Grrl Power #409 – Elevator predicate
Standard elevator rules Sydney. Stare forward, no talking, respect twice the normal personal space. Same as when you’re at the urinal. Not that… Sydney has ever used one.
I guess Vale could take comfort in knowing Sydney is slightly intimidated by her, or else she wouldn’t be blabbering. As much.
I know the definition of all those “word play” terms Sydney’s throwing around are written down out there for anyone to look up. People with English degrees need something to do after all, but even after reading about puns, malapropisms, eggcorns, spoonerisms, entendres, double and otherwise, etc, they all seem pretty pun adjacent, so it’s no wonder Sydney is confused. Confused but mostly just needing to fill the silence, since a comic is a sub-optimal place to do a joke about Deus piping speed metal into the elevators instead of muzak.
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Relax, it will be over soon.
Conductor, I have a problem…
Vale is acting like a nascar guy sliding on his hood…
I think Vale is the one being intimidated there, not Sydney. :D
haha XD i agree she just doesn’t know how to handle her
Can we give her something shiny? Oh! How about one of those maze pens!
Most would be intimidated in to staying silent. Vale is the one who is suffering more out of the two. Bet she wished she had spoken to Sydney and prevented this awkward non-silence.
“She’s still talking. Why’s she still talking? Oh god, should I say something just to get her to shut up? No! Can’t do it, too late. Stay the course, stay the course, Deus doesn’t pay you to talk, he pays you to… What’s she talking about now? Polar bears? Why in the world? And now something about a YouTube video dance-off? AAAAHHHHH!!!!”
MUA-Ha-Ha-haaa…. you’ve fallen into my TRAP!!!…
Yeah, it’s plain to see on her face. Bottom-left panel, Vale’s looking up to Heaven & praying “Strike me dead now. Please!” Last panel, she looks like a caged animal.
Bottom left is her going “Boss I hope Maxima pops your head like a zit.”
Whelp, I think this is a good setup for someone to be trapped in an elevator with halo. Hopefully some sort of imprissoned villain, so they can get a few hours of punishment out of the way.
This could be an extremely effective interrogation technique.
Just trap the perp in an elevator with a talkative Sydney – if they don’t crack inside ten minutes, you KNOW they are hard-core.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject –
Repeatedly pressing the destination button in an elevator? ANOTHER behavior that’s EXTREMELY hard to repress, under stressful circumstances…
I forget, have we ever seen Vale speak?
Nevermind, we have.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/797
Yup, that’s the page was going to mention as well :D
Yes, a couple pages ago.
A few words when we first saw her
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/797
Yeah, she spoke in the lightning maker page.
Three points of note on the prior comic:
1) Vale must have had an appointment with her stylist in the last 2 days. Her hair color is different. (unless chromatic hair is her super power)
2) She says ‘Too bad virtually no one on this planet is an illusionist.’ This means that Deus’s circle of people probably know about Dabbler through Harem, but not about the large number of other aliens on this planet who are basically illusionists.
3) Yes, Deus does in fact own at least one Katana.
Good catches, especially #2. That also means Harem isn’t in on the secret, or at least hasn’t blabbed it.
1) Same hair colour, different lighting
2) Those are hologramatical projections, or similar to what Dabbles uses
Dabbler uses a glamer (glamour? I use the D&D spelling, in any case), which is a form of illusion.
Yes, that was what meant, but she is not an Illusionist though (and it is glamour :D)
THE glare has been FRAZZLED hehe
Finally found someone Vale can’t deal with (without leaving a corpse) :D
The implacable, and/or unflappable Miss Vale, finally defeated…
It’s an end of a (relatively short) era.
She may have the death stear down and she may or may not have killed a few people but shy is not the scary one in that elivater
Not with that hair.
Always bring your Weapons Grade Sydney to any “iffy” encounter … just deny her some or part of her meds.
*some or all of her meds
Although, there’s probably an applicable clause in the Geneva Conventions that makes it a war crime (under most circumstances) to inflict Sydney on an opponent without any of her meds. Intentionally.
It deffinatly quality’s as crule and unusual
I would have said cool and unusual.
you two must now share one internet (as I only have one to award)
Heh, this was Sydney after she had taken her meds – as per https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2020 and the sub-text note for this page.
Vale might as well be trapped in an elevator with Brainy Smurf…!
Imagine her sitting through the readings of Quotations of Brainy Smurf!!!!!! :O
Imagine Vale trapped in an elevator with Sydney talking about ‘Quotations Of Brainy Smurf’.
