The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: Ernest Faulkner Hemingway on February 21, 2007, 07:05:09 pm
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I just can't seem to understand The Tenmen. I brought it up with my English professor but he wasn't really sure, and he couldn't tell me what a tenman was or why they'd be in a band together.
What is the overall joke with this part of the Acheverse?
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I don't really think it has any deeper meaning other than that the words 'ten' and 'men' rhyme and are kind of fun to say together.
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Firstly, they are just the kind of band that Beef would be into. Costumed for anonymity/uniformity. Playing it low-key, playing it cool. Workman-like and in it for the music. Their image plays straight into the weird kind of indie elitism that intersects perfectly with depression. "Yeah, I'm depressed, but I can understand terrible things you can't even FATHOM."
Secondly, the name seems to both be a riff on the Blue-Man-Groupness of their image as well as on the fact that... it is ironical that they are called the Tenmen. There are definitely not ten of them. There were three guys in the Ben Folds Five, for example, and there are not ten of them.
Again, this is a joke such as Beef would enjoy.
The joke is that they are exactly the kind of band for a depressed intellectual to get way into, for Ray to like but not totally get, and for dudes like Spongebath and Emeril to just get their groove on to... suggesting that perhaps Spongebath and Emeril are the fellows on the Buddha's middle path.
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Just a question but how do you know what Roast Beef would or wouldn't like? Have you asked Christopher Onstadt? I'm going to have to assume from now on that your posts are merely some perverse form of fanfiction, rather than canonical Achefacts.
You really just blew it, buddy. Really just blew it.
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Well done LFM. Although I'm not sure the question is square in asking what the 'joke' is. They are amusing for the reasons you put forward, definetely, but I don't think they're a one joke note. 'stad develops a remarkable amount of charicterization for us to chew on, 'mongst the rude ta-ta's and junky trunkies and man-douches. I think a lot of what you put forward has to do with scene dressing, mood building and the type of finely textured backgrounds you put together when playing with rather good imaginary world settings. For all you said (well) it could be that they're just some dudes what like Rickenbachers and jumpersuits. As with most of the things going on in Acheiverse, they're a question open to reader interpretation, who can take it as far as they dare.
[EDIT] Ernest Fuckhead Hummerway can go toss hisself. Ass. Don't ask an interpretaion based question and then nut a dude who gave you an effort you shitheeled ingrate.[/EDIT]
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Nah.
But being a real person with anxiety problems that sometimes mimick the problems of depression, I believe that I can make some assumptions about a cartoon cat on the internet's dealings with depression.
There is a twisted sense of superiority that comes with a neurotic disorder, even when you know that's what it is.
You can't escape the feeling that, for all the pain you're in, you actually see things the real way.
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So was that like a Robin Hood edit.
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That was intellectual honesty you failed to recognize you putz.
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Well forgive me if I seem too brash but it's in my nature. I'm not always kind but I'll speak my mind when I feel my friends need defending.
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Oh man, both insulting LFM's excellent answer and not even being able to spell Onstad's name correctly... They're just not making those TOUAMB n00bs like they used to.
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Oh man, both insulting LFM's excellent answer and not even being able to spell Onstad's name correctly... They're just not making those TOUAMB n00bs like they used to.
I KNEW today's strip would bring out some rough n00bs.
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Oh man, both insulting LFM's excellent answer and not even being able to spell Onstad's name correctly... They're just not making those TOUAMB n00bs like they used to.
You mean sick fucks and hot nerd-girls? Agreed.
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ONSTAD'S BEEN SLIPPING ONSTAD JUST ISN'T UP TO HIS OLD STANDARD OF ONSTAD QUALITY LATELY. ONSTEAD SHOULD JUST GIVE IT UP REALLY SHOULDN'T ONSTAD DO THAT.
Can anyone tell me what Criterion Collection DVDs you all are asking you parents for right now maybe we could get a potluck going?
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Broke him in six posts. Good job people.
Game
Set
Match
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So like is this a resume building activity!
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Look! A small times reference!
OOOOOooooooooooh
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If you always are, you'll never be.
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btw is this one of those "naked message board chats" i saw on the news because that's fucked up
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HAY GUYS SOMEONE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME
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I just want to laugh.
Was it not eristochrophilices who said that laughter is the mirth of being?
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Doing what you did and then saying you just want to laugh is like cutting off your feet and saying you just want to tapdance.
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You mean sick fucks and hot nerd-girls? Agreed.
You speak of my tribe! My people! Sick fucks and hot nerd-girls! The best people of all!
Such as in the Highlander teevee series, when the immortals talk around the campfire and wonder if there was ever a time when they weren't all chopping each others' heads off and such, if there was a time if they traveled the earth as a band of brothers in peace.
I feel the same way about sick fucks and hot nerd-girls.
If there is reincarnation and I am not allowed to be a sick fuck in my next life, they had better let me be a hot nerd-girl. Because if I can't be one or the other, I'd frankly rather stay dead. Be a ghost, haunt a locker room that hot nerd-girls get all naked in, something like that.
