For a while in the mid-2000s, "superheroes are always naked" had some of the currency of what horrible people call a "meme" on comics blogs, but I don't think Tom Ford would make a very good superhero, notwithstanding Colin Firth's Clark Kent glasses in A Single Man.
Also, you don't have a flying car because you'd probably kill yourself and take a bunch of people with you, XKCD guy.
May I suggest that Rowan Williams Randall Munroe not make Real Doll jokes? It reads like an unintentionally telling detail.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is SO NUDE. Hence the confusion.
Thanks for making that explicit, neb.
You mustn't pout. This is the internet!
I have rotated your parenthesis 180 degrees. Such is the power of language to persuade.
Speech is very powerful; it is a little hidden body that can execute the will of the gods, for it can stop fear and pain, produce happiness, and encourage pity.
A married friend of a friend mused recently that she'd really like to see an uncircumcised penis at some point. I told her to watch Spartacus on Starz. One might say that the male nudity is one of the only redeeming features of the show.
I told her to watch Spartacus on Starz.
I'm just starting to do that now, because someone was telling me it's good, and about ten minutes in I'm starting to think said person is insane.
Neb's command of footnote technology has improved since the post immediately below.
penis + footnotes = burgeoning critical apparatus
penis + footnotes
Isn't displacement supposed to go upward, Dr. Freud?
penis + foot + notes = the world's most painful harp
It's not just penises and feet you can find in bogs, Moby.
13: Surely 5 seconds on the internet could achieve the same thing, without the pain of the show.
And yet she has reached a relatively advanced age without having done so! It is a mystery.
I'd be so tempted to send a "let me google that for you" link.
(Actually, that's just me in my cranky paper-writing state. But I'm still amazed! Mystery, indeed.)
23: Did you tell her the wallet/briefcase joke?
23: Hmm, she isn't by any chance married to that guy is she?
Apparently both Ohio and West Virginia have bogs that are within a nice drive of here. So now I get to go tell my wife our summer vacation is set.
So, not your bog-standard summer vacation, eh?
This is me continuing to not-get the hell out of Achewood.
And on the topic of my aestheto-intellectual failings, the topic of video phones always reminds me of one of the few stretches of Infinite Jest I got and enjoyed before giving up.
As for that xkcd, 2 gets it exactly right and is more or less what I thought when I first saw it.
Don't be so high and mighty. Not everyone has boyish looks and a ranger hat to get dates.
31: it's pretty much what I thought when I first read the alt-text, too.
By the way, you can keep masturbating to me, but sadly, not to large parts of Christchurch.
Keir! Glad you're okay. And hoping the recovery of the city goes well, and that your friends and loved ones are safe.
Keir! Glad you're okay; hope friends and family are as well.
(Sorry, this will be long and is a bit self involved and so-on; there are people dying in the rubble a half hour walk from my house and it's horrible and you lot get to read this.)
The quake happened while I was in the studio at uni. The second year sculptors have to redesign their spaces and one of them mentioned shelving units placed high on a wall. This is unlikely to be followed up I suspect. It was the second day of the first semester of the year.
I was sitting on the ground. It was shorter than the September 4 quake, but, I think, more violent. I didn't think it was that bad to be honest. We all stood up and looked confused, before Tim said everyone, let's get outside. So we wandered out, and spent half an hour walking around the campus heading to various assembly points. The campus was being evacuated. It was quite striking -- ten thousand people all trying to be somewhere else all at once.
I couldn't call anyone on my cell phone. The phone network failed. (Alex, this might interest you!) It wasn't physical damage: it was overloaded by people calling each other to see if they were ok. I didn't realise it at the time, but that was the entire phone network in New Zealand hammered. I also didn't realise at the time why people were so worried. It was, of course, because they had access to the news and knew what was happening.
At that point I still didn't know that people were dead. I thought it was likely, but I didn't know. So I walked home and it was empty, and I worried a bit. I called my parents, but couldn't get through for half an hour. I checked on the neighbours. They were all ok. Ella came home and said that her lecturer had told her that people were dead.
We had no power, but the gas (from a tank) was working, so we could cook. But we didn't have any information. Liz came home & then went round with a friend of hers to his parents. We found a post it note saying the others were all all ok.
