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I definitely prefer 'free to be rude' to 'jackbooted into arresting and imprisoning/executing/sending to labour or extermination camps for Voicing The Wrong Opinion or an accident of birth'. Well, either that or his watch stopped.

This, for me, is the crux of the matter. What would we want someone who has done something terrible to do? Should they dress in sackcloth or a scarlet letter, and never ever be a part of society again? Should they kill themselves because they can never, ever make up for their error? Or should they change, stop doing the terrible thing, sincerely apologize to those they have harmed, and resolve to do better, to become a force for good instead of evil? And if they can make that change in themselves, shouldn't we encourage that, instead of continuing to vilify them just as hard as if they had never changed at all?

Fortunately, I really like decompressed stories, so having Ashley first step into the house 50 comics into the party arc is fine by me.

And, of course, I did a thing:

I think I can best describe my attitude to this latter group by sharing a story my grandmother was fond of telling. Given she was a Holocaust survivor herself, her position is perhaps understandable. After the war she would on a good number of occasions attend social events with diplomats and foreign visitors present. Eventually Germans began to appear at these, too. And whenever she met a German, the first words out of her mouth were always, "Were you in the Party?" And her hapless target would freeze like a deer in headlights and stumblingly say something like, "Err, no no, that wasn't me! That was someone else." And my grandmother would in a frosty tone say, "I see." and then her victim would flee. Then one day she attended an event of this kind and met another German guest. As usual she asked him pointblank if he'd been in the Nazi Party. And the man calmly met her eyes and said, "Yes, I was. I was a functionary at the Post Office. If I hadn't joined, I would have been fired." Upon which my grandmother offered him her hand and told him, "Allow me to shake your hand, sir, for you are the first Nazi I have ever met." Of all the virtues, she valued honesty the highest.

I've spent a good part of the past two days piggybacking on the one and only Jon St. John's convention booth at the Let's Play Gaming Expo 2019 in Irving, TX (a Dallas suburb). He and his agent were kind enough to let me set up and sell copies of my Calibrations CD. Didn't sell too many, but it's the experience and the camaraderie that count. Had some fun conversations with Jon during slack time, none of which I'm at liberty to share. Big thanks go out to him for this year, as well as for the invite to return next year!

... and now I'm hearing "Dueling Grand Cathedral Organs" in my head; thanks.

The number of replies chiming in with "Me too!" in reply to this thread is heartening. :-)

It's not so much Tedd's toys, as his almost obsessive interest in transformation; frankly he is probably the only person we know of in the comic with as strong an interest in it as Ashley. Of course that's not enough to build a romantic relationship on; even leaving Elliot out of the picture I think the extent of the relationship she would form with Tedd and/or Grace is friends possibly with benefits (though it's hard to say until they actually interact in canon). But yes, even if Ashley were interested in Tedd and/or Grace, she's too nice to break up with Elliot unless it's really obvious it isn't working between them (and so far it is working). And so few newbies. It's really a shame that this forum style is dying out; for people who are not family and/or close friends I've yet to find a method of communication that suits me better than this style of forum. I like to be able to choose my words carefully and be able to go back and change them if I realize I messed up, I like to be able to read everything on a subject in the order it was said, and I like to be able to easily go back and look at things that were said days, weeks, or even years ago. Also, being able to not use my real name is essential, as without that mask my social anxiety would be crippling.

I would buy a ebook version of this book.

https://egscomics.com/comic/party-051 So one day Edward Verres brought home a kitten with hedgehog spines (the spiky hairs) and Tedd never bothered to ask from where it originated. If this was in Tedd's "Mute" phase, it probably was just one of many questions that simply didn't rise to the threshold of vocalization. And, as always for cats, if you actually want to be near the cat, the cat wants nothing to do with you.

Load of nonsense. After all, IBM themselves said that some stupid device for making copies of written material would never be of any use in office work.

Seems so. This would be good opportunity to expand what we already knew, but no. I'm not sure he would ask if NOT in mute phase. In fact, maybe he asked - and Edward didn't answered. Or said just DGB. I'm sure this happens often so Tedd is used to it. Meanwhile, Ashley didn't stopped staring at Jeremy and she moved to him quite fast. With predictable result. Seem she doesn't have much experience with cats.

