The interesting point in how does Bud know that Maya designed it? You can infer that since Maya built the CM she had a hand in this but not with confidence. It could very easily been designed by the Lantins working from Maya plans for their own purpose. Maybe the best idea would be to ask Maya about it before using it? But this shows that a lot of them still have information they are not sharing with each other. Too much secrecy for too long I guess.
Bud spent an indefinite but apparently quite long time in the Demon Realm searching for Maya and perhaps getting her out; there have been indications they talked extensively and exchanged a lot of information. Maya may have mentioned the relic as something she’d planned but not had time to construct. Or Phix might have told Shelly about it, and Conscience passed it on…
Minor point: “Lanthian”. The name of the ancient civilization was “Lanthis”. The whole “Atlantis” thing was a corruption thanks to the Greek, Latin and English language – which isn’t unusual, given the latter’s way of begging, borrowing and stealing from other languages.
We have a similar differences in the Bible–Jesus/Joshua, Osee/Hosea, Elias/Elijah–same names, but the first of each pair came through Greek, while the second was direct from Hebrew to English.
I agree. I commented Friday (at least I think it was Friday) that Bud at least seems to know a lot more about this device, and perhaps what would happen to Monica and Shelley if they touched it, than she mentioned.
Well, as a mechanic, I found that saying “It will work.” always tempted fate. Saying “It should work.” gives you an out as you are admitting failure before it happens. That’s why “How could it get worse?” is an arrogant statement that always gets you into trouble. It never recognizes that things can snap one more time or that you’ve got ten more feet to reach the bottom of the blackest pit.
What do you mean, ‘again’? Monica’s been upset, angry, and sad since she found out she’d inadvertently sent Shelly into 80,000 years of exile that brought her Sphinxness to the fore. I imagine she’s going to be a pill to be around for a long time…
Yeah, but then again, Shelly DID just spend over 80,000 years and watched HERSELF die over 50 times just to get this thing working. Maybe Mon can give a shot before she totally dismisses it. :p
I know what you mean, the flow seems a little bit off. I hit the back button on this one to make sure I hadn’t missed an update since the last one I had seen on Friday.
If there is one thing Paul isn’t, it’s a master of the smooth transition. He seems to be a big proponent of the abrupt change. Not only of location, but of story lines.
Nonetheless this whole sequence, starting with Stinky and the sub, has been one of the longest, continuous story lines ever in the series.
Plus, if you’d spent some time in a Retreat for the Very Very Nervous due to people misinterpreting rather lesser supernatural events surrounding you … how would you feel as the weirdness-meter hits the peg?
“Should”, “Possibly”, “In theory”, “Maybe”, “Trust me”, “I know what I’m doing”, etc…
How many fatal words and phrases are there in the English Language?
“Let the Master” indeed… When I was learning to ride a bike, my dad grabbed his and said, “You’re going to see kids doing this thing I’m about to do; never try it!” He then proceeded to attempt to jump up a curb by doing a wheelie, failed miserably, and broke both his thumbs. Then he said, “Now you know why I said not to…” :D Snerk…
Throw in Eric Flint and John Ringo—and they’ve all collaborated on various things at Baen—and you have much of the subway-reading I’ve done over the last seven years. That would be about 20 books out of 35?
I figured Mon was grumpy just because…well, look at some of the ridiculous crap that’s happened to her in the past few years. Learning to poit, saving the world, getting shot at by terrorists, stabbed in the head. Now this? Come on, that’s a lot for anybody to deal with.
Monica gets nervous when strange things are happening and she doesn’t feel as if she’s in control of her life.
Her time in the Home for the Extremely Baffled (which was due to the fact that she saw and heard things that others didn’t – like having long conversations with her great-grandmother … who’d been dead for years) left her scared of ever appearing out of control.
Monica is still, in many ways, a frightened, worried Little Girl.
That’s what I wonder too. Maya may take one look at it and exclaim:
“That’s the alpha prototype! We discarded that pile of crap long ago! It can cause people to be stranded for, what? … 80,000 years or more. Here let me get you the production model.”
Indeed. Now that it’s known to be Maya’s design, consulting her is the only rational option.
There’s a saying, “Built by engineers, for engineers.” Most prototypes are quirky, often poorly documented, and ergonomically questionable; this is normal. When you’re trying to make something work at all, you don’t worry if it’s a little user-hostile.
Speaking as an electronic/computer tech with experience working at a couple of companies that are (or were) bleeding-edge in their fields*, i am of the opinion that nothing should ever be released to production until the engineer(s) responsible for the design has personally built five prototypes, using only tools that a technician in the field would have available.
==========================
*One of them ran an analysis in its in-house labs, using equipment i maintained, that told NASA what was wrong with the original tiles on the Space Shuttle.
inre: NASA and tiles on the shuttle—I have a friend from high school who went to FSU, and his roomie’s dad was NASA-related, so he was called in for the first REAL problem with the shuttle tiles: the first set was installed upside-down, unnoticed until they got to the sharper concave and convex surfaces. He was recruited with a crew of young folks to carefully remove each tile (with some remarkably volatile chemicals), whip it clean, and stick it back on. The problem? The original installers were putting them on with the serial/control number down instead of up, as they hadn’t been told the numbers were there not only to guide placement, for after-installation verification. Oh well…
My brother works in a particular factory; his job is to take the engineers’ plans, combine them, build the prototype, and show the engineers how to fix their plans.
