Wapsi Held Hostage - Day 14 (was Castela Notice 2015-07-05)

[jwhouk]

I was inconsiderate earlier - I forgot to give y'all the link to Old Main.

Also - if you're up for a good read about coming of age and basketball, check out The Legend of Whitburn County.

[Gyrrakavian]

Gyrre's eyes suddenly opened, “Don't drink the Slurm, it comes from a worm!" He blurted out still half asleep.

Gyrre looked around and wondered how long he'd been dozing and why it felt like his Great Great Uncle Button Bright had been in the room.

[Hansontoons]

(scanning the coat) You do realize it's summer here, right?

Glytch flipped up a corner of his longcoat to reveal the inner zipper for a lining, then pointed at his large red pack. "Without the warm liner, it's really just a fancy raincoat. My only other option is a PVC plastic camouflage rain jacket... Which as you might guess, doesn't jive well with certain outfits or situations. I keep the liner rolled up and packed in the big one during the warmer months."

"Looks like you have a mobile Fibber McGee's Closet there, Gyltch!" called out DWC while balancing the spinning hubcap Frisbee-like on a finger.

Glytch typed on his iPad and read something for a few moments before admitting defeat. "Ok...I still don't get that even after I googled 'Fibber McGee'. Sorry. Gonna have to go a bit younger, sir. Radio shows are a bit outside my generation's area of expertise." He glanced at the hubcap. "And how can you do that when your vertigo won't let you pass a field sobriety test?"

"I've been waiting for a representative of local law enforcement to do that", DWC said with a laugh, "I do wobble a touch if I get up after having been sitting for an extended period of time. Such as after driving a ways, scary thought, eh? When sitting, I'm right as rain. And while standing or walking, a wobble occurs when it occurs. This "affliction" hit me one night while sleeping, and a few doctors and several thousand dollars later there was no definative reason to be found. Eat aspirin to thin your blood and get regular excersize is what I was told. So here we are."

"And for the Fibber McGee quip, it's just something I ran across years ago while reading about the old radio programs, fun to toss into a conversation and see what happens! I wasn't around to hear it live! When you started unpacking your gear, the amazing volume made me think of it. And by the way, nice job on packing, very efficient."

From the interwebs:

Fibber McGee's closet: A mess. The Fibber McGee and Molly radio show chronicled the title characters' lives through the Depression and beyond (the show ran from 1935 to 1959). The gentle family-friendly humor came from Fibber McGee's hatching far-fetched get-rich schemes that never materialized, not to the surprise of his long-suffering but supportive wife Molly. The McGees's house was noted for its overstuffed closet. Audiences eagerly awaited someone, usually Fibber himself, to open its door, whereupon the sound of a landslide of glassware and other breakables filled the airwaves. The noise went on for what seemed an eternity, followed by a brief moment of silence, and then the sound of one final item (portrayed by one chime of a hand bell) and McGee's resolution to straighten the closet “one of these days.” “Fibber McGee's closet” entered the language as a metaphor for any example of domestic disarray, especially in a basement, attic, or—of course—a closet.

[jwhouk]

Kinda like Shelly's closet, except the last thing was a bowling ball...

[Dave]

It's 7/20 -- do you know where your new strip is?

(Hopefully very soon now...)

For sufficiently large values of the number 20.

I think I just heard a math teacher cry out in pain.

Of course. Math teachers are firmly of the opinion that teaching their impressionable teenage students how to count in base 11 would be... naughty.

[GlytchMeister]

I never did understand whatever that is supposed to be called... Number bases? Matrixes and bases always baffled me. Luckily, I haven't seen either since high school. Hopefully I won't run across them again before I graduate.

[Warrl]

I never did understand whatever that is supposed to be called... Number bases? Matrixes and bases always baffled me. Luckily, I haven't seen either since high school. Hopefully I won't run across them again before I graduate.

Unless you're at least somewhat into computer geekery, or dealing with a non-terran-primate sapient lifeform, you're unlikely to have to deal with any base other than base 10.

Base 16 (hexadecimal, aka hex) shows up all the time in computer geekery, and base 8 (octal) sometimes in older computer geekery from stuff that originated before the computer world standardized on 8-bit characters. Two hex digits are exactly an 8-bit byte, and two octal digits are a six-bit byte.

[TazManiac]

Lightly dozing in a food induced bit of narcoleptic renewal, Taz dreampt of old cartoon shows like 'Fractured Fairytales and 'Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales'...