It isn't so much the oxygen percentage, it's the oxygen partial pressure - i.e. how much air pressure oxygen is providing. Prior to Apollo 1, our manned space missions routinely used pure-oxygen environments - at partial pressures roughly equivalent to the oxygen content of the atmosphere at sea level. The Apollo 1 fire occurred in a test of whether the space capsule would keep the air in. So they pressured it to above one atmosphere... with pure oxygen. Under those conditions, practically everything is flammable and some things are extremely easy to ignite - a few things will even self-ignite, that won't under more normal conditions. The after-fire review asked two big questions that nobody had good answers for: why were they using pure oxygen for this test when ordinary air would have been fine, and what was the point of having the astronauts present for the test?

I'm sorry you felt pressured or targeted, that was not my intent. I was engaging in a theoretical discussion, using hyperbole to illustrate a point. Social ostracism has been shown, time and again, to be one of the worst punishments a person can face. Hence why "shunning" was so feared, and so effective a deterrent. The person I quoted (who was not you) had brought up the point of what our goal should be regarding those who commit social offenses, and I was agreeing with them. You had not addressed their point in that matter, so I wasn't seeing myself as replying to you, only to them and the overall discussion. That's the point I was replying to. Not your post, or I would have quoted you instead of them. Trying to resist the temptation to quote Magneto....that might be seen as rude....

You set your lake on fire once, and nobody lets you live it down ...

This, for me, is the crux of the matter. What would we want someone who has done something terrible to do? Should they dress in sackcloth or a scarlet letter, and never ever be a part of society again? Should they kill themselves because they can never, ever make up for their error? Or should they change, stop doing the terrible thing, sincerely apologize to those they have harmed, and resolve to do better, to become a force for good instead of evil? And if they can make that change in themselves, shouldn't we encourage that, instead of continuing to vilify them just as hard as if they had never changed at all? I think The Old Hack would recommend them to move. That's option you missed.

The body has a forced breath reaction to CO2 above a certain threshold, there isn’t a O2 bio sensor as such. In fact any anaerobic exercise is due to a local lack of O2 and ATP to burn. This is why if you want to hold your breath for a longer time it pays to breathe out deeply a few times first to purge your lungs of as much residual CO2 as possible.

The blue kryptonite affected Bizarro because it was created using the same process that created Bizarro-Superman, thus it was Bizarro kryptonite.

I think for me, I can look at Tony, a character who has, for the entire span of EGS thus far, been a bully, harassed Tedd over his androgynous appearance and made comments about not only Tedd's, but Elliot's sexual orientation and possibly even other people's, and to top it off, Tony's been that way since 4th grade at least (this previous page's flashback might be 3rd grade or even earlier ) and Tony has so far hasn't really shown any sign of changing his attitude (which in retrospect, he's essentially the Justin that I grew up getting bullied by). I look at Diane however, and we've had 1 instance of her saying something homophobic, and that was it, yes she was still an overall jerk, but we never saw her going out of her way to harass Justin, though she apparently repeatedly harassed Nanase but for other reasons, of course at around Christmas Diane set her sights on Elliot which appeared to be bad news but it turned out much different, I think she started to remember what she really wanted, romance. This was certainly tested when she saw Ashley with Elliot, and while she did lash out at Charlotte over it, I think the key thing here is the fact that she immediately realizes that she was out of line and felt awful. As Grace stated when talking to Elliot about his past comments about Tedd using girl forms, there are people who are bigoted jerks who should know better but aren't going to change, a category in which Tony would certainly fall under, and people who simply don't understand that what they do is harmful but there's hope for them to learn and be better, and I strongly believe that Diane fits here because she's certainly showing that she can learn.

Well, you can say this for Mr. Phelps. That was practically a Mission Impossible.

Also, a lot of people would like to believe that a sane/rational person would not try to kill people unprovoked, therefore anybody who would must not be a sane/rational person.

...Please be careful when opening the overhead bins. Contents may have shifted while crashing

or TO lucy. this comic has done stranger things. on a regular basis.

