Dan Q
This link was originally posted to /r/bisexual. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.
The original link was: http://empathizethis.com/stories/prejudice-pride/
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
Oh man. Sorry….and I’m done ( for now ). Should be another comic up next week.
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
Like puzzles? Like webcomics? Then here are two things you ought to see:
The first is the short-lived webcomic Crimson Herring. Personally, I’m hoping that it’ll come back to life, because it really had lots of potential. In each episode, a “crime drama” plays out, and you – the reader – are left with just enough clues to solve the case. Sometimes you have to really pay attention to the pictures, other times to the words, and it’s really got a good idea going for it.
Even if it turns out to be completely dead, now, you can go back and read the archives: start here! And if you like it, leave a comment and let the author know; see if we can get it brought back again.
A recent Abstruse Goose, called “A Simple Puzzle 4”, had me thinking for a few days, and then the answer suddenly came to me.
The idea behind the comic is really quite clever; but once you’ve worked out the key, putting the panels into the right order isn’t difficult at all. Give it a go!
Commissioned, a webcomic I’ve been reading for many years now, recently made a couple of observations on the nature of “fetch quests” in contemporary computer role-playing games. And naturally – because my brain works that way – I ended up taking this thought way beyond its natural conclusion.
Today’s children are presumably being saturated with “fetch quests” in RPGs all across the spectrum from fantasy Skyrim-a-likes over to modern-day Grand Theft Auto clones and science fiction Mass Effect-style video games. And the little devil on my left shoulder asks me how this can be manipulated for fun and profit.
The traditional “fetch quest” goes as follows: I’ll give you what you need (the sword that can kill the monster, the job that you need to impress your gang, the name of the star that the invasion fleet are orbiting, or whatever), in exchange for you doing a delivery for me. Either I want you to take something somewhere, or I want you to pick something up, or – in the most overused and thankfully falling out of fashion example – I want you to bring me X number of Y object… 9 shards of triforce, 5 orc skulls, $10,000, or whatever. Needless to say, about 50% of the time there’ll be some kind of challenge along the way (you need to steal the item from a locked safe, you’ll be offered a bribe to “lose” the item, or perhaps you’ll just be mobbed by ninja robots as you ride along on your hypercycle), which is probably for the best because it’s the only thing that adds fun to role-playing a postman. I wonder if being attacked by mage princes is something that real-life couriers dream about?
This really doesn’t tally with normality. When you want something in the real world, you pay for it, or you don’t get it. But somehow in computer RPGs – even ones which allegedly try to model the real world – you’ll find yourself acting as an over-armed deliveryman every ten to fifteen minutes. And who wants to be a Level 38 Dark Elf Florist and Dog Walker?
So perhaps… just perhaps… this will begin to shape the future of our reality. If the children of today start to see the “fetch quest” as a perfectly normal way to introduce yourself to somebody, then maybe someday it will be socially acceptable.
I’m going to try it. The next time that somebody significantly younger than me looks impatient in the queue for the self-service checkouts at Tesco, I’m going to offer to let them go in front of me… but only if they can bring me a tin of sweetcorn! “I can’t go myself, you see,” I’ll say, “Because I need to hold my place in the queue!” A tin of sweetcorn may not be as impressive-sounding as, say, the Staff of Fire Elemental Control, but it gets the job done. And it’s one of your five-a-day, too.
Or when somebody asks me for help fixing their broken website, I’ll say “Okay, I’ll help; but you have to do something for me. Bring me the bodies of five doughnuts, to prove yourself worthy of my assistance.”
It’s going to be a big thing, I promise.
This link was originally posted to /r/bisexual. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.
The original link was: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20120111.gif
I saw XKCD #584 – “Unsatisfied” – this morning. In the comic (in a slightly Sliding Doors way), a man chooses between one of two lovers, and spends the rest of his life thinking about the other one in a “what if” kind-of way, leaving him ultimately unsatisfied with his life, regardless of which he chooses.
Go read the comic if you haven’t yet.
