The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: wombat on June 07, 2011, 11:54:34 pm
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There is a long blog post by Mr Bear in the fanflow.
Lyle and I may or may not have passed through a peanut-shell strip club named Squatty’s, and I may or may not have spent a few unguarded moments with a dancer named Calendar Sue.
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So what happened to the previous girl he picked up from the strip club? Polly?
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There also a picture of a recent commission in the fan flow - which does also make me think that with the advent of a significant decade a few weeks ago, it might be time to get an original piece myself.
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There's a Nice Pete blog now too.
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Nice Pete blogs always weird me out. This one is no exception.
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I'd love to commission a piece, but I'm not sure how O would take a request.
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He needs the money, he ought to take a request with great happiness.
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He needs the money, he ought to take a request with great happiness.
I think I make him nervous.
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I think I make him nervous.
in a "if i cant have you, no one will!" sort of way?
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in a "if i cant have you, no one will!" sort of way?
It hardly snows at all in Portland. I don't know what he's worried about (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100157/).
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I'd love to commission a piece, but I'm not sure how O would take a request.
I'm attempting to. I hit a decade of no little significance a month or so back and felt that Achewood would be a suitable way to commemorate, having been born a decade ago itself.
I got a quickly reply back to my initial e-mail, but he's taking a little time to consider my proposals...
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TFrom witter:
Achewood formulating new storyline for free public site. I miss doing it.
And "Achewood is resuming production. New Pat Reynolds rant at" Assetbar.
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PHILIPPE in the fanflow!
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(http://i.imgur.com/4ku82.jpg)
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burn
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I felt terrible about it but I laughed at that so hard.
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I looked, I laughed, I cann'd.
Badwhite. When the guy posts it's quality.
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In case anyone was wondering, just because there's still a PO box on the contact page, doesn't mean he's still paying the bill and having the mail forwarded.
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He can wait till he puts a new address up on his website.
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Wow, this is cool to know. Good to know that he might get the itch back after all...
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He can wait till he puts a new address up on his website.
Not trying to stir the pot, but doesn't he still owe a bunch of people cookbooks?
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It kind of amuses me that people shit down his neck for taking away the free service when he basically charged money for this other thing and then told everyone to go . . . well, to go fly a kite. I mean, that's less ok, right?
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Teodor blog in the fanflow.
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You keep making think I should pony up. And then I don't.
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'Stad murdered TOUAMBIE, placed it in a hole in his yard, next to whatever little shill of a talent he had and buried it.
I think he plans to plant a lemon tree there which he will water by taking his morning urination on it, daily.
Unless something momentous happens in the last few days of this month, July 2011 will been the quietest month in TOUAMB's history. (http://touamb.com/index.php?action=stats)
I'm going to try to start an interesting thread or two over the next couple days, though I've been trying to come up with somethin' and have mostly been coming up empty.
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I hate late July and August. There is no point in even trying. Everything will start getting better in September.
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In boring insomnia/weird stalker-ish news, I found Liz Onstad's LinkedIn page (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/liz-onstad/8/57a/107) last night through a series of clickings. I'm interested in the fact she worked for Williams-Sonoma and can't help but think about the influence this had over some of the strip's content. I don't mean to go into this too much in a creepy, overly involved way in regard to Onstad's family and such. I must say my husband's doings have most definitely contributed to the writer I am, so it's always interesting to me when I see what appear to be direct influences from one's partner. How many artists have a great, supportive partner to thank for helping them get where they are? And what interesting insight Liz and other partners of artists must have into their loved ones work.
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I have been pretty quiet lately. I'm kinda worn out by the internet lately. I'm feeling like I've seen it all and it's become a bit boring to me right now.
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Unless something momentous happens in the last few days of this month, July 2011 will been the quietest month in TOUAMB's history. (http://touamb.com/index.php?action=stats)
I'm going to try to start an interesting thread or two over the next couple days, though I've been trying to come up with somethin' and have mostly been coming up empty.
Lowest for new threads, but not for posts. We've already beaten June 2009 for posts.