When faced with more trouble than they could bear, the pair would turn to their friend Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch), the “Man with All the Answers” (as described on a newspaper ad about him). Mr. Whoopee, as he was known, was extremely knowledgeable on all subjects, and would frequently lecture the pair on diverse topics, from the physics behind the hot air balloon to how musicians become popular. His lectures were illustrated and animated on the Three-Dimensional Blackboard (3DBB for short), that he would retrieve out of an avalanche of junk from his overstuffed hallway closet.

[DinkyInky]

Lightly dozing in a food induced bit of narcoleptic renewal, Taz dreampt of old cartoon shows like 'Fractured Fairytales and 'Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales'...

When faced with more trouble than they could bear, the pair would turn to their friend Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch), the “Man with All the Answers” (as described on a newspaper ad about him). Mr. Whoopee, as he was known, was extremely knowledgeable on all subjects, and would frequently lecture the pair on diverse topics, from the physics behind the hot air balloon to how musicians become popular. His lectures were illustrated and animated on the Three-Dimensional Blackboard (3DBB for short), that he would retrieve out of an avalanche of junk from his overstuffed hallway closet.

That's decades before the Madagascar and Penguins of crew became the "it" crowd of zoo escape/escapades.

[TazManiac]

Not to mention 'Happy Feet', etc, (I think it was a live action documentary that got the whole mini-arc-Fad going, re Penguins.

Which brings mind a question- where there any Penguins mention in canon, in the Wapsi-verse?

[Hansontoons]

Lightly dozing in a food induced bit of narcoleptic renewal, Taz dreampt of old cartoon shows like 'Fractured Fairytales and 'Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales'...

When faced with more trouble than they could bear, the pair would turn to their friend Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch), the “Man with All the Answers” (as described on a newspaper ad about him). Mr. Whoopee, as he was known, was extremely knowledgeable on all subjects, and would frequently lecture the pair on diverse topics, from the physics behind the hot air balloon to how musicians become popular. His lectures were illustrated and animated on the Three-Dimensional Blackboard (3DBB for short), that he would retrieve out of an avalanche of junk from his overstuffed hallway closet.

Wow. TT was not one of my "favs", but I did not know Storch was the voice of Mr. Whoopee. "F Troop", anyone?

Rocky and Bullwinkle was what I would prefer. I think Dave took serious notes at the end of every Peabody & Sherman episode...

Again, a deeeeeep bow to all that frequent this forum. The creativity, intelligence (present company excepted), knowledge and just the volume of "stuff" in everyone's head is simply amazing.

[Gyrrakavian]

I never did understand whatever that is supposed to be called... Number bases? Matrixes and bases always baffled me. Luckily, I haven't seen either since high school. Hopefully I won't run across them again before I graduate.

Unless you're at least somewhat into computer geekery, or dealing with a non-terran-primate sapient lifeform, you're unlikely to have to deal with any base other than base 10.

Base 16 (hexadecimal, aka hex) shows up all the time in computer geekery, and base 8 (octal) sometimes in older computer geekery from stuff that originated before the computer world standardized on 8-bit characters. Two hex digits are exactly an 8-bit byte, and two octal digits are a six-bit byte.

Upon hearing Warrl's response, Gyrre clucked his tongue and smirked. "They're not always primates you know."

Gyrre fished out his notebook and flipped through it twice, stopping about halfway the second time. "Now I know I might butcher this, so if you're familiar with them, I do apologize." Gyrre cleared his throat and continued in his best David Attenborough impression, "Despite having a total of fourteen digits, three on the forelimb and four on each hind, the Dro'o'mo use a base six counting system. Through some difficulty (thanks to the language barrier) it was explained to me that the large claw of the second toe was used to indicate 'one' when counting and that the dewclaw was used to represent a starting point of zero. Once the three digits of the forelimb were counted, the next set started with the large claw of the other foot. Incidentally, 'dewclaw' is the highest insult in Dro'o'mo society, as calling someone that is to call them 'nothing'. Which seems to have lead to their expression 'I was only counting' as a way of saying 'I didn't mean anything by it'."

