure agreement.
But, no – “We are a huge corporation and we have enough money that we can afford to spend several times what you’re asking for fighting paying you anything, since you wouldn’t take our insultingly small original offer,” was their attitude.
I use this as a cautionary tale that any lawsuit can work at least once. After that the lawyers find a way to close off the loopholes, so now we have hot warnings on hot drinks. Sometimes reading all the warnings on stuff make me think that the companies think the a lot of the general populous is stupid. (Of course then I read the news about someone emulating a “Jackass” stunt and I realize that they are.)
Especially the “may” part of that warning. I once saw a picture of the warning on the inside of a carton of eggs which read “contains eggs.” At least they were more certain that the carton of eggs did contain eggs.
Maybe the lawyers were just protecting their corporation in the case that the packet would be empty, and they get sued for a packet that claimed to have peanuts when, in fact, it had none.
(And an allergic person was not thereby made sick?)
“Emotional damage yer Honor. My client was convinced that when he ate the package of peanuts, he was going to suffer a leathal alergic reaction, as per the warning. Imagine his distress when he didn’t. We demand a hundred billion trillion dollars in compensation.”
For those of you who have some time and/or are familiar with the archives here’s a quiz:
1. In which strip did Monica find out about Tina’s existence?
2. This is a lot harder, in which strip did Shelly probably find out about Tina’s existence?
3. How do we know that Jin once had a thing for Tezpoz?
4. Did Heather or the GGs become a regular fixture first? When did their regular storylines start (i.e. Heather moving to their city and the GGs arriving)?
Okay, with a quickie research I found the following:
1. 2003-02-28 First Tina
2003-12-01 Tina didn’t know Monica’s occupation, the next strip 2003-11-03 Monica mentions “Tina is the barista at the coffee shop I’ve been going to for six years. She still has no clue what I do for a living.” So six years before that.
2004-12-29 First ‘Nudge’ voice.
2. 2005-01-05 First ‘Nudge’ voice on Shelly. 2005-12-01 Nudge voice asking about the GGGs with Monica, Shelly may be in the coffee shop.
3. 2006-07-26 and 27.
4. 2004-01-05 Heather and Shelly meet at Curly’s Guitars. 2004-03-10 Heather shows up at the garage, the start of her ‘regular’ appearances.
2004-11-04, the GGG’s first show up.
I’m up to November 2007 in my checking. I’ll come back to this when I have some time.
It’s looking like you have probably found the right answer but I just need to find evidence that Shelly knows Tina’s nature before the strip I had in mind (which I admit I was unsure of).
It is strongly implied that she knows here, and the June 29 strip in that sequence confirms that she knew by that point. If my wording and linking seems awkward, it’s because I’m trying to avoid multiple links in one post.
i gotta do a ritualistic dissection to replace the dead batteries in my “Tickle-Me Cthulhu” plushie, but can that be a substitute for a T-M-T on this trip?
With no new Waspi to fill my head and occupy my mind, a few loose thoughts have been rattling around what passes for my brain. Since we have to wait till Monday for new content, I figured now would be a good time to put them out there.
During the recent Brandi backstory arc, someone commented that Lanthian Tech levels seemed to be all over the place (or words to that effect). Bud was shown using a simple oil lamp with no globe or chimney, yet Brandi talks about an equipment pole in the nursery she worked at, and now we know the Lanthians had flying vehicles, to say nothing of the Calander Machine and the Chimera.
Based on what Paul has shown us, I think I have a basic hypothesis on the state of Lanthian technology, and maybe an insight into Lanthian culture or society. I say hypothesis because i don’t feel any of this is solid enough to be a theroy.
First, how to explain people living in bronze age style dwellings and using basic implements that seem to match that level of tech when “flying cars” are available. I think that can be explained by a complete lack of mass production. Henry Ford didn’t invent the Automobile or the production line, but when he put them together, the average working stiff could afford a car, and all the freedom of tavel that went with it. Before that, cars were hand built and only the truly wealthy could afford one. Mass production and the idea of interchangable parts is a fairly new one and only caught hold in the mid nineteenth century during the industrial revolution.
Take that back to our Lanthian friends, and it paints a picture of a privileged elite with acess to technolgy that would be “sufficently advanced” to any twenty first century citizen to seem like magic. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Lanthian residents would be living at what amounted to bronze or iron age levels.