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the hot nerd-girl says she doesn't have time for us anymore. Too much science and Russian and the like.
the sick fuck says "you, you stay the fuck away. I am changing grocery stores."
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If there is reincarnation and I am not allowed to be a sick fuck in my next life, they had better let me be a hot nerd-girl. Because if I can't be one or the other, I'd frankly rather stay dead. Be a ghost, haunt a locker room that hot nerd-girls get all naked in, something like that.
Computer Labs have locker rooms now?
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the hot nerd-girl says she doesn't have time for us anymore. Too much science and Russian and the like.
the sick fuck says "you, you stay the fuck away. I am changing grocery stores."
But, inev, you are leaving out what all the inquiring minds really want to know: Does the hot nerd girl still have time for the sick fuck?
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Computer Labs have locker rooms now?
I was going to say "only the hottest ones" but you know what?
That's actually not a bad idea, considering how one must live out of those places for parts of college. Some showers, some locker stalls... so that you can take a shower to wake up and feel less icky, somewhere around hour ten of writing that goddamn term paper or whatever.
This would've helped me a lot when I was twenty.
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CAN ALWAYS TRACKING POORLY A HEART BE INDEBTED TO MY HARSH SADS
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Returning to the original question: "Can someone tell me why the Tenmen is funny?"
The answer is yes.
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42 times.
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All comp-sci buildings should have full locker rooms with shower facilities. I think CS majors, particularly those writing theses, would be much saner if they could have a shower, toiletries, and a change of clothes handy at all times.
Also, a full-service restaurant that sold actual food, ideally not involving ramen noodles or Cheetos would be a good idea for a CS building.
Also also, this is quality n00bage.
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Oh man, both insulting LFM's excellent answer and not even being able to spell Onstad's name correctly... They're just not making those TOUAMB n00bs like they used to.
Hey now. I resemble that remark.
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I kind of feel guilty for being relatively new to the board and NOT being a sick fuck (I hope) or a girl.
anyway, it's incredible to imagine that some people (EFH) even read and "get" Achewood.
I never cared too much for the Tenmen. This is probably because I really started thinking about them right about the time of their appearance at the GOF, which I began to dislike the moment Beef got cocky & I realized that Ray was going to win.
=(
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... the GOF, which I began to dislike the moment Beef got cocky & I realized that Ray was going to win.
It's okay to feel this way. The GOF was fun and all, but eh. I've never understood why it got so much attention, when, say, a strip like Titty Buxx (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=09092004) (just for one random example) will provide lasting giggles for basically the rest of my life.
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I met a girl in real life the other day who knew of Achewood.
I shunned her, though, because she said "oh god, another one?" and said that it was "really fucked up, not that funny" to her friend.
Also because she said Questionable Content was actually funny. (come on people. I read it, but... have you ever laughed at one of the jokes?)
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It's okay to feel this way. The GOF was fun and all, but eh. I've never understood why it got so much attention, when, say, a strip like Titty Buxx (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=09092004) (just for one random example) will provide lasting giggles for basically the rest of my life.
I always felt that the GOF was a pretty cool story that could have a wider audience appeal than a lot of the other strips, especially the really depressing/screwed up/cat cock variety. I for one will always laugh at the strip where the last three panels are just Lyle slowly raising his middle finger to Teodor, and the recent road sign one, among many.
And yeah, Titty Buxx (The lottery for women) always fills me with glee as well.
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inev: How did you find out she knew of Achewood if she didn't like it?
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I always figured Achewood just needed a house band. Ergo, The Tenmen. Big enough to play the GOF (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02242006), accessible enough that Ray could have them perform at his blue toilet party (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02042005).
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All comp-sci buildings should have full locker rooms with shower facilities.
I think they tried this at one time, but got rid of the showers because they were going unused.
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As a (relatively) hot(ish) nerd-girl and a noob here, i had to pop in on this thread
All comp-sci buildings should have full locker rooms with shower facilities.
Also all humanities and social science buildings. The last three semesters I quite literally lived in the computer lab. They should also have those little traveling-Japanese-businessmen tiny hotel-beds for sleeping.
And as for QC, I do think it's kind of funny. More about the writing in that one and the tiny jokes. I think IndieTits is actually pretty hilarious.
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Keith-- One of my friends made a joke about my "awesome internet friends." She asked what the other girl meant. I said that I talk to a few people online about a comic I like, no big deal.
The other girl enjoyed enumerating claims about my internet friends which she derides as obvious lies-- playwright, Animal Enthusiast/Zoo Worker, handlebar mustache, guy who lives in St Louis and isn't a rapist, woman who lives in Alaska and is hell of EMS, cute girl who goes to Smith...
Apparently these are not real concepts.
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There is no doubt about it, people who really enjoy Achewood are a rare kind of awesome and...
You're generally gonna find they're otherwise into awesome and/or weird things, too.
