Honestly, if anybody ever knocks that dude down then that would make a pretty good Jeopardy question.
“Though he lost his only senate race by five votes, he became a giant of another branch of government, sitting as president for ninety-five consecutive years.”
Willis is clearly trying to trick us into thinking the cricket is insignificant. Once he has his important, dramatic moment in the narrative, Willis will go back and tag these pages
If I understand correctly, the book that the current strip will be in begins with the storyline Face the Strange. So by Laidlaw’s Rule the first strip in that storyline needs to be retroactively changed as follows:
Panel 3 (in texts):
Billie: You going to be okay without me?
Ruth: You’re still nearby. It’s no big deal.
Billie: See you tomorrow.
Panel 4:
Narrator voice: And then the murders began.
*at 4:30 in the morning, Dina’s parents materialize behind the door*
Dina’s mother: Daughter, you are now 19.
Dina’s father: Congratulations and well done.
Dina: Thank you, my parents.
*polite bows all around*
*Dina’s parents disappear behind door again*
Becky (from bunk): Huh? Wuh wuzzat?
Dina: $500 has been transferred to my back account, so that I may buy me something nice.
Becky: Why?
Dina: I have passed a significant milestone.
Becky: Huh… so whatcha gonna buy with it?
Dina: Stegosaurus hoodie.
I like the specifics from Ruth: Not “I made” or “I decorated” or “I ordered” even, but the bare minimum involvement, which probably reflects her enthusiasm, “I handed”.
Who’s Other Rachel’s roommate? Rachel? She’s a sophomore, so if they room together, it would make sense for Other Rachel to be a sophomore. In that case, it’s likely an in-joke from the year before.
The days that would have been ROUGHLY Sept. 9th and 17th were during timeskips. The first was the day before Time Keeps On Slippin’ and the second was the day before Just Hangin’ Out With My Family.
For reference, it’s currently roughly October 12th.
Willis is a wily one. According to the timeline over at Walkypedia, neither of those days were covered “on-screen” so to speak. September 9 was the day before “Time Keeps On Slippin'” and September 17 was the day before “Just Hangin’ Out With My Family”.
Be honest, Ruth. You didn’t write up Meredith as a birthday present. You didn’t write her up because that would have been at the Venn Diagram intersection of paperwork, job, and bullshit.
(Granted job might be entirely a subset of bullshit, but it’s a gradated circle where some parts of the circle are more bullshitty than other parts.)
I dunno, she used to be more spite-motivated, or she would just have plucked it out of their mouth or something and intimidate them, pre-Billie breakdown.
Was Ruth R.A. when Sarah’s old roommate got in trouble for drugs on campus? If she knows about the fallout of that incident, that might increase her hesitancy.
Celebrating birthdays is by not writing people up is not quite cricket.
(Actually, was it even Meredith’s birthday? Or is Ruth all “Meh, it’s probably someone’s birthday”?)
…….. Anyhow, I vote surprise birthday party for Sarah, with everyone jumping out and launching into a happy birthday song. What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe I’m just used to some other webcomics creating easy drama by never letting their characters be happy, but I would be more surprised to see a Billie/Ruth relationship that slowly gets healthier than to see a relationship where they fall out of lust/love now that some of the excitement has been resolved.
Since we’re in October (I think? Or are we in November by now?), with the order Billie read those names, Sarah’s probably a Libra and Dina’s a Scorpio! If we ARE in late October by now Sarah’s definitely a Scorpio and Dina’s either also one or possibly a Sagittarius. Dina feels more like a Sag to me.
If other Rachel is anything like other Kevin from tabletop game club at my college, she wouldn’t like being referred to as other Rachel. Just call her Rachel, and call the first Rachel “squid”.
In a perfect world auto-correct would ask you before changing world to word. Also there would be a way to edit comments to correct errors that you would never make because it’s a perfect world.
In less perfect worlds the edit feature is disabled to keep Mike from carrying on arguments and then going back and editing his posts to make the other guy’s responses look like those of an unreasonable jerk.
Okay, is anyone else getting that stupid Ford ad that says, “Hey, I don’t care if you’re trying to scroll down to a lower part of the comments section, I’m up here, your browser has to be up here too, NO YOU DON’T GET TO LOOK AT ANYTHING ELSE.”
If so, is there a setting in Firefox I can disable that gives me back control of my browser?
I used to recommend blocking Java/Shockwave – doa used to kill firefox on my Ubuntu box. But I can see FlashBlock add-on is disabled, and I can no longer disable JS or Java in the settings. Yet DOA performs well.