Given that on many occasions this was from barely operable aircraft that had lost 99% of all guidance and/or motive power, I am still going to pick Launchpad over any other pilot if I am ever aboard an aircraft in trouble. Given that in all occassions I remember his PASSENGERS also walked away from the "landing", I second that.

There is a tongue in cheek expression, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.". There is also Launchpad McQuack, who walked from every of his "landings" ...

Well, think of the odds. There was 101 of them, after all. And then they imported a Dane to serve as their King afterwards. Scandinavian politics are confusing.

Last 3E game I was in I dual-classed cleric and barbarian. After a few months I figured out that I could have RPed the barbarian better as a straight cleric. And had better, safer barbarian rages - and more of them after a few levels - although they would take a couple turns to kick in rather than being instantaneous.

There are some dual class options that work though:

I feel the same way about the dizziness in this EGS comic. It really doesn't seem to fit. Sigh, indeed. On the other hand, "I haven't figured out how to land properly" is funny, and makes some sense; also it's not like she can't, she just needs to work on it.

More like deflecting, but if you're having a bad day, I'll give you space.

It has varied; I think it may be 21 everywhere now. I don't know if that's a federal override, but when I was 19, it was per state, and we used to walk from Pa to NJ (short walk) where we could legally drink. Perhaps someone closer to the age it would matter might know. My parents used to let me have a little bit of wine on special occasions like holiday dinners, always in the privacy of the home. Even at a very young age, it was not enough to get drunk on. The legality never occurred to me at the time, I thought it was normal, but I don't know; I'm pretty sure our authorities would flip out today.

You got me curious, so I decided to look it up. The states are legally allowed to set their own laws regarding drinking age, but the National Minimum Drinking Age Act reduces the amount of highway funding for any state that allows the purchase or possession of alcohol by people under 21. Naturally all the states have thus put in place laws prohibiting the purchase of alcohol by those under 21 (though interestingly Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are holdouts, with 18 as the minimum drinking age). However in many states it's still legal for those under 21 to drink alcohol (in some cases with certain restrictions). For details on the individual state laws, see List of alcohol laws of the Unites States. Fun fact: While no national or state laws currently prohibit the sale of alcohol to adults over 21, some states allow smaller jurisdictions to establish such laws, and there are actually a number of "dry counties".

I can kind of sympathize with Elliot here. Back when I was in school, I'd sometimes see some of the other kids smoking cigarettes, but not being part of that crowd I had no idea how they got them. I didn't want to smoke (this was around the time my parents were struggling to quit, so I knew better than to start) but I couldn't help but wonder how they were getting them. I imagine alcohol use was also going on, but I never saw it. ...After all the anti-drug propoganda in school and on TV, I was also a bit puzzled (and rather relieved) no one was offering me drugs let alone trying to pressure me into using them... If Elliot took enough alcohol from the fridge to provide some for everybody at the party, his parents would notice they were missing, and at least wonder if one of the kids was responsible - and this is a relatively small party. (Even the small amount Grace took was noticed; I imagine the only reason the Dunkel parents didn't suspect Elliot and Ellen were because Elliot is so trustworthy.) So the question in Elliot's mind (and my mind for that matter) is, how teens would get enough alcohol for a party without adults knowing. (Of course, Elliot is apparently not considering the possibility that an adult might actually help the teens get alcohol.)

I don't like to think about it, but I suspect what Ellen misses most is having something to miss. Every "Memory" she has from before the first encounter with the Dewitchery Diamond is borrowed (Elliot's), false (Government cover story), or superimposed (Second Life). And those "memories" contradict one another. It seems to me that Ellen throws herself into the shenanigans of the present, at least in part, to avoid thinking of her (lack of a) past.

Please, no. If the big studios see the opportunity to "Improve" the comic, they will take it away from the original creative genius. Soon, the Special Edition EGS will replace the classic stories we have all binge read a dozen times over. Let us never forget that in the fight with the Goo, Elliot "Swooshed" first.

People of similar "ethnic purity" mindset would probably consider me to be born as an abomination, since my blond-haired-blue-eyed father committed what would have been felony miscegenation just ten years earlier in many US states, by marrying my mother. No, my mother was not African-descended, but she was of an ethnicity that had been discriminated against previously. On Magneto wanting to change all non-Mutants into Mutants, such a plan might even have gained him much support among the non-Mutant-hating population, many of whom would welcome the opportunity to gain Mutant abilities (at least for mutations that did not grant an inhuman physical appearance).

