Monica really needs to work on her aim. Amanda has every right to be mad, she could have seriously hurt herself hitting the water from that height (especially if she had no way to prepare for it). I think this is going to be filed under “epic fail” for Monica as she is not doing a very convincing job at showing Amanda that she is not insane.
Monica rules! You go girl. Sounds corny, but… Sorry, Monica rules!!! No really, she is , and always has been the foundation of this strip. A1, the best. Just like my Heather. Go ahead and let me have it. Aaaaagh…
20 feet up into the lake – boy, that’s gotta hurt. And she was likely in the lake for about two and a half seconds, which has GOT to be cold. (I’d try to do the math as to exact length of time she was in the water, but it’s after midnight and my brain is fried.)
I did wonder if Monica would get the vertical componant of the poit correct (but I thought she would have her under water).
Also, if she was 5-6 m in the air when she appeared, there’s more chance that she would have been spotted. If you can see the other side of that lake then anyone at or on the lake, or bordering it, would probably have their attention drawn to, and not only be able to spot, someone suddenly appearing in such a precarious position.
Of course, she was only there for like four seconds, so even if someone did see it, they might think that a seagull or other bird just dive-bombed into the lake. It’s the SEP principle at work – “That’s somebody else’s problem.”
Cool. You can use Street View to go around the perimeter of the lake. I think I see the beach discussed as well. It’s not labled but there are some pictures of views from that point that come up if you click on some little circled plus symbols in the beach area using the street view man. One seemed to be the view across the lake of the tall buildings shown in the strips of Bud and Brandi at the beach.
Looks like there is another lake every few blocks in that area.
According to the scale on the photomap you linked to, Lake Calhoun is more than 2500 feet across. If Monica dropped Amanda into the middle of the lake, even from 20 feet up, it’s unlikely that anyone on shore would have noticed.
It’s more likely that Amanda materialized 9-10 feet above water level. A shocking experience like that would tend to throw out one’s ability to estimate distances. If Amanda really DID materialize 20 feet up, she’d have about 1.12 seconds to think “Oh S…”, certainly not enough time to scream, before she hit the water.
Amanda Does raise an interesting point. 20 feet up is still a heck of a distance to fall if you are caught completely unaware. Possibly excessive. She could have simply Poited her across the room. But I guess where is the fun in that.
Being poited across the room could be rationalized away too easily. Being dunked has the added advantage that the subject STAYS WET for long enough to defeat the ‘this never happened’ voice.
I think we are all forgetting the Roger Rabbit maxim, ‘Only when it’s funny…’ I was never in fear for Amanda getting hurt, picking up a duck water virus or anything. The situation is too funny for that to happen.
I’m not entirely sure she poited her 20 feet above the lake or 20 feet under the surface of the lake. I suppose 20 feet above would give her time to hold her breath before impact, but 20 feet is till a long way up. Hitting the water from that height is a bit hard on the body if you’re not in a diving position to help break the surface tension as you enter.
I like the dialog. Different interpretations of the word crazy. Monica is saying “i’m not insane.” Amanda is saying, “ok, but you’re still crazy!”
I think Amanda hit the water feet first because she was upright when she was poited back so, unless Monica changes people’s orientation during a poit, it’s safe to assume Amanda spent her 3 seconds upright.
I think she did poit her under the water, to ensure she was not seen. That would also explain Amanda’s body position when she got back, like someone trying to quickly surface…
No, her body position was essentially still upright, which meant she had just begun to try to get back to the water’s surface, but got poited back before she could move her arms.
A lot can happen in three-four seconds. I’d say it went like this:
1. POIT! (Amanda over the water)
2. AAAAAH! (Amanda falling towards the water)
3. SPLOOSH! (Amanda IN the water)
4. Glubglub (Amanda UNDER water)
5. POIT! (Amanda back in the office)
I didn’t realise it before but Monica must have some way of tracking people/things because, unless Amanda has the ability to levitate, she was not in the same position at the end of the 3 seconds as she was at the beginning.
