The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: jay-ell on December 19, 2003, 02:22:03 pm
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Wow, am I the only one awake at 9:20 EST?
Let me just say 2 things:
1) I'm so glad they have Friendly's in Hell. It confirms my suspicions that Hell is actually northwest Ohio.
2) The image of Beef as a fat slob is hilarious, but hard to swallow somehow.
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Has anybody ever been to a Friendly's that wasn't at or below the Denny's/IHOP level of grossness and/or took less than two hours to get your milkshake?
Now I wonder if you actually age in hell or if Beef is still thinking in terms of the living.
The strip wasn't posted yet at 8:30am EST
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I'm awake! I'M AWAKE!!
I ate at a Friendly's in Maryland about a month ago. It wasn't completely awful. Also, it was breakfast, so I was one of maybe three customers in the whole place.
Nice to know they have good-lookin' waitresses in Hell.
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Actually the Friendly's in my hometown (a suberb of Toledo) is really good. Despite its being staffed almost entirely by yuppie kids, the service is reasonably decent and their food is a cut above Waffle House. In fact, I make a point of going to Friendly's whenever I go up to visit my family because that particular one is chock-full of birthday party memories for me. Perhaps it's just ingrained in my early childhood memories, but I really like Friendly's. Pedro seems to like it, too, even though he'd never heard of them before he met me. So maybe it's just that one in Toledo that's good. I've never been to any others.
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The ones in NoVa tend to be plagued by horrible service and complete ignorance of the concept "clean"
I've never actually had any non-ice cream items from one though. Much like I had no idea that DQ even served food until I stopped at the Gateway off the PA Turnpike. Ice cream places serving hot food, that's craziness right there. I mean, you don't see restaurants serving ice cream . . . oh, wait.
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Oh. My. Goodness.
Crispy Chicken Salad. I guarantee! It will delight even the most sensitive palate. Except vegetarians. And people who don't like salad. But it's still delicious. Also, Munchie Mania (http://www.friendlys.com/treats/menu/appetizers.shtml) is one of the better appetizer platters I've tasted in my lifetime. Hot, fast, and tasty, it's big enough to share, but not so huge that it spoils your supper.
But the best part of the meal is the "Happy Ending." While it employs the same unfortunate terminology as a hand job following a massage*, it's a 2 scoop sundae that comes with just about every meal. I almost always get the peanut butter cup sundae with hot fudge.
'Cos, Damn.
*Thank you, Dan Savage
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I would expect Denise to be really hot since all the uggos go to heaven.
And Friendlies isn't really that bad, is it? I mean, I always thought they were on the same level of chain restaurant as T.G.I. Fridays, Bennigans, and Chilies.
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:shock: jl, you're from Ohio? No *wonder* you're so damned cool. Have we talked about this? I'm from Dayton. And Columbus. So, yeah, I'm not so cool, but... Look! A deer!
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Maybe it's a regional thing, but the 5 or so Friendly's I've been to around here (in 5 different neighborhoods) were all pretty skuzzy. One even close and turned into a Pollo Campero (who waits 2 hours for fried chicken?)
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I have no idea what the fuck you're all talking about!
But hell the idea of Beef as a fat, nasty, hick, jerk is superb.
Yelling to your girlfriend, "You crappin'?"
That's class!
I love Beef's little train of thought on the subject too.
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What so sort of dog would a cat own? I'm guessing it'd have to be a chihuahua because of the size. :?:
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I too find the image of Beef and Denise owning a dog sort of profoundly sad, in a funny way.
That's kind of the entire feel of this strip -- Beef's transformation is unlikely, but it's either something about Hell or something about Denise. Maybe both. Beef's lust does seem unusually direct.
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Beef is a normal man. He has needs (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=05162002).
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Denise has a nasty Corolla instead of a Brat. Does that mean she's staff? Not a cat? Maybe she commutes to Friendly's from a deeper Hell?
God, I hate metaphysics.
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Excellent points.
Perhaps most striking: every time I've read "Denise" in connection with this strip, I've initially parsed it as "Demise." Downright... hellish.
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That's kind of the entire feel of this strip -- Beef's transformation is unlikely, but it's either something about Hell or something about Denise. Maybe both. Beef's lust does seem unusually direct.
I'm guessing these are normal thoughts for Beef. He assumes he'll turn into a crappy man in a loveless relationship. Or sad and alone. Either or.
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Depending on which English Lit class you take, there is a canonical number of possible plot lines (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/06/1031115933686.html), like, ever.
I'm not sure whether the Achewood Descends Into Hell falls under The Hero's Quest, or just "person loses cherished other person/thing, goes to great lengths to get it, discovers true meaning of Christmas in process", but Beef going to Hell to rescue? reunite with? Ray may just be in the same class as Orpheus and Eurydice.
Or as the ending of Romeo and Juliet (or "Romeo and Juliet II: Judgment Day"), except that Beef and Ray are male cats in a dysfunctional friendship, not two horny human teenagers from dysfunctional families.
