Dean used to be the roommate from the hell who had no regrets in destroy things owned by his roommates (that poor espresso machine…). He improved really a lot, but I can see him try a bit of the fine food just out of curiosity.
See, that’s the problem with this plan. Antigrote is trying to strike at Lottie by hurting the people she cares about, but she’s likely to only get Dean.
Well, we now have the info that this person’s voice does not resemble our dear Lottie’s. That certainly makes it difficult to do in-person impersonations with persons close to La Grote.
Super retro to the way text was often consumed in the analog days: multiple analog screens bound together to produce an interface that has two analog screens visible at a time, each one typically taller than wide.
Obviously madness was prevalent in those bygone days of yester.
Gak! I remember when my Mom got a new portrait format vertical B&W CRT monitor back in the day. I was in my first couple years of college. Her boss got it for her because she did a lot of page layout and legal documents. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
Clear sign of a software engineer! Code is typically many short lines, so a vertical monitor means you can see more of it on-screen at once, and two screens means you can look at two sections of the code simultaneously! Be still, my coder heart.
Fortunately I’m starting to notice the slight differences between Real-Lottie and Evilottie. Obviously the perpetual manic expression on the latter’s face, but also I notice thet Evilottie on closer inspection is a bit taller and more slender and not nearly as chibi and curvy as Real-Lottie. Also while she does a surface-level good imitation of Real-Lottie’s speech patterns, something is definitely a bit off.
They’re sure not colored the same. Real-Lottie’s alabaster complexion is one thing, but Evil-Lottie looks like a vampire who hasn’t had a bite in months.
John may have changed the coloring a bit since you posted this- I’m not sure- but it looks to me like EviLottie has Lottie’s normal complexion, but it’s lightened to a vampire-like appearance by the light from Dean’s monitors.
One must never place a Finer Deli bag on the floor (https://badmachinery.com/comic/big-day-today/) if it isn’t going to be used to deliver poisoned high-end consumables a few pages later.
Ah, fair point. I’m not the best at tropes, and I noticed the fine deli bag too much, so it didn’t raise any Czechov alarms in my head. Now that I’ve once again visited the tv tropes page, it does 100% check off all the requirements.
I was more worried about the previous page’s claimed Chekhov device getting combined and the fishies getting poisoned and much more difficult to save as a result.
For someone to go this far in utterly destroying Lottie would have to completely hate her guts on another level (or maybe this character’s actually obsessed with her idk)
I confess that I, as a long-time programmer, prefer to code in light mode. Pretty much the only time I’d use dark mode is if I have to enter code directly in a terminal session for some reason. Light mode is bright and cheerful! I really don’t get why dark mode is so popular for pretty much everything nowadays. Does EVERYTHING have to be dark and depressing?
That said, I would NEVER use a desktop monitor in portrait mode. There are limits.
I find the coloured text of syntax highlighting features easier to notice when the background is dark. In the long term, screen burn-in may be an issue to consider when comparing light and dark, depending on the monitor technology. And glare may also be an issue if the lighting environment is not well balanced.
For me, seeing the syntax highlighting is a big enough plus that my faux-emacs setup is dark background.
As you get older your eyes deteriorate and dark mode can become harder and harder to use, plus in the early days when Dean (and I) were young there was no ‘dark mode’, only ‘green screen’ so light mode is less stressful for nostalgic reasons as well!
Lottie’s 19 now. She was 11 at the beginning of Bad Machinery, which makes it 8 years (plus about two months) ago. The beginning of Giant Days was three years before that, so 11 years ago.
First off, it’s a casual estimate of biographical information about a friend of a friend whom she’s only shared a panel with once (the very last panel of “Hard Yards”). Rounding off to the decade is a perfectly acceptable degree of precision. I mean, I still say “a couple years ago” about things that happened in the Before Times.
But moreover, Esther was here for more than just the one year. The beginning of Giant Days was eleven years ago, but ten years ago would have been in Esther’s second year here, so Claire has actually landed her dart pretty close to the middle of the range.