I see Earth under the Lanthian Empire looking a lot like Abbydos from Stargate, with a privileged elite lording it over an awed populace who see them almost as gods.
Mind you, I’m not wedded to any of these ideas, I’m just trying to cobble together an idea about what the Lanthis Bud, Brandi and Jin grew up in looked like.
The next thing I was wondering about was the state of the art for Lanthian technology. What I have here isn’t even solid enough to be a hypothesis. Call it rampant speculation.
All the really big stuff that we know of seems to use stable wormholes to transfer the energy potential of the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy. The Calandar Machine, the Chimera and the Golem Girls all seem to tap the same power source which for all intents and purpouses is limitless. My big question isn’t how. (sufficently advanced technology and all that) It’s WHY.
The ability of Glyph Readers like Monica and May, and others in the know, to POIT seems to suppourt the existence of a vast wormhole network. And not one that mearly spans the world. To harness and channel the power of a galaxy, it would have to be galaxy wide. The question then is, is this a naturaly occuring phenomonon, or is it manufactured. And if the wormhole network is a construct, who built it. Did the Lanthians build it, or did they just find it and start using it. If the Lanthians didn’t build it, then they’d have to wonder if the civilization or entity that did was still around.
Folks at the higher levels of the Lanthian goverment may have lain awake at nights sleepless about what was waiting for them out there. It could explain the WHY of the Chimera’s creation, on why they felt they needed something with the power to flatten a solar system under thier control.
Admittedly, this is all rempant speculation on my part, and may be completly Joshed. Which I don’t mind at all. This is your brain on a week with no Waspi folks. It ain’t pretty.
hey, being a computer guy, I see a lot of similarities today… do you realize that there are only 10% that even know how to find wapsi, or even any other forum??
and as for those who have any clue how it all works, well that would be the top 5% or less!!!
say TCP or Winsock to a 1000 people in the street, and I think you will get a lot of ‘theres a chemist there dear..’, and plenty of offers to help you repair your socks!!! – you may get only one or two that would start remembering the old internet days…. :/
I have friends that are very good at what they do, master builders and craftsmen, but turn to a gibbering wreck when their PC goes wrong, or even just have to get an e-mail sent.. help them out, and they will be most grateful, might even ‘do their magic’ and get your auto running sweetly
I’ll bet its the same for civilizations ancient and new..
It is always only the rich and powerful that can afford all that fancy stuff, the rest are too busy trying to get enough food to live..
I think that ‘teleportation’ is better that ‘wormhole’ though.. and lanthian tech is very much linked to magic and sacrificing the lower ranks AFAIK… could well be why they died out…
leaving just a few, like tepoz etc, and then there is the library, that has no real connection – I guess they would say that the lanthian ‘problems’ were small, nothing to do with them..
I’m not sure how smart it was to take off now. You see, the Rapture didn’t end on May 21. Oh no. It continues on October 21 (roughly an hour and 5 minutes from the time I post this).
So I fear we may not be here for any more Wapsi updates….
On a more serious note, have a great vacation! I can’t WAIT for the continuation…
(Literally… I can’t wait… WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?)
Well, last time, the Rapture did go off. Only Macho Man Randy Savage made the cut. I think we’re still gonna be here. I certainly don’t mesure up to the Macho Man.
OHHHHH YEAAAHHHH!
Oh, the world ended alright. Thing is, it was replaced with another just like the old one with a few differences. For example, you’ll find the duck-billed platypus no longer has a horn on it’s forehead. Also words like fizishun are now spelled physician. sikiatrist is now psychiatrist, etc. The “ega” symbol is completely gone from the alphabet to boot. Insane, I know, but whatta ya gonna doo? I mean, “do.” Don’t worry if you don’t remember any of that. For most it will seem like it’s always been that way.
What no one noticed was that we were all set up on May 21st to blink at precisely the same instant, just once, on Oct. 21st. During that interval, the swap was made. Basically, the old world was taken into the shop for repairs and we get this loaner world for a while as the old one is being refurbished and upgraded. Anyway if something or other doesn’t seem quite right to you, that’s the reason.
i liked that one show wasn’t that one of “The Outer Limits”?
