Penny Arcade

Dog · July 2019

Penny Arcade - Comic - Familoids

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

ArcSyn · July 2019

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

lionheartssj · July 2019

I'm just glad they didn't have a weapon or tried to get violent, they certainly didn't sound all there, for whatever reason. Glad you're safe, Jerry!

dennis · July 2019

ArcSyn wrote: »

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

As he told in the news post, the person then had an imaginary phone conversation:

Then she said I was crazy and that she was going to call her mother. She “pushed some buttons” and then claimed to have put her mother on Speaker Phone, holding the phone toward me, but the screen didn’t come on and nobody said anything because she’d done no such thing. The level of investment in this bit indicates to me that she could find success in virtually any industry - it escalated over the course of fifteen or so minutes, eventually “her dad was on the phone,” an inspired escalation of the dramatic arc.

zepherin · July 2019

dennis wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

As he told in the news post, the person then had an imaginary phone conversation:

Then she said I was crazy and that she was going to call her mother. She “pushed some buttons” and then claimed to have put her mother on Speaker Phone, holding the phone toward me, but the screen didn’t come on and nobody said anything because she’d done no such thing. The level of investment in this bit indicates to me that she could find success in virtually any industry - it escalated over the course of fifteen or so minutes, eventually “her dad was on the phone,” an inspired escalation of the dramatic arc.

I mean crazy pants or on amazing drugs.

Rip Torn at 79 accidentally broke into a bank when he was drunk, and asked why the police were in his house.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/30/rip-torn-court-bank-home

dennis · July 2019

zepherin wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

As he told in the news post, the person then had an imaginary phone conversation:

Then she said I was crazy and that she was going to call her mother. She “pushed some buttons” and then claimed to have put her mother on Speaker Phone, holding the phone toward me, but the screen didn’t come on and nobody said anything because she’d done no such thing. The level of investment in this bit indicates to me that she could find success in virtually any industry - it escalated over the course of fifteen or so minutes, eventually “her dad was on the phone,” an inspired escalation of the dramatic arc.

I mean crazy pants or on amazing drugs.

Rip Torn at 79 accidentally broke into a bank when he was drunk, and asked why the police were in his house.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/30/rip-torn-court-bank-home

Por qué no los dos?

Assuran · July 2019

I work in LE, so this colors my perception, but he probably should have called law enforcement.

1.) It sounds to me less like she was high/drunk and more likely she was a thief or had mental issues. He mentions other attempted break ins that night.
2.) Even if she was just drunk or high, she easily could get shot breaking into homes and cars.

I know LEO has a bad name right now due to bad actors, but for things like this, please call us. Please. It's for everyone's safety.

Preacher · July 2019

I said in the other thread, but one time I was tired and obviously confused in college and accidentally walked into someone elses apartment instead of my own. It was hella awkward.

geekd · July 2019

Something like this has happened to me, twice. My house is in a tourist neighborhood, by the beach in Southern California. My street is two streets over from the main street with all the bars. I have a nice front porch, with chairs on it.

One time, my wife woke me up, saying "Someone is trying to come in the front door!" I talked to the man through the door, he was super drunk and insisting that this was his friend's house. I told him to leave or I was calling the cops. He sat down on one of the chairs on the porch and passed out. I called the cops. When they came, he got violent with them. Bad move.

Another time, a few years later, a very similar situation happened. This guy, though, was obviously homeless, but he still insisted that this was his friend's house, and he had permission to sleep in one of the chairs. When the cops came, he left without a fuss.

Somewhat related, on the 5th of July a few years ago, I had left a cooler on the front porch from the day before. It was empty. I heard the front gate open (I was still up, though it was pretty late) and I watched out the front window as a drunk man walked up to the cooler, opened it, and was obviously disappointed that it was empty. He started to leave, then turned around and grabbed one of my porch chairs, and started to walk away with it! I burst out the front door, clad only in a t-shirt and underwear. I yelled, "Dude! Put the chair down!" He looked very ashamed, put the chair down, said "I'm sorry" and quickly left.

Photosaurus · July 2019

Oh hey, this happened to us just the other week. Only the guy was trying to get in the front door, which is all of maybe 30 feet from our bedroom.

Unlike Tycho, I did not have the early-morning wherewithal to equip pants before the confrontation. Not sure if that helped or not when scaring the guy off.

