Sal’s back! In magnet form!
You can pledge for the Dumbing of Age Book 7 Kickstarter at the SUDDENLY SAL MAGNET tier if you want Sal to come along with your book, or you can choose her as part of the PICK THREE or PICK FIVE tiers! And, of course, if you put down for COMPLETE MAGNET POWER, she’s been added to your pile.
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#lifehacks
It’s true- if you talk enough, someone will pay you to shut up. My family does it for me all the time 😀
According to Carrie Fisher, on the set of Star Wars, Alec Guinness once gave Mark Hamill 20 pounds to stop asking him questions about his career. (It’s somewhere in the middle of this transcript.)
He then spent the next twenty-three years paying people to ask him about his career outside of Star Wars.
Isn’t it ironic?
While Alec Guiness did tell kids to stop watching Star wars, he did say that he would always love and respect George Lucas for being the only director and producer in Hollywood who gave him what he considered a fair portion of the money. “Lots and lots of money.”
Well in his defense, an awful lot of his work was done with his voice so people never realized that it was his voice to some of their favorite characters.
He will never be topped as the Joker. Never.
Needfuldoer’s talking about Alec Guinness, not Mark Hamill.
For just a second I thought, ‘Holy carp, Alec Guinness played the Joker?!’
Yeah, Mark seems pretty content with his lot in life. He’s got one exceptionally big screen role and a broad range of voice acting under his belt, so everyone knows him from somewhere but he can usually still get a surprised “oh that was you?”
Alec Guinness saw Obi Wan as just another role, and was famously uncomfortable with it overwhelming his public image when Star Wars grew far bigger than anyone ever expected.
He’ll always be George Smiley to me. And Colonel Nicholson. And Yevgraf. And Prince Feisal. And The Man in the White Suit. And Professor Marcus. Not to mention various members of the D’Ascoyne family….
I thought lifehacks were what Jason voorhees does with an axe.
Amber can sense when her step-brother is called her brother? That’s Amazing.
Flashbacks to That’s Incredible. Crap, I just dated myself again.
Only if you watched it during the original airing.
*puts up hand*
“Real People”, too.
Oy vey.
Be that as it may.
I’m pretty sure they used the same studio.
In my defense, I was a small child when I liked both shows.
At least it’s cheaper than dating someone else.
Even when sleeping! Amazing!
She may not have the greatest superpower ever, but it’s still a superpower!
She has both.
Now, did it happen instantaneously, or was there a light speed delay in the information being relayed? I need to know if causality was violated.
Quantum entanglement.
She’s been repeating that every 47 seconds, like clockwork, since she fell asleep. It just happened to line up this time.
That sounds plausible.
She did forget to sneeze, however.
Money is always a solution. Shame I don’t have any.
*plays Cyndi Lauper’s “Money Changes Everything” on the hacked Muzak*
All you need it cash~
All you need is cash~
All you need is cash, cash
Cash is all you need!
Your love gives me lots of thrills
But your love won’t pay my bills
(I always hear this in the Flying Lizards cover.)
Money isn’t always the solution. Sometimes it’s the precipitate.
Chemist humor!
Yes, definitely! Depending on the situation, some people tend to react very explosively when money is brought up.
“If you’re not part of the solution, …”
Wait, the Flying Lizards version is a cover? I did not know that.
Money is a gas as the philosopher Floyd once said.
Money talks. Usually it says “goodbye.”
I don’t tend to talk much, but if I could get someone to pay me to shut up, I’d start.
I was hoping to make the same comment.
I’m usually the quiet person who can’t get a word in because everyone else is talking too much.
Sounds like a plan to me.
The new magnet…”Sal’s back”…. Get it? 😀
Yep, it definitely is.
Neither sleep nor space will stop Amber from correcting you about Faz’s identity. *You have been warned.*
In brightest day, in darkest night, no one calling Faz her brother shall escape her sight.
The hero we needed.
Did…did Amber just break the fourth wall?
Nope.
No, she just broke physics.
She’s amazing that way.
So should the chapter be renamed to “FFFFFFFFFF Is Great”?
Book title.
I remember Louis CK doing a bit on naming his kid “Fffffffffff”.
Billie is born into wealth, thinks life is a popularity contest, and slips people money to be silent. Obviously presidential material.
Billington/Keener in 2032, “We’re Still Fixing Trump’s Mistakes.”
