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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

ChronosCat

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Posts posted by ChronosCat

  1. Posted

    First of all, sorry to hear about your troubles, mlooney; you have my sympathy.

    Now on to a much less serious annoying thing:

    I'm a fairly big Godzilla fan, and I like to have physical media for my entertainment when possible. As a result I have collected DVDs and/or Blu-Rays of every Godzilla movie to have an official English-subtitled release - which is to say, every Godzilla movie except the anime "Monster Planet" trilogy released in 2017 & 2018. That trilogy was released on DVD & Blu-Ray in Japan shortly after their initial releases, but of course those discs don't have English subtitles. As far as I can tell, even years later the only way to see the English translation legally is by streaming them on Netflix.

    As I've mentioned before, my internet is too limited for doing much if any streaming, and so long as that's the case there's no way I'm paying for a streaming service. This means that if I want to see the Monster Planet trilogy and understand what's being said, I'll need to visit my sister and ask to use her internet and the Neflix account she's sharing with a friend... or wait and hope that one of these years they'll finally do US Blu-Ray release. (Well technically I could also try learning Japanese, but I don't really want to learn another language just to watch anime & monster movies.)

  2. Posted

    On 1/30/2024 at 9:51 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

    I don't know much about CD's degrading, but if you have any, do not store them in an even slightly damp place.

    Re: streaming, my kids love it, and love not having to deal with media. I rankle at paying for each play, would rather own media, but it does all take up space and requires some attention. A also like broadcast radio, now FM only, I no longer listen to AM, just sounds better, and there's plenty of it.

    My understanding is that how long a CD (or DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) will last depends on the manufacturing techniques used. Some CDs made in the late 80s still play fine, while some more recently produced are no longer usable (though it's not simply a matter of "they don't make 'em like they used to"; new CDs can be high quality too). Unfortunately usually there's no way for the consumer to know what sort of disc it is they're dealing with.

    Personally, I like the concept of streaming, but don't do it much (and don't bother with any paid services) because my internet is limited. Even if that weren't an issue, I would still want to have physical copies of any music I like enough to want to listen to again (and any videos I want to watch again, and games I want to play again), or at least have the media in question downloaded to a machine I own (preferably with backups), as I don't trust streaming services (or anything else online) to always have the things in question available - or even to always exist.

    I do listen to the radio at times too, if I don't know what I want to listen to (or when I'm in my car, since it's CD player broke and I haven't gotten around to having it replaced). However, while the "random" (for lack of a better term) selection on a radio station can lead to me discovering new music I like, it also can result in my being subjected to songs I don't like (until I change the station or turn it off), and generally speaking I prefer being in more control over what I'm listening to.

  3. Posted

    On 1/17/2024 at 9:40 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    He didn't really hang out with Justin very long, unless there was a fast forward between the last comics and this. (Do kids these days understand a VCR term, 'fast forward'? I told my kids once, "You sound like a broken record." They asked, "What's a record?")

    In addition to "fast forward" still being a term, as far as I know so is "rewind" despite nothing being wound on a DVD/Blu-Ray player or streaming video. On a related note, multiple programs I use still have their "save" icon look like a floppy disk; I wonder how many people use such programs but have no idea why the save symbol looks like that.

    Incidentally, I'm guessing that incident with your kids not knowing about records was a while ago? Because records have actually been making a comeback in recent years (I've even heard that these days they sell better than CDs, though considering how most people seem to prefer streaming these days, that may not be saying much).

  4. Posted

    On 1/9/2024 at 2:18 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    Ashley doesn't have preferences.  She likes anything different and cute.

    So how long until she gets bored of Elliot?

    So long as he's willing and able to change into a wide variety of feminine forms (plus a masculine cat-boy), I think Elliot will continue to hold Ashley's interest.

  6. Posted

    On 1/3/2024 at 9:44 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    So, source of the funds; Justin says, "Not counterfeit!" in his head; I take that as canon because it seems to be intended to be canon. Well, we have the possible, 'assets buried long ago', literally created on the spot - but she'd need to have copied real ones to have the anti-counterfeit features; transported real ones to herself - effectively stolen; sent real ones back in time to herself - which is not technically stealing, it would be more akin to counterfeiting, but they'd be real; duplicated herself a thousand times and flipped burgers for a couple of weeks (but she'd probably know about change, then - and does she need to eat?) . . . They all seem far fetched.

