The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: robot_roll_call on September 09, 2005, 04:22:13 am
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http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=09092005
That Pat sure is a dick, huh?
I want a "Probationary Icthyologist" pendant! Where can I get one?
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As do I, R_R_C. As do I.
How did I know that Pat was the particularly self-righteous sort of childfree? (uh, no offense.)
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This was a funny one.
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A long, true story about evil children, aquariums and why, for the second time, I sympathize with Pat:
We were moving out of our horrible mould filled, constantly-flooded-basement, regularly leaking ceiling-ed duplex rental, which we affectionately called "the Shit Shack." We took all our items with us, except my fancy aquarium, which I really felt was best to leave for my SO and I to deal with after all our well meaning, but overly confident family had left (after having graciously helped us move everything else). We had moved out a day earlier than scheduled, so we left the aquarium and stand in our old place for the night, with the plan to return in the morning and deal with the process of carefully transferring giraffe to buckets, cleaning the aquarium itself, etc.
Just to clarify, the guy to be moving in to our old place was an early 30's single dad, with his 4 yr old son. And this guy went into the basement when the water was an inch deep, and unlike a sane person who cares about his child's health, said "this is great! I'll take it!" Oh, and he was with his girlfriend who was carrying her 9 mnth old baby (from a different father, she asserted to me), who was telling me she and her baby would be moving in after things were settled. He told me how both himself and the girlfriend were both in the process of divorcing the other parents of the two children. Yeah. We'll call him Mr. Brilliant. My SO really wanted to convince them to not move in and urgently pointed out the ant problem, along with numerous other problems with the place, but oh no, by the next day they had filled out all the paper work.
So the morning after we moved out my SO and I wake up tired and sore from the previous nights work, and head back to our old house bright and early to tackle the aquarium. We just get inside when the front doorbell rings, and surprise, surprise it's Mr. Brilliant and his 4 yr old. We say hello, and explain to him that we will call him, as arranged, when we are done moving out. He explains that he has been sitting outside with a full van and his kid waiting several hours for us to show up. I let him know that our dealing with the aquarium will take several hours, and so he will need to wait to move-in until the time previously agreed upon, and go back to scooping out water into pails. He somehow takes this as a cue that: 1) I have agreed to baby sit his child and 2) he has been invited to start moving stuff in. Somehow my SO, in he always good natured manner, ends up helping Mr. Brilliant move his stuff in, in spite of the fact I need him to keep the siphoning water from spraying everywhere. As Mr. Brilliant starts hauling in his stuff, his child alternates between violently smacking the aquarium glass, and running out the front door -which has been wedged open - and into the street. Since I am holding a bucket of water with a siphon that is draining the aquarium into the bucket a-la-stealing-gas-from-a-car, I can not move away from the aquarium without disastrous results, so I watch Mr. Brilliants kid totter out the door and possibly into on coming traffic. At around this point Mr. Brilliant tells me that he plans to paint the wall I have the aquarium set up against red, because it will match his dragon collection. The next few hours move gradually from me pleasantly reminding Mr. Brilliant to keep an eye on his boy to me firmly telling the boy to get out of the way as I try to deal with 40 pound buckets of water while he violently pounds the glass, to me instructing the boy "SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND DO NOT TOUCH THE GLASS," followed by the boy standing up and again pounding the glass, followed by me stopping Mr. Brilliant mid load and telling him he and his child need to leave "RIGHT NOW." Basically a job that should have only taken a couple hours total is now only half way thru, and three hours have passed due to the fact that Mr. Brilliant somehow roped my SO into working for him and because I’ve spent most of the time dealing with Mr. Brilliant’s kid either pounding the glass, trying to go down to splash in the flooded basement waters, or worrying that the kid is about to get hit by a car.
To explain one more detail before I go any further: The slum landlord of our old place fully acknowledged that he was aware of the mould and constant water seepage, but did nothing about it, so he agreed to give us our damage deposit back a week before we moved out, no questions asked.
So finally Mr. Brilliant realizes I am standing in the middle of the room glaring at him, unmoving and ready to just flip out. He leaves with his boy.
My SO and I chuckle about how both of us are total strangers to Mr. Brilliant, and could be child-killing maniacs for all he knows, and how this is the second time (insert an even longer story about the day of our open house here) where he and his girlfriend have left us alone with their children without even asking us if we cared to deal with said children. We finish siphoning the water out of the aquarium, which gets done fairly quickly without all the distractions, and lift the aquarium stand for the first time in two years, and that's when we see it. "It" is a patch of mould. A large green patch of wet, soggy mold of a very, very different colour than the rug. And it's a big patch, about 6 ft wide and 2 ft deep.