At the comic’s current pace, they’ll be age 35 (minimum to become President) sometime around 3150, give or take a decade or two.
And still fixing Trump’s mistakes.
Billingtobot/Keenerdroid, 3152 – We Can’t Fix These Mistakes, But We Can Avoid Making More. Here, Have 20 Walkybucks.
45 is failing that last qualification.
I believe in Robyn/Becky far more than I’ll ever believe in Dorothy/Anyone. She’s basically the Mondale of DOA characters.
Wait, neither Amber nor Amazi-Girl is tagged. How will I know which alter sleep-mumbles her relation to the great Faz?
Usually we’d be able to tell from the cheek-blushes, but it’s kind of hard to tell with the current shading. I think it’s Amber, though.
If you look veeeeery closely, you’ll see Amber’s cheek blush sticker things.
Well, Amber is the one who’s name is said…but perhaps it’s meant to be like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop: who cares.
And Amber’s tagged now. (Also, once when I was home sick as I kid, I licked a Tootsie Pop to the center. But I forget the number I got now.)
amber is tagged now. 🙂
Well, at least we know Amber actually is asleep, so that’s good.
Didn’t Joe take over Faz to allow Amber and Danny to have sex?
Yes, but he failed to secure the co-operation of either Amber or Danny in his plan.
He assumed that would happen. Unfortunately for him Amber and Danny are not nor have they ever been a couple.
Yeah, I was half expecting Amazi-Girl to be running around during Amber’s “nap”.
She is. Dun-dun-dun. Mind blown!
I’ve heard of people having a sixth sense (even though the whole “five senses” thing is now generally viewed as incorrect) but panel 4 Amber’s Faz sense is eery.
Oh Billie. Oh Joyce. Oh Amber.
I forget sometimes that Billie comes from money, though if I remember correctly, money is about all she gets from her parents, who didn’t even bother to come to the parent visit thingy.
Yeah, but have you seen how big her parents’ house is? Five bedrooms. Five.
That’s two more than I got and four more than I need.
Oh my lord, the trifecta.
If five bedrooms really that much of a big deal, seven or more I can understand but five is only bigger than average.
It also really depends on the location. It may have been a decent suburb, bumping it up a little, though still not as much as if it were in a major city.
I think five is kind of a big thing since Billie’s an only child, so that’s notably more than they need, and in that context it’s a statement. Plus maybe if it looks fancy on top of that, since she’s showing Daisy a picture? But on the whole, I agree– saying a house has five bedrooms generally just makes me think “McMansion” (ugh), and there are a lot of those around.
I’m sure it looks like it came off the pages of Better Homes and Gardens (or at least McMansion Hell), and the Billingsworths pay top dollar to keep it that way. We can’t be seen falling behind the neighbors, no that just simply won’t do.
I looked up what a McMansion and it basically says that these houses are size over style, often made as cheaply as possible.
…Yup.
Exactly. Dozens of them are usually plopped down at a time by one developer, which “goes out of business” and re-forms under a new LLC shortly after completion. The planned communities are built in fields or clear-cut forest, and come with pretentious names like “The Residences at Eagle’s Landing Estates” (usually emblazoned on a granite sign at the main entrance road).
Living in a city with pretty expensive living costs (one of the reasons I can’t move right now although I’d want to), I can tell you that something with five bedrooms cost at the least half a million euro (into which you’d still need to invest because it’s probably not up to living standards), but more likely is three-quarters plus more of a million for one that doesn’t need to be renovated. Which is about 618,000 dollar, but more likely towards 927,000 dollars and plus. Well, that’s of course, if it’s owned, if it’s ‘just’ rented, you’d probably at least pay 2,000 euro (about 2,470 dollar), but it’s likely more (rent is exploding over the past few years, and as a single person it’s pretty difficult to find even something small but not too small that’s not in a bad neighbourhood and that doesn’t suck up all of your salary.).
Of course, in the outer ranges of the city it’s cheaper, but then you’d lose much time (at least an hour) simply travelling into the city to go e.g. to work.
So, from my perspective it’s a big deal, but I also don’t know how house/flat prices are in the US right now (including rent).
a large house for under a million? oh you sweet summer child, that’s not expensive living costs any more 😉
I think my city is probably in the top ten for expensive housing these days, though.
as for the US, I think it varies a *lot*.
