That is just exactly what their expressions in the first panel are shouting. You can deduce the whole context of the entire strip, just by looking at their faces and body language. Beautifully portrayed!
It all adds insult to injury. They were trying to do something exciting and good for all of their friends, worked hard at it, thought they had succeeded… nearly got killed, got scared and skreee-scraped and battered and eardrum-punctured… and get no sympathy at all and hit with a smug visual-aids-included lecture as to why their own ignorance was what put them right square in the THOOOM! zone.
I presume it’s just dumb luck and knowin’ where you’re goin’. For instance, there’s nothing stopping them from accidentally poiting into a 747, but what are the odds of a 747 being in the exact spot of the sky that you poit to? In the same vein, there’s really nothing stopping them from poiting onto an exploding island, but how often do islands explode?
And, it seemed that my guess of “The Midgard Serpent, with a really bad case of intestinal gas?”, was not actually all that far off of the mark, at least in a metaphorical way of looking at things.
I would figure the “lecture” part would be Brandi territory, but given how sudden that explosion was with no real prior indication, I think people are correct with their prior guesses that this wasn’t just a Volcanic eruption, but something else.
And Brandi would probably somehow be able to tell not only what it was, but how it happened, who planned it (if man-made), and what materials were used (if man-made).
prior indication? what makes you think there weren’t earlier tremors?
Just because M and Jin didn’t experience them doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.
Not EVERY volcanic event is proceeded immediately by continuous tremors, after all. Some events can have hours and even weeks from the last feel-able (that is, detectable by human senses) tremor to the ‘main event’.
Typically, even for Krakatoa, there are several small eruptions that leave visible damage. Rarely does a volcano just spontaneously explode. They are the one natural disaster that typically gives lots of warning for those paying attention. Thus the suspicion that something is up beyond geology.
and if a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it still make a sound?
the island may have been putting off Richter scale 10 quakes for a month before they Poited in for the first time and before they arrived they hit the “calm before the storm”… then THOOM… so it doesn’t really matter if it was natural , or man-made. they only arrived JUST as it went off…
I’ve learned that the magic was inside me all along. Also, I can start of with a kiss and don’t have to be like a bull at the gate and go leaping for the… Never mind.
Low soil sulphur content helps to create the famous Vidalia sweet onions – which is a controlled appellation, allowed only for onions of a few specific cultivars, grown only in a region surrounding Vidalia, Georgia – which can literally be eaten like an apple.
They are the best (and often most expensive) sweet onions.
Overhere something called “boerenkool” is quite the potent agent for sulphuric emissions. It’s a stew made from potatos, bacon, smoked sausage, mustard and a rather impressively potent kind of cabbage.
No Chili-beans -or dogs can beat that (And believe me, I’ve tried..)
research tells me that is a kind of cabbage… called ‘Kale’ in UK, similar to brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower… and if not cooked properly gives stomach problems!! sprouts are infamous for it at xmas…
“Kale” Aha! I was wondering what it would be called in english. And yes, all of that vegetable family are assplosion-inducing to the umpteenth degree..
well, I inadvertently discovered a worse smell. Back before I started trucking (and before desktop computers), I was into tabletop wargaming (still enjoy the occasional ‘friendly war’).
One wargaming shop in my home town regularly stayed open for gaming after hours.
one evening, 8 or 9 players were playing SFB and eating BBQ.
the flatulence aroma was extreme; but the players were just laughing at the ‘silent-but-deadly’ emissions.
I came in from work (in construction) and was immediately invited to join the ongoing battle between Roms and Gorns.
And the reason you want to avoid volcanoes that are along a subduction zone is they trap large quantities of water in the magma as saturated sediments are pulled into the magma pool making a locally explosive pocket of magma.
And why are all the ads in Spanish? I can still read Spanish, but there’s no way I could use most of the products they are trying to sell me. Paul your ad vendor is about as bright as my .5W LED night light.
I’m seeing the usual Project Wonderful ads, plus a few new vendors I’ve not seen before today, and none of the commercial ones I’ve grown used to. New interest-tagging/cookie system in use by the ad vendor, and gone amok?