Better yet, some selected passages of Vogon poetry.
If Sydney were the one to do the quotations, I’m sure her veering off course constantly would sound rather similar.
syd is currently contracted to publish an original book of vorgon love poems that don’t make vorgons cringe as bad as theirs does most races and she’s practicing one on vale
Quick question… Who do you think was hitting the button faster…. Vale, or the guy with the censor button during the back robbery interview with Sydney?
Fencer guy is faster he is used to doing it most days (even if not so much) but I think vale hit it more
“Deus piping speed metal into the elevators instead of muzak.”
Is one of my new favourite things
We can only speculate what songs are on the playlist. Reign in Blood, Final Conquest, The Oath…
I’ve heard a nice elevator music version of the Imperial March.
Why! Why do you have to post this at such an awkward time DaveB?
At least it’s not midnight any more :P
At least it’s not an hour later anymore.
Better than him not posting them at all, eh?
I believe it was Hitchcock that said “Puns are the highest form of literature”
Alfred? Or that character Will Smith played? o_O
Will smith played Handcock not Hitchcock
Will smith’s character was named Hancock.
Where do all these ninjas keep coming from?!
You should always expect them
Not expecting ninjas. Have you considered doing a situational awareness self-check? It seems you may not be aware of where you are.
I expect them, its just where are they coming from? There are no windows in this room!
Have you examined… your chair lately?
They are already there, waiting to strike
*pulls the couch cover away to reveal a dozen ninja*
Oh, ninjas can pop up anywhere at anytime. It’s part of the job, being inconspicuous & all, until they’re ready to strike.
“Puts a sign demanding higher wages in MidnightDStroyer hand”
Now you are striking.
or should I say “Ninja Strike”
Apologys the d was a typo
A funny one :)
What? You trying to slip the D to all of us?
How brazen of you!
Betting Vale is going to insist on having an express elevator installed after today :D
A PERSONAL express elevator.
How express? I mean are we talking about just opening the doors and stepping into the shaft?
I would almost kill to have speed metal in some elevators in some of the places I have worked.
I’d bet that Vale is right now wishing that there was some piped-in muzak right about now. Even that would’ve been less annoying…
O.o
Vale you have failed your intimidation check agents the little dorky nerd girl
She might also have failed her irony detector, banging the elevator buttons uselessly, just as Sydney is talking about pumping brakes uselessly.
I’d say it was not merely a failed intimidation check, but a full-on fumble / critical failure.
Those are always SO much fun for the Referee.
“when you’re at the urinal. Not that… Sydney has ever used one”
Dave … it is now a required part of canon that Sydney HAS, in fact, used a urinal. When she (one day) explains and tells that story … about being desperate enough to enter a men’s room and actually having to pee into one … I’m laying an even-money bet that Harem laughs herself into a literal coma and requires medical treatment.
There should also be a place on THE bingo card for making Maxima pee herself with laughter. Just a little bit.
Woman regularly go into men’s toilets when the queue is to long. But they usually use the stall with the door, instead of the urinals
• Sydney.
• Desperate.
• HAS to use urinal.
• Bonus points: men present in the rest room.
This is already forever-canon in my mind. Nobody can take that away from me.
BTW — yes. I was directly implying a potential weakness in Harem’s power: the harmonics of all her manifestations simultaneously laughing uncontrollably could medically disable her and (at least temporarily) render her combat-ineffective. It makes me curious to imagine what counter-measures she might have to take if that is a possible issue. Just teleporting one manifestation away would do nothing. She might have to dispel several or all manifestations when dangerous harmonics start to spiral out of control between all of her partitions.
I’m imaging that this happened at a con, she was dressed as a male character, and the male line was shorter, but when she finally got in, the only open spot was a urinal.
Her name’s Sydney, she could argue that she’s MaaB.
Plus, she could always use one of these.
Naw – wasn’t a desperation move. No one was around and… she was curious! Trust me ADHD people have done far weirder things in the name of “Why not?”. What little impulse control they have usually goes to suppressing the obviously dangerous ideas.
i do that kind of stuff in video games…like jumping off the tallest building i can find in fallout 4 while wearing power armor to see what bugs I can squash below. turns out i landed on a radroach…
That quote (almost) implies that Vale has used a urinal. Or at least when you’re discussing two women and only cite that one of them has never used a urinal, the implication is that the other one has.