We went round to the nice old lady who lives behind us' house and listened to Radio New Zealand. Checkpoint was on at three in the afternoon, which was another sign. Checkpoint is the RNZ evening current affairs show. It generally starts at 5; hearing Mary Wilson's voice at that time was wrong. There were fatalities. I learnt that then. There were two buses crushed by falling masonry. We stayed there for an hour or so. The woman had a copy of Debts of Honour, by Michael Foot. I looked at that, and Clark's Civilisation.
Then we went home, and eventually we got power. We listened to the radio and watched the television.
I live on Ilam Road just off Memorial Ave; Memorial Ave is the main arterial from the City to the Airport, and that night there were ambulances heading out to the airport every five minutes or so. Helicopters were flying overhead every quarter of an hour maybe, from Latimer Sq & Hagley Park. Latimer Square was a triage centre. The morgue there was the area under a green tarpaulin stretched between a few trees. I dunno. I am fine; my house is fine, we have power and water. The only discomfort is that the sewerage system doesn't work, so we have to shit in a hole in the ground in the garden. Nothing is really that bad for me. My immediate circle are all ok. But a few kilometres away people are dying.
People were texting (and calling maybe) China and Japan trapped in the rubble. Some of them are now dead.
Keir: thanks for the update, and I'm very glad to hear you are doing okay. It all sounds very tense and stressful and sad. If you come across a good way to donate to relief efforts, please don't hesitate to post it in comments.
Very glad to hear you're okay, Keir.
Thanks for posting, Keir, and really glad to know you're all right.
Glad to hear from you, Keir. And what Stanley said.
Thanks for that everyone. It's nice to know that there are people outside of here. It can all get a bit claustrophobic; everything is earthquake over and over. The Red Cross is probably the best place to donate. There's an appeal here if you're in the UK. ``All funds'' apparently means that every pound given goes direct to relief, without any take for administrative overhead or whatever. I don't know about the US.
Check you've got food and water for at least a week and make a fuss about building safety regulations.
(Earthquakes have aftershocks. (This quake was really technically an aftershock.) They just keeping fucking happening; it is quite awful.)
It sounds just awful, Keir. I somehow feel obliged to tell you that people here were wondering and worrying about you as soon as we heard the news.
I'm really glad to hear you're all right, Keir.
34 is so awesome that by itself it redeems the very concept of in-joke.
I'm imagining that Keir's day is like the end of a disaster movie. The building has collapsed. The news media is outside, microphones ready, to interview the survivors. At first, there's just silence as the dust settles. The reporters shift nervously, and mutter to themselves, "Is everyone dead?" Finally, a dirt-covered figures appears hazily through the mist, stepping out of the rubble. Keir steps up to the waiting microphones and says "You can keep masturbating to me." The screen goes black, and then the end credits roll as the DiVinyl's "Touch Myself" plays in the background.
You know what's ridiculous about that? I was so relieved that Keir was all right that I didn't even notice that 34 was funny, until 49.
Sort of relevant, I guess - diagnosing STDs with your cellphone is apparently something people are taking seriously. Seems batshit crazy to me, not least for reasons outlined here.
Also there's a ton of money to be made selling guaranteed - negative fake STD detectors, and those are a heck of a lot cheaper to make than ones that work.
Also count me among the relieved that I can still masturbate to Keir.
Keir, sorry to be coming in so late, but I too am very glad you're safe. Thank you for taking the time to explain in 39. I nearly cry to think of the people nearby you in the rubble. Actually, I do cry. {grimaces}
Thanks for the kind words everyone. It's lovely to hear.
(And yeah Sir Kraab, when I got round to catching up on the archives I saw that. It is slightly sad to admit that I was pretty touched by the imaginary people in my computer worrying about me. )
I'm so old that the primary meaning of STD to me is Subscriber Trunk Dialling (an exciting new technology in the 1950s that enabled you to make a long distance call without speaking to an operator).
So, they're just now enabling this on cellphones? WTF?
does anyone know how to make google phone not make you push 1 to answer the phone incoming?
Ugh, yes, my sympathy too. Earthquakes suck. Yay for Keir being alive.