Idioms

211 Replies to “Idioms”

      1. Well, the Flash utilizes something called the Speed Force.

        Conventions of unit nomenclature suggest that this should be speed * force, which is (distance / time) * ((mass * distance) / (time * time)). That gives us (mass * distance * distance) / (time * time * time)…. which is, in fact, power.

        So the real secret of the Flash’s power is that power is LITERALLY Speed-Force.

        1. And to the million people about to complain about the difference between vectors and scalars and how one of those distances should have been displacement and how none of that works as a result:

          Quit taking comics so literally.

            1. Still a whole lot more self consistent than Hollywood “Science” but then again Hollywood has its own version of “Accounting”.

        1. J: Can you play Ave Maria?
          D: No.
          J: How about Christ, Our Lord Will Save Me Today?
          D: No.
          D: I do know a song about Jesus, though.
          J: Yay! Play it!
          D: Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life.
          J: O_O

              1. As a reminder to all and sundry: “href” gets the url, “title” gets the title text (hence the name) and the actual clicky stuff goes between the <a> </a> tags.

      1. Actually, that’s only the FIRST S.S. Joece. It’s sister ship, the S.S. Joece II, is still going strong.

        The S.S. Joece III is currently under construction.

    1. Well Mike is probably the reason she can’t find Ethan. Also walky is presently plaguing jason, so as far as main characters go joe is basically it

          1. He does get around. Arabs. No matter how high you build a wall, you can’t keep them out. (And, yes, I do realize how completely wrong all of that is.)

    1. It’s not the frequency to disappear into walls, it’s the frequency that takes her to an alternate earth where no one she knows exists.

  1. silhouette Sal!
    hmm last time we saw Sarah she seemed to be fine socially, I wonder if something happened or this is the usual Sarah-ness

    1. Some times introverts just get tired of dealing with people for a little bit, for no other reason than it takes energy.

  2. I’m impressed: Joyce recognizes and respects when she’s hit Sarah’s people-tolerance limit.

    That, or she’s still underestimating, and Sarah’s at about 500% now.

    1. I like turkey bacon, but would be hard put to say I like it better. But what you like is what you like. You don’t need external validation for your preferences.

  3. “Faz must learn the frequency to vibrate at to disappear through walls. It will make dealing with certain ladies that much easier.”

        1. That would appear to be the pose, but the leg/torso length and size don’t match up and the legs don’t seem to be attached to the same pelvis, neither of which seem attached to a spine in a healthy angle.
          I would assume it’s Sal because the great blob must be hair, but the anatomy doesn’t seem entirely human.

        1. Mormons typically don’t imbibe tea or coffee, though apparently caffeine is kind of a gray area.

          Muslims avoid intoxicants which cloud the intellect; coffee doesn’t count, much less chocolate.

      1. I wanted to agree with you, than I read you don’t eat peanut butter.

        But to each their own, I’d say.
        I don’t eat bacon (also didn’t really like it while I still ate meat), but I could bathe in peanut butter, or rather, I could get stuck in it, because for bathing it’s definitely too thick. Would probably still be worth it, though.
        And pickles…Idk, they taste good when I eat them, like once or twice a year, but I enjoy unpickled vegetables more.
        But again, to each their own.

        1. Gah, how could I mix up “then” and “than” – it’s too early for me
          (first sentence should of course contain a “then”)

    1. My sister is an ambivert and even *her* need to be around people some of the time to restore sanity levels seems really REALLY weird to introverted me!

      My husband is the one adult person I have met who I can spend unlimited amounts of time with without this being really stressful. Our two kiddos also don’t sap me of energy by simply existing (the sleep deprivation on the other hand??). Everybody else? Finite periods of socialization only please!! And I’m a really chatty introvert…

      1. At my work, we have to wear a radio. When it’s slow, the other workers and I tend to chat back and forth about whatever we please. That and online chatting are the only methods of interpersonal communication that don’t significantly drain my energy or irritate/anger me. I get Sarah’s low level of tolerance for people and wanting to be able to go elsewhere rapidly when anyone is around.

    2. I identify so strongly with Joyce here 🙁 It was worst when I thought I was introverted, because instead of seeking out people, I would try to close up and recharge on my own. Which of course never worked.

  4. A noticeable and adorable height difference! Damn you, Panel 2, you have discovered my greatest weakness and used it against me!