    Remember, travel back in time is not possible in EGS (except traveling to another world whose "present" is an earlier year than your own).

    On 1/3/2024 at 9:44 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    Justin is slick in how he checked, not making it obvious what he is doing. OTOH, it's probably not necessary. I've had bills checked at places that check routinely, did not find it offensive. I think black light checking is more effective. I can see a comic store not investing in one, even though they are not expensive. It has too many entertaining applications, in a store that caters to the nerdy crowd.

    Whenever I use a $100 bill at a store, the cashier runs a marker over it. While still obvious enough if you're paying attention, I'd say it's a bit more discrete (and probably convenient) than holding the bill up to a light like Justin did.

  7. Posted

    On 12/28/2023 at 9:55 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    Sixty to seventy USD would be typical for a big name release for the PC; fifty is a nice round figure in the ballpark. I read this as 'under $100 or not much over', allowing for some padding.

    Same thing for big name releases on the Switch (and many not-so-big name releases).

  8. Posted

    2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    No matter how old or sick or injured a person may become, there will always be a version of that person who just fails to die.

    While I like the idea of Many Worlds, I don't think that particular idea holds up. It assumes that either no matter the situation a person finds themselves in there is a chance they won't die, and/or that any situation where death is inevitable is avoidable. Now that might be true for the majority of things that can kill a person (though on the other hand there are so many things that can kill a person that it would be extremely unlikely to find oneself surviving far beyond one's life expectancy), but there are various deadly situations that a human simply can't survive, and various health issues that can't be avoided and modern medicine doesn't have an answer to. Also, while there may be some worlds out there with people already centuries or more old, and medical technology is advancing rapidly enough these days that it's not unreasonable to think some people living today could live to see life expediencies start rising faster than people can die of "old age", without the ability to travel back in time or between worlds everybody must die eventually --- after all, the universe itself will eventually end (or at least wind up uninhabitable).

  9. Posted

    On 12/27/2023 at 9:36 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    In the non-Canon NP arc, Goonmanji 2, Hanma interacts with Susan, Rhoda, Catalina, and Ashley. Though it is non-canon, Hanma has appeared in the main story line, for instance, when the immortals are listening to Voltaire rant about changing immortal law. It does not seem that Rhoda and Catalina have much awareness of a magic community beyond themselves. (This is also odd, wouldn't someone with magic wonder if anyone else did?) Probably actually non-canon . . . ?

     

    Also in Goonmanji 2, Hanma implies that in a future canon story it will be revealed that she met Liz and Ashley at an anime convention.

  10. Posted

    22 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    A TOS tricorder is also technologically inferior in several ways. It is bulky, heavier than a cell phone, and the attendant storage items are a fairly large item, a disk somewhere around the size of two nickels or quarters stacked together. Yes, it fit the esthetic of the era the show was aired; gear was still bulky, and at the time the tricorder appeared to be less so. But you weren't going to fit it in your pocket, like you do with a cell phone.

    I had forgotten how cumbersome the TOS tricorder was. (While I've seen most of TOS I don't think I've seen all of it, and I definitely haven't seen all of it more than once; it's also been a couple years since I watched any of it.) When I think "tricorder" the TNG-era version comes to mind; those are still bigger and bulkier than a phone, but not nearly as much as the TOS version (also, while it might not fit in the average shirt or pants pocket, it could fit in a large jacket pocket or something).

  11. Posted

    On 12/22/2023 at 7:30 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

    Seriously, that seemed unrealistic on Star Trek when it first aired. Mine seems more sophisticated than the communicator and tricorder combined.

    Depends on what you mean by "sophisticated". The communicators have a much greater range than the average cell phone (I'm pretty sure mine couldn't communicate with a ship in orbit without relays), and the tricorders have much more comprehensive and detailed scanning abilities than today's phones (though the gap is closing). Of course a smart phone is far more versatile than a communicator and a tricorder combined, and the design of the communicators and tricorders in the Original Series looks very retro these days (but that's more a matter of changing tastes in aesthetics than technological sophistication).