I’m a bit concerned over how “they” intend to keep us from going BACK once the word spreads. that’ll be one heck of a traffic jam at the boundary of the white and the real.
scantrontb:
erm, its very simple, the same as when an employee is found to be ‘sleeping on the job’… he is fired, the bad work is repaired, and more protection done to stop ‘the program’ being broken… :p
Just have to start eating your Slim Jims, Monk. That’s the secret to eternal life. Or a coranary. You know, which ever comes first. *ahem* SNAP INTO IT!!
A pregnant pause if ever there was one!
And a pregnant pause gives birth to …? I’ll say inspiration.
I can honestly say that I have NEVER gotten a pause preggers.
A week without Wapsi! I can deal with this. I really can. I’m not lying!
*promptly displays severe withdrawal symptoms*
Well, if your withdrawal is because of a lack of golem girl(s) trying to save the world, you could do much worse than reading Fey Winds…
Oh, and have a good week, Paul!
Aarrgh!… i just went thru the archives in one take… now I’m stuck on waiting for the next update… you evil, evil person you!.
Ah, but worth it, wasn’t it?
Still, the current update is 10/4/2011, so she’s nearly two weeks behind…
That’s why I stopped reading that comic. It was decent, but not good enough that I was willing to put up with the schedule slip.
@Casey: as long as it doesn’t get into Life on Forbez (which is actually being updated again right now) territory…
Well, in that case maybe check out Subnormality – it’s got no overarching storyline, but one of the recurring characters happens to be *The* Sphinx…
Guesssst comeec? Pleez?
Have a great week, Paul!
I’m sure an occasional IV dosage of re-reading will keep us from twitching and staggering too badly
It’s worse than we thought. Instead of being a 3 day cliffhanger (instead of the usual 2 day weekend), it’s actually a week longer. Oh, well.
Perhaps it’s a good time to reread the entire archive from the beginning….?
Or, for those who have yet to make their way through the whole archive, to read it all.
It’s always a good time to read. After I pay my bills I’m going to see about a book purchase to share this with my wife.
yep, me too… I’m just waiting on the 6th volume to come out.
Ha.. Well, enjoy the time off.
Have a good time with your family Paul
P.S. You found the ultimate cliffhanger this time
(getting shakes from Wapsi withdrawl)
enjoy your week off Paul.
Well wishes for a pleasant week off with the family.
See y’all next week.
Indeed; a week off, earned and deserved!
We’ll be waiting patiently when you get back.
Sing with me, you guys can get through this.
She went down last October in a pouring driving rain.
The skipper, he’d been drinking and the Mate, he felt no pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.
There were just us five aboard her when she finally was awash.
We’d worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost.
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again.
I don’t recognise the song.
neither do i
wiki claims it to be a stan rogers song about overcoming trial and tribulation
similar to ‘always look on the bright side of life’
i like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” better though.
http://youtu.be/g7Fwg3mowGU
Have a great week, get re-energized, etc.
*votes*
Wow, comment placement fail…
Well, the owners wrote her off, not a nickel would they spend
“She gave twenty years of service, boys, so let her story end
“Insurance paid the loss to us, so let her rest below”
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock
She’s worth a quarter-million afloat and at the dock
And with every jar that hit the bar we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!
For we couldn’t leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.
She’d saved our lives so many times, living through the gale
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave
They won’t be laughing in another day. . .
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Ah, now for a round of “The Wreck of the Athens Queen”.
We were drinking down to Reedy’s house when first we heard the blow
It seemed to come from Ripper Rock, so bold forth we go
And sure enough a rusty tub could just be barely seen
As her stern was high up in the air we made out “Athens Queen”
O! The lovely Athens Queen!
And so it begins – Needles and Pins .
Have a wonderful vacation!
Enjoy the time off! After all, you know what they say about absence.
I think what they say is “Never take time off. It allows others to discover they can actually get by without you.”
Enjoy the time off and giving all of your fans WWS(Waspi Withdraw Syndrom) you SOB.
j/k have a great week off as we patiently and jitterly await your return.
Well, this is a first; no guest art. Now as we stare at the same rectangle with writing on it for a week, we’ll appreciate the times Paul went to the trouble to line up guest artists. Maybe, we’ll also remember that some of those artists were treated less than kindly at times.