Engineers don’t like him but the rest of the line does…
I am a tech. Engineers prove it can work, it’s our job to find a way for it to continue to work, as intended, for this long . . . Then we get to fix it.
Danzer, been there, done that, ran away screaming.
You ought to see some of the computers i’ve used over the last twenty or so years.
This one actually looks almost professionally-built – i decided i needed a new case for it when i was busy upgrading the guts.
Of course, last week i took the piece-parts left over from that upgrade, added a couple pieces, stuffed them back in the original ratty-looking case, loaded the original system-builder copy of Windows 7 on it – since it was the original motherboard, that’s not only possible but legal – and voila! a computer for Kate, bringing the number of machines in the house to five.
And i’ve got my eye on a used HP laptop with minor screen problems – two one-pixel-wide vertical lines about 1/3 of the way in on each side that’s sitting in a local shop for less than $80.
And i plan to either buy a cheap used machine or a bare-bones system from Fry’s and build a network server/gateway/firewall machine for the home network fairly soon.
When you do that, Fairport, don’t forget: hardwire into your house electric at least two high capacity battery backups (mine had one plugged into the other) and preferably on their own circuit for plugging your computer into. That has saved my job at least three times. (Razzleflabin’ tornados…)
Not always. My father-in-law cobbled together computer test systems for finding all the errors in the hardware in some very big and/or complicated systems. He was the only person at the company who could fix the stuff when it broke. He got layed off; now he makes twice as much as a consultant, doing the same job for the same company, from home.
How did that happen? I looked just back at the last few day’s strips and I don’t see anything that told them what Bud just said. Does it say “Designed by Mayahuel / Built by George and Fred” on it?
Something that’s been confusing to me since this “Jin is broken” arc began as well.
May built Jin (literally) and knows far more about Golems than all of our main cast put together.
And yet, no one has consulted her on Jin’s issue (at least, in-comic panels). Then again, no one’s bothered to ask Phix or Tepoz either, both of whom have a wealth of knowledge to which our main cast is not privy (Phix’s sphinx buddies and library, Tepoz’s immortal buddies and pre-GGG-creation memories).
Perhaps one day they’ll remember they have a support system outside of “Let’s hope Bud guesses it correctly” which seem to be the general plan-of-action these days.
That’s seemed very inconsistent to me, too. Today Bud says that Maya designed the relic, but Bud also seemed to say that Maya probably couldn’t fathom it, so there would be any point in talking to her about it.
The lack of research was kind of hand-waved on January 25, 2011. Somehow the fact that something might have been intentionally hidden, and it might have been somehow relevant to the relic apparently convinced them that any useful information would never have been written down. That’s a bizarre leap of logic.
Hmm. Maybe this is all the result of letting Bud lead. She’s always been the one to “go with her gut” and work out the details as things occur, not a premeditated strategist like Jin, Tepoz, or Brandi.
That actually does sort of answer my previous question. As long as they let Bud lead the group unquestioned, no one is going to ask others for help/advice, since that’s not in Bud’s nature (closest she’ll usually get to asking for help is dragging Shelly and Monica along with her kicking and screaming).
If you didn’t see, she already changed her clothes. The last time we saw her, she was wearing a shirt. Apperantly she has had enough of that. Guess she decided if Shelly is going to walk around with out a shirt on she can too.
aaaand back to anger again
Monica doesn’t like taking the steps in order.
she should have hit acceptance now..
anyway
that was a tad defensively angry..
i presume she blew up over something in regards to how the word was used against her in her past but…to be honest i cannot imagine how the word would have been used with her…
The biggest question posed by this strip has nothing to do with the characters or dialogue. Where are they? There was obviously a location change. The stone wall in the background says that they can’t be in Monica’s house. Then again, they could have just moved outside. Wherever they are, it is warm considering that Tina took her shirt off.
Okay, Tina has now taken off the t-shirt that she was wearing and seems to be staring at someone or something in an almost trance like state. Bud is looking in Monica’s direction. Are there any thoughts as to who or what Tina is looking at now?
I don’t think her ability to see auras is really like seeing structure. The other thing is that I’m not sure a mini sphinx would be more worrying for her. The simple fact that demons can be converted into CG may be worrying for her. It also may be that CG has been converted even further. She might be wondering if the same things could happen to her somehow.
Actually, Tina may like the prospect of her demons merged into one entity. No more discussions as to what to do. Just one voice to guide the body. She’ll have the nearest thing she can to a soul. Also, since the merged demons, like CG, can manifest outside the body, the current Tina could become a new individual, outside Tina’s body, leaving it vacant for the return of her soul, yet not destroying Tina as she is now.
Tina’s spacing out, Monica’s this side of annoying, and Bud’s being pragmatic. Must be Monday. In counterpoint to the definition of ‘should’: while hoping for the best, should says that having a plan B would be a wise thing to consider.
Eh, there’s a point of view that says that having a “Plan B” guarantees you’ll need a “Plan C”. Being prepared for anything fate can throw at you is just begging to have to prove it…
I’m thinking we are currently pretty deep into Plan B. Plan A having been fix the CM and Plan B being destroy the CM instead of fixing it. At this point it almost seems like we might be out past the extent of Plan B and are just winging it from here.