  12. Posted

    More-or-less the opposite of annoying, but to complete the saga in a single thread: we finally have our power back! It's quite a relief, not just because it's been challenging relying on our generator for the past few days; yesterday the power company had estimated it would be restored Saturday evening (granted, they were giving the same prediction for all the out-of-power streets in our area, and those weren't all connected to one another, so it was probably meant more along the lines of "we'll have power back to everyon in town by then"). I'm very glad we didn't have to wait that long!

    On 12/20/2023 at 5:55 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

    Our soil is shallow clay in this region. Trees do not root deep, and they fall fairly easily. When I moved here, I wondered why the homes had few trees nearby for shade. Can't do that; they fall on the homes way too often.

    Trees falling due to loose roots are not uncommon around here, but neither are they common enough to be a major concern when deciding whether to allow trees near one's house. Trees breaking (either due to dying, or due to being too thin for their height) are somewhat more common, and far more common than that are tree branches (sometimes big ones) snapping due to winds or the weight of snow.

    Incidentally, a while back (probably five to ten years ago) we actually had a tree fall on our previous house, but luckily the house was sturdy enough and the angle right so the tree just slid down the roof before falling to the ground without causing any major damage to the house (though it did take out our TV antenna along the way).

  14. Posted

    Still no power.

    22 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    Ours has gotten much better in the time I've lived here; more buried lines, better protection at the substations, and the repair crews are good. Which is all nice, as we get occasional hurricanes. (The coast gets a lot; most of the time we just get the outskirts, but every now and then . . .)

    One of the downsides to living in the middle of the woods is that buried lines aren't really practical for the most part - and there are a lot of trees and branches to fall on the lines. I'm pretty much used to our loosing power at least a few times a year, though usually it's only for a few hours, or at most a day. It's only when a really big storm causes damage across a wide area that we wind up without power for days; the last time was three or four years ago, and prior to that it had been a couple decades since it had last happened.

  15. Posted

    21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    She seems vulnerable. Is that an act? Isn't she still an overpowered magic being, even as a young one?

    This probably isn't a huge factor in her seeming vulnerability towards humans, but she's not overpowered relative to other Immortals any more.

    (And that may actually play a small part in her being so cautious in her interactions with others; she can't afford to gain the attention of any Immortals which would be hostile towards her. On a similar note, while the new Immortal Rules are supposed to grant them more freedom, it seemed like Zeus wasn't allowed to actually talk about those new rules with humans; it may be that in some ways the new rules are actually more restrictive.)

  16. Posted

    So this is maybe a little more than annoying, closer to frustrating, but yesterday we had a major rain and wind storm that knocked out the power a bit before noon. Some 36 hours later (roughly) we still don't have our power back. We do have a generator, so we're not in danger, or even truly roughing it, but it can't power everything in the house and we can't run it all the time. So we've had to put up with long stretches of doing without power, and even when we do have the generator running have to choose carefully what we use the power for.

    On a more mildly annoying note, that same storm brought a lot of warm air with it and melted all the snow. We had a white Halloween (very unusual), and a white Thanksgiving (not so unusual but not something that happens every year), but it looks like we won't have a white Christmas (which is pretty unusual; most years there's at least a little bit of snow on the ground).

  18. Posted

    On 12/1/2023 at 2:15 PM, Amiable Dorsai said:

    Do we know what time of year it is? Still winter? Spring? How imminent is graduation?

    I don't remember if we have any more specific information, but think it's been spring in the comic for a little while now. Given that everyone in this story so far is wearing short sleeved shirts (even outside, as seen in the first couple pages), I'd say probably mid to late spring - so graduation is probably no more than a few weeks away.

    On 12/2/2023 at 9:29 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

    ". . . it took place in high school. I was mostly thinking about how we're graduating soon."

    They have already graduated.

    I don't follow your train of thought, and suspect you're misunderstanding the comic. The movie that Susan and Elliot just watched prior to the non-flashback part of this comic was about high school, which got Susan thinking about how "we're" (we are = we will be) graduating soon. It hasn't happened yet.

    Darth Fluffy reacted to this

  21. Posted

    On 11/1/2023 at 0:51 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

    I'm missing the reference. Are you referring to Teddy Ruxpin?