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August is always terrible on the internet:
http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/the-ten-worst-augusts-of-the-last-ten-years (http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/the-ten-worst-augusts-of-the-last-ten-years)
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snuff
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No, don't cry! You are rad!
You are a rad friend!
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No, no, not that August!
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I never want to do anything in the summer.
Elsewhere we have touched on FBing 'Stad. For some reason (and I may have mentioned this elsewhere, too) FB kept wanting me to be friends with his mom.
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Well, I mentioned it to him when I made my friend request, so maybe he agreed just to avoid it. He must think I'm insane.
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I forgot to mention that a new Ray blog was posted in the fanflow on the 3rd. A very disorienting one, in which it becomes clear that Ray lives in a house that is owned by a human... just like a regular cat.
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Well, it explains why they have so many problems with the Pizza delivery guy, and why they've got full sized cars in the garage...
Still. It was a trip to read - if this is the new direction, I for one am excited.
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Well, it explains why they have so many problems with the Pizza delivery guy, and why they've got full sized cars in the garage...
Or it could just further prove that Onstad doesn't give a shit.
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Or it could just further prove that Onstad doesn't give a shit.
Paul has been burned too many times.
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I just noticed this on the Achewood homepage this morning:
"We've set the home page up to show a random comic from the last ten years while we gird the new generation of Achewood."
He's girding!
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There have been too many empty promises. I'll get excited if it happens, but only then.
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Oh I'm not enthusiastic about the possibility of the comic's return, I just think it's fun to say gird and girding. Girding! It's a very satisfying word to me, for some weird reason, even though it's slightly ugly.
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when they mentioned "gird up your loins" in the Bible, i was always like, "WTF"? now that i know what it means, i still think the combination of words is off-putting.
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Today on Twitter:
New Achewood fanflow piece up. Hiatus end draws near, but here's some Smuckles for you.
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As far as I'm concerned, Chris is all good. Lot of value over the years, and I only got fucked on one poster. He's my boy.
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and I only got fucked on one poster.
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6075/6047572563_82b9757068_m.jpg)
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Exactly.
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There's a Nice Pete blog in the fanflow. One of those tricky ones that makes you feel sad for the guy.
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Two posts in fact.
Reminds you that much as Roast Beef be from circumstances, it ain't a thing compared to Nice Pete.
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On Twitter:
Please help Achewood keep the servers on! The hiatus is nearly over, but we need your help to find the dawn.
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On Twitter:
And on FB:
Please help Achewood keep the servers on with a donation! The hiatus is nearly over, but we need your help to hit the finish line.
Hey, unique text depending on where you get your Achewood updates! I thought the issue was that he was tired of writing it, not that who couldn't pay the freight. What gives?
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That's going to go over well.
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'Stad needs some dead white guys to sing him a greek chorus of motivation.
Send him enough Washington, Lincoln, Jackson, Hamilton and Franklins to sing it loud and strong.
I could do this, but I don't think I will.
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Since I have still not gotten the cookbook I ordered, I figure I've already made a donation.
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Me too with that poster.
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Since I have still not gotten the cookbook I ordered, I figure I've already made a donation.
What wombat said.
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But if we don't give him money he might take away what he's not giving us.
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he turned into a gold digger.
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Yeah he's a triflin' friend indeed.
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I ain't sayin' he a gold digger, but he ain't messin' with no broke fans.
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'Stad needs some dead white guys to sing him a greek chorus of motivation.
Send him enough Washington, Lincoln, Jackson, Hamilton and Franklins to sing it loud and strong.
A chorus of cans for my friends.
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How much does hosting cost anyway? Jesus X. Christ! How do all those other webcomics manage to stay on the internet without groveling like a mediocre NPR station?
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How much does hosting cost anyway?
It depends on how much bandwith you use. When Onstad is delivering product I imagine his bandwith usage is pretty high. Right now I wouldn't think it would be extraordinarily high.
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Unless something momentous happens in the last few days of this month, July 2011 will been the quietest month in TOUAMB's history. (http://touamb.com/index.php?action=stats)
We appear to be over our July slump, but we still aren't as active as we used to be when we had a comic to talk about.