Well poopsticks.
On the one hand, this is a good thing. Less distraction from work. I don’t have to try to remember to check this comic when I’m home Thursday and Friday (I’ll be distracted enough since I’m getting married Saturday).
On the other hand…I hate waiting..
Enjoy your well-deserved break Paul! I’ll check my hardcopy comics to see which of your books I’m lacking and buy what’s missing if I can.
Congats, Julie! Whos the lucky guy?
The “lucky” guy is a man I met via eHarmony over 4 1/2 years ago. We’ve been dating ever since. He only just popped the question in April this year, so it’s been a headlong rush to the altar since then.
Many happy years Julie ! (:>))
Congratulations!
Grats
Married!!?? *holding fingers up in sign of cross*
Don’t worry, SoWhyMe. I’m pretty sure that the condition isn’t contagious.
Besides, I figured I already earned that reaction simply for being female and interacting with you. 
Oh no, no. Were I to comment based on your being female, I would have said something like “he has my deepest condolences.” No, that was based on my view of marriage as a lifestyle. Anyway, statistics indicate you’ll find out about it soon enough and perhaps recall my comment.
Of course, maybe you’ll be quite happy 20 years from now, looking back at my warning with a self satisfied smile thinking how wrong I was (yeah, that was really hard to say with a straight face).
LOL…fair point there. But I guess this is the one time in my life where I’ll play the odds and take a gamble.
My parents are still happily married and December will mark their 35th anniversary. I can’t help it if things like that make me believe there’s a good chance I won’t screw it up.
Then again, I have two cousins on their second marriages (one of whom has had to work really hard not to have that one in divorce) and an aunt and another cousin who are on their third marriages. I’m well aware that these things happen…I just hope they don’t happen to me.
Well, anyway, Good L- … Good Lu- … *deep breath* Good Luck!! There! I said it! Geeze Luh-weeze that hurt!
Congratulations!!! I wish you and your new Beau many wonderful years.
Thanks to everyone for the congrats…but I just have to say, Stigmartyr, that you made me smile. Why? Because I actually used the word “beau” in a card I wrote for a co-worker who is also engaged this morning…and as I wrote it, I realized I never hear that word used anymore, which made me a little sad. Thank you for breaking the dry-spell.
Congrats and mny many happy to come! (Pictures or it didn’t happen.)
Also — when he gets around to showing you that glowing box in the closet he got from his great grandmother, do be careful opening it. Please. Really!
Congrats. When it came to me and my wife I figure we chose someone with mutualy compatible neuroses.
I tried that–but I was too afraid our phobias wouldn’t match.
A week w/o Monica and Freinds….. Nooo Problem. Is the week over? No?!? ………How about now? No? NoW??
Are we there yet ? …. Are we there yet ?….
When are we gonna get there?
When are we gonna get there?
[I have no withdrawal symptoms. Can't you tell?]
We will get there when we get there! Don’t make me pull over this website, young man! I will turn it around and go back to the previous page, and then you’ll never get there at all! [/end reformatted rant from childhood]
I’ll bet you want to hop into your tardis and jump to October 24, 2011, somewhere with Earth internet access. only to end up in October 14th, 1991….before Wapsi Square. at least this time you won’t have promised a little girl you’d be back in 5 minutes.
Wapsi and Doctor withdrawl. *shudders* at least I have my last year of earning my Master’s degree to distract me. lol.
you mean there’s actually a college course and eventually a DEGREE for being “The Master”?!… i thought he was just some poor shlub driven insane by the guys stuck in that time-bubble thingy from the last time-war?
I’m not sure why, but I kind of like having the week off be all official and not hidden behind guest comics. I guess I feel like you -should- get time off, and feeling like there always has to be something shiny here every day no matter what kind says you shouldn’t.
Anyway, I can still wish that you have a great week off, while reserving the right to eagerly await your return, can’t I? ^_^7
Have a great Wapsi free week!
Cool — I’m also on vacation this week.
Family business takes priority over any other business.
♘
The phrase “not to worry” ALWAYS makes me worried!!
have a nice time off
It is sort of like “Westworld” : nothing can go worng
I hope that you enjoy your time off, as it is probably well-deserved.
Reading back issues will (hopefully) satisfy my Wapsi cravings until you return.