Same for me. Big fields of white can give me a headache on a bad day, even with the screen brightness turned way down. I’ve been using the ‘Toggle Reader View’ button in Firefox (looks like a single page icon, just to the right of the link address) for difficult websites. It’s quite good!
I’m pleased to say that my Emacs is set up the same as Deans – green background (technically called Dark Slate Grey for some reason) and “Wheat” yellow text. It’s been that way for 26 years – long before these “modes” you speak of – and I’m very happy about.
…and it looks like it has now magically changed from light mode into dark mode overnight.
I’m not sure if I’m sad or happy about that. I was feeling almost a sense of comradery about Dean’s choice of light mode, but I’m not 100% sure that’s really a good thing, given all of Dean’s other tastes and choices.
There was a takedown of dark mode published some years ago, google the title “Dark Mode Is For Suckers”. Basically (according to that article), all the claims for dark mode are anecdotal and based on “common sense” rather than actual research results, which in fact point to light mode being better.
Ah yes, Evillottie is still wearing the skeleton costume for the benefit of us the readers. But what if actually she CAN’T take it off? What if it’s not actually a costume? Maybe a symbiont!
Isn’t that the same costume Lottie wore to wrestle in that woodsy showdown? And isn’t that the same type of clothing (the pink overcoat) she could get from the Dowager? DA DA DAAH!
So Dean might not be as clean as first assumed despite being “outside the solving triangle”. Does this mean that Skelloton has nefarious plans for him too?!
Maybe Evilotte put just a laxative in the consumables, to make them understand that she can destroy them whenever she wants. Maybe she went straight to the arsenic.
Her word structure only continues to reinforce my suspicions about her true identity. Some will be shocked. Some will be stunned. Others will be inexplicably French.
Guy gets a hamper so extravagant, so obviously a publicity stunt that I am betting only one has ever been ordered, and suddenly the plot is all about expensive foodstuffs and their power to change our lives.
Due to the unique way this comic is created (ie in advance) this page was written way back in late October which is, I think, before I started making my outrageous (or should that be, justified) hamper demands. Incidentally I am now owed two hampers, neither of which has arrived yet.
I sent one from here, in New Zealand, filled with kiwifruit chocolate and pineapple lumps (a sweet, not a medical condition!) but delivery around the world is notoriously undependable
I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s delayed (after all, I didn’t have John’s actual home details so it was simply addressed with ‘The greatest comic artist ever, UK’)
I envisage a big chunky programmer’s keyboard for Dean with coloured removable keycaps but there are limits to the reality I can portray in the three lines there that will appear on the page about 5mm wide.
“When you say that, Charlotte, are you still referring to the offer of a beverage?”
Teabag me another day has certain other connotations. (I don’t know what though, I’m scared to google it but I’m sure it’s a thing)
Undoubtedly, the character in question intends the salacious meaning as a well-poisoning effort.
I think she wants him to be well poisoned, at least.
I don’t think she cares one way or the other about poisoning Dean. Claire’s her primary target right now, and Glenn’s her secondary target.
Evilottie is really scary! What are the chances that the fine food is poisoned and that poor Dean can’t resist and try something now?
I am sure it is poisoned. Dean will probably wait, though, as he places value on decorum.
Dean used to be the roommate from the hell who had no regrets in destroy things owned by his roommates (that poor espresso machine…). He improved really a lot, but I can see him try a bit of the fine food just out of curiosity.
See, that’s the problem with this plan. Antigrote is trying to strike at Lottie by hurting the people she cares about, but she’s likely to only get Dean.
I’m not so sure about that. Glenn and Claire could also eat the food, without knowing that’s Evilottie’s gift.
Some sort of mass poisoning about to occur?
A grenade in the bottle to add some fizz?
Well, we now have the info that this person’s voice does not resemble our dear Lottie’s. That certainly makes it difficult to do in-person impersonations with persons close to La Grote.
We know the voice is different. We don’t know it doesn’t resemble Lottie’s voice at all.