  5. I think the best thing to do would be put him inside some metal box and then just sit on it and talk. Joyce gets her companionship, Joe gets to keep his promiss and the world gets to be temporarily relieved of Faz. There are no foreseeable downsides to this, unless Faz can also vibrate through solid objects. Which might explain how he shows up so quickly.

  6. Is Faz going to harass Sal next, then? (Also, noting that Joyce’s emphasis on the Ryan thing is that he was going to hurt Dorothy. Interesting.)

    1. Yeah, kinda thinking this suggests people haven’t told her who it was who went after dorothy and amber that night…

      1. No, if you read the strip No Name linked above, it shows that she knows they’re one and the same. So maybe it’s just Joyce’s compasson speaking?

  7. I’m getting flashbacks (no pun intended) to those old 70s and 80s comics where super-vibrating was The Flash’s solution to everything that wasn’t solved by running really fast.

    1. I love it, but to be honest, the current CW show three main solutions are run fast, vibrate, and throw lightning at stuff.

          1. I must have missed that episode.

            They also chucked the Speedforce at a thing, which is distinct from throwing it into the Speedforce.

      1. To be fair, I can’t really think of any problems that can’t be solved one way or another by one of those three things.

      1. …..I may be somewhat immature. My first thought? “Heh, boobies.” Thankfully my second thought happened after I finished the sentence. I envisioned breast physics at superluminal speeds. Anyway, I’ll see myself out.

        1. You just used “physics” and “superluminal speeds” in the same sentence. Shame on you.

          …. actually, it MIGHT be possible. We can rule out wormholes since those would be instantaneous (because both ends are kinda the same point) and so traversal can’t be described as speed. But it is within the realm of theoretically-possible physics (if, you know, negative mass can every actually be a thing, so don’t hold your breath) to have warp drive. Real warp drive, not Star Trek warp drive.

          The basic premise of this is that we would, somehow, contract space in front of the ship to make the distance in front of us SHORTER, while expanding it behind us to make distances LONGER. From our perspective we wouldn’t travel faster than light so much as make our path and hence our journey shorter. But from the perspective of an outside observer, it would be FTL. Relativity works like that.

          Unfortunately, relativity ALSO works such that from the perspective of the traveler, starlight coming from behind can’t catch up… meaning they’re dragging our very own black hole behind them. Meaning a super-huge mass and a major radiation hazard.

          So if you were wondering about the effects on anatomy, the physics of superluminal speeds would involve a shrinkage of everything in front to negative mass, the expansion of your backside to the point where it literally tears a hole in space-time, and shoving sunlight up that hole where no sun can ever, ever, ever shine.

          ….

          … I regret only not being able to work a “your momma” joke into all that.

  8. Faz: The age of consent is 16 in Indiana. Faz is a ticking time bomb of opportunity here.

    Joyce: You want to get married at 16?

    Faz: What?

    1. “Marriage involves both many opportunities for Faz to arose a lady within and without the confines of Faz’s marriage. Faz suggests that it would be like having two Faz’s ready to please all possible ladies.”

  9. It just occurred to me now that he’s been mentioned, I know Ethan knows Joyce can’t be out alone, but I can’t remember if he knows why?

        1. I don’t think we’ve actually seen her walking cross campus solo, but in her first appearance after the incident, she was sitting by herself on these steps, watching the police tape.
          I don’t think she would have been out there alone before.

    1. It’s interesting that Willis did her in grey, almost as if she’s attempting invisibility.

      FWIW, eventually Sal is going to find herself having to acknowledge one good thing Malaya has done for her (if only through gritted teeth): She’s forced her to spend her free time somewhere other than sulking alone in her dorm room.

            1. … I’m morbidly curious about which would outrage her community more. A Jewish boyfriend or a Black Catholic-like boyfriend…

                1. Well that was never on the cards but… [narrows his eyes] Do we know anything about Sarah’s religious affiliation… and there is the receptionist lady whose name I can’t remember…

  10. I love it, but to be honest, the current CW show three main solutions are run fast, vibrate, and throw lightning at stuff.

  11. It’s so Joyce that she thinks of Ryan not as the creep who assaulted her, but who tried to assault Dorothy.

    It’s also a very self aware statement that she will wilt if she goes an afternoon without company. Extroverts gonna extrovert.

    I note that she didn’t add Becky to the list. Presumably she has wisely decided to leave her alone with her dinosaur chick until the worst new-girlfriend-rush has died down. Even for a hopeless romantic like Joyce, there are limits.