Enjoy your week off.
Woohoo!
Good for you, Paul!
Hoping you and yours have a good, fun-filled, and relaxing time
BTW, folks; don’t forget to vote for Wapsi and Paul every day
Seconded!
Have a good time!
So, no strip on my birthday (the 21st)…
Well, that’s probably a good thing. I’d most likely buy it and I’ve gotten wa-a-a-a-ay too much Wapsi art lately…
Enjoy your break!
Or mine, the 22nd.
But Rotten Kid Brother would get one on his birthday (24th) if he read it, which i doubt he does.
And that will be your 39th ? Congrats in advance . Great wishes for the balance allotted .
happy bday fairportfan
happy bday
Oh, bugger.
Have a good one!
So, I move into a new apartment at the start of September, right? And I finally get an Internet connection just last week (long story, don’t ask). So I’m going through my Favourites list, catching up on my webcomics. Get to Wapsi Square yesterday, only to find that Paul is taking a break for a week.
Yeah.
Welcome back to the interwebs! At least this way you don’t have as much to catch up on?
Haha!! Yes, I suppose that could be a silver lining.
So yeah…either my memory is crap in the mornings (or just in general), or I’m an incredibly habit-based creature, or both. Totally came to this page this morning forgetting there wouldn’t be a new comic…even saved it for last of my morning comic review so I could linger over any comments made on the page while I worked through my morning office routine. *shakes head* I’m a goober.
Not to worry. I’m sure many here will have the same problem, one or more times, during the week. No doubt it happens every weekend to boot.
just like how we (the readers) are still here commenting on the fact that we are here commenting on the fact that there isn’t a comic for the rest of this week… :cheers:
You’ve got to realize that this is the same group that repeatedly speculates on our lack of speculation.
in theory, i’ll accept that theory. >-)
On reflection, your reflection on the reflexivity of this group does reflect reality.
im here but i still come here on a daily basis.
the comments are fun to read also
such cool people here
Well thanks… i know i think you’re a pretty cool person too…
I’m just a creature of habit. It feels wrong to avoid coming here even if I know there’s no new comic.
Goob away! As we all can see, there are many of us in the same (good) habit.
There seems to be less confusion in Confusion Corner this week, but the coffee’s still hot and tasty, and the chairs are still comfy, too.
I resisted until today. I missed your wedding announcement because of it. Congratulations. Guess I’d better check everyday from no on. Never know what else I might miss…
Okay, looks like Confusion Corner will be the main hang-out this week. I should have brought cookies.
And NOW I read to the bottom of the comments…
yeah, that’s the only thing i don’t like about how the site works. i have to completely re-read every single comment just to see the one new comment that was posted in line with all the others (like THIS comment will be). if it were to be set up so that the newest reply or new comment was always at the bottom of the page, then all I’d need to do is to look for the last comment i remember reading then read all the ones after that… especially if the post count jumps by only one or two since i last looked… oh well, can’t win them all.
I come back and search for the hour, or ” pm” or the new date. takes me right to the new comments.
You are aware of the RSS feed, right? It shows the new posts automatically. With links that allow you to go to them to make a reply.
Okay, I have never gotten the rss feed here to work consistently. The first time I go to it, any given day, it works fine. But anytime after that, I always get the same page, no new posts listed on the rss feed. So I use that pretty sparingly…like once a day…
Do you manually refresh it when you go to it? Most are set to refresh every x-number of hours, but that often doesn’t work right, so I click the manual refresh associated with the feed (not the refresh associated with the webpage).
I get no sort of ‘extras’ when I pull up the rss. Just a comment at the top of the page that
“This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.”
You can collapse or expand the ‘branches’, but that’s it.
I’m using Windows 7. When I click the icon which allows me to choose between “add to favorites,” “Feeds,” and “History,” and I choose “feeds” it gives me a list of the feeds to which I am currently subscribed. When I hover the pointer over a given one, I see a “refresh” symbol to the far right. It’s this symbol I click to manually update the feed. So the symbol is not on the feed page, but is there in conjunction with the feed selection drop down menu.
Well, I just recently finished the two worst days I’ve had out here in the seven years I’ve been doing this.