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It's almost weird to even think about it, you know.
We used to have, like, every other day, something external to all of our personal lives and peccadilloes that spurred conversation, that created regular patterns of attendance, etc.
It almost sounds CRAZY.
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The cost for bandwidth is always going down. I suppose you may pay more for a guaranteed level of uptime, etc.
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I think some of the GOF strips brought enough traffic to crash the server, particularly when 'Stad would promise an update at a certain time and we all hell of refreshed browsers waiting to see that day's gift of fighting cats.
You gotta hand over some monies if you want to keep your flow, uh, flowin'.
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I think some of the GOF strips brought enough traffic to crash the server, particularly when 'Stad would promise an update at a certain time and we all hell of refreshed browsers waiting to see that day's gift of fighting cats.
Those were different times, my friend.
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I've done my part. I just bought his most recent book. I'm going to be in Portland very briefly this weekend, so if he wants to provide some... services, say, for more of my money, maybe then we can talk.
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The most services possible?
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All of the services.
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Well now we won't even get to talk about whether we should be paying for the premium site anymore.
Assetbar is closing its doors January 1, 2012
We built Fanflows so creators and artists could have an easy way to pursue their craft and make a premium connection with their fans.
It didn't work
So, as of January 1, 2012, Assetbar and all Fanflows will be gone.
How this is going to go down
Effectively immediately we will no longer be accepting new funds deposits.
Other than adding new funds, you may continue to use Assetbar for the rest of the year, but...
On December 30, 2011 at 11:59PM PST, we pull the plug on the servers.
Actions you can take
Withdraw your remaining funds
Donate the remainder of your balance to Chris Onstad
Continue to browse your Premium Content until January 1, 2012
Follow Achewood on Twitter
Thanks!
It has been fun. Mostly.
Peace out,
The Assetbar Team
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The off-chance that this forces Onstad to put out maybe-not-perfect-but-fuck*ng-good strips to fuel merch sales again, that or go back to a normal people job which I don't think even Onstad is crazy enough to want to do, could make this the best news to hit this site about Achewood, like, ever.
Hopefully. I'm trying this hope thing lately even though it seems to work even less for me than bitter self-loathing.
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I wonder if Achewood going into a death-spiral precipitated Assetbar doing the same. Was Achewood that big a percentage of the Assetbar business. Who knows.
He was most of their business for most of the time, I think. They never seemed to have more than a few other clients. I would only see the other possibilities when I renewed my subscription so I don't remember what they were, but there never seemed to be a ton of stuff. Toothpaste for Dinner used them for a little while and I really liked what they were doing, but they left the site in a big huff.
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Onstad sucks at business.
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wait, so achewood will be gone from the internet? or just assetbar?
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Just assetbar... so far.
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I wonder what'll happen to all the "premium content"...
Will he try to shift it over to some other iteration of the floundering subscription/micropayments model or do you think he'll just dump it all on the main site or what?
If he's actually serious about getting the strip rolling again, it wouldn't be the worst way to jumpstart the merch-sales model that seemed to make the guy good bank at the strip's height to have a big archive binge of that stuff to gruffle through. Or to as a mechanism to a relaunch with some ads and, again, draw people back in for that model.
I just don't think that the subscription/micropayment model was ever gonna work for most web comics or could ever on a long term basis.
It's too quick a read, any given day of a strip, and we're too mentally programmed to think of the medium as a throw-in to a newspaer still.
Maybe if there was someday one mostly-unified central iTunes/Netflix clearing house of web comics, I guess it could be beaten into working, but that's a ways off if it's ever gonna be possible.
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I'm guessing this connects somehow to "girding the new generation of Achewood." Which means I can still hope that's actually going to happen someday till January when Assetbar shuts down.
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Maybe if there was someday one mostly-unified central iTunes/Netflix clearing house of web comics, I guess it could be beaten into working, but that's a ways off if it's ever gonna be possible.
I think this has some merit for the future. The biggest obstacle that I see is most creator artist will see it as a new "syndicate" which, in essence it is, but it makes sense to me to put your work where it is most likely to be seen.