Even guarantees have limits. Monica needs to come to grips with the fact that “should” is all you really get in this world. There are no true guarantees. You “should” be able to make it to the store and back alive. Doesn’t mean you will.
ah but there’s a difference between the smaller chance “guarantees” won’t work and the more likely to fail then workout as planed “should”.
when the lives of you and your friends are put on the line time and time again when “should work” plans fall apart no where near a happy ending and leave you scrambling I would be testy too. At least with a guaranteed pan you know you’ll end up near the end zone to use an analogy.
Ok: Monica should resign herself to living without guarantees. But that’s one of her human flaws. She needs to be in control, or at least to have the illusion she is.
To me, it’s odd that Monica would start worrying about it now. There was even less reason to think that anything good would happen when Shelly held the relic. A bad thing happened when Monica held it and nothing happened when Shelly held it the first time. How did they conclude from that that something good would happen if Shelly held it again, but for a longer period? That didn’t even rise to the level of should.
Why have Bud’s and Monica’s roles reversed? Earlier it was Bud who was nervous about what the relic might do. Now that the relic did something that they never imagined, what would make Bud think that they understand it now?
I can see Monica’s point of view here though because when dealing with Jin the phrase “Failure is not an option” comes to the fore, and Monica feels people are being far to casual.
This would be my interpretation. They’ve moved somewhere with brick walls and lots of plants; that might be Monica’s backyard, or a place more exotic. Bud didn’t change because her swimsuit blew up along with the sub, and Monica’s just in a snit.
I’m hoping Shelly, Nudge, and Conscience are still around and also out there, the latter two in swimsuits would be a giggle. And Shelly hopefully has some clothes on now…
And here wo again… I have to agree with Silver C. here, Life indeed works with “should” more often than not.
I can understand that Monica would like things to work out as she would have liked them to, but the problem is that they do not always do so.
Also: has she already forgotten that with the CM things did not work out as she thought they should.
I mean getting stabbed in the head by the Shellster ?
Uh-oh. Another can of worms opened up here? Did Monica have such a drunken uncle who tricked her into thinking he meant well? That last panel would seem to indicatesome kind of bad memory she dredged up…
It probably depends on what you’re using for your RSS reader. If I scroll down using Google Reader it keeps loading things until it shows the last month’s worth. Unfortunately, it’s been choking on Wapsi’s RSS feed lately. Sage only shows the last 10. The widget used by My.Yahoo allows you to select how many to display, but only up to 10. I haven’t tried anything else and don’t know how enough about RSS to know how it works. Perhaps Google caches the RSS feed on a server for its reader, for all I know.
Wuhf!! Princess Sunshine is in a SNIT!!!! Not that she doesn’t have a reason, but I think at this point in the game Shelly maybe needs a hug and then some. Even Creepy Girl could probably use a hug, tho she might not admit it.
Even Creepy Girl could probably use a hug, tho she might not admit it.
Sounds like my cat.
He falls asleep on the bad, lying on his side, and if i start rubbing his belly, he opens one eye and acts as if he’s just doing me a big favour by allowing me to soothe myself…
Of course, the purring is a bit of a giveaway, but he tries to keep it quiet…
and here is the hard part for me … she has been with creepy little girl in one “room” for 80000 years more or less and still havent give her a name? Oo okey it shelly but still
I spose – technically – the name of creepy is Shelly.
And as for giving her a name..
well..do you call the voices in YOUR head something other than ‘me/myself/i’?
Well there’s my Me, and then there’s my Muse. Also known as conciousness and subconciousness. Kind of like Jack Spratt and his wife–it takes them both to get the job done.
Tina’s the one calling her ‘creepy little girl’, while Bud’s going for ‘thing’. Shelly calls her her companion. I use ‘Conscious’. All are probably right…
I think that probably has something to do with the way names are used in conversation, as well as the naming conventions of demons.
In conversation, people only tend to use the name of the person they’re addressing to indicate that they are talking to that person, and not someone else, as well as to gain the attention of a person you wish to speak to. Even though Shelly spent quite some time talking to Creepy Girl, it is entirely possible that a situation never presented itself where Shelly would address her by name.
However, the more likely reason for Creepy Girl’s lack of name has to do with the naming conventions of other demons. While Creepy Girl isn’t a demon herself, she is made of demons, and may share some of their tendencies. None of the demons we have encountered so far have any name beyond their function. It is entirely possible that Shelly tried to give Creepy Girl a name, but she refused.
I’m more of the opinion that names give you a bit of power over the namee. I guarantee I’ve used someone’s name–alone–to read them the riot act when they did something terribly stupid. I bet every last one of you has a mom who did the same…
It does. President George W. Bush chose nicknames for the members of his staff. It encouraged camaraderie, but also was a reminder of who was the decisioner.
When Barbara’s pissed at me, she’ll actually say, “Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!”
Now that she’s past mulling over who to blame, we go past guilt and straight to pissed off. Not at someone mind you but the English language.
Words. Such a primative form of communication.
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
After you’ve enjoyed that quote, check out Cally Soukop’s compilation of “Nicoll Events” – James’s accounts of Real Life Experiences, many of which involve explosions, copious bleeding and (on occasion) meteors, at dd-b.net/NicollEvents/.
A quote from that collection:
True story: a theatre group I used to be in writes its own scripts. At the end of the process, all the scrap paper [previous versions of the script and what have you] is gathered together and burned in a bonfire.