Poiting is probably not based on a specific location of a person. I.E It doesn’t matter where you are when I think about you. Lets say the only thing needed to poit is thinking of the person and the destination. This can lead to hilarity as remembering people, spatially aware and knowledgeable about geography are different mental skill sets. In Monica’s case she is good at people and geography but not so hot with spatial skills. Hense, the 10-15 ft drop into the lake. Unless she did it on purpose?
Well, Amanda was lucky M’s aim wasn’t 20 feet under the lake. or 200 feet to the upper right of the lake. At least, she hit the water, and Monica bought her back. M could have just poit her to the Library, and Amanda would have gotten scare to death by Phix.
If she’s that bad on her aim, how is it she can poit people precisely on their bed, as with Kevin and Bud? Why not several feet above, or even into the floor at the other extreme. Seems more like she purposly placed Amanda where she did with regards to the surface of the lake.
Well, she was drunk/hungover/in a panic when that poiting session took place (it’s amazing the accidental feats of awesome you can acheive when you shouldn’t be able to)…and she wasn’t 100% accurate since Bud was with Kevin when it was all said and done, and I doubt that would have ever been something she intended.
A 20-foot drop… that would give Amanda time to do the Wile E. Coyote thing… look around, big eyes, oh $h17!, and hold breath before hitting the surface of the water…
I think we’re over-analyzing the whole poiting thing.
Amanda could be over-reacting by claiming a 20 foot drop. 10-14 feet isn’t as bad of a drop, and looks more like 16 to 20 when you’re tall like Amanda is (yay for heads being at the top of the body and having further to fall).
Even if someone saw the mysterious appearance of a woman over Lake Calhoun, there shouldn’t be any concern because there wouldn’t be anyone there when bystanders investigated. It would be just another case of “But I thought I saw…hmm…must have imagined it.”
Monica’s poit precision is probably modulated by her familiarity with the area. Unless she make a habit of poiting herself directly into the lake, she probably had to take some guesses and error on the side of safety.
C’mon Amanda, be glad there wasn’t a postcard of Mt. Saint Helens on the bulletin board. Besides you look sexy – all wet and clingy – diditgetwarminhere?
I think two things are required for a “poit” (and Pablo can correct me on this):
1. Knowledge of the person/item being poited, and
2. Knowledge of the place person/item is being poited to.
The last part is the most important, because that was the reason for the portal cloth; the Lanthians couldn’t “poit” to the New World if they didn’t know where the New World was in the first place.
I think this is going a bit too fast, from event to comprehension.
If I were standing in a room, and then with no warning found myself in midair above a lake, I would not have time to understand what had happened to me before I hit water, even if I knew teleporting was possible. The disorientation would be total. I just literally would not be able to grasp anything beyond the fact that I was falling, and then was underwater. Total time from poit to impact would be half a second or less, no time for processing anything, just recording information from my senses.
And then I would be back at the point I started. At this point I would still be focused on what just happened to me?!? — assuming that I was coherent at all.
Since this event would turn my entire concept of the world as I thought it existed upside down, I would need quite a bit of calming down, and careful explanation, possibly demonstrations as applied to something else, thankyouverymuch, and maybe a fifth of good whiskey before I got to the stage of “You dropped me twenty feet into the middle of a lake? Are you crazy?!!”
Amanda hasn’t noticed it yet, but she did not arrive at the same place she left. Check the backgrounds. Monica poit’ed Amanda away from her office in the museum to lake Calhoun, but from lake Calhoun to some other place where the walls are unfinished … so it looks like Monica poit’ed herself between the time she deposited Amanda in the lake and the time she brought Amanda out of the lake.
wow. This sounds like what a teleporter jerk of a kid did to a couple of school kids in PS238 by Aaron Williams. It was funny then and mean then, and it is funny and mean now.
That’s the problem with panic, it doesn’t let you focus on the important, just what you believe might hurt/kill you. In Amanda’s case even though what scared her is over.