Golden Yak · July 2019

The Schismus is tearing at the sky in panel 2, seemingly fueled by Tycho's dark realization. His perception has grown too real.

John Matrix · July 2019

I think Ballard's a nice neighborhood (?), but you still gotta lock all your doors, Jerry. Doesn't sound like she kicked in the man door on the garage from his post.

v2micca · July 2019

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

dennis · July 2019

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

Tofystedeth · July 2019

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

I had a friend that did something similar when a mugger took her purse. She asked for it back because it had a book she was reading and didn't want to lose her place. Ended up just losing $20 in cash.

Giant Sloar · July 2019

zepherin wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

As he told in the news post, the person then had an imaginary phone conversation:

Then she said I was crazy and that she was going to call her mother. She “pushed some buttons” and then claimed to have put her mother on Speaker Phone, holding the phone toward me, but the screen didn’t come on and nobody said anything because she’d done no such thing. The level of investment in this bit indicates to me that she could find success in virtually any industry - it escalated over the course of fifteen or so minutes, eventually “her dad was on the phone,” an inspired escalation of the dramatic arc.

I mean crazy pants or on amazing drugs.

Rip Torn at 79 accidentally broke into a bank when he was drunk, and asked why the police were in his house.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/30/rip-torn-court-bank-home

Wow I just googled him to check his age. He died, yesterday. R.I.P. Zed

Aegeri · July 2019

I wonder how often that bit of hers actually works.

Showsni · July 2019

Tycho's hypothesis checks out.

McFodder · July 2019

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

It's true, working nights by myself at a service station (gas station) as an invincible person in my early 20s, I would often run through scenarios of what would happen if someone tried to hold me up. I was downright heroic!

Then it actually happened, and I politely asked them if they would like the $1 and $2 coins in the bag they handed me, or if they were only after the notes.

Preacher · July 2019

McFodder wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

It's true, working nights by myself at a service station (gas station) as an invincible person in my early 20s, I would often run through scenarios of what would happen if someone tried to hold me up. I was downright heroic!

Then it actually happened, and I politely asked them if they would like the $1 and $2 coins in the bag they handed me, or if they were only after the notes.

You lived and that's all that matters. Money is insured you as a person can not be replaced.

Zoku Gojira · July 2019

zepherin wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Sounds like someone was either drunk or high! Though I have also seen neighborhoods where houses are practically indistinguishable at night, the rest of the story doesn't hold up beyond that.

As he told in the news post, the person then had an imaginary phone conversation:

Then she said I was crazy and that she was going to call her mother. She “pushed some buttons” and then claimed to have put her mother on Speaker Phone, holding the phone toward me, but the screen didn’t come on and nobody said anything because she’d done no such thing. The level of investment in this bit indicates to me that she could find success in virtually any industry - it escalated over the course of fifteen or so minutes, eventually “her dad was on the phone,” an inspired escalation of the dramatic arc.

I mean crazy pants or on amazing drugs.

Rip Torn at 79 accidentally broke into a bank when he was drunk, and asked why the police were in his house.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/30/rip-torn-court-bank-home

That’s nothing compared with that April morning in sleepy Lexington, when he got off to an early start, and with drunken bravado living up to his name, fired the shot that started the Revolutionary War.

H3Knuckles · July 2019

Preacher wrote: »

McFodder wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

It's true, working nights by myself at a service station (gas station) as an invincible person in my early 20s, I would often run through scenarios of what would happen if someone tried to hold me up. I was downright heroic!

Then it actually happened, and I politely asked them if they would like the $1 and $2 coins in the bag they handed me, or if they were only after the notes.

You lived and that's all that matters. Money is insured you as a person can not be replaced.

When I worked in a store that was the corporate policy. Don't try to stop them, and avoid trouble.

zepherin · July 2019

H3Knuckles wrote: »

Preacher wrote: »

McFodder wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

It's true, working nights by myself at a service station (gas station) as an invincible person in my early 20s, I would often run through scenarios of what would happen if someone tried to hold me up. I was downright heroic!

Then it actually happened, and I politely asked them if they would like the $1 and $2 coins in the bag they handed me, or if they were only after the notes.

You lived and that's all that matters. Money is insured you as a person can not be replaced.

When I worked in a store that was the corporate policy. Don't try to stop them and avoid trouble.