There are neighborhoods of $500k-700k house around here, averaging four bedrooms and two rooms that you don’t really need, I’d estimate; they don’t really impress me.
Now, my own house is much less expensive and smaller, but one, I like it more, and two, that’s not so much the point– it’s that there are so many of these houses around that they don’t strike me as special.
I’m in a suburb in the Midwest; decently well-off suburb, excellent school system. The same houses in a different suburb (like a suburb of more exciting city) could cost much more; in a rural environment, less. In a big city, holy shit.
I don’t know the point of this comment. I guess it’s just to echo Inahc– yeah, a big house costing $900k is, like, beyond what I ever intend to have, but if it’s in a city, it’s still not, like, THAT expensive.
My first thought would be, go live somewhere else then. It is stupid wasting that much money paying rent. Where I am, that kind of rent money would cover the mortgage on a decent sized house.
Lot of assumptions in that comment, though.
yes, just uproot your life, leave all your friends and your job just for the sake of cheaper rent. 😛
I mean, some people are forced to do that to make ends meet, but *choosing* that? hell no. I’ve tried living in other countries before, and there are many many ways in which it is a hard thing to do. I always ended up coming back.
(but I lucked out and have a place with cheap rent, so there’s also that.)
And often in those areas with cheaper rent, you can’t find jobs that pay as much.
Now, if you’re living in the really expensive neighborhood near the still nice, but much cheaper ones, just for status reasons or some such, than it might be stupid. 🙂
I would, yes. But I concede that it might just be me. I have a skill set that is portable, and I grew up in the military and moved a lot, and now have relatives and friends scattered all across the country, so that is second nature to me. But logically, why kill yourself trying to live in an extremely expensive city, when you can find most likely find a similar job in a less expensive location, and be further ahead at the end of the day.
Because every bedroom is 750 square feet in size.
That’s over 450 tatami mats!
True, but she got more cookies in her care package from Mrs Walkerton than Sal, so… yay?
At least the Walkertons have one daughter they like.
It would have been a truly little brother move of Faz to have licked Joyce’s hand in the third panel. Of course, he’s not Joyce’s little brother, and I’d doubt she’d appreciate it.
Also, Faz, so, gross.
Soon everyone will realize the clerical error and move Joyce to the Nice Wing.
I can’t tell if this means that Amber also has some level of psychic ability, or Joyce accidentally used her previously established psychic ability.
this was not supposed to be a reply.
But it’s pretty funny as a reply.
“Holy Fork, this is the Bad Wing!”
Hope Amber has no reason to visit Forest Hall, because Faz is not gonna strike up a good impression with the residents.
She treats him like a 5 year old and insists they’re not really related. Sansa treated Jon better than this.
That’s cause they’re not really related and because he acts like a 5 year old – well, if 5 year olds had sex drives anyway.
She insists that they’re not related because 1) they aren’t, and 2) that means he’s ALSO not related to Blaine, and she does not have a high opinion of her blood relatives.
Besides, she dedicated an most of her day to keeping him out of trouble on this completely unscheduled and uninvited visit of his, even though she barely even had the spoons to handle going to class (it’s STILL only a couple days since the incident with Ryan, and her dissociation has gotten worse), because she didn’t want him to end up on Blaine’s bad side.
She’s not terribly affectionate, but she’s still a damned good sister.
Plus you know, not sleeping because Amazi-Girl is out fighting crime while she’s supposed to be asleep.
She could have just kept calling his mom or his bio dad until one of them answered and came to get him.
Maybe, if she was willing to miss class to spend and indeterminate amount of time trying to call them. I don’t see what difference that’d make though. Even if there was a better way to do it, she was still doing it because she was worried what Blaine might do if Faz ended up getting in trouble.
She’s not his mom and didn’t sign up to be his baby sitter. She did what seemed best for him at the time, even though he really isn’t her responsibility.
I think that the opposite will happen. I think that he’s going to meet a Forest girl who is so nice to him that he’s going to fall hopelessly in love with her and spend the rest of the time until adulthood stalking her in the same pathetic way his counterpart in the Walkyverse did Amber. Only this is Forest Quad, so I suspect that he’ll be treated as a cute baby brother figure rather than an irritant.
Calling it now: Wen is in Forest Quad.
I hope not because Faz is still only 15.