I had a slightly smug moment, and ‘shopped this together:
This is fabulous: Garfield Minus Garfield. It’s what you get if you digitally remove Garfield from Garfield comic strips – a better comic, touching on themes of loneliness and schizophrenia. Genius.
On Ruth’s recommendation, I’ve been reading 1/0 (One Over Zero), a
webcomic that ran from 2000-2003. It’s remarkably clever, drawing ideas about religion and philosophy and determinism and morality into a silly little abstract universe of it’s author’s
(Tailsteak) creation. It could be said to be fourth-wall breaking, except for the fact that it never really had a fourth wall to begin with: the author is the omnipresent deity of the
comic (although he denies the title himself), and his own character plays a very real part in it’s ongoing stories.
If you’re looking for a few hours distraction here and there, give it a whirl.
Years later, I recommended the author’s latest webcomic, Forward (after I accidentally hacked into a system and stole future episodes).
Dan & Alex was a comic which originally ran around 2005-2006. Most of the comics are lost, but this one has survived. Find more Dan & Alex-related content?
Well, Paul‘s mid-Troma Night fire was still on, so after watching The Wicker Man we all raided the nature reserve for wood, raided the filling station for petrol (mmm… accelerant) and went and set up on the beach.
Hollywood Pizza were good enough to bring us our pizza on the beach, which was awfully nice of them, but the damp conditions made lighting the fire hard. It’d just started to char the wood when it went out, and, too impatient to wait for somebody competent to go and help him, Paul decided that he’d have a go at putting a little more petrol onto it.
He doesn’t seem to have the knack of it. Here’s a visual guide.
Experts at “pouring petrol onto fires” (e.g. Jimmy or me) will immediately see Paul’s mistake in the first frame. Not only is he badly-drawn, but he’s holding the jerry can upside down over the naked flames. The correct approach is to swing the can in order to “throw” petrol onto it, and even that is assuming that you rule out the *real* correct approaches of never putting petrol on a lit fire or never trying to use petrol as an accelerant to a bonfire in the first place.
The inevitable occured, and the petrol can caught fire in Paul’s hands. It took him some time to realise this, however, despite everybody else standing and shouting at him. He calmly and carefully put the can down on a rock before looking down and seeing that it was ablaze.
At this point, the correct course of action would be to attempt to extinguish the flaming can of fuel before it got out of control: perhaps by throwing something over it or by moving it into the sea. But what Paul did was…
…screamed like a girl. Many of the spectators ran for cover (many of them under the delusion that an open plastic petrol can with a flame burning the gas above it [like a wick] was in some great risk of exploding): Alec hid behind some rocks further down the beach while Paul was still trying to work out what he should do.
Paul’s master plan was to run blindly towards a number of sharp, knee-high, wet, slippery rocks. This had two effects. Firstly, it put a significant distance between himself and the petrol can which he should have been extinguishing, as the time in which it was safe to do so was growing short. Secondly, it caused him to fall badly onto his leg and injure it, tearing a reasonable-sided chunk of flesh away from him.
Meanwhile, I started to walk towards the can to try to get it moved into the sea and thereby put out the fire – the plan being that I might be able to salvage some of the petrol and make our bonfire more sustainable with it.
That’s me, wearing the cape like the superhero I am. I wasn’t actually wearing a cape, but I probably should have been. As I approached the can I saw that it was already too late to pick it up – the petrol vapours were being heated by the flame and were escaping the neck of the container and licking around the handle, so I opted to kick it as hard as I could towards the awaiting ocean.
It was at about this point that Alec popped his head out from behind the rock to see if the coast was clear. The petrol can narrowly missed his head as it flew past him – by this point, just a ball of fire. It fell short of the sea, and it took until a few waves had broken over it a couple of minutes later before it was extinguished, but it was too late: the petrol had already burned it’s way out through the bottom of the can, and our fuel was gone.
If you have photos from the night, please upload them to The Wicker Man gallery on Abnib Gallery. Paul’s particularly interested in getting hold of the photos that were taken of his injured leg.
