2 March 2007 - Drinkin' Island is inside each of us

[Victoria Waterfield]

The Lyle flowchart.

Congratulations to those four people from yesterday's poll.

[Muse_Of_Fire]

Although I can relate better to Beef's, this is definitely the funniest of the three.

[V-Adore]

So, so lovely. Also, Lyle is exactly right on when Metallica started to suck.

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah, that is pretty much what going to a bar back in Little Falls is.

Right down to the "a-boom-boom-boom" "a-boom-boom-boom".

Except, in Little Falls, there is also country music karaoke and invariably bumming a joint off a guy who you all later agree was probably a ghost. Such as you turn around and thank him and then he disappears and when you ask the barkeep who that guy was, he goes ashen and says they used to have a regular who looked like that...

...but he died in a car wreck fifteen years ago.

Which is pretty much when you call someone sober enough to drive and gruffle some pancakes at the Dennys in Herkimer, the only place to get food after 11PM within about a half hour drive, unless you don't mind the sketchiness of sneaking into the truck stop and getting some Dunkin'.

But you just got a fuck*ng joint from a ghost hippie. That is a time for sit-down eating.

[Arachno-capitalist]

I like the blackout box and the drink island.
Has anyone ever done stats regression on things discussed here that later showed up on the strip?

[coldfrog]

First - Drinkin' Island needs to have an arrow to the Black Box.

Second - Did the word Gruffle originate in Achewood or is that a CA thing?

[littlefallsmets]

Ah, the eternal TOUAMB question: is Onstad paying any attention?

My completely uneducated guess is that he probably pops his head in once in a great while but is most likely too busy, like, raising a kid and drawing a comic strip and... living in a house where teddy bears and house cats walk on two legs and talk and do drugs and so on than to really take much note of it.

The much-less-likely but second-most-likely scenario is that he's on here all the time and four or five of us are actually him, posing as Normal People, all Internet Comic Strip Prince and Internet Comic Strip Pauper style.

The odds of scenario #1 are like 99.983%. The odds of scenario #2 are like 0.016%.

The odds of scenario #3 where the dude just plain-ol' lurks this board but pretty frequently are 0.001%.

In an odd coincedence, 99.983% is also the percent chance that I enjoy making up percentages.

[littlefallsmets]

Did the word Gruffle originate in Achewood or is that a CA thing?

I definitely picked it up from Achewood.

Anyway, the San Francisco Bay area and the Los Angeles metro area are so culturally different that I don't know if there's a such thing as "a California thing" that encompasses both of those areas culturally.

Native born Angelinos and native born... Friscalinos?... seem to disdain each other in the way that I, as a dude from the Utica area, was trained to distain the New York City area.

To say that LA and SF (or where I grew up and Manhattan) could share a culture is sort of like saying that Tel Aviv and Seoul have a lot in common because they're both in Asia. Or to say that Madeline Albright and the lady who plays Pam from "The Office" are equally sexually desirable because they are both American ladies.

Near as I can tell, as an Adirondack hayseed living in LA for three years now, there is pretty much no such thing as California, except on maps and tax bills.

[chuanoplast]

Thank you Lyle for teaching me about drinking because I ain't got the enzymes to digest alcohol, and must watch you go "A BOOM BOOM BOOM."

Sincerely and gratefully,
Yours Truly

[linnea]

No enzymes to digest...hooch? Huh? I've never heard of that.

chuanoplast, you can't possibly be as boring as you claimed in your previous thread. There's a story there, I bet!

[V-Adore]

No enzymes to digest...hooch? Huh? I've never heard of that.

chuanoplast, you can't possibly be as boring as you claimed in your previous thread. There's a story there, I bet!

If it's what I'm thinking of, it's actually not uncommon, although it tends to be one of those genetic differences that falls along ethnic lines most heavily. Basically, it involves a breakdown in the alcohol-metabolism chain such that drinking makes you hella nauseous, and usually you puke long before you get tipsy.

(I've actually kind of wondered if I have this. On one hand, both my parents drank heavily in their youth, and I can have a beer or two no problem; on the other hand, the last time I had two hard lemonades in quick succession I felt really seriously woozy, as I did when I went wine tasting during my Cornell interviews.)

[chuanoplast]

It's not that exciting for me because a lot of Chinese people have the same problem. It's definitely something genetic because both of my parents can't drink much alcohol, and I know the enzyme problem is really serious for my family because my paternal grandfather nearly died from drinking one glass of wine in his youth.

V-Adore, you could possibly have the enzyme deficiency if both of your parents are heterozygous for the no drinkin' gene. I'm not sure what that means for your parents though because I'm not a science major.

[iron_felix]

So are we getting another one of these on Monday, or is it a Friday thing now?  And is Onstad going to offer personalized versions for all of them?

I like how Lyle starts out in the "Fuck You!" box.  That and the blackout box (and its relative smallness) made the strip for me, although as a whole it seems a bit confused as to whether it's a map of cognitive processes, a narrative of events, or some sort of board game.  Of course, this is all entirely appropriate for Lyle.

I'm kind of glad that Todd was incorporated into the Lyle flowchart.  In theory it would be cool for him to get his own chart, but the end result would probably be closer to Jackson Pollock on some really bad acid.

[robot_god]

But you just got a fuck*ng joint from a ghost hippie. That is a time for sit-down eating.

Ok, I'm only going to do this once.  I mean no offense to anyone, but I think announcing that you are giving someone a can is kind of a Hunt's move:  I won't do it.  However, something like the above quote is an exception.  This is the first and only time I will do this.







As far as the Onstad scenario goes, I put my bet on #3.

[Doc]

Damn, this is definitely the laugh out loud funniest, though Beef's might have more long term viability.