Change is inevitable

The technical term for w'all here is "first person plural inclusive", and some languages have words to distinguish it from the exclusive. I like to think I'll live to see English come up with one, and if it's w'all then I can claim to have invented it.

Interrogation Tuesday results:

Least favorite colors: you have some good ones. I may have to like fewer colors now that you've pointed them out.

It looks like if we were to give one color the boot, it would be yellow (with four 'yellow's, one 'pastel yellow' and one 'Blue. No, Yelllooooooowwwwww . . . ' Also hated were purple (2 votes), mauve (2), orange (2) and then some really unique ones: Sombrero,

the visible difference between ugly carpet and stained ugly carpet, Moose,

muted lime green, Diarrhea and Hot pink. A paranoid 'Before I answer, I want to ask: Will you use my answer against me?' and finally two related to weddings: bride's maid dress and 'Any and all of the simple colors with fancy names that nobody can remember and that girls love to use at their weddings.'

In the second question I asked, on a scale of 1 to 10 (associated with 'Agree' and 'Disagree' respectively) what you were thinking about. Looks like whatever it was, most disagreed moderately, while the overall population was skewed towards disagreement. I like that.

Boiling point

Mental Health

"What's your religion?"
-"I'm a Contradictionist."
"I've never heard of that before."
-"Yes, you have."

The persistence of memory

Interrogation Tuesday:

A moment in history

Mental Health

The consultant was now saying, in very serious tones, that he would have to get more photogenic friends. Ones without strong opinions, preferably. 

Chronic obliviousness

Mental Health

"Let me go!" she said. 

"Simply repeating that same plain imperative over and over again is really not very persuasive," answered the hostage-taker. 

The svelte woman who had been silently smoking in the corner, and who may well have been running the operation, elaborated on the point: "Everybody wants something. The violent overthrow of an established government, for example. To be persuasive, you have to show me how giving you what you want will get me what I want, too." The hostage did not seem convinced.

Under-appreciated talents

Mental Health

I don't know how to say this, but here goes: When I look into your eyes, I see the future. I don't mean the sort of two-car garage, white picket fence and 2.1 children future that people sometimes claim to see; I mean death and doom. An immaculately-dressed lady dictator (or is it dictatrix?) who, after sending her tanks through the streets of my heart, keeps me around as a conquest. Actually, that last part was an elaboration; mostly your eyes are really pretty but I am scared.

Hypothetical conversations

Interrogation Tuesday Results:

I asked you, "Would you consider it second-hand cannibalism to eat a bear that had eaten a human?" Here's a chart that google made to summarize the answers, but it's kind of cut-off:

And in list form:

Yes			9%
Yes, but I would eat it anyway			21%
No			21%
Depends on timing-- has the human been digested already? Have the nutrients been used up?			26%
Other			24%

I feel like the "other" responses deserve special mention. They are truly a testament to the twisted readership of CrusteaceanSingles.com.

"Depends on who the bear ate-- did the human deserve it? Was there anything nutritious about the human?"
"I would find that un-bear-able"
"If I could kill a bear, I'd consider myself awesome."
"No, I would consider it second-hand cannibalism to eat the doo-doo (for lack of a more appropriate term) of a bear that had eaten a human"
"Only if the human is still being digested, and I consume the parts of the bear which are currently housing the human parts, like the colon. Straight-up flesh of the bear, not an issue."
"What do you think koala tastes like?"
"what if it was a bear that had eaten a human because the human had eaten his secret lover (also a bear)? It's like a never ending chain of cannibalism if you think about it..."
"Yes, but I don't think I'd ever eat a bear anyway"

In conclusion, I'm kind of shocked by how many people think it would be secondhand cannibalism, but are open to being secondhand cannibals (21% of respondents). Kind of seems like a slippery slope. 

Why can't you just accept me for who I am?

Mental Health

In retrospect, yes, Bartholomew and Gwinfindel should have bought that zombie insurance when they had had the chance. But now with axe and baseball bat in hand (respectively) there was a tacit understanding between them that it was not something worth arguing about right now, and maybe they could just take out their frustration on the lurking dead who were breaking windows and generally lowering their property value.

Interrogation Tuesday update: People are still answering. I intend to post results tomorrow.

Rigidly deterministic

Mental Health

A major part of his history project was a recreation of the battlefield in question, complete with impressively gory hordes of wounded lego people and action figures, slathered in ketchup and with parts strewn across the modeling clay landscape. Unfortunately, when the time came to present, Matt had quite forgotten which battle it was supposed to represent.