On the other hand, that’s the problem with sanity — you’re crazy to try to prove you aren’t crazy.
Geez Amanda, she JUST said she wasn’t! :p
Some folks just don’t pay attention, sheesh.
Monica really needs to work on her aim. Amanda has every right to be mad, she could have seriously hurt herself hitting the water from that height (especially if she had no way to prepare for it). I think this is going to be filed under “epic fail” for Monica as she is not doing a very convincing job at showing Amanda that she is not insane.
Not only that but the location doesn’t exactly scream discreet.
We seem to be talking at cross-purposes here…
Further thought:
Puts me in mind of the Buffy episode where Willow used a random translocation spell on Glory, the demigoddess Big Bad.
Glory materialises about five miles up, above L.A., does a coyote-style take, gets out “Oh, fu…”
…and then plummets from view…
Heh. I just watched that episode 2 or so days ago… so true. 😀
That episode was epically hilarious.
And I predict Amanda slapping Monica silly.
I’m liking Amanda’s new nose more and more!
And I’m completely looking forward to the upcoming plot exposition!
Ditto on both points. 🙂
Is that “exposition”, as in “Monica ‘splains”, or “explosion”, as in :Amanda tells Monica what she really things”?
Overall, it’s amazing how much Paul’s art has improved over the years. It gives me hope for my own eye-wrenching art.
The “Where was I?” is easy. The how, that’s going to take a bit of explaining.
Monica rules! You go girl. Sounds corny, but… Sorry, Monica rules!!! No really, she is , and always has been the foundation of this strip. A1, the best. Just like my Heather. Go ahead and let me have it. Aaaaagh…
You want some crazy? I gotcha crazy…
20 feet up into the lake – boy, that’s gotta hurt. And she was likely in the lake for about two and a half seconds, which has GOT to be cold. (I’d try to do the math as to exact length of time she was in the water, but it’s after midnight and my brain is fried.)
I did wonder if Monica would get the vertical componant of the poit correct (but I thought she would have her under water).
Also, if she was 5-6 m in the air when she appeared, there’s more chance that she would have been spotted. If you can see the other side of that lake then anyone at or on the lake, or bordering it, would probably have their attention drawn to, and not only be able to spot, someone suddenly appearing in such a precarious position.
Check it out for yourself.
Of course, she was only there for like four seconds, so even if someone did see it, they might think that a seagull or other bird just dive-bombed into the lake. It’s the SEP principle at work – “That’s somebody else’s problem.”
On the upside, if she HAD hurt herself? That’s RIGHT by my Doctor’s office at the Fairview Uptown clinic.
He’s really awesome, and he’s seeing new patients.
Cool. You can use Street View to go around the perimeter of the lake. I think I see the beach discussed as well. It’s not labled but there are some pictures of views from that point that come up if you click on some little circled plus symbols in the beach area using the street view man. One seemed to be the view across the lake of the tall buildings shown in the strips of Bud and Brandi at the beach.
Looks like there is another lake every few blocks in that area.
We do have a lot of ’em around here. At least, according to my license plates. 😉
We actually have more in Wisconsin, but we had already taken claim to “America’s Dairyland”. 😉
According to the scale on the photomap you linked to, Lake Calhoun is more than 2500 feet across. If Monica dropped Amanda into the middle of the lake, even from 20 feet up, it’s unlikely that anyone on shore would have noticed.
It’s more likely that Amanda materialized 9-10 feet above water level. A shocking experience like that would tend to throw out one’s ability to estimate distances. If Amanda really DID materialize 20 feet up, she’d have about 1.12 seconds to think “Oh S…”, certainly not enough time to scream, before she hit the water.
I think she was trying to make sure she didn’t end up 20 feet BELOW the surface, risking a lungful of water.
Amanda Does raise an interesting point. 20 feet up is still a heck of a distance to fall if you are caught completely unaware. Possibly excessive. She could have simply Poited her across the room. But I guess where is the fun in that.
Amanda may not have fallen quite that far. Panic can do a number on your perception. Just sayin’.