I like to think of myself as a rational person. One who can calmly evaluate and respect multiple perspectives. Slow to anger, quick to forgive, all that. But every time we get a glimpse of the residents of forest hall I want to kill everyone and then myself. I know they are probably wonderful people. I know when they are off panel they probably are off doing constructive things, pushing their boundaries, learning about the world, ext. But the constant stream of vapid, unjustified hero worship they spout drives me out my mind.
I know the problem is me. It took me quite a long time for me to realize what I didn’t like about Sal was how other people treated her, and that Sal was in fact a very compelling character. I just needed to rant here for a second or two I guess. Carry on.
They’re a bunch of demons who exist to tempt Billie away from Ruth to a land where sarcasm, violence, and depression do not exist.
But that’s like all the cool things!!!
They are incredibly annoying it’s like a dorm full of tween Justin Bieber fans.
Worse, a pack of tweenie jpop fans.
So Amber actually has a psychic power, or at least a Faz related power.
And Joe has his ability to know when someone needs to put a sock on the doorknob.
If Faz has a super power as well, they could form some kind of step sibling superhero squad.
“The lips of Faz have touched the flesh of a girl who is not related to him. Today is now a red-letter day.”
Where there was peace, Faz shall make a Wasteland.
I assumed Blaine cheated on his wife repeatedly so I don’t understand why he can’t be Faz’s father. Because if he isn’t Faz’s father, then Faz isn’t Faz.
He did cheat on Amber’s mother repeatedly. It just seems like it wasn’t around the time Faz was born. Faz knows his bio dad. He said he doesn’t care what Faz does.
He could have been referring to Blaine with that line– that’s how I read it, even though I know there’s not a bio relation there.
As far as why he can’t be Faz’s father, first, there’s word of God on the subject that Amber is Blaine’s only bio kid. Second, I think it’d be weirder if he were Faz’s bio dad, just because of all the dynamics of a hookup 16 years ago/kid almost sixteen years ago/married to Stacy for an additional 13 years after that/was he cheating with other women too?/then married to Faz’s mom.
Now, that’s definitely possible, but I don’t think it’s any simpler than the explanation that Faz is Amber’s step-brother and Blaine’s step-son. As far as “Faz can’t be Faz,” it’s a different universe. He has the potential to be a different Faz.
I think if that were the case, Amber wouldn’t have clarified she meant Blaine. When she did that and asked if Blaine knew he was there, Faz dodged the question rather than saying he wouldn’t care.
Amber was pretty clear in her initial statement with saying, “my dad,” though. And he replied to that with “Father.” I took the second panel of that strip as her misunderstanding Faz in her correction. As for why Faz didn’t say Blaine wouldn’t care…to him, he had just said that.
I’d still take Amber feeling the need to clarify that she means her dad to mean there IS a guy running around that she (and she assumes Faz) know as ‘Faz’s dad’. If there’s not another dad in the picture, her clarification is even more pointless.
I could see that, and I don’t think I said anything otherwise in my previous comment.
Though really, I just assume it means that Faz has a bio dad in existence. He could have contributed very little to Faz’s life, less than Blaine, and it would still make sense for Amber to assume that Faz would refer to him as “father” over Blaine, because that’s a common assumption, she has an outside perspective of Faz’s life, and she rightfully despises Blaine.
Basically, it implies that Faz’s bio dad is not dead, but maybe not more than that.
If Faz did mean Blaine when he said “father,” I’d also take it as him trying to emphasize that they share Blaine. Maybe in different ways, but he’s still a factor in both of their lives. And Amber…might not really see that. They do both have a different view of what their relationship with each other is.
That’s all perfectly fair.
Or at least not with Faz’s Mom around that time. Who knows how many women he’s screwed and then dumped.
My impression (really a guess) of how Amber is so sure he’s her step-brother–other than, well, why would she question it?–is that she’s somewhat familiar with the timeline in which Blaine met Faz’s mom. It could have happened years before the end of her parents’ marriage, but still after Faz was born.
Yeah, unless Blaine was really good at covering his tracks and made up a timeline or something incredibly unlikely given the timelines involved, it’s probably something Amber can and has done the math on.
Ugh, he’s a butt, that Blaine.
Luckily, there is ONE cool Blaine left. And he’s a sexual tyrannosaur.
For $20 a day, Joyce will stop.
(I need to try this approach, honestly. But first that’d require me to talk to people.)
A meeting of the brown noses
Fangirls, actually. ‘Brown noses’ implies that they want anything except warm, snuggly friendship in return!
