This is one I was sitting on because I felt like it was missing something. I still feel like it’s missing something, and I’m not all that happy about the awkwardness of the segue between bogus entries and misspelled entries, but I’ve been insanely busy this last week and this is closer to “done” than any of my other strips-in-progress at the moment.
The inspiration for this one came from an IM conversation with Rob Balder regarding Livestrong’s MyPlate site (formerly “The Daily Plate,”) an online calorie-tracking tool. You plug in your weight and the number of pounds you want to lose in a week, it calculates your daily calories to get there and gives you a system to enter what you eat on a daily basis. However, their Achilles heel is their food database, which accepts user entries and seems to have rather dubious criteria for what is considered “verified.” Go check it out and enter in any common four-letter word for a great example of this. I don’t know who exactly verified that “Tim’s Shit In a Pan Breakfast Skillet” is 393 calories per Pile Of Yumminess, but somehow I’m not convinced. Various secretions and excretions also have some rather eyebrow-raising entries.
That said, I lost over 100 pounds over the course of a year using this tool (paired with some common sense and personal research when calorie counts seemed out of line,) so I still recommend it rather highly.
And speaking of Mr. Balder, he recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an Erfworld motion comic. He’s already hit his initial goal, but he’s set a secondary goal to fund a “Dream Website,” and he’s got some fantastic incentives for contributors. Check it out here.
Planning to have a second strip up on Friday – sorry for the rush-job on this one, hope you’re all having a great week!
-=ShoEboX=-
I, for one, thought it was hilarious. It’s not missing a thing.
When I saw the cropped image thumbnail in my RSS reader, I could have sworn that woman’s hair was some kind of dolphin. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it!
Jorpho – Could be because you came to this strip pre-warped by Rob’s classic “Looking at Drawing” – http://partiallyclips.com/2005/04/21/looking-at-drawing/
And now I’m going to pretend I called this one “Looking at Computer” as a deliberate tribute.
-=’Box=-
Yeah, that is always hilarious about Livestrong. Still works pretty good although I switched to a competitor since then.
I thought it was pretty hilarious. Taoist philosophy joke + “buttload” = win!
“cinnamon taoist crunch cereal” sounds icky. i never did like mixing meat into my grain and liquid dairy 8)
as for -100, congrats and props for your dedication!
At least it wasn’t Honey Bunches of Goats.
I get really cheesed off by some calorie counters who either screw around (1000 calories of soda? only if you drink 5 cans) or defeat the purpose by including calories from protein (irrelevant unless you’re literally starving) but in the end it’s really the exercise part that most of us are having trouble with, with stress outnumbering sleep by a mile.
This worked just fine and was very funny. The only suggestion I could make on the segue is to actually make it one. “Plus, of course, …” is tacking on to the previous topic, whereas “And then there’s…” moves on. Just my 2c.
I thought the Taoist joke was brilliant. Funny. (If you see a little bit of mediocrity mixed in with the brilliant, then fine. For me, it’s really negligible.)
Taoist Crunch? I’d buy that for a dollar!
Seriously wonder if it tastes the way it should. Maybe I’ll just stick with Shint-Os. (They’re easier on the mouth than Buddha Puffs.)
On the other hand, I do miss the classic Zoe O’s roast-bran flakes. And the limited-edition Grand Islam Cereal. Anyone remember Wiccawisps?
I was appalled to see that “Tim’s” item is a real thing sporting a “Verified” badge. However, I’m suspecting that the “Golden Corral Pig-Out” (does not specify the buffet), at 2000 calories per “snort snort” (unverified), may be a sort of fan art.
I agree with Nathaniel. If you change the “Plus, of course, there’s” to “And then there’s”, the dialogue makes more sense.
But I loved the Taoist cereal joke. Very funny!