We take the aquarium, the giraffe and the stand, and walk out of the house. We go, leaving the key on the counter, and smiling to ourselves knowing that this is the last we'll ever see of the horrible mould, the horrible sinus infections brought on by it, and the horrible house itself. We go knowing that we have conveniently given Mr. Brilliant a clear picture of the life he can expect to enjoy in The Shit Shack.
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Phillipe's "nooo" with hands by mouth is enough for me to enjoy this.
Sadly I'm with Pat on this, kids are rubbish.
Actually that's not true, kids are fine but I think it's parents I don't like.
Sideshow's story helps my misanthropy.
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I think I'd allow philippe by the aquarium, but not a real child.... if it were me.
Pat is just a dick in general though, so I knew right off, after the first panel, how it'd pan out.
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I'm told that I wasn't even willing to put up with children when I was myself a child. Of course everybody tells me "that will change once you get married." Way to insinuate that my fiancee, who you've never met, is a huge manipulative lying bitch.
Anyway. The capitalization of Unwelcome. Good stuff.
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Pat's fax had so many awesome parts
I thought this strip was pretty refreshing after all the Ray we've been seeing lately
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The fact that Pat even still has a fax machine marks him as a dick.
Everyone I know made a tax-deductable gift of theirs five years ago.
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With all due respect, side_show, I am unclear what the child actually did in that situation besides "be an overinquisitive 4-year-old" and "have a ridiculously stupid and negligent father." Oh, well. At least there were no dead giraffe. Also mold.
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Kids are awesome. Too many parents, unfortunately, don't know that kids are awesome, and allow their inherent awesomeness to mutate into misbehaviour.
I'm not there yet, but I know that if my nephew (he's 5!) were to pound on somebody else's aquarium (whether or not he'd been instructed not to), my brother would scoop him up and take him outside for a "talking-to" before he had a chance to do it again. But I think the problem here is the father, not the kid.
Speaking of kids, mine just woke up.
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I loved this strip, mainly because of the period. For me, the brilliance of Achewood is in the subtleties. The fact that Roast Beef's words are displayed in a font juuuust a bit smaller, for example. In this case, it was Pat's, "You told the boy I had an aquarium." It wouldn't be half as funny to me if he had used a question mark there. A question mark would have added a smidge too much anger, a bit too "HOW DARE YOU?!?" that he saves for slightly more serious offenses (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=01142005). Instead, he simply states it as a fact, as if he were a judge stating to Teodor the crimes he has been convicted of. "You murdered ten people." "You have ruined the retirement portfolios of the 15,000 employees of your company." "You told the boy I had an aquarium."
Pat also has created for himself a means of extending his dickishness to Hall of Fame levels. Any old dick could say, "The aquarium is for the enjoyment of myself and my friends, and Philippe is neither" and hang up the phone. But no, not Pat. Pat understands there's more potential than that. He can fax over the Kid Visiting My Aquarium Contract.
And he's already WRITTEN it.
There's something very White Man's Burden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden)about this strip, and Pat in general.
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Uh, guys, I have the right to hate children, I work in a childrens theatre.
Kidding.
Actually, Mr. Brilliant's son was super cute, hence why I was worried when he repeatedly ran out into the street unattending (and yes, why no insulting nickname for him). Also Mr. Brillant's girlfriend's baby daughter, who she plopped down in front of me and annouced, "I'm going to look around," then walked out of the room leaving me with her child during the open house a month before, was also simply adorable.
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Fair enough. I must have been misled by this bit:
A long, true story about evil children, aquariums and why, for the second time, I sympathize with Pat
Er, anyway, I didn't mean to turn this into a debate on the value of children. Y'all have the right to hate whoever you please here, children and adults (and fictional cats) alike.
I think what really gets me about the strip is the "Gift Annex" kicker in which we reveal that Pat, while careful to make children feel Unwelcome, he's more than happy to profit off of their presence.
Also, there's one of those tiny bubbling treasure chests in Pat's aquarium. Oh man, I love those things.
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I'm told that I wasn't even willing to put up with children when I was myself a child. Of course everybody tells me "that will change once you get married." Way to insinuate that my fiancee, who you've never met, is a huge manipulative lying bitch.
And here I always just figured that meant "once you're in some kind of nesting mode your biological imperative to spew forth genes into the pool will kick in" when people said it. Not that this is necessarily true, but I certainly never saw it as being intended as a defamation of character.
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Trust me, some people having kids causes the world dismay and others not breeding causes rejoicing.