Yahbut… an ad from a Christian book publisher, soliciting manuscripts?? I can’t figure out any way that this would correlate even slightly to my own browsing habits.
It’s the pron…… C’mon, especially the Catholic church is all “go forth and multiply” so, sponsoring “instructional material” would be the smartest way.. 😀
Heh… nice analysis! The only thing you missed, was an analysis via the method of simulated annealing (a.k.a. “admission that we don’t know how to solve the real problem, and are resorting to brute force and ignorance”).
Examples: the volcanoes around the Pacific in the “Ring of Fire”, which all tend to explode, as opposed to, say, those of Hawaii, which have much smaller eruptions. That can go on for years, even decades. I think Kilauwea on Hawaii has been erupting continuously since 1983.
Heehee, Bud giving them a lecture on volcanoes and how they work just makes me smile for some reason. XD
And to answer your question Jin, it depends on where you are. On a tropical island with a huge volcanic feature, no, don’t assume that sulfur smell came from one of your friends.
But if you’re hanging with your pals somewhere in Minneapolis and you smell that, then assuming someone dealt one is probably not too far off the mark.
“Today in the news: An unknown explosive device has removed te top three floors from a rather well-known landmark.
As to the cause, the investigation is still going on, though people in the neighbourhood complain of a rather foul “cooked-cabbage”-like smell…”
One of my buddies when i was in Electronics School at Great Lakes in nineteen-ought-sixty-eight had the wonderful experience of having to explain to the duty corpsman at Sick Bay one Saturday night how the hair in his nether regions got all frizzled…
Nâh.. I was still filling dipers in ’68 i am of the 85-3 vintage. And yes, i did get me bum hairs singed a tad. I was laughing so hard that i sort of took an “inverted” breath… If you catch my drift… Not good, “holy shit” kind of not good.
In one of Lois Bujold’s “Miles Vorkosigan” books (The Vor Game), cadets in an isolated Arctic training base manage to set their barracks on fire.
Miles, who is serving his first tour there after graduating the Academy, gets a round of applause from the other officers at a Staff Meeting when he recommends depriving the arsonists of ammunition by removing red bean and cabbage soup from the menu…
Well it would be interesting to see what is actually left of the island And vulcanos usually don’t blow up like that but that dosn’t mean they never go up ;p There have been cases if i remember right where vulcanos did erupt rather quickly (like the whole Pompey stuff it wouldn’t have happen the way it did if the people would had enough of warning to be able to run away and everybody runs if a slow steam of magma creeps towards you.
Yes, they most indubitably can, although they have the ventriloquist-bit to a pinch (i.e. making You think it’s something from somewhere else that makes the odd sounds)
Never mind those birds that suddenly start falling from the skies..
I always explain to my husband that I’m capable of farting, but that I don’t believe it should happen outside of a bathroom. A) It’s rude, stinky, and gross. B) You never know when it will be more than just gas. 😛
This has been Earth Science with Professor Acacia Budur. Tune in next week when she takes a piece of coal and turns it to Diamond with finger and thumb.
*whispers* “Dude, I think the teachers’ HOT.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, the fact she blew on her Ceramic coffee mug – and it MELTED!”
“Kewl”
“Totally”
I’m curious to know what the 8 on M’s shirt looks like when she isn’t wearing it, since it seems correctly proportioned when she is. I’m also curious to know what M looks like when she isn’t wearing the shirt, but that’s a given.
That’s really all I could manage in the way of thought reading today’s strip. I can’t even reply to other people’s comments if I can see the strip at all. *giggles*
I don’t think it’d have mattered if they checked out the other island One More Time, as it looks like they probably poited back to one of their homes for a change of clothes and celebratory beers before the big boom.
Also, I’d not be surprised if they determine Jin leaks, and that she should also never visit the west coast, Hawaii, Japan, or any other place with known and frequent vulcanism or earthquakes.
BTW don’t click on the “Wonder Woman” ad, it isn’t a comic of any kind but a collection of goofy pictures, sort of an “I Can Has Cheezburger” without cats or captions on the pictures.
Wow — I didn’t know Bud was that much of a teacher. Kewl.