My first time as chief scriptwriter I thought that was kind of dull so I asked my older brother if he knew how to turn the normal paper into flash paper. He thought it was pretty straight forward to come up with something to soak the scripts in so they’d all burn rapidly. Plans were going along swimmingly until he asked how much paper was involved and I told him it was a four foot stack. Apparently that much flash paper would have carbonised me when I lit it and left a large circle of melted snow, save in the thermal shadows of the other writers. Still, it would have been something to see.
Any body wanna bet that the reason they moved out side was so they could see Shelly in full sphinx form? I like to think that’s what Tina is staring at just off panel.
Main Entry: may
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: concede possibility
Synonyms: be going to, shall, should, will
Notes: can applies to what is possible and may to what is permissible; can means ‘able to,’ may means ‘permitted to’
may is more optimistic than might; may carries the idea of permission while might suggests likelihood
And now, back to our show, already in progress…
“It should work” is another way of saying “What could possibly go wrong?” Which is to say, “Let’s invite disaster!”
“How hard can it be?”
“At least it can’t get any worse!”
“Hey, y’all, watch this!”
“There is no cause for alarm.”
And another way of saying Murphy and Finagle are alive and well.
What’s the worst that could happen?
The interesting point in how does Bud know that Maya designed it? You can infer that since Maya built the CM she had a hand in this but not with confidence. It could very easily been designed by the Lantins working from Maya plans for their own purpose. Maybe the best idea would be to ask Maya about it before using it? But this shows that a lot of them still have information they are not sharing with each other. Too much secrecy for too long I guess.
its the same design as the calender machine but smaller
the rotating galaxy thing i think
bud mentioned it before it was mentioned a couple of days ago…the same strip where Jin said about the sparkplug
that or during their time in demonland may told bud of all the artifacts which could be used to help Jin.
Bud spent an indefinite but apparently quite long time in the Demon Realm searching for Maya and perhaps getting her out; there have been indications they talked extensively and exchanged a lot of information. Maya may have mentioned the relic as something she’d planned but not had time to construct. Or Phix might have told Shelly about it, and Conscience passed it on…
Minor point: “Lanthian”. The name of the ancient civilization was “Lanthis”. The whole “Atlantis” thing was a corruption thanks to the Greek, Latin and English language – which isn’t unusual, given the latter’s way of begging, borrowing and stealing from other languages.
We have a similar differences in the Bible–Jesus/Joshua, Osee/Hosea, Elias/Elijah–same names, but the first of each pair came through Greek, while the second was direct from Hebrew to English.
I agree. I commented Friday (at least I think it was Friday) that Bud at least seems to know a lot more about this device, and perhaps what would happen to Monica and Shelley if they touched it, than she mentioned.
Should be interesting as time moves onwards.
Well, as a mechanic, I found that saying “It will work.” always tempted fate. Saying “It should work.” gives you an out as you are admitting failure before it happens. That’s why “How could it get worse?” is an arrogant statement that always gets you into trouble. It never recognizes that things can snap one more time or that you’ve got ten more feet to reach the bottom of the blackest pit.
. . . then he keeps asking you to sit on his lap?
Was he Italian, and kept repeating, ‘innuendo’?
In Your End-o
“Yes, Ted, that was the joke.” #FamilyGuy
Did someone say they were waiting for Monica to blow up? Well, here it…um….is…
….sorta
The pressure cooker valve reads 178 pounds….
…aaaand M’s grumpy again.
What do you mean, ‘again’? Monica’s been upset, angry, and sad since she found out she’d inadvertently sent Shelly into 80,000 years of exile that brought her Sphinxness to the fore. I imagine she’s going to be a pill to be around for a long time…
Or at least a long time for us. Remember–it’s been less than an hour or so for Monica, at the most.
Yup, like the CM “should” have fixed Jin.. I dunno.. forgive me if I eye May’s designs with some trepidation..
I am completely with M here.
Yeah, but then again, Shelly DID just spend over 80,000 years and watched HERSELF die over 50 times just to get this thing working. Maybe Mon can give a shot before she totally dismisses it. :p
She did stop seeing things whilst it was running so I would say that it did.
Yeah. sort of like Stickle tech – it Works Real Good.
Unfortunately, it also has a tendency to Blow Up Real Good at unpredictable moments…
Thar she blows!
LOL!! I love you Monica… XD
If I had any sense of artistic style with paint programs, I’d grab that last frame of M as my gravatar.
http://electronictiger.net/avail/grrr.png
You are a super shiny star Fairport.
Now you got it, i’ll take it down.
aww i missed it :’(
post the link again please
Nope – it was a one-off for DJ.
oh
you mean just the panel
sorry thought you had coloured it
love it when you guys do that
Yay! I’m unique
It is just me? The pacing of the last few comics seems helterskelter. It feels as there are missing comics.
I know what you mean, the flow seems a little bit off. I hit the back button on this one to make sure I hadn’t missed an update since the last one I had seen on Friday.
i know what you mean. thursday: tina wearing dress/shirt/whatever it is, today: wearing bikini again
If there is one thing Paul isn’t, it’s a master of the smooth transition. He seems to be a big proponent of the abrupt change. Not only of location, but of story lines.
Nonetheless this whole sequence, starting with Stinky and the sub, has been one of the longest, continuous story lines ever in the series.
or maybe this is all from monicas viewpoint
i mean if these things had happened to you…would YOUR brain be able to process it or would your mind be abit heltaskelta.