“Speaking of instincts everyone has to know that pressing an elevator button over and over won’t make it come any quicker. If anything the microcomputer has to process additional inputs. But each input probably only needs microseconds. The programmers probably allowed for it and disreguard the presses after the first. I suppose the elevator, even when empty can only go so fast. If it knew it was empty it wouldn’t have to start or stop slowly as a courtesy to the occupants. That’s a feature elevators should have. They should know when there are people in it. Oh, here it is.”
I’ve heard there is a prioritise floor function with certain button presses and holding something for 6 seconds but for all I know i might be talking out me back end.
Machina is a technology company. They may have put in an override function on their elevators that when a certain sequence is entered in Morse code it engages turbo speed (or sleep gas).
The microcomputer being busy is not going to slow the motor anyway. The limits of elevator are likely constructional for speed and artificial for courtesy to the occupants for acceleration and deceleration. There will be constructional limit for acceleration and deceleration as well but much higher.
And, obviously … there are ways to make the elevator go much faster DOWN. But those can’t be activated by buttons, and usually require maintenance (or new elevator) after being used.
Also require a mop afterwards
Also requires multiple simultaneous failures, which are not likely to happen. For example, the elevator has a motor brake that is designed so that you have to apply power to the brakes to stop them from being applied. That’s just one reason (other than the obvious) why you can’t use an elevator when power fails… the motor brake will automatically clamp shut.
Not only that, but modern elevators have not one, but two sets of brakes… aside from the motor brake, there is the safety brake beneath the car (although this one does require the electronics to be working). If an accelerometer detects that the car is in an uncontrolled descent, it jams a metal brake into a channel in the guide rails, using friction to bring you to a gradual stop.
The third failsafe is the counterweight, which weigh slightly more than an empty car and slightly less than a fully loaded car. If every other safety system failed and you were the only person in the car, these weights would make the elevator ascend rather than descend. It would happen slowly at first, gaining speed as the ascent continued. A fully loaded car would experience a slowly accelerating descent.
In either case, when the counterweights reach the top or bottom of the shaft, they meet a cushion that brings the elevator car to an abrupt but hopefully survivable stop. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but you have a really good chance of being alive to talk about it. Most elevator deaths in recent years have been the result of neglect or accident. For example, in 2011, an elevator in a Manhattan office building surged upward with the door still open, killing a 41-year-old advertising executive. An investigation showed that maintenance workers who disabled the safety checks during repairs forgot to reset the system.
The TL;DR version is that the only chance for you to go crashing to the bottom of the shaft is for all the cables to be cut (which happened on 9/11), because you’re falling too fast for the emergency brake to slow you down enough, and the motor brake has nothing to clamp onto, or for multiple failures to occur… both sets of brakes would have to fail, the counterweight would have to fall off, etc. An elevator repairman told me once that an uncontrolled ascent is more likely.
Now, I did say that multiple failures would be highly unlikely to happen, but there’s always a very small chance. After all, some days you get the elevator… some days you get the shaft.
With all this talk about elivaters it beggs the question why do American’s call them elivaters when they also use them to go down?
Why do English speaking nations call them ‘Lifts’ when they also ‘Lower’? o_O
You can be lifted down. Most people become a were of this execivly when they are exposed to young kids
An ‘elevator’ takes you to a point on the ‘elevation’, either by going up or by going down
It’s still better than the german words for elevator ^_^ the literal translations would be drivechair (Fahrstuhl) and openpull/up-pull (Aufzug; “auf” can mean open/on top of/up and a few other things depending on context)
Anybody out there got a better name for them than elevators and lifts? Mobile Rooms, perhaps?
Falling Death Boxes.
Westinghouse automatic elevators
NEVER LET YOU DOWN.
Fake ad from MAD Magazine.
Imagine an elevator doing that to you. Worst Rickrole ever!
“when they also use them to go down”
Dabbler has been known to occasionally go down in an elevator (see double entendre)
Love in an elevator! Living it up when you’re going down.
I believe “elevator” was the term used on some early patent applications, which was then adopted by the largest manufacturers in the US. This was at a time when inventors liked to use “elevated” language in patent descriptions rather than plain. :)
What you see on the nameplate and in the advertisements is probably what you’re gonna call it.
Same as how a lot of people refer to a ‘vacuum cleaner’ as a ‘Hoover’ or a ‘Lux’ (as in, ‘ElectroLux’), even if it is manufactured by neither
I always say a good pun is its own reword.
If that reward isn’t groans, then it’s not a good one :P
Well played.
More accurately, it’s well-written…
Wait, Abbey didn’t warn them what Sydney was like? Or is this her little bit of revenge because Vale double-yoinked that fancy letter-opener out of her hands? o_O
Who’s Abbey? Harem/Daphne was the apparent double agent. Anyway, I doubt that any verbal description can prepare you for meeting her in the flesh.