You're going to have to explain that it is a strip specifically created in overseas factories for the sole purpose of entertaining sick fucks and hot nerd-girls. Hopefully, this will trap the offending lady into saying something like: "But I'm a hot nerd-girl and I don't like it!"
And then you can stare at her for a second, causing her to realize that you are either pointing out that she is not hot or is not a nerd, whichever of those things would offend her most.
If she is hot but not a nerd, she will be offended that you are calling her less than hot. If she is a nerd, she will be offended that you are calling her not a nerd. If she is neither, she will think you're claiming she has a c*ck but... when she flashes you her pu$$y, it really won't be that awesome because she's clearly not a hot nerd-girl.
In any case, you have called her on the fact that... as she is not into Achewood, there is a ceiling to how awesome of a person she could actually be.
People are offended by how awesome people into Achewood are, you see.
It is disrespectful to their lesser level of awesomeness. Being into Achewood is totally Rude.
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yeah, um, she was not hot nerd girl.
I would have actually been kind of offended if she had been into achewood.
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The other girl enjoyed enumerating claims about my internet friends which she derides as obvious lies-- playwright, Animal Enthusiast/Zoo Worker, handlebar mustache, guy who lives in St Louis and isn't a rapist, woman who lives in Alaska and is hell of EMS, cute girl who goes to Smith...
Apparently these are not real concepts.
You know, when you put it that way, I don't think I believe in us either.
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Tenman with the Figments is actually a usable name, methinkings.
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I had been avoiding this thread, but I see that a blossoming discussion has since sprung from the fetid carcass of trollish stupidity.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like how the GOF panned out. It was Ray tearing off that guy's face1 that killed it for me. Until that point it was this undercurrent that Ray and Beef were in over their heads, and sooner or later the shit was going to hit the fan. Blood-of-Champion aside, neither of them was really qualified to be in there, their "army" comprised a bunch of disaffected social rejects, and Ray's early victories had all been set up by Roast Beef to give him a huge advantage. I honestly thought Sound and Motion was going to take Ray out with his Recumbent Tai-Chi at one point. It wasn't a question of whether they would win the fight, but whether they would survive. Once Ray had actually proven himself the whole thing was basically a forgone conclusion. Also, that arc was responsible for Vlad shaving his head. I miss Vlad's hair.
On a different note, I know this has been discussed before, but if anyone has those two Tenmen songs that used to be on Achewood Radio and would be willing to send me a copy, please let me know. I had them on my old hard drive, but that has since been lost in a tragic fist-related accident.
[1] EDIT: One year ago, to the day. I didn't even realize.
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You know, when you put it that way, I don't think I believe in us either.
We're Imaginary People on the Intarwub. Can.
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Imaginary friends are the best kind.
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We're all just a bunch of archetypes.
Kind of.
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<sullen>All friends are imaginary friends</sullen> Slams door to room, turns up Avril Lavigne really loud
Yeah, don't feed the troll, people.
Also, Inev, your summary of various board peeps was interesting. All ya'll are quite a mixed lot.
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oh, also, I tell people about the Marlboro man "I wish I could quit you!" shirt on Wordfront. They always stop listening when I tell them that my internet friend came up with it.
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You're going to have to explain that it is a strip specifically created in overseas factories for the sole purpose of entertaining sick fucks and hot nerd-girls. Hopefully, this will trap the offending lady into saying something like: "But I'm a hot nerd-girl and I don't like it!"
And then you can stare at her for a second, causing her to realize that you are either pointing out that she is not hot or is not a nerd, whichever of those things would offend her most.
If she is hot but not a nerd, she will be offended that you are calling her less than hot. If she is a nerd, she will be offended that you are calling her not a nerd. If she is neither, she will think you're claiming she has a c*ck but... when she flashes you her pu$$y, it really won't be that awesome because she's clearly not a hot nerd-girl.
I wonder if this is also applicable to sick fucks.
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I wonder if this is also applicable to sick fucks.
It goes double.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like how the GOF panned out. It was Ray tearing off that guy's face1 that killed it for me.
[1] EDIT: One year ago, to the day. I didn't even realize.
That was the moment that made me fall completely in love with the fight, and probably for the same reason it ruined it for you. It's excessively epic, and it's not how achewood normally works. If I saw that scene in a different web comic I would probably think it was cheesy. But you know... earlier this evening I was telling a friend about the freezepop song about phillipe, and how happy it makes me. Normally if someone sent me a ridiculously upbeat song about a cute cartoon otter I'd probably think it was lame, and I definitely wouldn't listen to it seven times in a row while deliriously proclaiming its awesomeness. But when cheesiness is built on a four year legacy of subtle bitterness and eerie surrealism, it becomes insanely good, in my opinion.
Not to say you're not justified in disliking it, of course. But for me the fact that I've seen ray stoned, sitting under a table and assertively measuring angles with his forearm made it that much sweeter when I saw that panel, gasped, and whispered, "He really is the son of Rodney." Happy mandible-tearing-versary, for better or for worse.