Even if you’re right, I don’t think Amanda’s in the mood to listen at the moment. 😉
Being poited across the room could be rationalized away too easily. Being dunked has the added advantage that the subject STAYS WET for long enough to defeat the ‘this never happened’ voice.
I think we are all forgetting the Roger Rabbit maxim, ‘Only when it’s funny…’ I was never in fear for Amanda getting hurt, picking up a duck water virus or anything. The situation is too funny for that to happen.
well when you put it like that ^^
i just want amanda to find a little fish now 🙂
From last Friday:
FIshie!
Huh.
Something went wrong.
Let’s try again:
Fishie!
By the look on her face i can only guess where ‘red fish’ ended up. (think Dr. Seuss)
Hisss!
I’ve really MISSED the interactions between Monica and Amanda! lol
I’m not entirely sure she poited her 20 feet above the lake or 20 feet under the surface of the lake. I suppose 20 feet above would give her time to hold her breath before impact, but 20 feet is till a long way up. Hitting the water from that height is a bit hard on the body if you’re not in a diving position to help break the surface tension as you enter.
I like the dialog. Different interpretations of the word crazy. Monica is saying “i’m not insane.” Amanda is saying, “ok, but you’re still crazy!”
I think Amanda hit the water feet first because she was upright when she was poited back so, unless Monica changes people’s orientation during a poit, it’s safe to assume Amanda spent her 3 seconds upright.
I think she did poit her under the water, to ensure she was not seen. That would also explain Amanda’s body position when she got back, like someone trying to quickly surface…
No, her body position was essentially still upright, which meant she had just begun to try to get back to the water’s surface, but got poited back before she could move her arms.
A lot can happen in three-four seconds. I’d say it went like this:
1. POIT! (Amanda over the water)
2. AAAAAH! (Amanda falling towards the water)
3. SPLOOSH! (Amanda IN the water)
4. Glubglub (Amanda UNDER water)
5. POIT! (Amanda back in the office)
I didn’t realise it before but Monica must have some way of tracking people/things because, unless Amanda has the ability to levitate, she was not in the same position at the end of the 3 seconds as she was at the beginning.
Poiting is probably not based on a specific location of a person. I.E It doesn’t matter where you are when I think about you. Lets say the only thing needed to poit is thinking of the person and the destination. This can lead to hilarity as remembering people, spatially aware and knowledgeable about geography are different mental skill sets. In Monica’s case she is good at people and geography but not so hot with spatial skills. Hense, the 10-15 ft drop into the lake. Unless she did it on purpose?
Agreed. During the drunken-accidental-boyfriend-poit, it’s fairly implied that she didn’t do it on purpose or even really knowing where he was.
Hahahaha !
Well, Amanda was lucky M’s aim wasn’t 20 feet under the lake. or 200 feet to the upper right of the lake. At least, she hit the water, and Monica bought her back. M could have just poit her to the Library, and Amanda would have gotten scare to death by Phix.
Now, where is a towel? PBH
If she’s that bad on her aim, how is it she can poit people precisely on their bed, as with Kevin and Bud? Why not several feet above, or even into the floor at the other extreme. Seems more like she purposly placed Amanda where she did with regards to the surface of the lake.
Well, she was drunk/hungover/in a panic when that poiting session took place (it’s amazing the accidental feats of awesome you can acheive when you shouldn’t be able to)…and she wasn’t 100% accurate since Bud was with Kevin when it was all said and done, and I doubt that would have ever been something she intended.
And Bud left her pants behind, which i know she didn’t intend.
A 20-foot drop… that would give Amanda time to do the Wile E. Coyote thing… look around, big eyes, oh $h17!, and hold breath before hitting the surface of the water…
Monica seems to be forgetting that not everyone can float as easily as she can…
Couldn’t resist- sorry!
I think we’re over-analyzing the whole poiting thing.
Amanda could be over-reacting by claiming a 20 foot drop. 10-14 feet isn’t as bad of a drop, and looks more like 16 to 20 when you’re tall like Amanda is (yay for heads being at the top of the body and having further to fall).