We'll probably have to wait until print newspapers totally collapse before this actually comes to pass though.
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The Great Webcomic Frequency Chart (http://slacktory.com/2011/09/webcomic-chart/)
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The Great Webcomic Frequency Chart (http://slacktory.com/2011/09/webcomic-chart/)
So everyone was busting his balls unfairly.
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I wonder if that's accurate.
Achewood was executory for roughly 9 years. To be published daily, let's say that means weekdays, so 5 strips a week times 50 weeks a year times 9 years equals 2250 strips. Are there really that many? Or are they counting every blog post/Ray's place etc he posted? Not to say that the ancillary material isn't worth counting, but is it the same as a strip?
Interesting.
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I was thinking it was interesting he's right in there with everyone else. I mean, DS . . . . well, I'd rather read one Achewood a week than 5 DS like clockwork (not that it's bad, it just doesn't grab me the same way).
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I was thinking it was interesting he's right in there with everyone else. I mean, DS . . . . well, I'd rather read one Achewood a week than 5 DS like clockwork (not that it's bad, it just doesn't grab me the same way).
RStevens did mention this seems to ignore the time when he was doing 12 strips a week
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They must be counting everything. There's no way that's accurate otherwise.
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If only we had someone with exceptional research skills who could give us the full scoop...
(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/331/batcort.gif)
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If only we had someone with exceptional research skills who could give us the full scoop...
(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/331/batcort.gif)
You mean somebody who wants to take the time to count how many strips there are?
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There's gotta be an easier way than that. Some way that they're numbered in serial that isn't immediately obvious to mere mortals.
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Looking quickly at achewood.com/list.php I count 1673 items. Now this counts anything he posted including non-strips like the preview of Beef's zine and such.
(I pasted the page into Excel, deleted the month headings, and looked at how many rows there are)
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I knew Cort could do it.
In case you're wondering what that yellow blob on a black background was, it was the Bat-Cort Signal. I only had a thumbnail avatar to work with, so it's hard to recognize. 50 internet points to anyone who feels like doing a better job.
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Gee, now if somebody would go count all the blog posts...
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Gee, now if somebody would go count all the blog posts...
That same hypothetical person should also count the premium content.
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that person would do better to get a life.
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Gee, now if somebody would go count all the blog posts...
That's true - the blog posts are gold.
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He's been... girding loins for a while, huh?
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He's been... girding loins for a while, huh?
Gird the Fuck out of 'em, Chris!
Note: Non-canonical reference. Apologies.
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I just had an image of Onstad in an open bathrobe, in the dark, looking at a his monitor, at this very page, saying to himself "It's been ten months! How can TOUAMB still be a thing!"
In reverse, I hope he's actually out there in the world somewhere, taking pleasure in life, maybe working at a nice, community based place that supports foodies in some way. If I could write my own ending for Onstad, I'd like him to be genuinely happy. Really, the best reason to walk away from one's art is that one no longer needs it anymore.
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Really, the best reason to walk away from one's art is that one no longer needs it anymore.
This. I think the thing that's most frustrating about the whole ending is that...we don't know. We all hope he's off somewhere doing something that makes him happy, but the way he left things...that seems like too much to hope for. I wish him well, but I fear that his abandonment of the strip (and related) signals, not joy and creative outlet found elsewhere, but a descent into depression and an inability to function creatively on any level.
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This is the downside of the whole connecting with the creator thing that the Internet has made possible. Life is complicated enough without me having to worry if Chris Onstad is OK.
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I think that we definitely need a youtube video of you singing that song. Then, when we know the melody we can all make one. The Viral Chris Onstad is a Wussy video pledge drive.
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It's clearly the William Tell Overture, Paul.
Obviously.
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We're still gonna want to see that video.
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See, I imagined it to the tune of that 1980s song "Goody Two-Shoes".
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This is the downside of the whole connecting with the creator thing that the Internet has made possible. Life is complicated enough without me having to worry if Chris Onstad is OK.
I think a variety of this was the first thing I ever posted on Dumbrella.