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I'm guessing "Friendly's" is the name of a restaurant?
Appologies to Jough.
~Paul
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I'm guessing "Friendly's" is the name of a restaurant?
Friendly's is a chain of restaurants primarily east of the Mississippi (I think -- I've never encountered one west of the Miss.) which is primarily focused on ice cream and milkshakes but also serves Dennys-style lunch -- sandwiches, burgers, melts, fajitas, that kind of thing. They always impressed me as decent if not precisely memorable, but mileage on the thread appears to vary.
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but Beef going to Hell to rescue? reunite with? Ray may just be in the same class as Orpheus and Eurydice.
I figured Beef just felt really shitty with his hangover, and didn't want to be in limbo (that is neither heaven nor hell, just here) without Ray, if he couldn't be in heaven with Molly.
So maybe he's not trying to rescue Ray, so much as just, continue hanging out with him.
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I'm guessing "Friendly's" is the name of a restaurant?
Friendly's is a chain of restaurants primarily east of the Mississippi
Precisely. (http://www.friendlys.com/rest/) So. this makes me ponder how well-traveled the Californian Onstad is to this side of the country.
My experience with Friendly's in New England has been that they live painfully up to their name, which is not a good thing when you're a) goth and/or b) hungover. Sure, they serve the bottomless carafe of coffee like Bickford's/IHOP does, the place (at least in New England) is clean, they don't title their food combos with overly cute names, and you're not so afraid of catching salmonella or a pubic hair in your eggs over easy with a side of pancakes ... but dammit, sometimes a waitress can be too attentive and perky.
Honestly, they come on like junior high-school girls trying to get into the popular lunch table: "Be your best friend!" when what you're in the mood for when you order breakfast for dinner (which is why you came into Friendly's in the first place) is some turquoise-eye-shadowed harridan who calls you "honey" and lays your plate down easy because she knows you can't handle real loud noises right now.
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I think eating at Friendly's is keeping with Onstad's ideas of Hell being not so bad, just a haven for the mediocre, like 7-11, Best Western, and KFC.
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some turquoise-eye-shadowed harridan who calls you "honey" and lays your plate down easy because she knows you can't handle real loud noises right now.
That's why on the morning after I always ate at home.
That and whatever I'd been doing the night before left me a little unfit to be out in public!
And Jough, you're right. I was seeing te inclusion of fastfood places as a sign of it being hell, but if he wanted to make it a really bad kind of hell it would have been a BK or McDonalds. KFC is remarkably bearable.
Also, it's interesting that they seem to be called FriendlyŽ's. How do you pronounce the trademark sign?
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Beef's lust does seem unusually direct.
I'm proud of our boy - this ("What do you say we go start a family in your nasty Corolla"; my God how I'd love to try out this line) is the most forward he's ever been, as far as I can remember, even if it is on a purely internal, hypothetical basis. When Ray is all incapacitated and old-school and ridiculous, it seems like Beef takes on a little bit of an edge, bless his heart.
Of course this being Hell, Beef and Denise will hook up and then she will have scoliosis and / or a c*ck. And Christmas will be ruined forever
Possible Old Roast Beef bears a lot of resemblance to Nice Pete - so I guess receding hairline and big-ass sideburns are Onstad's visual shorthand for "Life, I have given up at you". Cold.
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Also, it's interesting that they seem to be called FriendlyŽ's. How do you pronounce the trademark sign?
With a "hic" of course. As in "Goin' to Frei-hend *huck*lees, wanna come? Sure? Aight, you change your mind, I still gotta find my car keys."
I was just wondering at the choice of Friendly's over Denny's, which is a bit more universal (in the States at least), like Best Western and KFC.
I don't _think_ there was a Friendly's close to where the Onstads were staying in Boston this last time out, but they were doing some traveling 'round heah.
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I've never heard of "Friendly's" until today. I figured it was just made up until I read this thread.
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Of course this being Hell, Beef and Denise will hook up and then she will have scoliosis and / or a c*ck. And Christmas will be ruined forever
I dunno. Given the general standards of this Hell, my expectation is sort of that Denise would probably be all that she appears, but that Beef, well, would just be entirely unsatisfied. If Heaven is Molly and a sort of perfect platonic connection, even if it's one that is never quite truly physical, Hell is Denise and an entirely loveless, meaningless bout of physical pleasure in the back of a nasty old car.
Possible Old Roast Beef bears a lot of resemblance to Nice Pete - so I guess receding hairline and big-ass sideburns are Onstad's visual shorthand for "Life, I have given up at you". Cold.
I can entirely buy it. Of course, the only other character in the comic with big ol' sideburns is Lie Bot, who hasn't given up on life -- well, presumably hasn't, anyway. He hasn't been in the strip lately, come to think of it...
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Austin, Texas: late 1997. Small restaurant. Most likely unrelated to the franchise, but six times as bleak. (http://mywebpage.netscape.com/zartan00001/friendly.jpg) At last, an irony-free use for this photo.