HA! Who said blondes are stupid! Give em’ hell Bud!
She said that she’s quite intelligent…
I learned that you should always keep a chalkboard handy just in case you need to give an impromptu lecture.
Maybe it’s a 3DBB.
Phineas J Whoopee invented the Smart Board.
Pro Tier Lesson, right there.
I seriously keep a whiteboard and markers around for the same reason. 😛
Thus endeth the lesson.
Ouch. Annoyed at being lectured to by Bud, are we?
That is just exactly what their expressions in the first panel are shouting. You can deduce the whole context of the entire strip, just by looking at their faces and body language. Beautifully portrayed!
It all adds insult to injury. They were trying to do something exciting and good for all of their friends, worked hard at it, thought they had succeeded… nearly got killed, got scared and skreee-scraped and battered and eardrum-punctured… and get no sympathy at all and hit with a smug visual-aids-included lecture as to why their own ignorance was what put them right square in the THOOOM! zone.
Some days, ya should just have stayed in bed.
I’m just surprised it isn’t Brandi giving the lecture. It wasn’t so long ago, perhaps just this morning, Bud got a lesson on drinking too much.
“Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.”
-Emo Phillips
That Krakatoa is a bad place to put your vacation home?
I presume it’s just dumb luck and knowin’ where you’re goin’. For instance, there’s nothing stopping them from accidentally poiting into a 747, but what are the odds of a 747 being in the exact spot of the sky that you poit to? In the same vein, there’s really nothing stopping them from poiting onto an exploding island, but how often do islands explode?
Usually, only once……
Someone forgot to tell Hawaii about that…
So, we’ve just observed the worst case of bad timing since well before Lanthis ever came along?
Wow.
And, it seemed that my guess of “The Midgard Serpent, with a really bad case of intestinal gas?”, was not actually all that far off of the mark, at least in a metaphorical way of looking at things.
Probably.
On the other hand, though, Bud could be wrong about what caused the island to go boom.
Blasphemy!!!!
I’d have thought Brandi would be the one to give a lecture with chalkboard and cheery smile like that.
Bud’s smiling because she does not have to explain that she was the one responsible for the explosion that wiped out the island… this time.
I would figure the “lecture” part would be Brandi territory, but given how sudden that explosion was with no real prior indication, I think people are correct with their prior guesses that this wasn’t just a Volcanic eruption, but something else.
And Brandi would probably somehow be able to tell not only what it was, but how it happened, who planned it (if man-made), and what materials were used (if man-made).
prior indication? what makes you think there weren’t earlier tremors?
Just because M and Jin didn’t experience them doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.
Not EVERY volcanic event is proceeded immediately by continuous tremors, after all. Some events can have hours and even weeks from the last feel-able (that is, detectable by human senses) tremor to the ‘main event’.
@Valdeiper
Ok, Mr. Smarty Pants: Rule #32 of the internetz!
Also Rule #200 applies as well.
Typically, even for Krakatoa, there are several small eruptions that leave visible damage. Rarely does a volcano just spontaneously explode. They are the one natural disaster that typically gives lots of warning for those paying attention. Thus the suspicion that something is up beyond geology.
and if a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it still make a sound?
the island may have been putting off Richter scale 10 quakes for a month before they Poited in for the first time and before they arrived they hit the “calm before the storm”… then THOOM… so it doesn’t really matter if it was natural , or man-made. they only arrived JUST as it went off…
This is just proof then that timing is everything, even bad timing.
I’ve learned that the magic was inside me all along. Also, I can start of with a kiss and don’t have to be like a bull at the gate and go leaping for the… Never mind.
“When a fumarole and a subduction zone love each other very much…”
Have I ever mentioned that your my favortie Yamara?
If that’s your favourite Yamara exactly who are your less favourite Yamaras, if one may ask? 🙂
Even when every part of her body is smarting, Jin can still be the worlds biggest Smart Ass.
“That wasn’t brimstone, didn’t come off no stone, neither.”
kind of a reversal of a certain movie involving an ogre and a donkey, isn’t it.
the donkey said, “why don’t you warn someone before you let one go?”
the ogre said. “It wasn’t me. If it was me, you would not be here. It’s brimstone.”