Keep a low profile

*If you're feeling pedantic, you might object to "see" rather than "sees" above, and you are welcome to feel that way. In the variety of English I call home, we do the number agreement with the noun phrase inside the quantifier phrase ("friends"), not with the implied number of the QP (= 0) as the Queen's English might prescribe.

And here's a new feature! Answer this question (anonymously) for science. And idle curiosity.

Awkward press conference

Mental Health

I felt this weird prickly feeling, followed by intense shooting pain, which seemed like an unlikely but not unfeasible emotional response to the scene. It turns out that there was also a porcupine involved.

On sugar mommas, &c.

Mental Health

Norbert the cat was getting pretty irritated at all the cooing and doting from these people. He had sold his soul to the devil, and turned from all goodness and light, and there they were trying to pet him and photograph him in boxes. He wasn't a doll; he was a force of darkness to be reckoned with! And yet, even when he knocked over their lemonade and glared at them, they just went "Awwww" and loved him all the more.

Don't hassle me

Mental Health

Based on a true story!

*All explosions, chase scenes, awesome dialogue, and love interests are fictional. 

Don't hassle me about drawings, man, because I am on the edge of the edge.

Man's relentless quest for sandwiches, part II

It almost isn't even sexist!

Mental Health

"Your lips are really dry," he said to his reflection. Or did his reflection say it to him? Such was the kind of asinine thought process he was stuck with under heavy sleep deprivation.

Hollow apologies

Needy and then some

Mental Health

To the long and ever-growing list of things I do not and cannot and will never care about, let these be added: Cologne. Your sadness about the ending of a TV show. Pi past three digits. 

More to follow. 

Pity party

Mental Health

It wasn't that Cal thought he was right every time-- he knew it was only usually-- it was just that he preferred to adopt a cohesive approach to life, and so went assuming that he was right, then taking it like a man on the occasions when he wasn't. He found this deeply satisfying.

That's as far as I got

Mental Health

Caribou Skullcrusher, wilderness survival television show host, was in a bit of a tight spot, in every shade of literal and metaphorical meaning he could think of, stuck halfway under and between two elephant seals on the beach as the tide rose. 

The camera crew thought it was quite funny, and Caribou planned what he would do to them if and when he got free. 

Mothers, etc.

Just sort of generically weird

Mental Health

I used to (before this whole mess) be known for giving really fantastic hugs. Sometimes people would even recognize me on the street and try to get free hugs. So the downside was, I was a very conspicuous figure, which was a downside because of the warrant for my arrest. The silver lining, though, was that I was still able to get out of a lot of situations with a quick, friendly embrace.

The diagnosis I was most afraid of

Mental Health

He let out a sigh and reached idly up to pluck a bat from the roof of the cave, and finding one right away, he began to munch on it absently. No adventurers ever came to his cavernous lair anymore, not even on weekends.

In which I answer a pressing question

FAQ: "How will you keep doing a comic every day? What will you do when you run out of unkind observations?"

Mental Health

Maybe if I stare at them long enough, they'll notice I exist and decide to be my friends, thought Geribald as he sat on the park bench. His eyes began to bulge, and still nothing happened. The group of smiling, laughing boys and girls drifted away, but he would be back again tomorrow to try once more.

No way around it, really

Mental Health

Just to see how it went, and to give himself a little challenge, the evil Dr. Vandertramp decided to limit his heinous acts to legal ones. He was ultimately disappointed at just how little of a challenge this presented.

Predators and prey

Mental Health

Ernest, perpetual rosy-cheeked golden boy optimist, was determined to find something he liked about every square inch of the tiny island, from the crashed fuselage of the plane and the casualties inside to the jagged rocks full of furious crabs. 

In a very brief meeting, the other survivors tacitly agreed to eat him first, if it came to that. 

Medically speaking

But seriously, guys

Editor's note: I guess what I'm trying to say is, would you just all be excellent to each other? I have it on good authority that pretty much everything else will fall into place if you do. OK, thanks.

More cooking with Lobsterman

Something just isn't quite right here

Mental Health

Tired of suffering for your art? Make creative, avant garde art with no effort! Simply put on the EZart patented paint-soaked pajamas and go to bed on the patented EZart canvas bedsheets! Make sure you share the results on every possible form of social media so that your friends and vague acquaintances know what an artist you are.

Civility

The best thing about it

Mental Health

The best thing about this absolute solitude, thought Ben, was the fact that he could wear his favorite shirt every day and there was no one to care.

Where you go when you die