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Actually, I didn't even think it was that bad as a story arc. I just wouldn't rate it as highly as everyone else seems wont to do. That particular strip was pretty jarring, but ultimately it killed all the suspense that had been building in my mind. It did get better at the end, though, what with Rodney and the Jeeps and such.
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Reading this thread makes me realize that I'm maybe the least interesting person on this board. Also, as a non-hot nerd girl, I should stop liking Achewood now? My liking it is insulting?
I really need to solve this "depression" thing. It's leading me to Beeflike places.
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Reading this thread makes me realize that I'm maybe the least interesting person on this board. Also, as a non-hot nerd girl, I should stop liking Achewood now? My liking it is insulting?
I really need to solve this "depression" thing. It's leading me to Beeflike places.
Stay away from roller skates V!
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no, I would have been sad if she liked achewood because she was kind of a bitch. and hell of annoying. I am glad you like Achewood, V.
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I loved the GOF, personally. I was kind of put off by Achewood - sometimes thought it was funny, sometimes didn't get the humor - before I began reading the GOF arc, but the GOF really got me into it and sent me into a three day spiral of reading the archives instead of doing my homework.
Now I plan to do part of my thesis on it. Thanks, GOF!
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The GOF is my last ditch effort at getting one of my friends to like Achewood. Hopefully he falls for it and starts following it more. He struggled so much with the beginning, though, I kept telling him he'd like it more once Ray and Beef showed up, but he never made it that far.
Curiously, how did other people start getting into this? What was the moment you knew Achewood was the one for you? I read from the beginning and when I read the story arc about roast beef going to the moon I was done.
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Curiously, how did other people start getting into this? What was the moment you knew Achewood was the one for you? I read from the beginning and when I read the story arc about roast beef going to the moon I was done.
I don't know. I recall no life before Achewood.
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I had to live with my parents for a semester of college, and I just started reading them, thought they were funny and kept at it. Then I found this place, and a bunch of other internet gems. Now, even though I am living away from my parents again, I keep up my internet habit.
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I can't precisely recall, other than the fact that I was in college in late 2001 when I discovered the strip. I'd been into comics for a long time by that point, and finding them for free on the internet back in the mid-nineties with Netscape v.1.0 was like treasure. I must have followed a link from another webcomic...I think it was Jon Rosenberg's Goats or Dieselsweeties?
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A good friend of mine from college told me about it and...
He just said "Mike, this is awesome but it's an acquired taste but seriously give it a shot from the start."
So I went back to the beginning and... I stared at the first strip for like five minutes.
"The otter is standing on the instructions. Huh. How is that a... punchline?"
I thought about it and thought about it and... couldn't figure it out. How is that a punchline?
So I challenged myself to read the strip until I understood what the fuck was going on in that strip.
And pretty soon I was hooked for life.
Now, whenever I have to get a gift for that friend, I buy him stuff from the Achewood store.
I've never bought anything for myself but they got my business one way or the other.
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m. jantze's The Norm -> j. lileks -> Achewood
Kinda like that in May '02. Then:
Achewood -> Dumbrella -> TOUAMB
The Achewood -> Dumbrella link is where I made the move from reading to discussing comics.
Gee, thanks Achewood. Wanna get this sock monkey off my back already?
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An already-into-Achewood friend of mine gave me one of the books to read, the one which begins with the Ray-travels-through-time-to-meet-Mark-Twain arc. Very soon I was on the website, reading the archive from the beginning, then again from the beginning when I discovered there was alt-text.
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I asked my mom where idiots were and my mom said your forum was for IDIOTS
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and in the end the love you like is equal to the love you bike
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I don't know. I recall no life before Achewood.
Or at least an incorrect life that is no longer maintained.
I had a friend at uni and we knew each other's taste so we'd pass weird stuff back and forth that we knew we'd appreciate like brunching shuttlecocks, daily dinosaur comics, PBF and achewood. I am unsure if I showed him Achewood or if he showed me but let us say that is where it came from.
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then again from the beginning when I discovered there was alt-text.
Ah, yes. Good times.
I know I also came here from Lileks, and I suspect that my experience was like LFM's in that I was determined to keep reading till I understood where the first strip I read was coming from. But it's all theoretical, I don't actually remember a life before Achewood at all.
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I was reading MacHall (http://www.machall.com) and Matt Boyd made a reference to the GOF and Achewood. Since I liked what they were doing there (and had read them since...2002?), I followed the link to the March 21st strip (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=03212006l), which I thought was interesting, but then stumbled across the alt text and thought - now that's something different. Zipped back a few months and caught more of the flavour of the strip and what sealed it was Todd's joint venture with Ray into anatomical parts for cars.
A while later I clicked on Onstad's link to the Wikipedia page for Achewood, which features an External Link to TOUAMB.