I can only attribute that to no Wapsi…but I will wait and see how the week goes before I actually sue or anything…
Bad news for you: suing the cause of your addiction historically is not very successful, especially when that addiction is (1) free, and (2) not physically addictive.
Hey, if someone can sue McDonald’s for serving hot coffee…
It’s just a matter of finding the right lawyer.
my roommate did a paper on that in college for business ethics. the reason the lady got as much money as she did was that Md’s had settled out of court MANY times before her for the exact same thing and they didn’t change their ways, she did some research apparently and decided to follow thru with the court case… but she originally asked for a lot more than she got. the judge punished Md’s with the fine, but said that she was a goober and he wasn’t gonna give her the whole amount she asked for though…
Not precisely – originally she asked for, basically, her medical expenses plus something like 25% more to cover future expenses.
McDonalds offered a ridiculously small settlement – less than a tenth of her expenses, i think – and they went to court.
The huge award was well in excess of what she was asking for (even after raising her demand two or three times every time McDonalds tried to stall).
The huge award was the jury taking what she was asking for and piling on punitive damages, etc.
She was originally asking fro something like $25K which, if McDonalds had been smart, they would have paid in return for a complete non-disclosure agreement.
But, no – “We are a huge corporation and we have enough money that we can afford to spend several times what you’re asking for fighting paying you anything, since you wouldn’t take our insultingly small original offer,” was their attitude.
Coffee so hot she suffered second and third degree scalds when it spilled in her lap…
I use this as a cautionary tale that any lawsuit can work at least once. After that the lawyers find a way to close off the loopholes, so now we have hot warnings on hot drinks. Sometimes reading all the warnings on stuff make me think that the companies think the a lot of the general populous is stupid. (Of course then I read the news about someone emulating a “Jackass” stunt and I realize that they are.)
some of it has turned amusing though
i especially like the ‘may contain peanuts’ warning you get on packets of peanuts
Especially the “may” part of that warning. I once saw a picture of the warning on the inside of a carton of eggs which read “contains eggs.” At least they were more certain that the carton of eggs did contain eggs.
Maybe the lawyers were just protecting their corporation in the case that the packet would be empty, and they get sued for a packet that claimed to have peanuts when, in fact, it had none.
(And an allergic person was not thereby made sick?)
“Emotional damage yer Honor. My client was convinced that when he ate the package of peanuts, he was going to suffer a leathal alergic reaction, as per the warning. Imagine his distress when he didn’t. We demand a hundred billion trillion dollars in compensation.”
Boxilar, exactly.
For those of you who have some time and/or are familiar with the archives here’s a quiz:
1. In which strip did Monica find out about Tina’s existence?
2. This is a lot harder, in which strip did Shelly probably find out about Tina’s existence?
3. How do we know that Jin once had a thing for Tezpoz?
4. Did Heather or the GGs become a regular fixture first? When did their regular storylines start (i.e. Heather moving to their city and the GGs arriving)?
5. When did Tezpoz last appear in the strip?
Okay, with a quickie research I found the following:
1. 2003-02-28 First Tina
2003-12-01 Tina didn’t know Monica’s occupation, the next strip 2003-11-03 Monica mentions “Tina is the barista at the coffee shop I’ve been going to for six years. She still has no clue what I do for a living.” So six years before that.
2004-12-29 First ‘Nudge’ voice.
2. 2005-01-05 First ‘Nudge’ voice on Shelly. 2005-12-01 Nudge voice asking about the GGGs with Monica, Shelly may be in the coffee shop.
3. 2006-07-26 and 27.
4. 2004-01-05 Heather and Shelly meet at Curly’s Guitars. 2004-03-10 Heather shows up at the garage, the start of her ‘regular’ appearances.
2004-11-04, the GGG’s first show up.
5. 2011-05-31 Soccer Mom.
3, 4 and 5 are correct.
I apologise for the poor wording for quesitons 1 and 2. I’ll rephrase questions 1 and 2:
1. In which strip did Monica find out that Tina wasn’t human?
2. How about Shelly?
Ps.
If we go by the question I seemed to ask, Tina appears in 26th Feb 2003 strip and is interacting with Shelly so I can’t give you bonus points.
As for number one, Monica learned that Tina wasn’t human in the sequence starting here. I’ll get back to you on Shelly.