Monica, last panel: <whispers>Teacher’s pet</whispers>
Good one!
You won the game.
How bad are M’s normal gaseous emmisions for Jin to smell sulfur from a volcano and not be concerned? O.o
Possibly Nudge isn’t the only person who orders lots of anchovies on her pizza?
Sorry, anchovy pizza doesn’t cause that kind of gas, and I am one of the ones who always orders it.
my friends say the worst culprit is a strong curry like biriani …:O
Prunes. Definitely prunes.
Hummus. Ground garbanzo beans, plus garlic. Addictively delicious, and blart-inducing to an awesome degree.
Anything with onions in it can have that effect; sulphur is a major component in onion smell. Eggs, with their higher sulphur content, are much worse.
Low soil sulphur content helps to create the famous Vidalia sweet onions – which is a controlled appellation, allowed only for onions of a few specific cultivars, grown only in a region surrounding Vidalia, Georgia – which can literally be eaten like an apple.
They are the best (and often most expensive) sweet onions.
And they tend to be Huge.
Overhere something called “boerenkool” is quite the potent agent for sulphuric emissions. It’s a stew made from potatos, bacon, smoked sausage, mustard and a rather impressively potent kind of cabbage.
No Chili-beans -or dogs can beat that (And believe me, I’ve tried..)
Try beer and pickled eggs. I had a friend who loved to torture his wife.
somehow, your avatar enhanced that statement, Kaibyo.
research tells me that is a kind of cabbage… called ‘Kale’ in UK, similar to brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower… and if not cooked properly gives stomach problems!! sprouts are infamous for it at xmas…
“Kale” Aha! I was wondering what it would be called in english. And yes, all of that vegetable family are assplosion-inducing to the umpteenth degree..
I wonder if this is the same as the kale we eat in the US. I had no idea it was a member of the brassica family. Learn something new every day.
One of my roomies has a fairly sulfiric smell to thier gas, and they always use it at the absolute worst time.
well, I inadvertently discovered a worse smell. Back before I started trucking (and before desktop computers), I was into tabletop wargaming (still enjoy the occasional ‘friendly war’).
One wargaming shop in my home town regularly stayed open for gaming after hours.
one evening, 8 or 9 players were playing SFB and eating BBQ.
the flatulence aroma was extreme; but the players were just laughing at the ‘silent-but-deadly’ emissions.
I came in from work (in construction) and was immediately invited to join the ongoing battle between Roms and Gorns.
I took off my boots.
5 minutes later, everybody was outside gagging.
Oh, there’s worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvPHCauWzI8
03:30 or so, to 04:30 or so.
Dehydrated apricots always set me off. I once literraly cleared out a 2 story house and a military squad bay just from some dehydrated apricots!
Paul, do any of these characters have the ability to heal someone who’s been badly injured?
If they did, they would have healed Jin after she broke her ribs
She does better drawings than my Geology Professor did when covering a similar topic.
And the reason you want to avoid volcanoes that are along a subduction zone is they trap large quantities of water in the magma as saturated sediments are pulled into the magma pool making a locally explosive pocket of magma.
And why are all the ads in Spanish? I can still read Spanish, but there’s no way I could use most of the products they are trying to sell me. Paul your ad vendor is about as bright as my .5W LED night light.
I’m seeing the usual Project Wonderful ads, plus a few new vendors I’ve not seen before today, and none of the commercial ones I’ve grown used to. New interest-tagging/cookie system in use by the ad vendor, and gone amok?
there’s a script that determines what ads you see based on your browsing history.
Yahbut… an ad from a Christian book publisher, soliciting manuscripts?? I can’t figure out any way that this would correlate even slightly to my own browsing habits.
It’s the pron…… C’mon, especially the Catholic church is all “go forth and multiply” so, sponsoring “instructional material” would be the smartest way.. 😀
Heh… nice analysis! The only thing you missed, was an analysis via the method of simulated annealing (a.k.a. “admission that we don’t know how to solve the real problem, and are resorting to brute force and ignorance”).