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"The otter is standing on the instructions. Huh. How is that a... punchline?"
To be perfectly honest, that's one that I still don't get.
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I came to the conclusion that... the joke is... ultimately, Phillipe is so innocent/dumb/happy that they don't know how to tell him that he's doing the wrong thing by standing on the manual. They are afraid it could really make him cry or fuck him up as an adult or something to ask him to move.
"He's five! What does he know for drum machines? He'll either think we're being mean or he'll feel stupid."
It was not worth risking that.
Ultimately, letting the otter remain undisturbed was worth being confounded by the drum machine.
The otter would move on his own accord, eventually, and the task would be accomplished without breaking his innocence.
Which, of course, is the exact kind of absurd thing a person who wants to be nice to a kid but has no idea actually how to deal with kids would think. Like it was one of those Seinfeldian exaggeration-of-a-real-life-misunderstanding things.
That was my conclusion at the time.
These days, I'm not sure if THAT'S the joke or the joke is that it's completely fuck*ng insane that a bunch of stuffed animals would be involved in trying to figure out a drum machine. Not just because they're stuffed animals but also because... like... unless you're actually in the music business, who the hell buys a drum machine?
And yet... lotsa people with disposable income and no actual path toward making music will buy a drum machine and then... invariably lose the instructions or get bored with it and now they are another goddamn shiftless noodler with a drum machine collecting dust in the goddamn closet. Just because they thought the machine would be cool to have around or would inspire them to actually make music or something.
So, the point would be, he's just racheting up the absurdity of it one more step. "Okay, it's pretty absurd when that guy who has Family Money and smokes a lot of weed buys a drum machine he's never gonna substantively use. Now, to make the point, lets have GODDAMN STUFFED ANIMALS do it. Cute ones. REALLY cute ones."
One of these two ideas is somewhere near the actual point.
I have no idea which, to this day. But... that's part of the hook of Achewood, I think. The Hookwood, as it were.
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ILLEGAL GHOST BIKES
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I have always been kind of "meh" about webcomics. Most of them would have one or two that'd make me laugh, but overall they weren't consistently good enough for me to start following. My best friend (an imposing, violent Norseman) kept sending me links to specific Achewood strips and I'd always go, "What the heck is this?" Occasionally I'd chuckle, but I didn't get it at all. This was probably compounded by the fact that he'd send them to me randomly, so I didn't get any of the continuity or plot/character development that makes Achewood so spectacular.
Then he sent me Freezepop's "A Very Special Boy," and the song made me so happy (for a variety of reasons beyond simply the upbeat bubbly sound of the song itself), along with a little background explanation of who Philippe was and why the phrase "A Special Boy" was relevant, and the meaning of the "standing on the drum machine" lyric. So now all of a sudden Philippe was a character for me, with a whole background and fleshed-out personality and everything. I went back to the site and read the entire thing from the very beginning in a single weekend, and loved it more and more with each strip.
Achewood is the best part of my day, truly. I've skipped brushing my teeth more often than I've skipped Achewood.
I found this forum via the link that someone--I think it was Mets--posted on the Time blog article thing.
For me the first strip with the drum machine made perfect sense because I'd heard the Freezepop song first. But of course, that's completely circular: the strip made sense because of a song that mentioned the strip. However reflecting back, I don't think the first strip is necessarily meant to be funny. It's just meant to be. "Hello, everyone. Welcome to Achewood. This is how things are." That and I also sort of have this feeling that Onstad gets inspiration for a lot of the stories from what the actual stuffed animals are doing at his house. I mean, there's definitely an actual Philippe stuffed animal, at least--we've seen pictures of him from the Europe trip! So perhaps Onstad has a drum machine at home, for some reason, and the Philippe stuffed animal was on the instruction manual, having been set down there or something, and Onstad thought, "Heck, there's my first strip," and there you have it.
Not terribly imaginative or epic for the beginnings of something as, well, phenomenal (in the deepest sense of the word) as Achewood, but you know, greater things (oh who am I kidding? What could be greater than Achewood?) have come from humbler seeds.
I'unno.
And now, happiness abounds.
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I got linked by Goats (http://www.goats.com) to Achewood, which was then on this strip. (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=06282002) "But Ray! Cowboys!" begged for context, so I plowed into the archive, and... at some point it just worked, possibly via alchemy.
When I attempted to introduce the SO to the strip, the first one he claimed to really enjoy was "These knives!" (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12072001), which is about when I got hooked too. Who can resist these knives? My heart's explodin'!
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and in the end the love you like is equal to the love you bike
nice beatles reference ::) (that's from a beatles song, but he got it wrong of course..... noob)
next time you want to have people answer a question, try treating them with respect and make a little sense!
i mean, i'm not telling you to leave, but we’re a pretty tight group here. that doesn’t happen overnight. people have to learn that they can count on you. know what I mean?