Abbey is the White Haired Harem with the glasses, also known formerly as “Co-ed Spice” :P
And who came up with these rules for the elevator? Have the rules changed in the past? Did we used to cram together and all speak at once?
Follow the Wandering Mind, Dorothy.
How come you never hear about ‘benepropisms’? o_O
Because the original was a character named “Mrs. Malaprop.” The word has nothing to do with the prefix “mal”.
Ah, but the character’s name was itself derived from a word that was derived from the use of ‘mal’. French though, rather than Latin, perhaps thus making the closest inverse a ‘bon mot’, which you do hear about occasionally.
Really, all she has to do is talk. Say something. Anything. Engaging Sydney in a conversation has proven effective in curbing her tendency towards ceaseless chattering. Ignoring her is almost the worst possible option.
Almost anything would probably be a better move than just standing there as Sydney talks and talks and talks and talks.
Personally, I think I’d go with faking a seizure.
If that elevator doesn’t hurry up, vale won’t have to fake it…
Pretty much; they’re still trying to cross that finish line till the car can’t move any more.
They get it from the top gun pilots—they’ll still be trying to fly their plain and trying one thing after another as it crashes into the ground.
It is very much a thing for test pilots. Keep trying for as long as they can – and relay data so, even if they crash, something will have been learned (and lives saved in the future).
Could be argued that this ‘never give up’ mindset is common to pretty much all pilots. Let’s face it, a pilot who suddenly jumps up from the controls and runs back through the plane, yelling “WE”RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!” will almost always be correct.
I do believe Vale is afraid…..Having your patented Death Stare called cute would certainly put one on their back feet… plus a Think Sydney rolled a Natural 20 on a Counter intimidation check….
As she said, she has been hanging around the GEOD lately :P
off the top of my head:
Puns are generally when the double-meaning exists within a single-word but also covers words that sound similar while not having any real relationship in terms of meaning and origin, rather like the “lesser of two weevils” pun in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
A double entrende is when something can have two particular meanings, both of which are applicable (but not necessarily accurate) to the current situation and does not require replacing words or changing spelling but only requires a shift in frame of context to get the extra meaning. It does not have to be related to sexual humor but double entrendes relating to sex are the ones most likely to be called out. More common are instances where someone phrases the truth in a way that leads toward an incorrect conclusion, ie, lying without actually lying.
Puns are considered somewhat more low-brow because they often require ham-fisting in other words, changing spellings and the like to make the pun work where as double entrendes flow rather smoothly. Personally, I consider both to be representations of a high degree of language skill and interconnective thinking.
We’ve been trained to think that all puns are low-brow, but the best puns are high art indeed.
Puns can be either groaners (the ham fisted kind) or extremely clever requiring sophistication and intellect to craft. Some really lame shaggy-dog type jokes end with really bad puns. The best puns either require some extra understanding to even catch or hinge on a connection that most people miss.
They also tend to require the audience to have been paying attention to catch the ‘pun’
…And you can find the lowest of brow, the highest of art, and the shaggiest of dogs…
at Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, from the pen of Spider Robinson!
Punday Night has been known to get under the skin of those not familiar with it, to the point of abandoning full pitchers as they run out, screaming, into the night.
That’s why I always sat next to newbies, FREE DRINKS.
The look on Vale’s face in the second to last panel is that of one who’s mind is about to break….
Give Sydney a com line to Vehemence in his doped up prison cell. I want to see what happens. From a safe distance. Like maybe the moons of Jupiter.
She is totally the deadpool of the group. She’s got the mouth for it, if not the body count. All we need is for one of those “unknown” orbs to give her a healing factor, we’ll I mean with the other things she has, yeah, it SHOULD give her a healing factor or some sort of heals. Because it’d be unfair seeing she’s pretty much like blue mage, for lack of a better term. (That or I just can’t think of it right maw st 5am
Poor Vale.
.I suspect this is the ONLY time any of us will valdily say that about her.
Yay! Sydney got it right, as in the quote “puns are the lowest form of wit“, rather than the usual misunderstood misquote “puns are the lowest form of humour” – even in the original, I believe there was the implication of even lower forms of non-witty humour (such multilevel implicit implication possibly being itself a form of wit, albeit not necessarily humorous wit).
However, higher forms of wit could include elaborate or veiled insults.