Well, I’ve got the latest version… but I did check my addons and there was this weird one I couldn’t account for so I disabled it. Maybe that will work.
Loading ...
sounds fine to me!
[/doesn’t actually hate birthdays so much as eyerolls them ever since I stopped sharing one with a sitting president]
Were you also born on August 4, or is it a different president than the one I’m thinking of?
July 6? June 12? August 19? October 1? February 6?
The birthday in question is January 7. (Turns out that Ana is one of the Undead.)
Could be February 12! (That statue of Abe Lincoln is ALWAYS sitting.)
bad dumb tish
Honestly, if anybody ever knocks that dude down then that would make a pretty good Jeopardy question.
“Though he lost his only senate race by five votes, he became a giant of another branch of government, sitting as president for ninety-five consecutive years.”
Ana, you share the same birthday as Mallard Fillmore?
…. you poor, poor dear.
Do you mean Millard Fillmore or does that awful cartoon duck also have that birthday?
The latter.
….. at least, so I imagine.
February 12?
KittenRuth Thinks of Nothing But Murder All DaySee, even the characters in your comic are noticing the cricket deserves to live.
#TagTheCricket
I’m on board with this. Tag that cricket!
#TagTheCricket!!!
I’m in full support of Crackit the Cricket.
His name is actually Tag.
Nah, his name is Test. Test Cricket. 🙂
No-one is going to get that.
(Go Steve Smith!)
WHY IS NO ONE SAYING JIMINY!?!
Too obvious.
Willis is clearly trying to trick us into thinking the cricket is insignificant. Once he has his important, dramatic moment in the narrative, Willis will go back and tag these pages
“Dr. Lessick! now might be a really good time for you to think about murder.”
“that’s my secret, Billie. i’m always thinking about murder.”
[murder ensues]
If I understand correctly, the book that the current strip will be in begins with the storyline Face the Strange. So by Laidlaw’s Rule the first strip in that storyline needs to be retroactively changed as follows:
Panel 3 (in texts):
Billie: You going to be okay without me?
Ruth: You’re still nearby. It’s no big deal.
Billie: See you tomorrow.
Panel 4:
Narrator voice: And then the murders began.
Someone’s been watching Avengers.
I want to see Dina’s birthday, that sounds delightful.
(Whereas Sarah probably just wants everyone to forget about hers.)
Not if Joyce has anything to do with it.
*at 4:30 in the morning, Dina’s parents materialize behind the door*
Dina’s mother: Daughter, you are now 19.
Dina’s father: Congratulations and well done.
Dina: Thank you, my parents.
*polite bows all around*
*Dina’s parents disappear behind door again*
Becky (from bunk): Huh? Wuh wuzzat?
Dina: $500 has been transferred to my back account, so that I may buy me something nice.
Becky: Why?
Dina: I have passed a significant milestone.
Becky: Huh… so whatcha gonna buy with it?
Dina: Stegosaurus hoodie.
This is perfect.
You’re not the only one.
She gave her a cake that SAID “Other Rachel” IN FROSTING? Jesus Christ.
Tbh, by this point, even Other Rachel thinks of herself as Other Rachel.
I like the specifics from Ruth: Not “I made” or “I decorated” or “I ordered” even, but the bare minimum involvement, which probably reflects her enthusiasm, “I handed”.
Ruth didn’t make the cake, or buy it. Probably best not to speculate about where she got it.
She took it away from an orphan.
… named Other Rachel.
That must’ve been hard to find. At least Ruth put a LITTLE effort into it.
If that happened to me, I’d think it was really funny.
My secret is I’m always anxious.
Also, my RAs did nothing for birthdays, so that’s kind of nice.
I’m pretty sure my RAs didn’t do anything for birthdays either.
Jimmy lives!
I’m sure Meredith actually appreciated that, that could have been the highlight of her day for all we know
I love that Other Rachel is referred as such like it’s normal.
I’m impressed it was so universally accepted as to be put on a cake that early in the semester.
Who’s Other Rachel’s roommate? Rachel? She’s a sophomore, so if they room together, it would make sense for Other Rachel to be a sophomore. In that case, it’s likely an in-joke from the year before.
Everybody knows it’s Dina. Duh.
With the exception of close family members I’m terrible at remembering other peoples’ birthdays.
My phone does that for me. Also it tells me what day of the week it is and such.