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I forget how I got to Achewood (I'm assuming alcohol was involved — it generally is). My first strip was Roast Beef on the moon, which made me wonder if I'd stumbled across some sort of quasi-furry domestic drama serial. I would read the entire archives of any old damn thing back in those days however, and I figured out pretty quickly that drama is just Beef's normal way of doing things.
It is strange that my brain tells me I have been reading Achewood for at least three years longer than I actually have. I've got memories of reading the strip when the strip did not exist. My brain is a strange place to be sometimes.
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I love that this thread has turned from a cauldron of bile into something that cultivates wonderful nostalgia
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I was linked from Cardhouse.com during the first Showbiz run. The specific strip had ray sticking bills under his eyelids while enticing ladies to visit him in varied stages of undress.
Roast Beef was not having this.
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I feel like this conversation is going on in two separate threads?
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I love that this thread has turned from a cauldron of bile into something that cultivates wonderful nostalgia
Even more brilliant reading the troll's death throes interspersed with the thread proper. We've got to keep this going. I propose the thread be stickied.
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I feel like this conversation is going on in two separate threads?
Don't worry about that, we're merely approaching the event horizon of a Bullshit Crescendo.
When enough momentum builds from enough awesome people collectively riffing on the same topic, the conversation begins to mutate wildly and start crosslinking with other ideas and the entire entity becomes almost An Alive Thing...
Linear logic is discarded, intuitive leaps are made with ease and Cause-and-Effect... is not exactly violated, persay, though Cause-and-Effect begins to function exotically and functionally fourth-dimensionally.
It is sort of a cross between a hive mind and a rolling snowball.
A better analogy: you know how when, in Back to the Future, just before the car does an actual time jump, all sorts of sparks and explosions start wildly popping around the edges and it looks really cool?
That is where we are. We're at the edge of a Bullshit Crescendo and it is just achingly beautiful. We can witness Imaginary Idea Pairs dancing at the edge, mostly hell of annihilating each other but occasionally one breaking away into free space and becoming Real.
Ideation Aurora Borealis full-on charging ions and creating eerie fireworks in the sky.
Critical Bullshit Mass has been achieved, party person.
Awesome things are now functioning of their own accord.
The firebird Inspirado is rising from her ashes, resurrected by the electricity created by the cycling through of Crazy Ideas Spoken Anyway.
Do not fear The Bullshit Crescendo. She destroys only because that's what happens before creation.
Let her six blue arms take you into their embrace.
Nuzzle up to the bosom of cleansing madness. It is the rudest bosom of all.
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I find it altogether fitting that we reach this magical place in discussing the Tenmen: the rudest cats of them all.
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heh, an event horizon of bullshit crescendo?
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Mets, I'm pretty sure I love you.
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I take back that thing I said recently about them not making n00bs like they used to.
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We can all be funny. We can post and try to be funyn people by posting things that nobody may have expected us to post. THat is what makes them funny though, and also clever, is that no one was expecting them.
Do you have an algorithm for being a failure at making me recognizable.
Interestingly enough I once found myself on the opposite end of the spectrum, though at once I was alerted and promptly aged to perfection. Mild adult situations cannibal cannoball cannibus canteloupe.
Who is Duane. Why doe he say Duane's.
THE BLACK BOTTLE
ONE PILL MAKES YOU DOORpenis SAID
hip hobbit o_o
intelligensia is not something to be alarmed.
To be honest if you read through Achewood before realizing there was alt text, you're a fuck*ng moron. You probably like keenspot.
GRAPHIC
NOVEL
GRAPHIC
NOVEL
VIOLENCE
into the great white ripe decay lovely potentate jungle fires of bally total fitness, estragon! GARAGE A TROIS! SAVOIR FLAIR! RAISON D'FETCHRE. L'HOMME LETTE.
SON OF A
remember when pikach
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*snap*
*snap*
*snap*
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Hey, let's everybody pay attention to this pathetic fuck so maybe he'll shut up.
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ANYWAY...
How I first visited Achewood.... I got really into QC one night last October (read the whole archives instead of studying for a test, much as I am doing this very instant with the baby update thread on this board) and started looking on Wikipedia for other popular webcomics to procrastinate with. I came across Achewood and really didn't get it, but I felt like I might if I kept at it. Then (as I said earlier) I read the GOF in January, read the archives, and fell in love.
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Hey, let's everybody pay attention to this pathetic fuck so maybe he'll shut up.
But he can't. If he does, he'll fail Freshman Psychology.
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Some of my earliest memories of Achewood were the strips where Téodor was intimidated by Ray's encyclopedic knowledge of Ketel One vodka. This makes sense since I started reading achewood about a year after I moved to Seattle which was on 2001. I don't really remember how I found Achewood in the first place, it seems like it's always been a part of my life.
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Oh man, both insulting LFM's excellent answer and not even being able to spell Onstad's name correctly... They're just not making those TOUAMB n00bs like they used to.