    I had kids the right age for this toy, and I had a curious but not compelling interest, and they never asked for it.

    I had a stuffed chimp when I was a toddler, about my size, and had a vinyl face, ears, hands, and shoes (possibly rubber). I was terrified of it, I think it hit the 'uncanny valley'.

    I never encountered the toy in person, but Teddy Ruxpin's commercials were pretty creepy. Or at least so it seemed the one time I watched one of the old commercials as an adult; I don't think they bothered me as a kid.

    My mom had a couple of stuffed "monkeys" like the one you described (one black, one brown), which she passed on to me and my sister when we were young. I didn't find them scary, but I did think they were a little ugly (it also annoyed me that they wore shoes, as that's not something most real monkeys & non-human apes are in the habit of doing).

    On 11/1/2023 at 0:51 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

    They believe they are the center of the universe, they see things that aren't there, and they fit into impossible places . . .

    Are cats seeing things that aren't there, or are you failing to see things that are there?

    (Also, cats are very sound-orientated; depending on the situation in question, it may be a case of hearing something that's not visible. For instance, tracking a mouse that's crawling in a wall.)

  22. Posted

    Thursday through Saturday is was in the low 70s F - far warmer than normal for this time of year (though to my surprise not quite record breaking). Then Sunday it dropped down into the 40s, and today it's in the low 30s (significantly colder than usual during the daytime this time of year) with an inch of snow on the ground (not entirely unprecedented for October, but quite unusual).

    Thursday I wore a short-sleeved shirt for the first time in weeks and could have gotten away with shorts; today I had to pull out a winter coat and winter boots.

    People say "If you don't like the weather wait a few minutes and it'll change," but this is one of the most extreme weather changes I've seen.

  24. Posted

    So my suspicion is that in the last panel, Tedd turned on the same sort of Aura Vision that Luke has, and Edward has a painfully bright aura (though probably not as bright as Tedd's own). A more humorous option would be that Tedd accidentally switched to "see-through-clothes" vision (or something that has that as a side-effect).

  25. Posted

    13 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    Elliot's eyes are very expressive of his astonishment, nice touch. He has a noticeable hair band. I checked, and he's wearing it in Monday's comic, but it's not as obvious. It appears to be a sports style band that a guy with long hair might wear, but I don't recall Elliot wearing one. His hair is long enough normally to benefit from one when he works out or plays basketball.

    I don't see this hair band. Are you referring to the black above his forehead right at the lower edge of his hair? I figured that was just dark shadows.

    13 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

    Also, where is Edward in Lord Tedd's universe? Seemingly not present, was he a victim of Damien, General Shade Tale, or Lord Tedd? Or is he in hiding? Or even the puppet master behind it all? Not a great universe to dwell in, I think.

    5 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

    And where is that universes version of Elliot? Say what you like about either, they both provide Tedd with positive role models. Though I can't find the relevant strip, I recall Tedd speculating about whether the presence of Elliot was the difference between him and Lord Tedd.

    Many years ago there was a filler/sketchbook showing Lord Tedd at a grave. I've always figured that was Elliot's grave, but Mr. Verres is another option. Or maybe more than one of Lord Tedd's loved ones died...

    I don't think Lord Tedd would have killed them, or that Lord Tedd would trust General Shade Tail if GST had done so. I think it was the death or deaths in Lord Tedd's life that led him down the road to becoming a "Lord" and seemingly villainous. As for who did kill Elliot/Mr. Verres/whomever, my guess would be Damien.

    I also doubt Lord Tedd is actually particularly evil. We know he calls himself "Lord" and has some sort of base/hideout, but I don't recall any indication he's actually a world conquer. And while the whole "send demon nuclei to kill other Tedds" thing seems pretty bad, it's important to note that we have yet to see any evidence any of those nuclei succeeded at that task, and Lord Tedd being the sort to even attempt that doesn't mesh very well with what we saw of him in Painted Black, and with Nioi's loyalty to him. I suspect either Lord Tedd has been framed for the Demon Nuclei attack, or they weren't actually supposed to kill anyone; possibly their goal was not to kill other Tedds but to drive those Tedds to become stronger.