I dont have an issue with the storylines progress but I seem to be able to catch up to stuff like this quite quickly
Plus, if you’d spent some time in a Retreat for the Very Very Nervous due to people misinterpreting rather lesser supernatural events surrounding you … how would you feel as the weirdness-meter hits the peg?
from how it appears to me
it looks like they all took a non-speaking break and went outside or somewhere else..
now the conversation has continued.
“Should”, “Possibly”, “In theory”, “Maybe”, “Trust me”, “I know what I’m doing”, etc…
How many fatal words and phrases are there in the English Language?
“Hold my beer and watch this” is one of my favorites.
I believe a variation is “Let the master show you how it’s done” and the ever popular “What’s this thing/button for?”
“Let the Master” indeed… When I was learning to ride a bike, my dad grabbed his and said, “You’re going to see kids doing this thing I’m about to do; never try it!” He then proceeded to attempt to jump up a curb by doing a wheelie, failed miserably, and broke both his thumbs. Then he said, “Now you know why I said not to…”
:D Snerk…
“I should go into the dark woods and investigate that scream.”
Unarmed.
and if female…scantily clad…in the rain so that when she falls she’s muddy and wet…
After a ‘roll in the hay.’
With no/uncharged/no signal–phone, and why bother telling anyone where she’s going?
Don’t forget alone and in heels!
“Hold my beer and watch this!”
I’m sure that word pops up a lot in the list of famous last words.
As my brother has an admiral say in one of the “Honor Harrington” books:
David Weber is your brother?
He is indeed. He mentioned it early last week, I think, and I went all fan-girl.
…and I work with a guy who knows both of them.
Yep. I introduced him to his publisher – she was an editor at Baen Books then, but since Jim died, she’s the publisher…
Then a blessing on thy name, thy house, and all who dwell there. Says the fan with the Serious ‘Harrington’ addiction.
Davids Drake and Weber are two of my all time favoritest authors.
Both Daves would thank you. I don’t know Drake well – we’ve met – but i love his stuff, too.
Throw in Eric Flint and John Ringo—and they’ve all collaborated on various things at Baen—and you have much of the subway-reading I’ve done over the last seven years. That would be about 20 books out of 35?
“Hey, ya’ll. Watch this!” – Most common phrase spoken before a fatal accident here in the South.
And no always a lone fatality.
Or in pictures, the epitome of being careful!
…and bootstraps!
You seem to be breaking a lot of links lately.
Weird. I must be typoing.
Let’s try it again.
“Let’s split up.”
These all sound like lines from the Darwin Awards. hehehehe……
x=n+1 where x=total number of fatal phrases and n=as high as you can count.
wait there
i’ll go get help
admittedly there was only tepoz there but ..
Good memory!
he had the most adorable little suit on
speaking of the lil smurf – where did he go?
M seems to have mood swings and a temper problem. I wonder wha…
Is she pregnant?
Nah, she just gets like this whenever everything is not all about her, the universe doesn’t spin around her, and the sun doesn’t shine out of her ass.
That’s a tad harsh, redbeard.
I figured Mon was grumpy just because…well, look at some of the ridiculous crap that’s happened to her in the past few years. Learning to poit, saving the world, getting shot at by terrorists, stabbed in the head. Now this? Come on, that’s a lot for anybody to deal with.
Monica gets nervous when strange things are happening and she doesn’t feel as if she’s in control of her life.
Her time in the Home for the Extremely Baffled (which was due to the fact that she saw and heard things that others didn’t – like having long conversations with her great-grandmother … who’d been dead for years) left her scared of ever appearing out of control.
Monica is still, in many ways, a frightened, worried Little Girl.
yeah, what if your best friend, who ‘seemed’ to be naive and normal, a good rest from all the mind twisting demon stuff…
suddenly turned out to be even weirder, enough to spook out the demons???
I think she is taking it well, I think I would run away very fast.. :O
But May’s back in this world, so why don’t they consult with her? Have her look over the artifact.
That’s what I wonder too. Maya may take one look at it and exclaim:
“That’s the alpha prototype! We discarded that pile of crap long ago! It can cause people to be stranded for, what? … 80,000 years or more. Here let me get you the production model.”
Indeed. Now that it’s known to be Maya’s design, consulting her is the only rational option.
There’s a saying, “Built by engineers, for engineers.” Most prototypes are quirky, often poorly documented, and ergonomically questionable; this is normal. When you’re trying to make something work at all, you don’t worry if it’s a little user-hostile.
Speaking as an electronic/computer tech with experience working at a couple of companies that are (or were) bleeding-edge in their fields*, i am of the opinion that nothing should ever be released to production until the engineer(s) responsible for the design has personally built five prototypes, using only tools that a technician in the field would have available.
==========================
*One of them ran an analysis in its in-house labs, using equipment i maintained, that told NASA what was wrong with the original tiles on the Space Shuttle.
inre: NASA and tiles on the shuttle—I have a friend from high school who went to FSU, and his roomie’s dad was NASA-related, so he was called in for the first REAL problem with the shuttle tiles: the first set was installed upside-down, unnoticed until they got to the sharper concave and convex surfaces. He was recruited with a crew of young folks to carefully remove each tile (with some remarkably volatile chemicals), whip it clean, and stick it back on. The problem? The original installers were putting them on with the serial/control number down instead of up, as they hadn’t been told the numbers were there not only to guide placement, for after-installation verification. Oh well…
/wipe, not /whip
/but for after-installation verification as well.
man, I wish I could type. Or edit. Yeah, edit; that’s the ticket!
