I don’t know about reckless driving, but, speaking from personal experience, I definitely believe there’s a direct correlation between video games and violence. I base this on the fact that any time I play the Atari 2600 version of Q*Bert on the TV in the living room, my cat ¶ will attack the screen. Not only that, but ¶ is not the only cat I’ve seen do this – my former cat, &, did the same thing. I don’t know if it’s the color of the character against the black background or the way Q*Bert moves, but if the game’s not on, the cats completely ignore the TV, so there’s no doubt in my mind that the game is responsible. Try this yourself with your own furry little parasite and post the results in the comments.
…Yes, all the cats in my house have single-character names. We currently have four: ¶, ~, ^ and ¨. My wife, who is far more merciful than I, spelled out their names on their veterinary forms.
MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: (snort!) It’s amusing!
See you guys and gals on Friday!
-=ShoEboX=-
I was waiting for a GTA payoff, but was thrown a Dig Dug curveball.
I’m sure it’s funnier to people who know what Dig Dug is, but I liked it anyway.
If you have trouble with dig-dug, substitute tetris.
Does Mrs. Shoebox spell ‘¨’ as “umlaut” or as the more interesting “diaeresis” or “trema”?
Posted! We make smartphones (as well as some dumb ones) in my office, so this will go over well.
@Ken: Dig Dug – think “Pac-Man Meets the Mole-Men”
What’s the pronunciation of ¶ ? I figure the others are Tilde, Hat and Umlaut (or circumflex and diaresis)
¶ is pronounced “Pilcrow.” The others are Tilde, Umlaut (“Uma” for short,) and Caret (“Kiki” for short – I know, same number of syllables, but she came pre-named “Kiki.” Work with me here.)
-=ShoEboX=-
-=’Box=-
Pilcrow is an awesome name. I might call my daughter that.
My cat used to come when I played Epona’s Song in zelda XD
Love the twist ending.
My parents’ dog, for no readily explained reason, hated the little “Let’s Go!” blurb at the start of every level of the Amiga platformer Zool. She would start barking mad every time it played. Go figure…
P.S. You should totally name your next pet “‘; DROP TABLE PAYMENTS; –”. >-)
Dig Dug. Dig DUG!!
…I was betting on Tetris or BeJeweled myself.
If you kept naming your pets (say, hamsters, for the sake of something that breeds quickly), you could have Exlaimation, Asterisk, Ampersand, Asperand/Atsign/Arrobase, and Pound/Hash.
Then put all their names in a PC strip panel.
“First the investors ·&« up the meeting dates, then the ~\; eggheads in QC thought _inflammable_ and _non_-flammable were the same thing…”
“…and now this stupid ^:ª coffee is /®⁄ cold! •‡| me!”
So, uh, Ted, at least things are better at home?
“[-: that, my cat ¶~^ keeps trying to eat $#!% and &*@ still ain’t housebroken.”
Ted, just give up on typography and *** swear like the rest of us.
“Oh go ‽ yourself.”
-=PakoPako=-
If the car had hit a bike I’d be frightened of your ESP.
I really like this week’s strip.
The strip was entertaining, but the comments were, for probably the first time on the new site since Rob’s archives ended, a real highlight. I got Carat, Umlaut, and Tilde, but Pilcrow is a new one for me. I just pronounced it “paragraph” until Shoebox left a pronunciation guide.
I choked on a fleck of saliva from laughing suddenly at “…go interrobang yourself.” Congratulations, PakoPako!
P.S.: Dig Dug is kind of addictive, but I think it would lose a lot of its charm on a handheld system (especially one without a hard D-pad). The steering would have mild issues, but the main problem would be the ability to tell the subtle differences between enemies’ levels of inflation.