Dude this guy is Onstad
ALL TOUAMB TROLLS ARE ONSTAD DURING A FUGUE OF ENNUI
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<sullen>All friends are imaginary friends</sullen> Slams door to room, turns up Avril Lavigne really loud
Yeah, don't feed the troll, people.
Also, Inev, your summary of various board peeps was interesting. All ya'll are quite a mixed lot.
i have gas.
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"I'm Onstad and so's my wife!"
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I started reading a bit before the bathroom party. Curiously enough (given the way this thread has gone) it was the Tenmen in the shower that did it for me, reminded me of a particularly good summer my hometown had about five years ago when awesome local bands seemed to play every party no matter how wildly inappropriate the setting.
Oh and the Tenmen's appearance seems to relate somewhat to the kinda running Kraftwerk joke.
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Hey, I just realized I never told the story of how I started reading Achewood. I'm gonna go for a convoluted butterfly effect-style narrative. Hold on to your hats.
When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite computer games was Ken's Labyrinth, a first-person shooter that was essentially a cross between Wolfenstein 3D and Pee-Wee's Playhouse. My mom had picked up the shareware copy in the clearance bin at OfficeMax, and when I beat the first episode I convinced my parents to send off for the registered version (this was back when you still had to order software through the mail and wait six weeks for a parcel full of floppy disks to arrive). It was a fantastic game, and the background music from the different levels was basically the soundtrack to my life throughout the rest of the '90s.
Fast forward several years, to the salad days of the Internet. Still enamored of this game, I did a search on AltaVista to see if there were any websites about it. There wasn't much there at all, but I did find some references to other games by Ken's publisher, Epic MegaGames, in particular the company's first release, ZZT. An old ASCII-based Rogue-type game, it was already nearly a decade old and long obsolete, but it had a world editor, and that was enough to get me hooked. I later found a forum at Z2 (http://zzt.belsambar.net/) for ZZT game designers. For a while I flirted with the idea of joining, but as I never actually finished making any of the games I started that never happened. There were some banner adds on the site, though, some of which advertised some comic called "Achewood." I never clicked on any of them (MegaTokyo having soured me on webcomics back in my preteen years), but a seed had found purchase in my brain that would not sprout until many years later.
During my freshman year in college, there was a guy on my hall (whom I don't think I ever actually met) who printed out various Achewood and Dinosaur Comics strips and put them up outside his door. I recognized this comic as something obscure from my childhood, and out of curiosity I would read whatever strips he had put up whenever I was nearby. It was amusing enough that I continued reading them, but not enough so that I had any desire to follow the thing online.
Then one day, this anonymous dude put up a copy of this strip. (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02092005) I had no idea who any of the characters were, or what on earth they were doing, but I immediately cottoned on to the fact that Ray was acting the same way I do sometimes on a Saturday night, when the madness strikes. They were only going to a friend's house to retrieve a cookbook, but in my/Ray's mind it was obviously a Grand Adventure. Ray was a dude of passion, a dude who believes in living dangerously. I had to read more of this. I went and looked the comic up online, and before long I was poring through the archives. The rest, as they say, is history.
I wrote all this at this at five in the morning and then dozed off; reading over it now, I realize that there's a lot of exposition for a story that's basically just "I saw a strip I liked stuck to the wall outside someone's dorm room." Damned if I'm not going to post it anyway now, though. Also, while writing this post I have crossed the 24-hour threshold for time wasted on this board. I'm surprised it took me this long.
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That story makes it sound (to me) like Achewood has been published as long as Gasoline Alley. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_Alley)
Also, I just learned today that Tennmen (http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2007/02/robyn-troup-lives-her-dream-at-the-grammy-awards/) is Justin Timberlake's record label. And no, I did not learn it through that link.
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Yeah, I was getting to like this Felix person but I don't think he can ever be forgiven for describing Achewood as "something obscure from childhood."
Excuse me now while I get my cane and hobble over to my rocker.
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That story makes it sound (to me) like Achewood has been published as long as Gasoline Alley. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_Alley)
Perhaps it has? (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=10092001)
Aw, Wombat, I didn't mean to make you feel old. I was fifteen, going on sixteen when Achewood first started, which was probably about the time I saw the ads. Having never actually read it, it was pretty obscure to me by the time I was in college. ZZT has been around since 1991, though. My story spans more than ten years of my life.
Interestingly, before I had read any Achewood, the only panel I ever recall seeing was panel four of this (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05122004) strip. The fact that Philippe was driving a car and looked sort of like he had a bald head led me to believe that he was an adult, and the fact that he was honking his horn and looking grumpy and being made fun of led me to believe his character was similar to Pat's. You can imagine how surprised I was later.
EDIT: 100 posts... not bad for a thread started by a troll (and long abandoned by same).
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Come to think of it, wasn't there some sort of "so many negative cans for such-and-such a time means you are DELORTED" rule once? Or would that nuke all the threads the fella was in, too?
EDIT: Interesting, while the stats page has a utility for the gender ratio of those with a declared gender but... not for those with declared age. What do you think the average age is for this place?