It seems according the world bubble shapes, she’s straining quite hard to approximate Lottie’s voice.
Yes, and her “lotta shouting in clubs” cover story implies a hoarse roughness, or breathy sound. Very un-Lottie. It’s another clue!
the purple coat is also Wrong
The terrified look of Dean in panel 2 makes me think Claire and Glerb have cued him to the risk he was running with pseudo-Grote?
Or, he’s antisocial enough that his first reaction to an unexpected visitor is the “Eep! People!” response. I can relate.
There are those of us who wish not to be disturbed during an intimate code review.
There are also those of us who wish not to be disturbed in general.
Looks like he’s hacking some of Glenn’s programming, and doesn’t want to be caught.
This is probably part of the pair programming mentioned earlier. Doesn’t rule out hacking per se, but Dean at least seems to have permission here.
I guess it technically doesn’t rule out not wanting to be caught, either…
Both monitors in portrait mode, clear sign of a lunatic.
Super retro to the way text was often consumed in the analog days: multiple analog screens bound together to produce an interface that has two analog screens visible at a time, each one typically taller than wide.
Obviously madness was prevalent in those bygone days of yester.
Gak! I remember when my Mom got a new portrait format vertical B&W CRT monitor back in the day. I was in my first couple years of college. Her boss got it for her because she did a lot of page layout and legal documents. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
That must have been 86 or 87.
Clear sign of a software engineer! Code is typically many short lines, so a vertical monitor means you can see more of it on-screen at once, and two screens means you can look at two sections of the code simultaneously! Be still, my coder heart.
Dead giveaway – WHERE’S THE PUFFER COAT!?
Exactly.
Fortunately I’m starting to notice the slight differences between Real-Lottie and Evilottie. Obviously the perpetual manic expression on the latter’s face, but also I notice thet Evilottie on closer inspection is a bit taller and more slender and not nearly as chibi and curvy as Real-Lottie. Also while she does a surface-level good imitation of Real-Lottie’s speech patterns, something is definitely a bit off.
The biggest giveaway in that Evil Lottie is rude in a mean-spirited way, unlike Real Lottie who is rude in a playful, harmless way.
Also the Skelottie outfit, bit of a hint for everyone but Deano
At the same time, I feel as if she reminds me a bit of someone else, but I can’t think who.
I DRAW THEM EXACTLY THE SAME
Maybe you think you do, but subconsciously you add evil intent into the Antigrote and subconsciously we detect it…
Or we’re adding 2 + 2 and getting 22 (like Python rather than PG II or Fortran)
Who can say???
Escept for the lack of purple puffer jacket. The real Lottie’s a two-eyed, no-horned solvin’ purple puffer wearer.
Sure looks strange to me!
They’re sure not colored the same. Real-Lottie’s alabaster complexion is one thing, but Evil-Lottie looks like a vampire who hasn’t had a bite in months.
John may have changed the coloring a bit since you posted this- I’m not sure- but it looks to me like EviLottie has Lottie’s normal complexion, but it’s lightened to a vampire-like appearance by the light from Dean’s monitors.
Pffffft
Such a perfect disguise that even her most minute differences evade the artist
I ‘m also under the impression that Evilottie is taller.
Note that she’s standing on her toes in that first panel. That would make her look taller.
Right. Hmm, what is Real-Lottie’s take on high heels…? Her black boots have high heels. But I still think that Evilottie is a bit taller.
Checkov’s Finer Deli bag.
into Chekov’s Fish Tank? Oh no! Don’t feed the fish Doppelgröte’s deli foods!
One must never place a Finer Deli bag on the floor (https://badmachinery.com/comic/big-day-today/) if it isn’t going to be used to deliver poisoned high-end consumables a few pages later.
Ah, fair point. I’m not the best at tropes, and I noticed the fine deli bag too much, so it didn’t raise any Czechov alarms in my head. Now that I’ve once again visited the tv tropes page, it does 100% check off all the requirements.
I was more worried about the previous page’s claimed Chekhov device getting combined and the fishies getting poisoned and much more difficult to save as a result.