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I think what really gets me about the strip is the "Gift Annex" kicker in which we reveal that Pat, while careful to make children feel Unwelcome, he's more than happy to profit off of their presence.
Also, there's one of those tiny bubbling treasure chests in Pat's aquarium. Oh man, I love those things.
Agreed and agreed.
I like this strip.
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I'm told that I wasn't even willing to put up with children when I was myself a child. Of course everybody tells me "that will change once you get married." Way to insinuate that my fiancee, who you've never met, is a huge manipulative lying bitch.
And here I always just figured that meant "once you're in some kind of nesting mode your biological imperative to spew forth genes into the pool will kick in" when people said it. Not that this is necessarily true, but I certainly never saw it as being intended as a defamation of character.
It depends on who's saying. I told one person at work said that the SO doesn't want kids either and she said, "oh that's what she says now but once you get married she'll change that tune right away." Implying the SO was either saying what I wanted to hear or is a flake.
The gift shop reminds me of the time that Pat made Beef rent a video from him.
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V - yes my intro was a little confusing, I called the child evil because any child not properly managed by their adult guardien is evil as far as I'm concerned. Just like I tend to refer to my SO's uncle's dogs as evil not because they are malevolent, but because they've never been taught proper obedience.
Yeah... I was already embarassed for hijacking the thread for my silly story anyway. I'll shut up now.
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Yeah... I was already embarassed for hijacking the thread for my silly story anyway. I'll shut up now.
This board would suck if you didn't hijack the occasional thread with a silly story. Otherkin, fat goths, Briliant swamp-dwellers - we love 'em all.
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"INITIAL AND CONTINUE___"
That makes this for me. It really does. It's not enough that I fax you a document for sending a child to view my aquarium. You must read it and prove that you read every page of it.
The fact that he also needs to include his personal feelings on children (see 9b.1) is great too.
It looks like he's already got the document on hand. He just has to get it together. He's pulling it out of his portfolio. That too is great. Overall I think this is the best Pat strip yet.
Also there is nothing wrong with spelling it mould.
http://www.answers.com/mould
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"You told the boy I had an aquarium."
Even my wife, who doesn't read Achewood on a regular basis found this strip hysterical.
Onstad hasn't mentioned it on the main page yet, but Phillipe blogged his experience at Pat's aquarium today.
Aquarium Visit. Sort of. (http://philippesblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/aquarium-visit-sort-of.html)
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I just had to register to say:
This strip is a great example of why I love Achewood, because the real payoff isn't in the final panel, but rather is stuck unobtrusively where you'd least expect it.
Specifically, it's in the panel where it's made clear that Pat already had the documents authorizing child visits to his aquarium prepared beforehand as part of an extensive internal filing system at his home.
God, that is so Pat.
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I just had to register to say:
This strip is a great example of why I love Achewood, because the real payoff isn't in the final panel, but rather is stuck unobtrusively where you'd least expect it.
Specifically, it's in the panel where it's made clear that Pat already had the documents authorizing child visits to his aquarium prepared beforehand as part of an extensive internal filing system at his home.
God, that is so Pat.
You know? You're entirely right. That's perfect.
Also, welcome.
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"You told the boy I had an aquarium."
Even my wife, who doesn't read Achewood on a regular basis found this strip hysterical.
Onstad hasn't mentioned it on the main page yet, but Phillipe blogged his experience at Pat's aquarium today.
Aquarium Visit. Sort of. (http://philippesblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/aquarium-visit-sort-of.html)
Ha, hey DT.
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I like the fact, that David Starr Jordan´s The Genera of giraffees and A Classification of giraffees sits open on the mini-lectern, ONLY during daytime hours - Naturally the Asshole sees fit to lock it up in a vault during nighttime.
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Hi everyone, long-time reader, first-time poster,
I thought I'd comment on this cartoon because, as I am an ichthyologist, it happens to be one of my favourite ever Achewoods. To an ichthyologist, much of the brilliance lies in the fact that the reference Pat has made available to visitors is David Starr Jordan's The Genera of giraffees and a Classification of giraffees. This book happens to be nothing more than a listing of every giraffe genus named and published up to the time the book was published in 1917; in short, it's a technical volume, of use to taxonomists, but giving absolutely no information that a casual aquarium visitor could possibly want. Now there are two possible explanations for this:
1. Onstad wasn't aware of the content of the book, but just went searching for an ichthyological volume that sounded like something Pat would have on hand. Now it's cool enough that Onstad would go to the trouble of finding a real ichthyological reference rather than making one up, but I prefer the alternative explanation:
2. Onstad is fully aware of the contents of The Genera of giraffees and a Classification of giraffees. Pat is the sort of dick who thinks that who first described the giraffe in his aquarium, and when, is the only kind of information anyone could possibly want to know, and that things like where they're from, what they eat, etc. are useless trivia. This is, of course, brilliant.