Examples: the volcanoes around the Pacific in the “Ring of Fire”, which all tend to explode, as opposed to, say, those of Hawaii, which have much smaller eruptions. That can go on for years, even decades. I think Kilauwea on Hawaii has been erupting continuously since 1983.
Mount Olympia (Antarctica) has been erupting since it was discovered in the 1890s.
It puts more pollutants into the atmosphere DAILY than all of mankind does (or had ever done) in our worse month.
That so?
You think mother earth is trying to get rid of us? Like gassing a house that has a cocqroach-problem?
Just proves the biosphere is more resilient than the doomsayers fear…. but not indestructible….
Heehee, Bud giving them a lecture on volcanoes and how they work just makes me smile for some reason. XD
And to answer your question Jin, it depends on where you are. On a tropical island with a huge volcanic feature, no, don’t assume that sulfur smell came from one of your friends.
But if you’re hanging with your pals somewhere in Minneapolis and you smell that, then assuming someone dealt one is probably not too far off the mark.
Bud gave a better description of lava tube than my old geology teacher did. LOL
It also depends on the time and location of said vapor expression as well. That and who has a silly grin on their face as well.
Silly grin? Hmm.. around here, with all my collegues around it’s rather the one with the satisfied, smug expression.
Sometimes even eliciting applause for a really good one.. (Don’t ask.. ICT techies amongst themselves are swine…and we are proud of it!)
LOL.. lighters at the ready??? 😀 😀
NO NO NOOOO!! O_o No LIGHTERSS.. *critsjj…*
“Today in the news: An unknown explosive device has removed te top three floors from a rather well-known landmark.
As to the cause, the investigation is still going on, though people in the neighbourhood complain of a rather foul “cooked-cabbage”-like smell…”
One of my buddies when i was in Electronics School at Great Lakes in nineteen-ought-sixty-eight had the wonderful experience of having to explain to the duty corpsman at Sick Bay one Saturday night how the hair in his nether regions got all frizzled…
Ahem.. That would have been me, then. Amazing how quickly a story gets from Hohne to the States 😛
And, yes, it does work. Just, for the love of all that is precious, do not try it in a hazmat suit… Don’t ask…
@Fair
Nâh.. I was still filling dipers in ’68 i am of the 85-3 vintage. And yes, i did get me bum hairs singed a tad. I was laughing so hard that i sort of took an “inverted” breath… If you catch my drift… Not good, “holy shit” kind of not good.
In one of Lois Bujold’s “Miles Vorkosigan” books (The Vor Game), cadets in an isolated Arctic training base manage to set their barracks on fire.
Miles, who is serving his first tour there after graduating the Academy, gets a round of applause from the other officers at a Staff Meeting when he recommends depriving the arsonists of ammunition by removing red bean and cabbage soup from the menu…
“Fracking volcanos, how do they work?”
I don’t buy it.
That explosion was way too quick and too coincidental.
Fist the return of Deitzel and now..
TEH SHIRT!
In the first panel, Monica’s neck looks like an arrow pointing at the 8.
If I wasn’t so sore, I’d poit you back there RIGHT NOW
Lets try that again -M thinks- If I wasn’t so sore, I’d poit you back there RIGHT NOW
LOL, and here I was thinking they had picked an ocean island bomb test site by mistake 😀
Actualy where it says “Lava Tube”, that should read Magma Chamber. Because as gross as this sounds, volcanoes really are like a zit.
And here I thought volcanoes were like bad, stereotypical Science Fair projects.
Actually, what the “lava tube” is referring to is the plug of solidified lava in the volcano’s vent.
also, lava tubes are evacuated tubes through cooled lava. In some islands located in the southern pacific, certain birds nest in lava tubes.
Well it would be interesting to see what is actually left of the island And vulcanos usually don’t blow up like that but that dosn’t mean they never go up ;p There have been cases if i remember right where vulcanos did erupt rather quickly (like the whole Pompey stuff it wouldn’t have happen the way it did if the people would had enough of warning to be able to run away and everybody runs if a slow steam of magma creeps towards you.
They do if the ocean rushes in and hits the magma, causing one humongous steam explosion.