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Austin, Texas: late 1997. Small restaurant. Most likely unrelated to the franchise, but six times as bleak.
What's to bet he guy in the background is packin' three kinds of heat?
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What's to bet the guy in the background is packin' three kinds of heat?
All these years and I have never noticed that guy. Geez. But Austin is pretty much Seattle, Texas. Which means you probably won't get shot but you most certainly will want to punch every record store employee directly in their smug fuck*ng faces.
HOWEVER
$Rest_of_Texas = DUCK AND COVER
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I think Denny's is too obviously horrid, whereas Friendly's is neither great nor horrible, just kinda "eh."
I mean, the Best Western isn't the most horrible hotel chain (that would be either the "Red Roof Inn" or "Motel 6") but it's just sub-standard, it's mediocre, it's neutral.
Like the Swiss.
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My thoughts exactly. Friendly's doesn't carry the awfulness of Denny's but it's still well below a Ruby Tuesday or whatever. Best Western is above Econo Lodge but below Hampton Inn. While KFC rides the line between Roy Roger's and Popeye's.
Apparently hell (or at least the section they're in) isn't actively bad, just the low end of "meh."
Maybe rapists sleep at the Super 8 after pushing their Ford Pintos back from Arby's.
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My thoughts exactly. Friendly's doesn't carry the awfulness of Denny's but it's still well below a Ruby Tuesday or whatever. Best Western is above Econo Lodge but below Hampton Inn. While KFC rides the line between Roy Roger's and Popeye's.
Man, I'm glad to be Canadian at times. A good 50% of those sound made-up to me.
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Maybe rapists sleep at the Super 8 after pushing their Ford Pintos back from Arby's.
I'm starting to think that I'm the only person on the face of the Earth who doesn't think of Arby's as some sort of despicable hell-pit. There's probably a sound reason for this, but it is severely off-topic.
It does strike me that the mediocrity of their Hell experience does have a lot to do with the mediocrity of their reasons for being in Hell -- both Ray and Beef, and presumably Robert Johnson, are more or less in Hell on technicalities. (You can make an argument that Ray's lifestyle would have landed him in Hell anyway, though.) The overall ehness of the occasion seems only appropriate.
Damn. Now I stone miss my Hampton Inn experiences.
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Man, I'm glad to be Canadian at times. A good 50% of those sound made-up to me.
Scottish: 85%.
I mean, who the fuck calls their business Econo Lodge?
It's like Pig Latin for cheapass lodging.
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My thoughts exactly. Friendly's doesn't carry the awfulness of Denny's but it's still well below a Ruby Tuesday or whatever. Best Western is above Econo Lodge but below Hampton Inn. While KFC rides the line between Roy Roger's and Popeye's.
Apparently hell (or at least the section they're in) isn't actively bad, just the low end of "meh."
Wait, now I get it. So they're in some upper circle of Hell for the sins that aren't the worst. If they were just in Limbo, they'd get to eat at Ruby Tuesday's, but they're a little worse off than that. They are maybe just Lustful, so they get Friendly's, but if they were heretics, they'd only get Denny's.
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So Satan is basically eatin' nothing but McDonalds (with maybe the occasional White Castle thrown in when he gets drunk on Night Train).
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I mean, who the fuck calls their business Econo Lodge?
It's like Pig Latin for cheapass lodging.
Then you, in particular, will be amused that before they got all international and culturally sensitive, Econolodge's logo used to incorporate some Scottish plaid, and before that, a dude in a kilt turning his pockets out.
In the US, cheapass is okay as long as you can pin it on some ancestral minority.
To bring this back to topic (of thread if not the strip), I concur with the developing consensus of Hell depicted by Achewood as being unrelieved eh-ness. The banality of evil and all that.
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Econolodge's logo used to incorporate some Scottish plaid, and before that, a dude in a kilt turning his pockets out.
In the US, cheapass is okay as long as you can pin it on some ancestral minority.
What the hell!? Bizarre.
And... wow, what a nation!
I like the fact that stereotypically, and that is, in general, the British look for a little more where available. Comfort and whatnot.
Mind you, the scottish do cope with the cheapass way now and then.
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I just noticed that old Beef has some stubble action going on. That's a new tidbit of info for how the 'wood-verse works. Apparently animals can get 5 o'clock shadow
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The ones in NoVa tend to be plagued by horrible service and complete ignorance of the concept "clean"
I've never actually had any non-ice cream items from one though. Much like I had no idea that DQ even served food until I stopped at the Gateway off the PA Turnpike. Ice cream places serving hot food, that's craziness right there. I mean, you don't see restaurants serving ice cream . . . oh, wait.
The one in Columbia, MD is rather nice.
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I just noticed that old Beef has some stubble action going on. That's a new tidbit of info for how the 'wood-verse works. Apparently animals can get 5 o'clock shadow
in hell...