Yes, however if the prototype works, management will question the need for any further work, and insist it be put into production immediately.
Nonetheless, the time comes in every project when you need to shoot the engineers and put the damn thing into production.
My brother works in a particular factory; his job is to take the engineers’ plans, combine them, build the prototype, and show the engineers how to fix their plans.
Engineers don’t like him but the rest of the line does…
I am a tech. Engineers prove it can work, it’s our job to find a way for it to continue to work, as intended, for this long . . . Then we get to fix it.
Danzer, been there, done that, ran away screaming.
As Rick Cook observed, “There is a huge difference between something an expert hacks together for his own use and a production system.”
You ought to see some of the computers i’ve used over the last twenty or so years.
This one actually looks almost professionally-built – i decided i needed a new case for it when i was busy upgrading the guts.
Of course, last week i took the piece-parts left over from that upgrade, added a couple pieces, stuffed them back in the original ratty-looking case, loaded the original system-builder copy of Windows 7 on it – since it was the original motherboard, that’s not only possible but legal – and voila! a computer for Kate, bringing the number of machines in the house to five.
And i’ve got my eye on a used HP laptop with minor screen problems – two one-pixel-wide vertical lines about 1/3 of the way in on each side that’s sitting in a local shop for less than $80.
And i plan to either buy a cheap used machine or a bare-bones system from Fry’s and build a network server/gateway/firewall machine for the home network fairly soon.
With at least four terabytes of storage.
When you do that, Fairport, don’t forget: hardwire into your house electric at least two high capacity battery backups (mine had one plugged into the other) and preferably on their own circuit for plugging your computer into. That has saved my job at least three times. (Razzleflabin’ tornados…)
Just remember the past tense of Fry’s…
Not always. My father-in-law cobbled together computer test systems for finding all the errors in the hardware in some very big and/or complicated systems. He was the only person at the company who could fix the stuff when it broke. He got layed off; now he makes twice as much as a consultant, doing the same job for the same company, from home.
“Now that it’s known to be Maya’s design”
How did that happen? I looked just back at the last few day’s strips and I don’t see anything that told them what Bud just said. Does it say “Designed by Mayahuel / Built by George and Fred” on it?
Designed by May, built by Shelly and Shellinx?
Made in Sacred Forest for Lanthis Enterprises.
Inspected by #57.
Supervised by Creepy.
Do not steal time.
Something that’s been confusing to me since this “Jin is broken” arc began as well.
May built Jin (literally) and knows far more about Golems than all of our main cast put together.
And yet, no one has consulted her on Jin’s issue (at least, in-comic panels). Then again, no one’s bothered to ask Phix or Tepoz either, both of whom have a wealth of knowledge to which our main cast is not privy (Phix’s sphinx buddies and library, Tepoz’s immortal buddies and pre-GGG-creation memories).
Perhaps one day they’ll remember they have a support system outside of “Let’s hope Bud guesses it correctly” which seem to be the general plan-of-action these days.
Poor Bud.
That’s seemed very inconsistent to me, too. Today Bud says that Maya designed the relic, but Bud also seemed to say that Maya probably couldn’t fathom it, so there would be any point in talking to her about it.
The lack of research was kind of hand-waved on January 25, 2011. Somehow the fact that something might have been intentionally hidden, and it might have been somehow relevant to the relic apparently convinced them that any useful information would never have been written down. That’s a bizarre leap of logic.
Hmm. Maybe this is all the result of letting Bud lead. She’s always been the one to “go with her gut” and work out the details as things occur, not a premeditated strategist like Jin, Tepoz, or Brandi.
That actually does sort of answer my previous question. As long as they let Bud lead the group unquestioned, no one is going to ask others for help/advice, since that’s not in Bud’s nature (closest she’ll usually get to asking for help is dragging Shelly and Monica along with her kicking and screaming).
I thought that the letting Bud lead only applied to the trip to Ireland. But I agree that if she were in the lead, they wouldn’t ask for help.
Remember, Bud didn’t want to do it, she was drafted.
At least Tina seem to be over her freakout. She and Shelly were getting to be really close so this was touch and go kinda.
That seems to be far from over. Past the screaming phase maybe, but if anything she seems to be too scared to even speak properly.
I mean, when does Tina ever state something directly or so concisely?
And the “,….” seems to indicate she either will need to change her clothes again, or has just temporarily ventured into lala land.
If you didn’t see, she already changed her clothes. The last time we saw her, she was wearing a shirt. Apperantly she has had enough of that. Guess she decided if Shelly is going to walk around with out a shirt on she can too.
Good point. Guess we’re pass ‘that’ particular stage of terror now then (>^_^)>
aaaand back to anger again
Monica doesn’t like taking the steps in order.
she should have hit acceptance now..
anyway
that was a tad defensively angry..
i presume she blew up over something in regards to how the word was used against her in her past but…to be honest i cannot imagine how the word would have been used with her…
going there should make her feel better
perhaps?
somethingshould
The biggest question posed by this strip has nothing to do with the characters or dialogue. Where are they? There was obviously a location change. The stone wall in the background says that they can’t be in Monica’s house. Then again, they could have just moved outside. Wherever they are, it is warm considering that Tina took her shirt off.