The "dottir" at the end of her surname is kind of a clue... Iceland still uses actual patronymics.

I wanna know more about that pet alligator who barely speaks... Is there a word missing from this? Like "female"? Because the US and France, among others, have had democratically elected heads of state for a long time.

Re: Nanase jealous or whatever, I'm going to go with it's exactly what Nanase said, she doesn't understand how someone could not be demanding answers. Diane made sense to her, Ashley doesn't. But in her own way, Diane was more blasé, dismissive, skeptical. Ashley has embraced what she's seen, even proved useful, although the Sirleck experience seems to have overwhelmed her. I think Grace nailed it, Ashley is genre savvy.

Right, so far, not in canon. But Susan could have all sorts of spells we haven't seen yet. She didn't know she could summon multiple fairies until the very last comic in Playing With Dolls. And like you, the doll doesn't really have a Nanase look. I actually gave some thought to this. The basement is a very secure area, maybe the most secure in Moperville. And the fairy didn't attempt to speak. Maybe Nanase did have something to say, but hearing the conversation, decided to wait and listen first. But then, changes clothes and starts flying around the basement. Going to get something? Or is Nanase just doing fairy tricks because she's bored? I wasn't, but Nanase is acting very much like a jealous ex now, isn't she? Or maybe like a jealous mother. Could Nanase already be turning into her mother? Remember how her mom reacted when she found out Tedd had a girlfriend? Another way to look at it is that the whole time Elliot was dating Nanase, and then dating Sarah, he never seemed to take the initiative. Then Elliot meets Ashley and immediately starts dating her. He even organized this party for her. What's this woman got that I haven't?!!!

Yes, and it used to be that a black man would be beaten to death if he whistled at a white woman, and a woman couldn't charge her husband with rape because she was considered to have given perpetual consent to whatever he wanted when she married him, The way it used to be usually changed to the way it is now for a reason. If nothing else, there were plenty of cases of mistaken identity, frame-ups, fabricated evidence and false witness, all sorts of things that might come out if the accused got a trial. Too many real bad guys got away with murder and worse because someone else was killed for the crime before they could get a trial. Even today, people are found to have been innocent who had already been executed, or had lost decades of their lives rotting in prison for crimes they were proven innocent of. At least if they're alive, the wrongfully convicted have a chance of proving they're innocent. Look at Magus. He committed some truly awful acts, working with an Aberration and conspiring to set other Aberrations loose in a public space surrounded by innocents; kidnapping and mental domination, body-snatching....we know he had good reasons, but what if he'd been killed in the process?

We also know that Fox can cast any of Nanase's spells, up to the limit of the power Fox has access to. Perhaps now the fairy dolls have the same ability? (And it's great to see you posting again! ;-)

It's Tuesday, and the pain relief has been holding steadily since I got home Monday. It even held through a dentist's appointment today (two fillings and a temporary crown - that bit is still sore due to all of the injections I got for the crown). Granted, I've been asleep for most of the day save for the dental appointment. That's probably a good thing, since it's letting me get the Versed out of my system (I have big problems with Versed, normally). Fingers still crossed, and chicken wings eaten.

Wish me luck, folks. Time for another back surgery/procedure Monday morning (7/29). I'm having a lumbar rhizotomy done on the lower left side of my back - in other words, they're going in and doing a radio ablation on my nerve endings again. The last one wore off after about 6 months. I go into the hospital at 9:10 a.m. CDT. I've got about a half-hour to drink as many fluids as I can before I have to shut down all oral intake.

I'm not sure if Ellen actually sees trouble, or if she's projecting or something else. Case in point, Ellen has expressed attraction towards Tedd in the past, she's admitted to Tedd that she thinks he's sexy, she's even teased Elliot about it and as I've linked before, Elliot's admitted to it as well. She might be thinking "while I haven't actually acted on my attraction, I'm not immune, Ashley might have difficulty as well."

Still no comments on Tedd using Elliot's thigh as a pillow? It's a rather intimate position for two "best bud" friends.