The Old Hack

It's really simple. Picking an animal is usually fine (except maybe for the ones that kinda look like nightmare fuel, and I don't quite see a team calling itself "The Sea Cucumbers.") Picking anything related to human culture should probably be limited to either your own culture or a culture you are directly descended from or connected to. It is when you go grabbing something just because you think it looks either cool, cute or funny that you get into trouble. Somehow I don't see my father's side of the family thinking that a team calling itself "The Auschwitz Jews" using an emaciated little man with a huge nose in a black-and-white striped prisoner's outfit as a mascot would be particularly charming. Exceptions may apply. If there is general consent from people of the culture in question that using an icon of theirs is okay, again no problem. Also I acknowledge that not all people might see sea cucumbers as horrible-looking, but they sort of creep me out.

Has anyone ever simultaneously won both?

We do know from the commentary that Bernard B. Bernard is also a magic-user, but apart from that I agree with you. Yes, you mentioned that. Unfortunate, but not quite at the level where I start to suspect active malice on part of the parents. Why do some people have to inflict names on their children that practically guarantee that they will be harassed and persecuted for them once they enter school?

I just noticed that Ashley has undone her ponytail. I wonder if it is her symbolically letting her hair down or if there might be another reason for it?

I don't care about all these people. I want Phill to return. *cries*

http://www.egscomics.com/comic/sister3-291

Do not underestimate the crappiness of parents inflicting names on their children. Nicholas Cage seriously named his son Kal-El.

I would not be startled to learn that his full name is Bernard B. Bernard. With his middle name possibly being Bernard.

SHE'S GONE FROM SUCK TO BLOW!

Eh, you can leave that to a snow blower.

What about a roaring tornado then? It has an eye, right. So eyes roar, too. Mind you, blizzards don't roar, they howl. So I guess howling is OK when you don't have a mouth. "I have no mouth and I must scream..."

We get it, we get it, you are a God-King and you make the Sun come up, NOW STOP HARPING ON IT GOLDARNIT.

Sadly, it developed that its days were numbered.

For someone like me who has had to struggle with back pain for years, it is an unmitigated blessing.

This is truly a monstrous idea for a storyline. I already like it better than the last one.

In an amazing display of strategic brilliance, Mussolini and the Italian High Command fail to inform the Italian forces in Africa about this. When British forces subsequently attack them, they are caught completely by surprise and the forces near the Libyan border are swiftly overrun and surrounded by vastly numerically inferior British forces. Many thousands of Italian soldiers are captured without ever having fired a shot. When the time comes to list the great strategic surprise attacks of history, this one will surely hold a special place for coming as a surprise to its own side. To what? To what? I can't handle the suspense. TO WHAT?!?

Look, you know how it is. You get together with the family, the mead starts to flow, and then some goldarn Swedish cousin starts to brag about all the cool stuff he got from the Rus, and you gotta shut him up SOMEHOW.

Hrm. Yes. I can see what you mean. It's a little odd. I can't quite make that work either.

Maybe because her hair turned green? *scratches head* Only reason which I can see, though it may also simply be more conclusion jumping.

It's possible, but it could also be a callback to another conclusion jumping event.

Agreed, but I note that they may not be aware of that. Grace seems to be at least partially so, mind you, but being Grace I think she is very wary of being that assertive.

Ah... Dan said in his commentary: - I guess it's POSSIBLE some of these panels from Pandora's past shouldn't be taken literally...? Now I have a horribly sad and ironic mental image of them migrating to Magusellen's world so they could find a place where they would be left in peace. >.<

Poor Arthur. Hell hath no despair like that of a pedant ignored.

Now I am wondering about the competition between DVD and Blu-Ray.

It all has to do with usage rather than specific forms. Words change character according to the way they are most generally employed as well as the intent behind their use. 'Feminist' started as an insult, then was claimed as a badge of pride by those it was used against. 'Faggot' used to mean a mere length of wood employed as fuel for a fire and then became a slur in at least some parts of the English-speaking world. In a world without racism the N-word and its original Latin form might have been a mere indicator of colour but it is now widely considered one of the foulest slurs in the entire language... except when it is used ironically by the people it was meant to dehumanise. (I almost used 'denigrate' here, which would have been the height of irony -- I caught myself in time and looked up the etymology of the damned word and it means 'to blacken'!) In short, whether a word is a slur, a profound offence or a mere descriptor varies with general usage, the era it is employed in, the person using it and the intent behind its use. This can be the veriest maze and the only way one can really be certain of what one is doing is to keep up with the people the word is meant to be applied to -- which means asking them, if you are not sure. There are transgender people who might not take offence at it, most of them having half a century or more to their name; theirs was a different era and they lived under different threats. But today a lot of trans people feel differently about it. The way to go, I feel, is to use the term each individual prefers, to ask if one is unsure and to attempt to be graceful when correcting someone who uses a slur without realising and who genuinely has no ill intent. There are so-called 'activists' who will pounce on every single mistake and gleefully denounce the person making it; these tend to be shallow creatures and their actions are very much counterproductive. But there are also genuine victims who have grown very tired of having their humanity denied and we really ought to show some respect for their feelings.