This is the same concern I had about the Garfield toy from 1/31. There’s gotta be more to it than mere continuity.
Maybe it’s just a red herring? Or… NOT!
A red herring, or an orange tabby?
For someone to go this far in utterly destroying Lottie would have to completely hate her guts on another level (or maybe this character’s actually obsessed with her idk)
That’s what makes this mystery so intriguing.
TIL Lockets are a brand of cough drop/lozenge sold in the UK. (North Americans, think Halls.)
Thank you, that was bugging me.
If anyone was wondering, “BBZ” apparently means “babes.” If no one was wondering, well, that doesn’t really change anything. 😉
Coding in….. LIGHT MODE?!?!?
Deano you dissappoint me…
I confess that I, as a long-time programmer, prefer to code in light mode. Pretty much the only time I’d use dark mode is if I have to enter code directly in a terminal session for some reason. Light mode is bright and cheerful! I really don’t get why dark mode is so popular for pretty much everything nowadays. Does EVERYTHING have to be dark and depressing?
That said, I would NEVER use a desktop monitor in portrait mode. There are limits.
I find the coloured text of syntax highlighting features easier to notice when the background is dark. In the long term, screen burn-in may be an issue to consider when comparing light and dark, depending on the monitor technology. And glare may also be an issue if the lighting environment is not well balanced.
For me, seeing the syntax highlighting is a big enough plus that my faux-emacs setup is dark background.
I always used light mode when I was a programmer. Found it much easier on my eyes.
As you get older your eyes deteriorate and dark mode can become harder and harder to use, plus in the early days when Dean (and I) were young there was no ‘dark mode’, only ‘green screen’ so light mode is less stressful for nostalgic reasons as well!
Dean’s only 33! He’s just old-seeming!
Some of us are born old!
But most of us have oldness thrust upon us.
Some of us achieve oldness.
As my father used to say, it beats the alternative.
what
Wouldn’t that mean he was 23 when Giant Days began, since Claire said that was 10 years ago?
I ask because in issue 18, the paper talking about his scam said he was 19.
Claire-ical error? It’th possible she was rounding, too.
Lottie’s 19 now. She was 11 at the beginning of Bad Machinery, which makes it 8 years (plus about two months) ago. The beginning of Giant Days was three years before that, so 11 years ago.
She’s definitely 19 now, but I don’t know if I agree with it being 11 years, with Claire being right in her assessment.
I don’t want to clog up the comments with talking about this, so if there’s a way we can talk about this further that would be cool.
John Campbell is THE expert on the timeline of the “Tacklevers/Bobbinsverse/what-you-want-to-call-it”. Click on his name in the above comment.
Okay, I just trawled back through to find where the “Claire says it was 10 years ago” came from, and… the beginning of Giant Days was 11 years ago, and Claire is right.
First off, it’s a casual estimate of biographical information about a friend of a friend whom she’s only shared a panel with once (the very last panel of “Hard Yards”). Rounding off to the decade is a perfectly acceptable degree of precision. I mean, I still say “a couple years ago” about things that happened in the Before Times.
But moreover, Esther was here for more than just the one year. The beginning of Giant Days was eleven years ago, but ten years ago would have been in Esther’s second year here, so Claire has actually landed her dart pretty close to the middle of the range.
You can’t clog up the comments discussing the minutiae of John’s comics universe. It’s the whole *purpose* of the comments section!
I just guessed
And you guessed correctly. I’ll stop here.
I’ve had the opposite effect. My eyes are pretty old and I find light mode so difficult to read I will close a browser tab rather than deal with it.
Same for me. Big fields of white can give me a headache on a bad day, even with the screen brightness turned way down. I’ve been using the ‘Toggle Reader View’ button in Firefox (looks like a single page icon, just to the right of the link address) for difficult websites. It’s quite good!
I’m pleased to say that my Emacs is set up the same as Deans – green background (technically called Dark Slate Grey for some reason) and “Wheat” yellow text. It’s been that way for 26 years – long before these “modes” you speak of – and I’m very happy about.