You’re right that one was a bit trickier. Shelly was informed of Tina’s nature off-panel, but the explanation was promised here.
Correct.
On the Shelly one I’m still checking because it was the one question I was unsure of.
I’m up to November 2007 in my checking. I’ll come back to this when I have some time.
It’s looking like you have probably found the right answer but I just need to find evidence that Shelly knows Tina’s nature before the strip I had in mind (which I admit I was unsure of).
It is strongly implied that she knows here, and the June 29 strip in that sequence confirms that she knew by that point. If my wording and linking seems awkward, it’s because I’m trying to avoid multiple links in one post.
Are We There Yet?…………How about Now?
You settle down, young man, or I will turn this webcomic around and we’ll go back to DARPAnet right now. Here, play with your Tickle Me Tepoz.
Snorfle! (cleans off monitor…)
Ooo! Ooo! I want a Tickle Me Tepoz!
I’d put a ‘Tickle Me Tepoz’ in my office at work just to see the concerned looks of my co-workers… =°)
i gotta do a ritualistic dissection to replace the dead batteries in my “Tickle-Me Cthulhu” plushie, but can that be a substitute for a T-M-T on this trip?
Need to see if I can find a seamstress on Etsy that can skin an Elmo and put a Tepoz over it… =°)
Dammit. Now when I read Tepoz’s lines, he’s gonna sound like Elmo in my head.
The best thing about a tickle-me Tepoz is that it would actually be life-size!
I.
Love.
This.
Comic.
And the comments (with them who makes them) are pretty dern good too.
I am that awesome, yes.
Hmm..Let me reflect on that .
On the Shelly one I’m still checking because it was the one question I was unsure of.
With no new Waspi to fill my head and occupy my mind, a few loose thoughts have been rattling around what passes for my brain. Since we have to wait till Monday for new content, I figured now would be a good time to put them out there.
During the recent Brandi backstory arc, someone commented that Lanthian Tech levels seemed to be all over the place (or words to that effect). Bud was shown using a simple oil lamp with no globe or chimney, yet Brandi talks about an equipment pole in the nursery she worked at, and now we know the Lanthians had flying vehicles, to say nothing of the Calander Machine and the Chimera.
Based on what Paul has shown us, I think I have a basic hypothesis on the state of Lanthian technology, and maybe an insight into Lanthian culture or society. I say hypothesis because i don’t feel any of this is solid enough to be a theroy.
First, how to explain people living in bronze age style dwellings and using basic implements that seem to match that level of tech when “flying cars” are available. I think that can be explained by a complete lack of mass production. Henry Ford didn’t invent the Automobile or the production line, but when he put them together, the average working stiff could afford a car, and all the freedom of tavel that went with it. Before that, cars were hand built and only the truly wealthy could afford one. Mass production and the idea of interchangable parts is a fairly new one and only caught hold in the mid nineteenth century during the industrial revolution.
Take that back to our Lanthian friends, and it paints a picture of a privileged elite with acess to technolgy that would be “sufficently advanced” to any twenty first century citizen to seem like magic. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Lanthian residents would be living at what amounted to bronze or iron age levels.
I see Earth under the Lanthian Empire looking a lot like Abbydos from Stargate, with a privileged elite lording it over an awed populace who see them almost as gods.
Mind you, I’m not wedded to any of these ideas, I’m just trying to cobble together an idea about what the Lanthis Bud, Brandi and Jin grew up in looked like.
The next thing I was wondering about was the state of the art for Lanthian technology. What I have here isn’t even solid enough to be a hypothesis. Call it rampant speculation.
All the really big stuff that we know of seems to use stable wormholes to transfer the energy potential of the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy. The Calandar Machine, the Chimera and the Golem Girls all seem to tap the same power source which for all intents and purpouses is limitless. My big question isn’t how. (sufficently advanced technology and all that) It’s WHY.
The ability of Glyph Readers like Monica and May, and others in the know, to POIT seems to suppourt the existence of a vast wormhole network. And not one that mearly spans the world. To harness and channel the power of a galaxy, it would have to be galaxy wide. The question then is, is this a naturaly occuring phenomonon, or is it manufactured. And if the wormhole network is a construct, who built it. Did the Lanthians build it, or did they just find it and start using it. If the Lanthians didn’t build it, then they’d have to wonder if the civilization or entity that did was still around.