Oh my god, I’d forgotten about this. Now that Joyce is actually inside, what’s going to stop the Joyce-ness of Forest Quad from reaching critical mass????
Not Lucy that’s for sure.
You know, I think that Joyce will feel right at home at Forest Hall. Now, I’m thinking that, at some point, Faz will slip away and end up falling desperately in love with one of the Forest girls who are, quite frankly, amongst the nicest people that she’s ever met!
Meanwhile, poor Amber is developing a psychic instinct for Faz saying or doing anything that embarrasses her!
What kind of college student can just give away 20s?
One as spoiled as Billie evidently is. I get the impression that her parents felt that giving her things was an acceptable substitute for care and attention.
Perhaps because she’s said exactly that?
One whose parents have money
I predict Joyce will be considered a mean and nasty curmudgeon that no one likes. To this dorm, she’s basically Ruth.
They just had Malaya like a day ago
Amber is kind of a crappy sister.
“Step-sister!”
Five year olds insist on that.
Five year-olds or women with serious emotional and mental health issues arising from an abusive upbringing. It doesn’t help that Faz is the sort of guy that encourages others to admit that they’re related to him!
It is nice if you can disclaim being related to someone creepy.
I too would be eager to downplay any connection to Faz as much as possible.
Thing is she’s barely a sister at all. It’s not like they’re step-siblings in the “parents married and formed a merged family” sense. Faz is the step-son of her abusive father who apparently hasn’t had custody in years, if he ever had it after the divorce. She comments at his first appearance in comic that she hasn’t seen him in years. I assumed then that she’d never met Faz before, though it seems that was wrong. It’s not at all clear how much time they’d spent together. I can’t really imagine they’ve ever lived together.
She’s emphasizing the lack of relationship because there really isn’t one.
Plus he’s creepy as hell.
Amber has also stated the “Step-brother is a practically an acquittal”. As far as she’s concerned, calling Faz her brother is an insult, not to the concept of brothers, but to Faz. Let that sink in for a while.
Secondary comment: I desperately, desperately want Joyce to meet Lucy and for the two of them to walk around IU together, leaving everything coated with sugar, sunshine and rainbows!
Oh, and they’ll probably end up riding on unicorns too.
I still think it would be funny if they meet… and are a bit put off by how upbeat the other is.
“Dunno… is she almost that sunny? It’s a bit draining, you know.”
“I don’t know… does she EVER turn that smile off?”
Cue Billie and Malaya sharing a tired, knowing look.
These kids are so fucking weird. I’ve never idolized a person this much in my entire life.
I’m pretty sure that all poor Billie will see is a group of Stepford Freshmen all intoning in creepy unison: “Join us! Join us! Become an upbeat preppy girl! Join us! Join us!”
Yeah its really strange, I’m hoping theres a payoff for all this
The Forest girls are so freakin annoying
I have a feeling the drama tag will be pulled soon enough, and then their insufferable cheerfulness will end.
If the drama tag hadn’t been pulled yet, then what the fudge was all that up until now?
Hasn’t been pulled in Forest Hall yet, I think.
Amber’s panel four is a hoot, and yet totally keeping in her character.
Nash is tall!
But… but why do they adore Billie so much? Is it because she’s a cheerleader? Are they just that excitable about newcomers?
I think they jsut like to have someone that is apparently popular. Malaya wasn’yt such a good person in comparison with Billie. Also, are you ainaraoftime?
Yep, that’s me
I am godlessAdversary in Tumblr. The one that comments on Tipsy’s?
They did get excited about the head cheerleader thing earlier. And apparently about the “banged her RA” thing as well.
Sleep well, Amber. Sleep well because you will be pissed by the idiocy of others after you wake up. Also, I wonder if Billie could give 20 bucks to Faz so he can shut up, or maybe give him an anime pillow so he can shut up only in her presence.
*Half-Brother…. they have the same dad.
No they don’t. Blane isn’t Faz’s biological father in this universe.
Amber believes that the have two separate biological fathers. Faz agrees in that belief. Here is the strip in which they say so.
February 12, 2018: Step-dad
No, they don’t. They also don’t share Rose and Zaph’s dad (or at least Amber doesn’t, but Faz probably doesn’t, either).
That last and should be ‘or’. One hopes that Rose and Zaph don’t share a dad, considering Rose’s obvious thing for Zaph…
Amber-Senses tingling