The Old Hack

Firefighters are bad ass. They are the closest thing to real life superheroes I know about. I simply cannot sufficiently express the admiration I feel for people with that amount of commitment and raw courage.

At this point I don't care unless they finally decide to include 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'

I didn't like Professor Umbridge. She came as a professor but acted like an abusive sadist. Oh wait, umbrage. Never mind, carry on.

Nonsense. He is just the reincarnation of the Gooniverse Dalai Lama. Could happen to anyone.

On an only mildly related note, my gentle old German teacher taught me a trick with 'als' and 'wie' which I soon discovered also worked with 'as' and 'like'. In order to determine when to use which one, 'as' is used as 'in the capacity of' and 'like' is used as 'behaving like.' The test sentence he gave was "He came as a professor but acted like an idiot." Ever since, I have had no trouble deciding which of the two to use.

*sigh* I suppose. And if any Marine would take it by mistake it would certainly be Gomer Pyle.

I love Elliot for just caring so much about other people that he will analyse even his own hypothetical planned actions and reject them if he realises that they could have unintended consequences. This feels a little like the inverse of taking something about others and making it about yourself; he has taken a purely hypothetical (if at least conceivable) scenario he might personally experience and included its effects on others as well. It is why I love EGS so much. The characters. They all bring something important to the table and often do it in very individual ways. And I really, truly appreciate that.

I suppose the very best example of this would be the Nicene Convocation back around 300 AD or so where Christians from all over Europe convened to decide what should actually go in the Bible. Chaosium published an amazing little card game based on exactly this; it was called Credo ('I believe.') A lot of politicking went on to determine what got to go in and what would be left out!

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2320

HEY! Who filled my hovercraft with eels? Pharaoh, godsdammit, didn't you tell that Marine friend of yours that he wasn't allowed to pilot it anymore?

To be fair to Bible translators, some of them really do the best they can humanly possible. They study Aramaic and linguistics and take degrees in both as aid in their work, as well as a degree in the language they are translating into. They do really impressive work with that, but the sad truth is that the best humanly possible work is still fallible -- and worse yet, often subject to politics coming from higher (also human) authorities. And some of the most used Bibles in the world have scarcely been held to such standards. The KJV, for example, was created by translators who wanted to curry favour with the King and they wrote it in a faux-ancient 'dialect' they made up to sound impressive. Admittedly it does sound bloody impressive but I am afraid this did nothing for its accuracy. Somehow it is harder for me when I am copying, especially in English. Maybe it is because I get bored doing it, I am not sure. I might just be a klutz.

I was mainly supporting your point, namely that humans are all too fallible. As a matter of fact, that lovely list came from a discussion in which someone had claimed that the Bible hadn't changed since it was put into writing. We found that claim somewhat optimistic. >.> (This is not even mentioning translation inaccuracies and errors, which make matters still worse. And the way even the same language may change, causing a particular statement to have a different meaning even if it is written exactly the same way...)

Sweveham, I've enjoyed having you and your contributions here. You will be missed but I hope you will find pastures greener elsewhere. And if you feel like peeking in from time to time, you will always be welcome.

Longer texts? I sometimes have trouble making it all the way through a sentence without messing it up somehow.

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2319

Yeah, it's a dog's life, for payback is a bitch.

That is a good strip. I always love Susan.

Weirdly cheerful. Not wildly.

SF Debris has a very entertaining review of it here.

Sharknado notwithstanding, generally speaking sharks present the biggest problem while one is in water.

I am sure I posted this one before but darn it all, this is the best thing ever when it comes to unintentional differences while creating copies:

Admittedly true. Even in that business, humour that morbid would likely not be appreciated.

Possibly your mortuary or your brand name for your coffin and sarcophagus franchise.

Military acronyms have infested my life. For example, it has made me wonder whatever could have possessed any car firm to use the brand KIA. And further made me speculate if maybe this is only part of a bigger corporation that also includes MIA repair services, AWOL insurance and legal assistance as well as DOA health care and ambulance transport.

No, Sam's full name is Sam-I-Am.