Looks like a greenhouse or a conservatory.
Perhaps Kat’s greenhouse?
Monica had some potted plants on her back patio. I think they just went outside. I don’t know what the framework would be, though.
Okay, Tina has now taken off the t-shirt that she was wearing and seems to be staring at someone or something in an almost trance like state. Bud is looking in Monica’s direction. Are there any thoughts as to who or what Tina is looking at now?
I think she’s just staring off into space.
She’s done the staring off into space while talking thing before here:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/took-liberties/
And the following one.
And right after that was when Phix nailed Nudge, knocking the trickster out of her.
Yes, I’m sure she loves having a Sphinx in the room.
Possibly still staring at the apex predator that used to be her friend that appeared in the room a few ago….
or at creepy
heh would be adorable if Tina does see a mini-sphinx insted of creepy as peeps have guessed
and relooking at the strip
she could just be looking at flowers.
she does like nature
I don’t think her ability to see auras is really like seeing structure. The other thing is that I’m not sure a mini sphinx would be more worrying for her. The simple fact that demons can be converted into CG may be worrying for her. It also may be that CG has been converted even further. She might be wondering if the same things could happen to her somehow.
Actually, Tina may like the prospect of her demons merged into one entity. No more discussions as to what to do. Just one voice to guide the body. She’ll have the nearest thing she can to a soul. Also, since the merged demons, like CG, can manifest outside the body, the current Tina could become a new individual, outside Tina’s body, leaving it vacant for the return of her soul, yet not destroying Tina as she is now.
Yay, it’s Monday!
Tina’s spacing out, Monica’s this side of annoying, and Bud’s being pragmatic. Must be Monday. In counterpoint to the definition of ‘should’: while hoping for the best, should says that having a plan B would be a wise thing to consider.
Eh, there’s a point of view that says that having a “Plan B” guarantees you’ll need a “Plan C”. Being prepared for anything fate can throw at you is just begging to have to prove it…
A plan C is okay, but if you need a plan D, it’s time to consider quitting.
..and if you lose your hat, it’s a bad plan, anyway.
And in all honesty, anyone who thinks today is a good day to die is a bit too masochistic for my tastes.
Especialy if it’s a hat sandwich – to go.
To paraphrase George S Patton (whom i despise, but he did have a solid grasp of certain concepts):
I’m thinking we are currently pretty deep into Plan B. Plan A having been fix the CM and Plan B being destroy the CM instead of fixing it. At this point it almost seems like we might be out past the extent of Plan B and are just winging it from here.
Plan A never works. Plan B sometimes works. So let’s skip plan A all together and just go right for plan C, Ok?
…except that that makes Plan C Plan A-Prime, and do we have plans D and E, which are now B-Prime and C-Prime?
Ok, so if we build this giant wooden badger…
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2PdyxMtiYM )
Even guarantees have limits. Monica needs to come to grips with the fact that “should” is all you really get in this world. There are no true guarantees. You “should” be able to make it to the store and back alive. Doesn’t mean you will.
thats true
Well said.
ah but there’s a difference between the smaller chance “guarantees” won’t work and the more likely to fail then workout as planed “should”.
when the lives of you and your friends are put on the line time and time again when “should work” plans fall apart no where near a happy ending and leave you scrambling I would be testy too. At least with a guaranteed pan you know you’ll end up near the end zone to use an analogy.
Ok: Monica should resign herself to living without guarantees. But that’s one of her human flaws. She needs to be in control, or at least to have the illusion she is.
To me, it’s odd that Monica would start worrying about it now. There was even less reason to think that anything good would happen when Shelly held the relic. A bad thing happened when Monica held it and nothing happened when Shelly held it the first time. How did they conclude from that that something good would happen if Shelly held it again, but for a longer period? That didn’t even rise to the level of should.
Why have Bud’s and Monica’s roles reversed? Earlier it was Bud who was nervous about what the relic might do. Now that the relic did something that they never imagined, what would make Bud think that they understand it now?
I can see Monica’s point of view here though because when dealing with Jin the phrase “Failure is not an option” comes to the fore, and Monica feels people are being far to casual.
Hm. I think they all need to watch more Mythbusters. Failure is always an option, and often, it’s the first one!
When one is defusing a planet-buster, failure may be an option, but it is not one to be preferred or sought.
(After you watch that, watch the next part, at youtu.be/g_47mmt5SZY)
Ouch!
Life works with “should” more often than we try to admit. That’s why we learn to adapt “should” things not go in ways we expect it to be.
Didn’t Tina put a shirt on?
Not that I’m complaining mind you…
She did. Her present lack of same indicates they are now in a warmer place which may also have tanning possibilities.
This would be my interpretation. They’ve moved somewhere with brick walls and lots of plants; that might be Monica’s backyard, or a place more exotic. Bud didn’t change because her swimsuit blew up along with the sub, and Monica’s just in a snit.
I’m hoping Shelly, Nudge, and Conscience are still around and also out there, the latter two in swimsuits would be a giggle. And Shelly hopefully has some clothes on now…
Now you have me laughing uncontrollably as I try to picture Nudge in a swim suit.
Eeek! Creepy avatar!!
And here wo again… I have to agree with Silver C. here, Life indeed works with “should” more often than not.
I can understand that Monica would like things to work out as she would have liked them to, but the problem is that they do not always do so.