            1. Movie subs or Bed subs? Damn now you gave me a mental image of Dina in a leathy dino outfit doming hella-aroused Becky in bed… But then again Dina would probably demand full authenticity and would modify her dinodomina outfit to incorporate feathers making her look like an adorable chicken…

                1. Yeah I can’t help but imagine her with her hands tied and staring with that “Why is my girlfriend so hot? She has no right to be this hot? WHY ARE THERE NO INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS ABOUT MY GIRLFRIEND BEING TOO HOT!?” look on her face.

            2. And now I’m imagining how Dina would dom Becky. Instead of the cliche “You’ve been a bad girl” Dina lean in closer and ask “Now you naughty science denier… when did the Paleozoic began and end?” if Becky gets it right she gets a kiss, if she doesn’t she gets a spank. One way or another she is hella motivated to study.

        1. Well, going to your friends workplace to because you want to hang out with them is generally ill advised and a good way to get them in trouble.

          1. Ah but Galasso’s is unlike any other workplace in the world. It is like it’s own pocket dimension with it’s own rules of physics!

          2. Very true. But when it comes to Joyce and Becky, I still expect a large helping of “ill advised” and “trouble” among the “heartwarming”, “adorable” and “unreasonably perky”.

    1. Seconded on the wilting. Also progress is her figuring out Sarah’s limit (or working towards determining it) and stopping.

      Nice of Joyce to go down her list of favorite people. Joe is, sorta, on it. He’s an acceptable person to interact with!

  12. I know this Joyce doesn’t really like Walky, but I would have thought she would have tried to interact with him over Joe.

    1. As others have said, she may have thought Walky was busy getting tutored.

      Or its possible that she actually gets along better with Joe than Walky. For all of Joe’s chauvinistic behavior, he has actually made attempts to help Joyce (remember his text advice when Joyce went home, or him saving a donut for her). Walky is pretty much immature all the time. So if you can get past his overly-macho behavior, there is probably more up-side to dealing with Joe over Walky.

    2. Honestly, I’d rather interact with Joe over Walky too. Joe may be a gross womanizer but at least he’s capable of a fairly consistent degree of maturity and doesn’t believe owning more than one pair of shoes is for girls.

    3. She’ll rely on Walky in a pinch. May or may not prefer him to Joe, but they’ve got that feud thing going, so she certainly isn’t going to admit it.

    4. I suspect Joyce considers that shes “fixing” a bad boy plus they do seem to get on reasonably well when premarital hanky panky is off the table and she may still harbour so sort of feelings for him as he ticks her boxes in that hes tall, muscular, dark haired and handsome

  13. Today’s strip is a perfect example of Joyce-Joe friendship. I long suspected that ‘zero-minus’ was Joe’s reaction to having feelings that were not sexual towards a woman and Joyce’s ease with him showing that he had transitioned from ‘potential husband’ to ‘good friend’.

    Today is that first suggestion I’ve ever seen that Joyce is an extrovert and really needs continual social contact to function well.

    1. Zero-minus was almost certainly because she hired Mike to punch him in the face and joined in herself. I doubt he changed it again after they started talking.

  14. Dorothy is sleeping off sex.
    Ethan is have (incredibly ill-advised) sex.
    Sarah is… seeking a particular vibrational frequency. *cough*
    And then there’s Faz, and Joe.
    I’m kind of noticing a common element here.

          1. It’s a surprisingly reasonable question. “A gypsy” is not all right to say, “a transsexual” is also not (though it used to be just a few decades ago), and “gay” is preferable to “a homosexual.” For that matter, when and where I grew up, “a Negro” was polite, “black” was new, and “African American” didn’t exist yet.

        1. I seriously can’t keep up with what is okay to say. I mean if “a Pole” or “a Russian” are okay to say then…

  15. I’m gonna force myself to ignore the adorable that is Joyce and Joe’s friendship so I can wonder once again what Faz’s endgame is. He and Blaine are surprisingly hard to read on those matters, it seems.

    1. None of Faz’s actions so far have led me to suspect he has an endgame. Unless “having sex with someone” counts as an endgame, and doing random counterproductive things counts as a plan.

  16. I feel like “beelining” should be hyphenated or something. Not because of grammar, but for sanity reasons. I can’t stop reading it as Beel-in-ing and it is driving me nuts…

  17. Well, Sarah cannot be using “other Jacob” to accomplish this wall vibrating, it doesn’t have the horsepower, unless Carla did some mad engineering on it. She must also have one of those 120V plug in versions, such as the classic Hitachi Magic Wand.

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