Actually, when that happens, people in the open don’t run so much as fly when the pyroclastic cloud reaches them. . . .
Like M & J did before the poit?
Exactly!
Actually, Pompeii was preceded by multiple tremors and other indications that Something Was Happening, as was Mount St Helens.
Bwahahahaha! ROFL!
I am reading this at work, and am laughing so hard, my collegues gave me some seriously weird looks…
Yes, I am vulnerable to fart-jokes.. so sue me.. 😀
Wait, WOMEN can fart? So all of my girlfriends were lying when they said it HAD to be me because “we don’t do that”? Why, those…
Yes, they most indubitably can, although they have the ventriloquist-bit to a pinch (i.e. making You think it’s something from somewhere else that makes the odd sounds)
Never mind those birds that suddenly start falling from the skies..
I always explain to my husband that I’m capable of farting, but that I don’t believe it should happen outside of a bathroom. A) It’s rude, stinky, and gross. B) You never know when it will be more than just gas. 😛
The wife not only farts but one night she had me trying to figure out why I kept smelling “dead skunk”!
@sky: Win! 😆
Well, now that you know the truth, you can respond appropriately when they tell you such falsehoods.
No… not by breakng wind back at them. That would be rude and crude.
Just start whistling that old 60’s song about a stormy-eyed young woman… “Everyone knows it’s Windy.”
Or, refer to your girlfriend by her new nickname… “Gail”.
They should talk to Abby Shuto of NCIS.
Classy, Jin.
@Opus: IIRC, Lava tube could be correct – the actual magma chamber could be under the seafloor. Depends on the type of volcano.
Ah, the things you learn when you read the Earth Science book cover to cover from sheer boredom…
.. but I guess the IP is monitored…. :/
This has been Earth Science with Professor Acacia Budur. Tune in next week when she takes a piece of coal and turns it to Diamond with finger and thumb.
Aaaaaand It turns out Acacia is the ‘Smart One’ Today.
Haha, Jin. Everyone knows ladies don’t fart.
But: are they really ladies? Especially when hanging out on a beach together alone?
Abby Shuto (NCIS) is very much a lady. Agree with this or face her wrath.
Feh.. I am not afraid of her, as long as the place she’s in has windows that open, or a good ventilation system…
Hot for Teacher?
*whispers* “Dude, I think the teachers’ HOT.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, the fact she blew on her Ceramic coffee mug – and it MELTED!”
“Kewl”
“Totally”
I’m curious to know what the 8 on M’s shirt looks like when she isn’t wearing it, since it seems correctly proportioned when she is. I’m also curious to know what M looks like when she isn’t wearing the shirt, but that’s a given.
Location, location, location!
LMAO! 🙂
That’s really all I could manage in the way of thought reading today’s strip. I can’t even reply to other people’s comments if I can see the strip at all. *giggles*
Nice shiner there, Jin.
Hey its the 8 ball shirt! we haven’t seen that thing in a while… shame she just got all that rug-burn….
First panel FTW. That’s some funny stuff.
I don’t think it’d have mattered if they checked out the other island One More Time, as it looks like they probably poited back to one of their homes for a change of clothes and celebratory beers before the big boom.
Also, I’d not be surprised if they determine Jin leaks, and that she should also never visit the west coast, Hawaii, Japan, or any other place with known and frequent vulcanism or earthquakes.
Heaven help us all if she decides to visit Yellowstone.
you wanna say “SUPER volcano, eruption #8”?
No. No, I don’t.
I love Monica’s expression in the last panel. 🙂
“I’ll get you for that, but it was funny too.”
Re: girls farting: Mythbusters
-JRS
*Looks at Panel #1*
Me Gusta
Hah! I love that little smile of Monica’s in the last frame…
“I would laugh at that but my face hurts too much to even smile right now.”
BTW don’t click on the “Wonder Woman” ad, it isn’t a comic of any kind but a collection of goofy pictures, sort of an “I Can Has Cheezburger” without cats or captions on the pictures.
I love it!
who are you calling fart???
Looks like they visited an oceanic version of Mt. St. Helens, complete with lateral blast. Or, that’s the impression I’m getting from Bud’s diagram.