The only reason I remember my father’s is he shares it with my favourite singer (who uses it for one of her project names). >_>
(I used to get the number of his and my brother’s mixed up, so now I have my entire immediate family down.)
Remember… Birthdays…?
Isn’t that what Facebook is for?
Quick, someone contact the timeline guy to figure out which storylines September 9 and September 17 took place in!
The days that would have been ROUGHLY Sept. 9th and 17th were during timeskips. The first was the day before Time Keeps On Slippin’ and the second was the day before Just Hangin’ Out With My Family.
For reference, it’s currently roughly October 12th.
Willis is a wily one. According to the timeline over at Walkypedia, neither of those days were covered “on-screen” so to speak. September 9 was the day before “Time Keeps On Slippin'” and September 17 was the day before “Just Hangin’ Out With My Family”.
Scooped by BBCC! 🙂
Ah! Thanks for the info.
Did Other Rachel appear on the storyline on Sept. 9?
Be honest, Ruth. You didn’t write up Meredith as a birthday present. You didn’t write her up because that would have been at the Venn Diagram intersection of paperwork, job, and bullshit.
(Granted job might be entirely a subset of bullshit, but it’s a gradated circle where some parts of the circle are more bullshitty than other parts.)
I dunno, she used to be more spite-motivated, or she would just have plucked it out of their mouth or something and intimidate them, pre-Billie breakdown.
Was Ruth R.A. when Sarah’s old roommate got in trouble for drugs on campus? If she knows about the fallout of that incident, that might increase her hesitancy.
I don’t think Sarah’s old roommate ever got caught by the campus authorities. Sarah went straight to her parents.
I think Ruth is a sophomore now*, if so, not RA during the Dana situation. *However, we don’t know.
I’m pretty sure Ruth is a junior and was RA last year. She already had a reputation among the sophomores at the start of the year.
Hey the cricket lives. Now give it a name.
It has a name.
Its name is Lettuce.
In my headcannon, Lettuce is the name of a Mantis, and Test is the name of the cricket. 🙂
That was a wicket thing to post …
I have to admit it bowled me over.
I’m stumped to think of another pun..
Hindsight is twenty20. (By which I mean the cricket format, not the stock-photo website…)
Knocked him for six! And the Old Trafford End go wild!
I liked Chester, personally. Lettuce is good, though.
He’s Tag.
Tag, the cricket.
I’m glad the awkward silence is at least gone. I was worried there for a minute.
…
Now I get to spend my worries on something else, like when the next problem is going to pop up with the two of them.
“Let’s do something productive.”
“Like murder?”
“…Damnit.”
Murder is not cricket at all.
Celebrating birthdays is by not writing people up is not quite cricket.
(Actually, was it even Meredith’s birthday? Or is Ruth all “Meh, it’s probably someone’s birthday”?)
*looks for some Grateful Dead to play*
Davy Cricket.
The problem with naming the cricket is that he might die.
See, if I call him Davy Cricket and then see him get smashed, Iscream, because he just got alamoed.
…..
*flees for dear punning life*
davy cricket’s locker
King of the wild frontier!
No, Davy was a Monkee. BUDDY was a Cricket.
Holly Cow.
Sarah’s birthday, you say?
Who’s ready for Joyce’s grin to break the panels?
That’s probably also Walky’s birthday.
…..
….. crap, the parents are going to come out for that, aren’t they?
Nah, Walky and Sal were born on April Fool’s. Assuming Willis is keeping that from the Walkyverse.
Oh, wait, Sal =/= Sarah.
…… my brain just isn’t working today.
…….
…….. Anyhow, I vote surprise birthday party for Sarah, with everyone jumping out and launching into a happy birthday song. What could possibly go wrong?
I’d love to see Sarah have her birthday party. I’m sure she’d LOVE it.
… what kind of coming out are you envisioning here …
the cricket still isnt tagged?
#TagTheCricket
…..
….. Willis is going to make that hashtag a banning offense, isn’t he?
Nah, he’ll just use the bongo switch to change it to something else.
He knows that will just ENCOURAGE us to…
…. oh. Clever.
Maybe I’m just used to some other webcomics creating easy drama by never letting their characters be happy, but I would be more surprised to see a Billie/Ruth relationship that slowly gets healthier than to see a relationship where they fall out of lust/love now that some of the excitement has been resolved.
Honestly, this just reminded me that Sal’s birthday is April 1st, or it was.
I find your green cricket creepy and wrong. Green is for grasshoppers!
