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[shadowinthelight]

“That's a joke, I say that's a joke son”
What does the fox say?

[MerchManDan]

But what does he say?

But if you meet a friendly horse,
Will you communicate by mo-o-o-o-o-orse?

[scantrontb]

But what does he say?

no clue, but that's not as interesting as this...

[AnotherFairportfan]

Troll parents:

[Dave]

"(yawn*stretch) Nice nap. Time to go steal some chickens..."

Steal? No. How can you steal what's yours?

Foxes are Kings of the Road. All chickens are, by right of nature, the clear prey and property of the foxes.

Humans simply don't realize this, and keep trying to round up the chickens and hide them away for themselves.

Silly humans.

[Atomic]

And now, a picture of my wild cherry tree in full bloom, nicely accented by the new brick surround installed there by yours truly. Because we haven't had enough pretty blooming things pictures lately.

[Leak]

This grafitti was put up for a comic festival two or so months ago around here, and it's been there ever since - on a much-visited place in the middle of my home town...

[shadowinthelight]

But why does a fish need mammary glands?

[Dave]

But why does a fish need mammary glands?

Aren't mermaids commonly portrayed with two horizontal flukes (like dolphins and other whales, and thus mammals), and an up-and-down swimming motion, rather than with a set of vertical back fins and a side-to-side swimming motion (like fish)?

That seems to be how Pablo portrayed Jessie Gotlieb.

[shadowinthelight]

You are right, mermaids aren't really fish but they aren't mammals either. They are something in between like those weirdos we know as dinosaurs, I mean birds, aren't reptiles or mammals. I think we need a new scientific class.

[Dave]

You are right, mermaids aren't really fish but they aren't mammals either. They are something in between like those weirdos we know as dinosaurs, I mean birds, aren't reptiles or mammals. I think we need a new scientific class.

Well... according to the Great Font of Debatable Knowledge,

"Mammals (class Mammalia /məˈmeɪli.ə/) are a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from the reptiles and the birds by the possession of hair, three middle ear bones, mammary glands in females, and a neocortex (a region of the brain). The mammalian brain regulates body temperature and the circulatory system, including the four-chambered heart. The mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the rorquals and some other whales, as well as some of the most intelligent, such as elephants, some primates and some cetaceans. The basic body type is a four-legged land-borne animal, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in the trees, or on two legs. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta which feeds the offspring during pregnancy."

We don't know about the structure of a mermaid's inner ear, or her heart, but they're usually portrayed with hair, and the females with mammary glands. No indication that they're egg-layers (hence, could very well be placentals) and even if they were, they could be from e.g. monotreme ancestry (like the platypus and the echidna). I don't know of any animals which do have mammary glands, which are not considered mammals... it's almost a defining characteristic.

Dolphins, rorqual whales, seals, sea lions, manatees, otters, etc. are all mammals. Mermaids seem to be as close to human-form as any of these, and closer in many ways.

Mammals are all descended from the pelycosaurs, while reptiles and birds are descended from sauropsids (and both of these ancestral groups are synapsid amniotes, which diverged even earlier from the amphibians). I suppose mermaids might be the descendants of a third group of synapsids, and thus on a branch of their own... in which case their mammary glands would be an example of convergent evolution. Either that, or they aren't mammary glands at all - possibly over-sized cnidocytes?

I doubt that mermaid ancestry diverged from ours all the way back with the fish. That would require even more convergent evolution to produce an even vaguely humanlike form, and (odds are) they'd still have fish-structured vertical tails.

Of course, where the paranormal is concerned, all bets are off. A lot of the odd beasties of Xanth were the result of... shall we say "amorous encounters"... at the Love Spring, whose magic seemed to do unusual things both to libido and to chromosome-pairing arrangements

[shadowinthelight]

Wapsi mermaids don't just have scales but external gills as well. Being paranormal and having magic most likely involved, instead of developing human-like characteristics through convergent evolution I would bet on converged evolution.

[MerchManDan]

So we're going to ignore the way Ariel is still smiling cheerfully after being vivisected? OK then.

[AnotherFairportfan]

 

 

 

 

 

[lake_wrangler]

Oh look, she ran out of toner.

[Dave]

So we're going to ignore the way Ariel is still smiling cheerfully after being vivisected? OK then.

Ariel is an atypical Disney princess. She's feisty, independent, and rebellious. I'm sure she's smiling at the opportunity to show the whole world that she's got guts.

[AnotherFairportfan]

I didn't know LG loaded its phones with Kodachrome:
 

 

 

[Jabberwonky]

Pearls Before Swine has a Minnesota reference today.

True story...

[shadowinthelight]

Back in 2010 I did a ROM hack of the old Nintendo game Baseball Stars. The changes were only cosmetic so this weekend I decided to revisit it and actually change things that affected the gameplay. I became inspired by the fact a player's name on the World Powers is Zeus, and Medusa and Cerberus play for the Ghastly Monsters. I wrote a story explaining what the hell was going on like you would see in the old game manuals:

A lot has happened since the last season. Although everyone trained hard to improve, the SNK Crushers fell so far behind that the owner decided to disband the team. At the same time, fueled by growing frustrations of limiting himself playing for the mortal team the World Powers, the god of thunder Zeus finally quit. Urged by fellow philosopher Plato, Zeno tried out and was able to fill the empty slot.

Zeus put out the call to his fellow ancient gods and monsters. Taking advantage of the hole left by the absence of the Crushers, he vowed to create a new team that would be unbeatable by mere mortals. Taking advantage of her free agent status, Medusa was one of the first to sign along with her Gorgon sister Stheno. Gods, Titans, and monsters soon lined up for a chance to share in the glory.

The unexpected consequence was the chaos that followed within the Ghastly Monsters clubhouse. Inspired by Medusa, Cyclops quit to join Zeus’s new team (but unfortunately didn’t make the cut due to his lack of depth perception). Angry at being abandoned by his fellow Greeks, Cerberus lost control. In his rampage he mauled several teammates and was subsequently fired. Only a handful of players stayed after the attack leading to a worldwide recruiting effort for new spooky players.

The path before you is a challenging one worthy of Heracles himself. Do you have what it takes to put together a team capable of beating not only the greatest humans to ever play the game of baseball, but taking on immortal rulers of Olympus?

Being a Wapsi fan I made sure Bia and Charon made it on the new team. I wanted to add Euryale to join her sisters but there is a six character limit for names. I'll add a link if/when RHDN approves the submission.

[scantrontb]

Pearls Before Swine has a Minnesota reference today.

True story...

um yeah... that sucks... if it were true?... otherwise why is Amazon trying so hard to get it's prototype delivery system in place if the FAA says they can't? i think this is either a preliminary story that was aired back in feb and has since been overturned, or misinterpreted. or the people at Amazon know something they aren't telling us about how they intend to circumvent the FAA...