Yeah Loss prevention would come in there and chastise a store of people making $6.50 an hour about stopping shoplifters, and the manager would say, don't try to stop shoplifters write down their license plate if you can, but don't chase after them or attempt to confront them. We have insurance and you aren't paid enough for that.

She thought the corporate loss prevention guy was a loon.

Sterica · July 2019

Even shoplifting isn’t your average employee’s responsibility. At best they’re expected to report suspicious activity, but in the age of social media you don’t want your untrained employee making half-cocked accusations at customers.

RatherDashing89 · July 2019

Where I work (a bank) the only time I heard of someone getting in trouble regarding theft was not for giving out too much money. It was because the person getting robbed was so annoyed by that fact that they sullenly handed the entire drawer (as in, the drawer itself) over the counter. They are extremely lucky, in my opinion, that they only got fired and didn't end up getting shot.

Though we do pick on a fellow employee who was the target of a fake robbery in a robbery walkthrough who instinctively asked the "robber", "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"

dennis · July 2019

McFodder wrote: »

dennis wrote: »

v2micca wrote: »

After reading your post, I'm going to say you got lucky. Once you had ascertained with at least 75% certainty what this person was about, you should have immediately disengaged and contacted the police. Don't try to get snarky or outsmart an individual that very well may be concealing fire-arms on their person. Fortunately, you were dealing with an individual that did not appear to be ready to escalate to violence at this time. But, if someone is willing to break into my home, I'm not going to roll the dice on the chance that my intruder is closer to the Chaotic Neutral than Chaotic Evil alignment.

While true, stuff like that is easy to say after the fact. But the reality is that your brain goes down a street it's never been down before, and suddenly all the signs are in crazy and it takes a while to realize you're in Crazytown. Frequently after the whole thing is over.

One time a guy mugged me by sticking a gun to my chest. I asked if I could have my wallet back after he took the money. You know, to avoid the hassle with the credit cards.

This was not a feat of badassery, as I obviously realized later. It was pure stupidity. But my thinking wasn't even working on the same plane that has coordinates for smart and stupid.

On the plus side, he took the cash and handed the wallet back to me, then left. Once in my apartment, I inspected my wallet. It was the kind that has two parts for currency/receipts. I realized he had had scooped the shallow pocket of the 4 or 5 ones I had, and left the deeper pocket that had about $200 in it.

Still pretty dumb.

It's true, working nights by myself at a service station (gas station) as an invincible person in my early 20s, I would often run through scenarios of what would happen if someone tried to hold me up. I was downright heroic!

Then it actually happened, and I politely asked them if they would like the $1 and $2 coins in the bag they handed me, or if they were only after the notes.

Just to be clear, I wasn't embarrassed that I didn't do anything heroic. I'm embarrassed that I did anything other than just hand over my wallet and wait for him to walk away. It wasn't a smart move.

H3Knuckles · July 2019

zepherin wrote: »

Yeah Loss prevention would come in there and chastise a store of people making $6.50 an hour about stopping shoplifters, and the manager would say, don't try to stop shoplifters write down their license plate if you can, but don't chase after them or attempt to confront them. We have insurance and you aren't paid enough for that.

She thought the corporate loss prevention guy was a loon.

Sterica wrote: »

Even shoplifting isn’t your average employee’s responsibility. At best they’re expected to report suspicious activity, but in the age of social media you don’t want your untrained employee making half-cocked accusations at customers.

The way we were instructed was to never confront or try to actively stop shoplifting, but that by hovering near "guests" (the training stuff never used the word customers) and maintaining a conversation with them, having to let them into the dressing rooms and not letting them go in and out unattended, that most shoplifters would be discouraged by lack of opportunity. But it was made very clear that if, say someone just grabbed stuff and tried to walk out the door with it, you do nothing.

Zoku Gojira · July 2019

RatherDashing89 wrote: »

Where I work (a bank) the only time I heard of someone getting in trouble regarding theft was not for giving out too much money. It was because the person getting robbed was so annoyed by that fact that they sullenly handed the entire drawer (as in, the drawer itself) over the counter. They are extremely lucky, in my opinion, that they only got fired and didn't end up getting shot.

Though we do pick on a fellow employee who was the target of a fake robbery in a robbery walkthrough who instinctively asked the "robber", "Is there anything else I can assist you with today?"

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon would be proud.

Not as proud as he would be of a parting line like, “thank you for coming, see you in hell!” But proud, nonetheless.

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