(I know they do exist, I’ve just never seen one, all the crickets in my area are dark brown/black.)
He started out a proper color, but he disappeared into the beige desk too easily. So I made him green, sorry.
What Carla uncaged was a cricket of beige,
But they’ll have a green green cricket.
Another name for a green cricket is a katydid (Tettigonioidea).
#TagTheTettigonioidea
Katy did, but I got no idea.
“Katy tried
I was halfway crucified”
Since we’re in October (I think? Or are we in November by now?), with the order Billie read those names, Sarah’s probably a Libra and Dina’s a Scorpio! If we ARE in late October by now Sarah’s definitely a Scorpio and Dina’s either also one or possibly a Sagittarius. Dina feels more like a Sag to me.
It’s roughly October 12th right now.
RAs are supposed to do shit for people’s birthdays?
Man, Ruth goes all out and them some. Some people don’t even get names on theirs
By Jiminy, that was a close one.
Just “Other Rachel”? No “Happy Birthday Other Rachel”?
Is the alt text that Ruth’s secret isn’t a secret? ‘Cause it’s not.
I like how my iPhone tries to autocorrect to “Ruthless.”
Also also, Billie’s shaping up to be a good RA.
Ruth is my spirit animal.
I hope she does ok.
Ruthless is gamma mutate confirmed.
TWO COMICS! The Cricket deserves a tag now!
Just hand the birthday list to Joyce and call it a day (and go apologize to Sarah for letting Joyce know her birthday)
If other Rachel is anything like other Kevin from tabletop game club at my college, she wouldn’t like being referred to as other Rachel. Just call her Rachel, and call the first Rachel “squid”.
Could Billie’s natural aptitude be ‘social secretary’?
In a perfect world, “My Secret Is I’m Always Thinking of Murder” would also be a book title.
In a perfect word, The Cheese would be food for thought.
In a perfect world auto-correct would ask you before changing world to word. Also there would be a way to edit comments to correct errors that you would never make because it’s a perfect world.
In less perfect worlds the edit feature is disabled to keep Mike from carrying on arguments and then going back and editing his posts to make the other guy’s responses look like those of an unreasonable jerk.
Ruth is channeling Bruce Banner?
Her eyes have turned green; the rest of her will apparently follow.
Soon.
Any strip now.
I’ve been going back and forth on this for a few days now, as most of you are aware.
I’ve gone some…. pretty dumb places of late.
I mean, they seemed good ideas at the time.
But in hindsight, they obviously weren’t.
Frankly, I was all over the place.
But I’m better now. I’ve got a clear answer now. I’ve got the RIGHT answer now.
….
That damn cricket’s name is Tag.
TAG THE CRICKET.
Easy, Tiger.
2018 hasn’t begun yet.
EXACTLY! I want to end 2017 on a high note, all chipper and chirpy.
Ruth must reeeeeeeeeally like slamming insects with books to do that on a desk. I don’t envy whoever gets to clean that.
Mine too, Ruth. Mine, too.
Panel 2 : the insect now moved away. Good luck finding it.
The cricket lives! Long Live The Cricket!
So, is “My Secret is I’m Always Thinking of Murder” the next book title?
Only if we can talk him out of “up here we can be garbage” (exact wording might vary from my sleep-deprived memory).
Though he DID ask us to…
Okay, is anyone else getting that stupid Ford ad that says, “Hey, I don’t care if you’re trying to scroll down to a lower part of the comments section, I’m up here, your browser has to be up here too, NO YOU DON’T GET TO LOOK AT ANYTHING ELSE.”
If so, is there a setting in Firefox I can disable that gives me back control of my browser?
Aggressive ads are the worst.
I used to recommend blocking Java/Shockwave – doa used to kill firefox on my Ubuntu box. But I can see FlashBlock add-on is disabled, and I can no longer disable JS or Java in the settings. Yet DOA performs well.
Get the latest browser I guess.
Later versions of Firefox do not use the java plugin.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/npapi-plugins?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
Well, I’ve got the latest version… but I did check my addons and there was this weird one I couldn’t account for so I disabled it. Maybe that will work.
Dig the Avengers reference: My secret is I’m always angry lulz
#Tagtagthecricket
The cricket’s name is Tag!
I think you misspelled “#tagthelettuce.”
This one is nicknamed Red Leaf.
“I understood that reference.”
… I’d say not getting written up for the weed was a pretty good present.
To be honest that’s actually not too terrible of presidents.
Against her job, sure, but all in all?