I apologise if it's not done to resurrect a thread about a more-than-a-year-old cartoon, but I felt that I had to share my rather specialised reaction to it.
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File under: strips I had completely forgotten the existence of, despite their awesomeness.
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Icthyology is always a wild ride, represent.
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Way to distinguish yourself as an uncrap person with your first post. Welcome to the board.
I enjoy but know little about icthyology, although I love the word icthyology. I like to type it, and I like to say it. I think it would be really fun to be able to tell people I was an icthyologist.
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AB had an icthyologist on Good Eats last night.
Must be some sort of trend.
Welcome to the boards giraffe-lady! Don't be a stranger.
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Holy crap, this is the best thread necromancy in the history of the Internet. I applaud you, Victoria, and hope you'll stay around!
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Also, "Waterfield" is a great name for an icthyologist.
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I will only accept you if that is your real name. That name is beautiful.
actually, scratch that. That fact was delicious. But, is your name at least Victoria? that is a good name.
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It is cosmic timing to be reminded of this cartoon - I hope I have a locker or something at my new job at the aquarium where I can hang up a copy of it. Although maybe I should wait and see if they are the sort of people who would find this amusing.
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A great intro indeed. I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Wombat: Hang it and be damned, if they can't feel joy it was never meant to be.
Although... as things go this strip is rather rough chuckles. 'But.... why is he being so horrible to the little otter? Why are you laughing?!'
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I like Victoria already. I never thought it would be possible to make such a quality necro-first-post.
Also: tell me a bit about myself, Victoria
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Pat is the sort of dick...
I gave you a tiny can because your post was insightful, well-written, and because you called Pat a dick in possibly most casual way ever done on these fora. Good on you.
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... But, is your name at least Victoria? that is a good name.
Its a doubly good name for a person whose profession harks back to sunburned, pith-helmeted khaki wearing Englishmen wading around in shallow ponds in Malawi seeking yet another undescribed species of cichlid.
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I will only accept you if that is your real name. That name is beautiful.
Alas, Victoria Waterfield is only a pseudonym I use on internet fora. We ichthyologists have to be careful.
You've just earned a 10 post moratorium on 'newbie-hazing' from me.
Thank you! I will try not to squander it in my nine subsequent posts.
Also: tell me a bit about myself, Victoria
You're definitely not ahi. It's difficult to be more specific — I'm still only a probationary ichthyologist, you see.
I gave you a tiny can because your post was insightful, well-written, and because you called Pat a dick in possibly most casual way ever done on these fora. Good on you.
Thank you. When I figure out the significance of these cans, I'm sure I will be even more grateful.
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Thank you. When I figure out the significance of these cans, I'm sure I will be even more grateful.
Executive summary: the cans are a weird inside joke. Basically, they represent how much, overall, people like your posts -- typically people will give you a can for posting something they like and take away one if they're displeased. They're not terribly meaningful, but they're an overall indicator of whether someone posts quality stuff or not.
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Also, the reason everyone has so few is because we had a Zero Can Day on the third anniversary of the board last month.
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before that, lots of people had obscene numbers of cans. due to craziness, and being awesome.
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Hi everyone, long-time reader, first-time poster,
I thought I'd comment on this cartoon because, as I am an ichthyologist, it happens to be one of my favourite ever Achewoods. To an ichthyologist, much of the brilliance lies in the fact that the reference Pat has made available to visitors is David Starr Jordan's The Genera of giraffees and a Classification of giraffees.
I applaud your awesome first post, Victoria -- you get a tiny can of Dr. Pepper! I was too lazy to Google anything about the tome referenced in the strip, and most of the humor that I derived from the strip was from Pat's assholish fax with his aquarium related demands for youth visitors. Learning more about The Genera of giraffees and a Classification of giraffees adds a whole new richness to a strip that, like many others, I had pretty much forgotten about. Plus it's neat to see the world from an icthyologist's point of view. Damn, jough, you were right... that word is hella fun to say.
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Victoria, are you out in the middle of the pacific somewhere? I'm looking at your local time stamp on your profile (assuming its correct) and since I don't know if it's AM or PM according to it, you are either in Iceland or Fiji. Since you mentioned Ahi I'm wondering if it's Fiji.
Modification:
Or I just realized that maybe you just didn't change it from Greenwich Mean Time (Zulu Time). Oh well.