Even if someone saw the mysterious appearance of a woman over Lake Calhoun, there shouldn’t be any concern because there wouldn’t be anyone there when bystanders investigated. It would be just another case of “But I thought I saw…hmm…must have imagined it.”
Amanda is still agitated and distances look farther when looking down. She was probably not more than 10 feet above the water. 🙂
fudge. scratch my earlier theory.
Julie: Exactly so. It would take only minutes for an observer to reach the conclusion s/he had imagined the whole thing.
Monica’s poit precision is probably modulated by her familiarity with the area. Unless she make a habit of poiting herself directly into the lake, she probably had to take some guesses and error on the side of safety.
Now THAT would be fun. Hot day? *poit* to the middle of the lake. When you are tired *poit* back home.
If you get to Jin’s level of poit-spertise, then you could dry yourself off in the process, too..
Or poit there, leaving clothing behind, swim as desired, poit back dry and reclothed.
C’mon Amanda, be glad there wasn’t a postcard of Mt. Saint Helens on the bulletin board. Besides you look sexy – all wet and clingy – diditgetwarminhere?
Now there’s a thought. Postcard of Amanda in mid-plummet, slight blur of motion, most likely trying to hold her skirt down.
LAKE CALHOUN ( wish i weren’t here!)
That made me laugh.
Mama always said, crazy is as crazy does…
I don;t see this situation improving anytime soon…
What I wonder is how Mon managed to “target” Amanda that far away to bring her back. She wasn’t in the same location, obviously.
She knew Amanda’s “pattern”.
Remember, she’s grabbed Tepoz with a poit at least twice when she didn’t know where he was, either.
I think two things are required for a “poit” (and Pablo can correct me on this):
1. Knowledge of the person/item being poited, and
2. Knowledge of the place person/item is being poited to.
The last part is the most important, because that was the reason for the portal cloth; the Lanthians couldn’t “poit” to the New World if they didn’t know where the New World was in the first place.
Monica really should have poited Amanda’s pee and poops. Or maybe poited Lake Calhoun into Amanda, although that might have hurt.
I think this is going a bit too fast, from event to comprehension.
If I were standing in a room, and then with no warning found myself in midair above a lake, I would not have time to understand what had happened to me before I hit water, even if I knew teleporting was possible. The disorientation would be total. I just literally would not be able to grasp anything beyond the fact that I was falling, and then was underwater. Total time from poit to impact would be half a second or less, no time for processing anything, just recording information from my senses.
And then I would be back at the point I started. At this point I would still be focused on what just happened to me?!? — assuming that I was coherent at all.
Since this event would turn my entire concept of the world as I thought it existed upside down, I would need quite a bit of calming down, and careful explanation, possibly demonstrations as applied to something else, thankyouverymuch, and maybe a fifth of good whiskey before I got to the stage of “You dropped me twenty feet into the middle of a lake? Are you crazy?!!”
Oh, I suspect it’ll take several strips for Amanda to get close to being calmed down…
Amanda hasn’t noticed it yet, but she did not arrive at the same place she left. Check the backgrounds. Monica poit’ed Amanda away from her office in the museum to lake Calhoun, but from lake Calhoun to some other place where the walls are unfinished … so it looks like Monica poit’ed herself between the time she deposited Amanda in the lake and the time she brought Amanda out of the lake.
Already noticed, it’s just the other side of M’s office as previously established.
wow. This sounds like what a teleporter jerk of a kid did to a couple of school kids in PS238 by Aaron Williams. It was funny then and mean then, and it is funny and mean now.
That’s the problem with panic, it doesn’t let you focus on the important, just what you believe might hurt/kill you. In Amanda’s case even though what scared her is over.
On the other hand, that’s the problem with sanity — you’re crazy to try to prove you aren’t crazy.
mama always said; crazy is as crazy does…
NOT Crazy!
…Little bit of a bitch though. 😛