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I tend to think the age range is sort of broad from late teen to 40 something, so I'd say, statistically the average age is probably mid-late 20's but that it wouldn't really be a good representative number since the range is so broad.
Also, yes, referring to Achewood as something from your childhood is sorta disturbing to me, and I'm not even a board elder. Course, I was teaching an eighteen year old a few days ago and it suddently hit me that I was 10 years older than her, and that was like "WTF?"
You know what this is making me think though? It's making me think how folks like us will be in our 80's and we'll be on the internet. For whatever reason that makes me happy.
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I doubt that its normally distributed. I'd guess there's two peaks, at college aged and broadly early middle aged (at least for regular posters).
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You know what this is making me think though? It's making me think how folks like us will be in our 80's and we'll be on the internet. For whatever reason that makes me happy.
Yeah, except by then they'll have invented something way cooler and we'll be all "dang that newfangled *&%^ let's go look at the internet Mabel" and she'll be all "yeah remember the good old days get off my fuck*ng lawn you kids."
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When we're old the Internet will be in black and white and have crackly sound, and you will have to power your computer by turning a crank on its side.
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Working with limited information, the average age of this board seems to be roughly 27.1 years.
Basically, I took the top 30 posters by post-count and wrote down the claimed ages of the 22 of them that claimed ages and... added 'em up and divided by 22. It's a pretty crude figure, considering that I only took 0.5% of the population, that only 70% of those people stated an age and probably one or two of those ages are misstated for comic effect but...
Considering how little reliable data is available, it's probably a fairly useful estimation.
Especially when you take into account that of that range, 27 occured four times and 28 occured three times. Making 27 the... mode, if I remember my small-times mathematics lessons. 27 is also the median age, to further dork out.
If the mean is 27.1 and the median and mode are also 27, it's probably decent gauge... especially when you consider that, for all the other limitations, I was starting with the most frequent users of this device.
Good Lord, I am a dork.
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It's nice to be above average!
Also: can to Victoria. I'd like to give you many more but I can't stay awake another hour and of course at my age I will have forgotten all about it by tomorrow.
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Whereas, we are talking about the only time I've ever been average in my life.
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Hey, look at that. I never knew you could reorder the members list by post count.
I wonder how much it skews your figures that the two oldest posters in the top ten don't list their age. I don't know enough about statistics to have a sense of it.
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When we're talking about a sample of 22 people, if both of those added people were around twenty years more than the average I threw together, it'd probably bump the average to around 29 and... put me a little below average again.
At pretty much everything, I'm either a little below average or way above. It would fit!
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if both of those added people were around twenty years more than the average I threw together
Pretty much.
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Yesterday I bought a huge bottle of Orangina. I was like, why not? I know it's delicious and I'll probably enjoy drinking a lot of it, so here we go, I thought to myself. But let me back up a bit. It was 7:30 pm or so (referring to the time of day it was), and I stepped up to the doors of the Mississippi Market on the southwest corner of Selby and Dale. Now, entering the building was a story unto itself, which I will now tell.
- There were like six different ways to get into that building, two different sets of doors on three faces of the building--south, west, and north. Into the bargain was that the building was shared with a neighborhood association and you weren't sure which door would take you into which establishment.
But let me set the scene. I lifted a shopping basket out of the stack of interlocked shopping baskets. I pulled the handles up from their rest position and holding them in near proximity I was able to elevate the basket by putting them in the same hand (left!) and using same to provide an opposing force to G pulling downward. This had the added benefit of my being able to put the items I was interested in purchasing into the basket. Each item would increase the downward force on my hand, but I increased the opposing force at every turn, and the basket was not able to quit my hand.
To be honest, the rest of the experience was a blur - song 2
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Yesterday I bought a huge bottle of Orangina etc.
YOU'RE TRYING TOO HARD/DOING IT WRONG
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Sorry, you can't repeat a karma action without waiting 1 hours.
FUCK!
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who in the world do you think you are
a superstar?
instant karma
get it
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Hey, where did your stilted vaguely-suggesting-English-as-your-second-language diction go?
Conveniently discarded. Poorly played, hound, poorly played.
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(http://thevisualdictionary.net/words/arf/810.jpg)
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Oh, man. Oh. Man.
If I only Knew Photoshop and could reply with a neon sign that said "Leapin' Lizards".
Oh. Man. This is what I get for havin' a degree in screenwriting.
This and the constant fears of financial collapse, of course.
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Oh, so that's what brought you out here.
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What the hell? Strips about secret porn bring out the losers do they? Don't pee down your pant leg fella! At least take it out. Oh, wait that is out.... hrmph... Awkward.
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my scrimshaw brings all the boys to the yard
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my scrimshaw brings all the boys to the yard
You know, in a strange way that redeemed you. But I still took away a tiny can.
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hound is awesome.
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You know, in a strange way that redeemed you. But I still took away a tiny can.
Yeah, that line did give me a larf...