Folks at the higher levels of the Lanthian goverment may have lain awake at nights sleepless about what was waiting for them out there. It could explain the WHY of the Chimera’s creation, on why they felt they needed something with the power to flatten a solar system under thier control.
Admittedly, this is all rempant speculation on my part, and may be completly Joshed. Which I don’t mind at all. This is your brain on a week with no Waspi folks. It ain’t pretty.
hey, being a computer guy, I see a lot of similarities today… do you realize that there are only 10% that even know how to find wapsi, or even any other forum??
and as for those who have any clue how it all works, well that would be the top 5% or less!!!
say TCP or Winsock to a 1000 people in the street, and I think you will get a lot of ‘theres a chemist there dear..’, and plenty of offers to help you repair your socks!!! – you may get only one or two that would start remembering the old internet days…. :/
I have friends that are very good at what they do, master builders and craftsmen, but turn to a gibbering wreck when their PC goes wrong, or even just have to get an e-mail sent.. help them out, and they will be most grateful, might even ‘do their magic’ and get your auto running sweetly
I’ll bet its the same for civilizations ancient and new..
It is always only the rich and powerful that can afford all that fancy stuff, the rest are too busy trying to get enough food to live..
I think that ‘teleportation’ is better that ‘wormhole’ though.. and lanthian tech is very much linked to magic and sacrificing the lower ranks AFAIK… could well be why they died out…
leaving just a few, like tepoz etc, and then there is the library, that has no real connection – I guess they would say that the lanthian ‘problems’ were small, nothing to do with them..
but hey, it will be monday soon!
This is your brain on a week with no Waspi folks. It ain’t pretty.
Maybe not pretty, but pretty interesting…
Dang. tags don’t work here, I see…
[ quote ] tags that is. All they do is make the word “quote” disappear.
Oo. Real “air quotes”!
Dadblang it.
I’m not sure how smart it was to take off now. You see, the Rapture didn’t end on May 21. Oh no. It continues on October 21 (roughly an hour and 5 minutes from the time I post this).
So I fear we may not be here for any more Wapsi updates….
On a more serious note, have a great vacation! I can’t WAIT for the continuation…
(Literally… I can’t wait… WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?)
Well, last time, the Rapture did go off. Only Macho Man Randy Savage made the cut. I think we’re still gonna be here. I certainly don’t mesure up to the Macho Man.
OHHHHH YEAAAHHHH!
Hm, pretty calm end of the world so far. (at least here in Winnipeg at 1 AM)
Oh, the world ended alright. Thing is, it was replaced with another just like the old one with a few differences. For example, you’ll find the duck-billed platypus no longer has a horn on it’s forehead. Also words like fizishun are now spelled physician. sikiatrist is now psychiatrist, etc. The “ega” symbol is completely gone from the alphabet to boot. Insane, I know, but whatta ya gonna doo? I mean, “do.” Don’t worry if you don’t remember any of that. For most it will seem like it’s always been that way.
What no one noticed was that we were all set up on May 21st to blink at precisely the same instant, just once, on Oct. 21st. During that interval, the swap was made. Basically, the old world was taken into the shop for repairs and we get this loaner world for a while as the old one is being refurbished and upgraded. Anyway if something or other doesn’t seem quite right to you, that’s the reason.
yes… and if you manage to ‘accidentally’ take the wrong turn down a little used alley, you may find it has not quite been finished yet, just white…
i liked that one show wasn’t that one of “The Outer Limits”?
I’m a bit concerned over how “they” intend to keep us from going BACK once the word spreads. that’ll be one heck of a traffic jam at the boundary of the white and the real.
scantrontb:
erm, its very simple, the same as when an employee is found to be ‘sleeping on the job’… he is fired, the bad work is repaired, and more protection done to stop ‘the program’ being broken… :p
Not The Outer Limits, it was an episode of Sesame St. Brought to you by the symbol “?” and the number infinity.
I guess I didn’t make the cut.
Again.
Just have to start eating your Slim Jims, Monk. That’s the secret to eternal life. Or a coranary. You know, which ever comes first. *ahem* SNAP INTO IT!!
None of us did – isn’t that nice.
Worry not. There’s always Dec. 2012 to which to look forward.