Also: has she already forgotten that with the CM things did not work out as she thought they should.
I mean getting stabbed in the head by the Shellster ?
Uh-oh. Another can of worms opened up here? Did Monica have such a drunken uncle who tricked her into thinking he meant well? That last panel would seem to indicatesome kind of bad memory she dredged up…
Is it possible to reset the RSS feed to display more than ten posts?
It probably depends on what you’re using for your RSS reader. If I scroll down using Google Reader it keeps loading things until it shows the last month’s worth. Unfortunately, it’s been choking on Wapsi’s RSS feed lately. Sage only shows the last 10. The widget used by My.Yahoo allows you to select how many to display, but only up to 10. I haven’t tried anything else and don’t know how enough about RSS to know how it works. Perhaps Google caches the RSS feed on a server for its reader, for all I know.
Wuhf!! Princess Sunshine is in a SNIT!!!! Not that she doesn’t have a reason, but I think at this point in the game Shelly maybe needs a hug and then some. Even Creepy Girl could probably use a hug, tho she might not admit it.
Sounds like my cat.
He falls asleep on the bad, lying on his side, and if i start rubbing his belly, he opens one eye and acts as if he’s just doing me a big favour by allowing me to soothe myself…
Of course, the purring is a bit of a giveaway, but he tries to keep it quiet…
and here is the hard part for me … she has been with creepy little girl in one “room” for 80000 years more or less and still havent give her a name? Oo okey it shelly but still
I spose – technically – the name of creepy is Shelly.
And as for giving her a name..
well..do you call the voices in YOUR head something other than ‘me/myself/i’?
I guess the name Harvey was already taken.
Well there’s my Me, and then there’s my Muse. Also known as conciousness and subconciousness. Kind of like Jack Spratt and his wife–it takes them both to get the job done.
Tina’s the one calling her ‘creepy little girl’, while Bud’s going for ‘thing’. Shelly calls her her companion. I use ‘Conscious’. All are probably right…
Maybe CG has a name but Shelly just hasn’t said it aloud yey.
I think that probably has something to do with the way names are used in conversation, as well as the naming conventions of demons.
In conversation, people only tend to use the name of the person they’re addressing to indicate that they are talking to that person, and not someone else, as well as to gain the attention of a person you wish to speak to. Even though Shelly spent quite some time talking to Creepy Girl, it is entirely possible that a situation never presented itself where Shelly would address her by name.
However, the more likely reason for Creepy Girl’s lack of name has to do with the naming conventions of other demons. While Creepy Girl isn’t a demon herself, she is made of demons, and may share some of their tendencies. None of the demons we have encountered so far have any name beyond their function. It is entirely possible that Shelly tried to give Creepy Girl a name, but she refused.
I’m more of the opinion that names give you a bit of power over the namee. I guarantee I’ve used someone’s name–alone–to read them the riot act when they did something terribly stupid. I bet every last one of you has a mom who did the same…
It does. President George W. Bush chose nicknames for the members of his staff. It encouraged camaraderie, but also was a reminder of who was the decisioner.
When you know you’re really in trouble is when you mom uses all three of your names.
When you know you’re really, really in trouble is when she puts periods in. After. Each. Name.
When Barbara’s pissed at me, she’ll actually say, “Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!”
Barbara’s hard core with the Riot Act.
Guilty, but the award for most telling use of my name goes to . . . my wife, upon learning of whatever my latest stupid move was.
Problems, Monica?
PixieGirl has a point…
Now that she’s past mulling over who to blame, we go past guilt and straight to pissed off. Not at someone mind you but the English language.
Words. Such a primative form of communication.
Heh. English: the world’s languages in a blender.
James D Nicoll
After you’ve enjoyed that quote, check out Cally Soukop’s compilation of “Nicoll Events” – James’s accounts of Real Life Experiences, many of which involve explosions, copious bleeding and (on occasion) meteors, at dd-b.net/NicollEvents/.
A quote from that collection:
Hmmm. I seem to have omitted a </a>.
doffs hat and bows Applause!
Language is the soul of its people. –Holly Lisle. (Link to The English Issue, a really good article.)
Holly’s “back to chapter 1″ link isn’t quite working. Here’s the first part.
I may be reading too much into this, but to me it sound like Monica was molested or at least harmed by one of her uncles.
BTW, if that’s the case, I hope it’s not the one we saw earlier.
@KaiserFrazer67: Now I see that you had the same thought. Sorry.
I think you are.
That was my initial gut reaction, and once I had it, it was hard to ignore it. But there isn’t much to support it.
Tina is hot, by the way. Just my two penn’orth.
Well, if she’s hot, she should take something off to be cooler.
That would be really cool.
(“…I pay them extra when I make them work overtime.”)
*shakes pun-jar*.. |:P
Donates a dollar to cover last weeks shortfall.
Any body wanna bet that the reason they moved out side was so they could see Shelly in full sphinx form? I like to think that’s what Tina is staring at just off panel.
I think they’d all be staring if that was the case. XD
http://thesaurus.com/browse/should
Main Entry: may
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: concede possibility
Synonyms: be going to, shall, should, will
Notes: can applies to what is possible and may to what is permissible; can means ‘able to,’ may means ‘permitted to’
may is more optimistic than might; may carries the idea of permission while might suggests likelihood
Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
“Should” should be spelled “shud” ’cause it IS a four-letter-word.