Gyrre pushed his glasses back up his nose and closed his notebook. "As some of you have probably already guessed, the Dro'o'mo are sapient raptors. A blending of Utahraptor, achilobator, and austroraptor to be precise. Each one being the dominant force of their respective continents, while Neanderthals have spread out to all the rest." Gyree took a big drink of water. "But the Neanderthals do have some landholdings on the continents ruled by Dro'o'mo. And on that note, I should probably clarify that I don't know if the Utahraptors were the only ones to refer to all of them as 'Dro'o'mo, or if the others called themselves something else. I only encountered the Utahraptors." Gyrre's voice trailed off as he recalled his rather frightening first encounter with them.

Clearing his throat, "But anyways, base 10 is probably the easiest to explain since that's what most Anglish/English/Inglish, whichever variant we're using, sapient humanoids with 10 digits use for counting." Gyre held out his hands and spread out his fingers. "Now, you already know the numbers 1 through 10, then we've got the teens, then the twenties, then thirties, and so on and so forth til we get to one hundred. Right? Basically, the numbers are grouped in sets of ten, and when you've got ten of whatever unit you're working in, you've got one set of the next unit up. Ten ones is ten, ten tens is a hundred, ten hundreds is a thousand. And for some reason we start over with the ones, the tens and the hundreds again, but in sets of thousand until we've reached one million. That part I can't explain, but that's as near as I can get."

Gyrre looked between Glytch and Warrl. "Did any of that make sense? I'm not sure how well I explained that."

[Dave]

Rocky and Bullwinkle was what I would prefer. I think Dave took serious notes at the end of every Peabody & Sherman episode...

If you'll accept "rapt appreciation" in lieu of written notes... then yes, indeed! My wife definitely considers me an incarnation of Mr. Peabody.

[chicgeek]

The door slams open and an older, gray haired woman stumbles in. "Sorry I'm late, everybody. I valiantly avoided the forums, tried to get caught up on my book reading while I was waiting. Like that ever works." She snorts. "i'm just going to pull up a chair and pour some coffee while you jibberjabber. Interdimensional physics gives me a headache.
Maybe I'll check out the door headed to the Crosstime Saloon later. In the meantime..." She digs in an oversized tote bag and pulls out a container. "Here's a few pounds of bacon to nosh on."

[jwhouk]

Sure that's bacon and not that Kale they've been talking about in the news?

[GlytchMeister]

A grey-haired woman bumbled through the doorway just as the control panel flashed an "Incoming, stand clear!" message. Glytch immediately smelled something wonderful as she passed his little camp, and his stomach grumbled. Trail mix wasn't going to satisfy it this time.
Glytch dismissed the warning on the screen and kept exploring the device. The UI was baffling. He'd never used anything like it before... Granted, he was equally baffled by Mac computers, as he had only ever used PC's.
Then he heard the woman, now holding a container of glorious contents, announce her gift to the group.
Bacon.
Glytch cleaned up his area as quick as he could (didn't want anyone to trip on anything) and walked purposefully to the woman, a camp plate in hand and a smile on his face.

[chicgeek]

Chicgeek grins. "Yep, nature's most perfect food. We need something to keep us going while we wait," and plops a generous portion on his plate. "I don't say much here, but I've been reading since....well, I'm not sure. They hadn't fixed the calendar machine yet, I know that. Gods know how I found the place, probably reading comics and clicking links one night."

[TazManiac]

Taz mumbles in his sleep; "Mmmm, my dear, what is that delightful scent you are wearing?..." and shifts in his chair, with a smile on his face...

[Sgt. Howard]

Greg returned from the dimensional abysses connected to the bathroom/Jacuzzi extension with a little wobble in his gait and an absent-minded smile on his face. He plopped down in the chair he had previously occupied and noticed the bacon.

Bacon.
Well... THAT was a no-brainer.

He grabbed a handful and started munching the greasy sweets without thought.

"Anybody got a favorite strip? I've got two... http://wapsisquare.com/comic/04092004/ AKA "Code Red" and http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nothing/ AKA "Nothing"

[oldmanmickey]

The door slams open and an older, gray haired woman stumbles in. "Sorry I'm late, everybody. I valiantly avoided the forums, tried to get caught up on my book reading while I was waiting. Like that ever works." She snorts. "i'm just going to pull up a chair and pour some coffee while you jibberjabber. Interdimensional physics gives me a headache.
Maybe I'll check out the door headed to the Crosstime Saloon later. In the meantime..." She digs in an oversized tote bag and pulls out a container. "Here's a few pounds of bacon to nosh on."

Crosstime saloon?? havent been there in years. please take me with you