…and it looks like it has now magically changed from light mode into dark mode overnight.
I’m not sure if I’m sad or happy about that. I was feeling almost a sense of comradery about Dean’s choice of light mode, but I’m not 100% sure that’s really a good thing, given all of Dean’s other tastes and choices.
Okay, I’m not imagining things. That actually was black on white last night.
YES, YES IT WAS!
We’re being gaslighted… Mr A is succumbing to peer pressure from the young ‘uns
There was a takedown of dark mode published some years ago, google the title “Dark Mode Is For Suckers”. Basically (according to that article), all the claims for dark mode are anecdotal and based on “common sense” rather than actual research results, which in fact point to light mode being better.
*Gasp* Evilottie is plotting! Her appearance is flawless!!! Her voice… less so! But I have faith in Claire and Glurm!!!!
hmmm.
Has the doppleganger spent too much time in night world and curdled their thought meats?
Ah yes, Evillottie is still wearing the skeleton costume for the benefit of us the readers. But what if actually she CAN’T take it off? What if it’s not actually a costume? Maybe a symbiont!
Costume is draped over a chair here: https://badmachinery.com/comic/big-day-today/
Or was that Doppelgröte’s symbiont’s doppelcöstume draped over the chair? d:
Isn’t that the same costume Lottie wore to wrestle in that woodsy showdown? And isn’t that the same type of clothing (the pink overcoat) she could get from the Dowager? DA DA DAAH!
That looks absolutely nothing like Lottie’s “Mind Panda” costume (which is what she wore in that wrestling match).
So Dean might not be as clean as first assumed despite being “outside the solving triangle”. Does this mean that Skelloton has nefarious plans for him too?!
These “consumables’ are presumably for the Scrabble Night the next night, when both Claire and Glenn will be there, as per the previous page.
Maybe Evilotte put just a laxative in the consumables, to make them understand that she can destroy them whenever she wants. Maybe she went straight to the arsenic.
Her word structure only continues to reinforce my suspicions about her true identity. Some will be shocked. Some will be stunned. Others will be inexplicably French.
I suspect you’re reading an accent into her dialog BECAUSE of who you think she is.
Perhaps, precious. Just perhaps.
Yet others’ Frenchness is explicable, like the Easter Bell (not to be confused with a certain cafe’s logo).
Guy gets a hamper so extravagant, so obviously a publicity stunt that I am betting only one has ever been ordered, and suddenly the plot is all about expensive foodstuffs and their power to change our lives.
Due to the unique way this comic is created (ie in advance) this page was written way back in late October which is, I think, before I started making my outrageous (or should that be, justified) hamper demands. Incidentally I am now owed two hampers, neither of which has arrived yet.
Of course they haven’t arrived yet. Hampers always travel slowly, as they hamper the movements of whatever is transporting them.
Baskets, on the other hand are a bad choice for heat-sensitive foods as they tend to spend a lot of time basking in the sunlight.
I sent one from here, in New Zealand, filled with kiwifruit chocolate and pineapple lumps (a sweet, not a medical condition!) but delivery around the world is notoriously undependable
I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s delayed (after all, I didn’t have John’s actual home details so it was simply addressed with ‘The greatest comic artist ever, UK’)
Maybe I should have put some stamps on it…
If you stamp on it, the goods are likely to be damaged.
‘Goods’ is a bit over-complimentary, perhaps ‘contents’
Bads.
Give Dean props for actually getting a hamper considering how utterly filthy his living conditions back in Giant Days were
Exactly the kind of mouse I expected Dean to use, but the keyboard seems a bit vanilla (unless it’s secretly Dvorak or something).
I envisage a big chunky programmer’s keyboard for Dean with coloured removable keycaps but there are limits to the reality I can portray in the three lines there that will appear on the page about 5mm wide.
I imagine him using one of those “minimalist” keyboards, with unlabeled keycaps: https://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-ultimate/
Given that today’s comic does not show individual keys, this has not yet been ruled out.