Personally, I regard puns as a very high form of wit – they usually involve no intentional slight or hurt, and as Thrythlind notes, they require high degrees of language skills and connective thinking in both the speaker and listener.
+1
In case of getting stuck with Sydney in an enclosed space follow these simple emergency steps.
Step 1: Break glass.
Step 2: Swallow glass.
Heh.
Or use the jagged edge to open a vein…
Step 3: Cry in anguish because the glass you broke is actually “Tempered Safety Glass”…
which is designed to break into little itty-bitty cubes, that are very much NON-Jagged… ie. SAFE!!
Sydney weirding out the super ninja (probably) killer is ~!@#$%^&*()_+ hilarious! Vale might not even be afraid of Maxima, because Vale seems to have some sort of super stealth going on and Maxima would have a hard time hitting something she couldn’t see, but now Vale is nervous around Sydney.
Who, are we talking about, is the father of the dictionary?
Samuel Johnson. Although not the first dictionary, his was comprehensive rather than only “common words” or “difficult words”, it explained the words clearly (or in a few cases, humorously) rather than being a spelling list, it meticulously documented the multiple uses or senses of a word, and it used literary quotes to demonstrate the use of words.
It influenced the format of successive English dictionaries and had no equal until the great Oxford English Dictionary, many decades later.
Oh yeah, they did a ‘Blackadder’ episode about him.
Johnson did have some interesting definitions though. For example, according to his dictionary the “attic” is the highest room in a house and the “garret” is the room above the attic.
If the attic is the highest room in the house, and a garret is one room higher, then isn’t the garret also the attic? But then it couldn’t be a garret unless it was built above the attic, which is now itself…
And I think we just discovered the true origins of the skyscraper.
Samuel Johnson is also the one usually credited with the “puns are the lowest form of wit” saying.
Makes me wonder now if all his dictionary work made him particularly sensitive to the “misuse” of words in puns.
So I live in Japan (こんばんは！) – in most fancier elevators ‘double pushing’ a selected floor will deselect it…
Is this not the case in the US?
Won’t deselect, which makes it funnier. Pushing the button over and over serves no purpose and is usually done in a desperate bid to speed the elevator up. Even Vale gets spooked by Sydney. She might lose it completely if that elevator takes any longer. .Maybe incessant, nonsensical talking is another of Sydney’s superpowers….guess not.
ADHD is DEFINITELY one of Syd’s superpowers. In fact, it may be her only NATURAL superpower.
But then again, you also have toilets with more controls than an F-16. It might be a cultural thing.
It is not the case, but it should be. It only takes one time for some spoiled kid to push a dozen buttons for a person to contemplate performing a post delivery abortion.
but he’s only pushing the SAME button ONCE…so it wouldn’t help at all… though i agree that the P.D.A would go a long way to smooth over your ruffled feathers as a recipient of his button-pushing spree…
Yes, that’s the point: in Japan, you could push the buttons again to ‘cancel’ them, whereas every where else you are going to be stopping at every floor
Not everywhere else; I’ve been in elevators here in the USA where pressing the buttons a second time ‘cancels’ them. It just isn’t a common feature.
I’m not often in elevators here in Fukushima, hadn’t noticed that.
Is it just me, or is Vale not running a risk being there with Sydney and her Omni-decloaking ball?
The Significant Look she exchanged with Deus when Harem blabbed about the ball implied that she too was using succubus glamour. Presumably Deus is running a Xanatos gambit where both revealing and retaining Vale’s secret lead to profitable outcomes.
The crux of the matter was that she (and Deus) have some knowledge and/or prior experience relating to that particular subject.. Which NEVER equated with her actually having / using Succubi powers.
Vale has not shown any specific demonic characteristics that I know of. I think that as Deus’s employee she is just interested in gaining as much intel on Dabbler as she can. This would make here merely Succubi curious.
You were working on that one all day, weren’t you?
Vale’s thoughts: “Oh god, there are two of them.”
Because you know Deus prattles on with villainous rants and monologues when they are alone.
Sydney X Vale is now my newest crackship.
Would the tabloids call the pair Sco-Vale?
I don’t know about a romantic pairing, but for some reason I’m convinced that Sydney is going to wear down her defenses and Vale is going to become quite fond of her. The Mighty Halo just seems to have that effect on people, you know. Even Vehemence seemed to like her.
As for the tabloids, Sco-Vale would be better than Va-Ney . . .
Not Deus X Sidney?
1. too obvious
2. not crazy enough
3. would not want to take Deus away from Maxima.
Deus shall instead become Sydney’s greatest frenemy.
I see Sydney having many frenemies.