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[wombat]

The flaw in the theory that Onstad feels bad for falling behind is that it assumes there's something for him to be behind on.  But since he's never even pretended to promise a particular update schedule, there's no evidence for any deadline or anything that he can feel bad about not meeting.

Rather I think we have to love his naive hope that over and over again he predicts he'll have something finished by "Monday afternoon," and he doesn't, and yet, next time, he still promises something "Monday afternoon." In a way it's quite charming.

[Doc]

Tomorrow: Chicken

[wombat]

PS. Negative reinforcement means rewarding the subject by removing an unpleasant stimulus. I don't think that's what you mean.

[jay-ell]

I appreciate the offers of help and I might eventually follow through on them but, right now, feeling like I'm letting people down by not immediately engaging their kind offers and/or getting feelings of inadequacy piled on top of feelings of inadequacy by people who misread my personality as being spurred by negative reinforcement when there is nothing that motivates me less than having my ten thousand previous mistakes pointed out...

Just to be clear, my offer stands pretty much forever. There's no rush; do what you need to do. From these cheap seats over here, I can't tell if you're balking of if you're in the middle of A Real Thing, so I'm not gonna say anything else about it or nag you or anything. You know how to find me when you're ready.

Tomorrow: Chicken

I have started using "Tomorrow Chicken" as a metaphor for broken promises, particularly those used to placate or bargain.

"You always say you'll clean the kitchen before bed, but it's all just Tomorrow Chicken."

"That's the problem with politics today -- it's all Pork and Tomorrow Chicken."

"I swear I'll clean out the attic this week. I'm not trying to feed you Tomorrow Chicken."

[pmcd9]

sMets writing career is a tomorrow chicken.

[wombat]

Today I'm gonna refresh the site several times per hour checking if there is a comic or whether it still says "we return Monday." I like to think that my naive hope is charming as well. Instead of, say, idiotic.

The chicken is better tomorrow, right?

[theinevitable]

"You always say you'll clean the kitchen before bed, but it's all just Tomorrow Chicken."

Man, living with your SO seems really stressful.

[oball]

To be fair, Onstad didn't say which Monday.

[Doc]

I have started using "Tomorrow Chicken" as a metaphor for broken promises, particularly those used to placate or bargain.

The reason I said it is that I think that's exactly how stad uses it. He's so aware of his unreliable nature that he made up a joke about it years ago.

[wombat]

This time he means it right?

We return "Monday" "afternoon" (which seems to mean Wednesday afternoon). Thank you for keeping us in your RSS feed. We have lots to polish and deliver.

[jay-ell]

Man, living with your SO seems really stressful.

Half stressful, half sexy.

To be honest, this is an example I pulled out of the past, when we were first married and didn't have kids to fight about. He's much, much better about this than he used to be.

This time he means it right?

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/primates/20753

 

[wombat]

I think you've finally hit on the explanation of Onstad's strategy that we've all missed. Why go to the work of updating regularly when you can instead depend on the power of intermittent reinforcement?

[jay-ell]

I think we're a huge social experiment just waiting for the big reveal.

The only question now is, which of us is really Onstad?

[TripperDay]

There's still nothing in the store except stickers and greeting cards. I don't think asking for money, then not having store inventory is a good model. Granted, he didn't ask people to buy stuff, but some people would be more likely to buy something after he asked for money. Maybe a few of those people will still give out of the goodness of their heart after finding nothing in the store to buy, but that's got to be a really low number.

[pmcd9]

The strip is late, not because he needed two extra days to polish it up, but because he was doing something else, or doing nothing.  Can't be sure anymore.  I strongly suspect he's got a second unreported child that is dragging him down.