…Or the common North American Raccoon.
I have no idea why I did this comic, so don’t ask me. Raccoons and iPods? Whatever. The multi-hair-colored young lady in panels 1 and 2 is long time friend of HijiNKS Ensue, Stacy. She is soon to be an Apple Genius at our local Apple store but hasn’t yet completed the ritual blood rights or the “Sacred Hunt.” They send you out into the mall and if you don’t come back with the half eaten heart of a PC user you have to battle 7 food court employees including the manager of Sbarro. He’s enourmous and armed with a calzone. My only regret, art-wise, is that I wasn’t able to showcase all of her facial piercings in this limited pixel format. Sorry Stacy. I tried.
I don’t have a strong opinion about the new 3G iPod Shuffle or the feaux-controversey surrounding it’s total lack of buttons. If you like it, buy it. If you hate it, don’t. I do find it interesting, however, that every SNL sketch and Onion story that mocks Apples disdain for all things button seems to come true. Soon enough, purchasing an iPod will actually REMOVE buttons from your other devices. It will litterally have negative buttons.
Also you tap out HELP in Morse Code for OnStar. A little too form over function for my taste.
I like how happy the raccoon looks in the 4th panel.
Shouldn't that be "SOS?"
Not if you want anyone to understand it. lol I can Just picture someone at OnStar all confused and you dieing while they try to figure out what SOS means.
And with Sbarro's on the watchlist for going out of business this year or next, that Manager will be extra fierce!
Negative buttons! 0_0
I will miss their large new york-ish pizza.
Another great strip today, Joel! I gotta get used to this new Tues-Thurs schedule. Here's a tip: next time you say I followed by a verb, do it Mac style with iHave, iAm, iThink, iPwn, etc.
That raccoon looks more surprised than happy, tho.
Raccoonologist.
The English lexicon has been needing this word since its inception! May the lords of the all things languagey bless you for your contribution.
Languageish?
uh, lingual.
But languagey sounds ironic and slightly cuter.
Ah, there it is. The webcomic that I look forward to. And it doesn't disappoint.
Those wily raccoons and their crazy ways. I'm wondering what the second one is hearing…
The ocean.
Mind = Blown.
Raccoons got earbuds!
Wasn't "Procyon Iotor" a place or person name in one of the Treks?
Procyon Iotor Alpha 5.
AY-YI-YI!
Tues Thurs isnt the new schedule. Just for this week because Im super busy before I leave town.
Yeah lay off the man….he's busy. 😛 Watch it or all the fancy bastards will go all hairy bear geek fu on your ass…and you don't want that…
OK OK I'm just making an observation is all. I complimented him on the greatness of this strip!
He was kidding. Its cool. Doing guest strips next week and probably a new HE comic on Friday the 20th.
And here I though someone was surely going to make a reference to doing something to your ass….
Fancy bastards….I'm disappointed in you….
I looked up the real name for such a person and apparently theres no such thing.
Patent that shit! Or whatever the equivalent way is when you call dibs on a word that you created.
And they said Ipod wasn't tested on animals! :O
Great comic! I love that the second raccoon is looking a little skeptical about the earbuds, or maybe about what he's hearing, or the fact that they're plugged into a butt.
The tenor of the discussion on the blog you posted is hilarious, too. "Everything is fine! Apple is fine! Don't lose the earbuds you dumb son of a bitch!"
i wonder if he is hearing anything. I bet its like listening to a sea shell but with a raccoon but instead.
I sense a new Apple product…the iCoon! They're warm and fuzzy and simply plug your handy ear buds into the anus and they store over 10gigs of music and intestine! To change songs simply poke them in the bellybutton.
(legal disclaimer) "iCoon is not a house pet. Do not let iCoon near your trash bin. If bitten by iCoon please update your rabies shot. Plugging anything else into the anus of iCoon will void the warrenty"
Do you have Mind Reading or Cache reading Powers? I was like, Coming to HE to spam "make a comic about the new Shuffle!" 2000 times.
Also, i think moving the controls to the earphones is a smart move. I have a Nokia 5200 and the earphones only have one button, it only goes to next track.
With the shuffle you can solve 2 problems: Reaching the controls and hiding the device better, so you prevent stealing.
When i bought my first Mp3 player, there was a shuffle there, one of them squarey and with the click wheel. i didnt like it because i said "its not small enough to dispose the screen, the size just doesnt justify it." now you got a thing that is likely to be confused with a mini lighter, and is more cute.
Ummm yeah but I've never had any earbuds I've ever owned and used daily last more than say 6 months? Somehow I think they'll be charging like 30 dollars for them so evertime you accidentally break them or sever the cord while doing something you have to fork up more money. I've got to hand it to apple they really know how to rape you for cash at every opportunity. Also…if there's no controls on the player how do you plug it in to your car adapter or any other device and still control the audio? Just saying…
That's why http://www.instructables.com exists!
I would like Apple to release a cheap headphone adapter that would have the control button on it and a standard minijack port at the end of it (they used to ship a similar headphone adapter with built-in controls for /free/ with the 3G iPod, so it's not far-fetched). Earbuds really bother my ears, so it would be nice to use my own headphones with this new device.
3rd parties are already releasing those but most arent shipping for a few months. Scosche (sp?) is doing them for sure but they are almost as expensive as the shuffle. Cheap one will be on ebay soon enough.
congratulations !!
i love this little comic, and the racoons seems so cool (especially the "doctor" racoon)
thanks for the good laugh
Thanks!
Bonus points for getting the racoon's scientific name right! Love the comic, as always! (Though I have to admit, the veterinarian in me shudders at the thought of what the headphones are doing to the racoon's intesines…)
I tried to find the correct name for a "raccoon scientist" and came to the conclusion that no one has such a job.
Language-alicious?
I checked out the links and OMG. That chart for the blinking green and red lights. It looks identical to the SNL fake commercial made years ago for a mace spray and lipstick in one. It came with a multi-page chart showing if it was extremely powerful mace spray or lipstick… switch set to blue means lipstick, switch set to red means mace… except if the temperature is above 73 degrees then it's reversed. If it's a full moon and below 65 degrees then reverse it. Etc. (Sorry if somebody posted a comment like this already. I've decided to quit this silly sleep thing cold turkey).
it seriously looks like snarky web-parody as opposed to "official documentation."
Not having ever owned an iPod, I could take or leave this new one. I mean, it will be cheap enough for me to purchase, and I don't mind the ear buds (they're generally my headphone of choice), but I think it's stupid that it's required to buy those specific headphones. In one of the comments to one of the links, someone suggests that they make a jack that has the controls on them so that they can use their own headphones. I like that idea a lot, because I have rather expensive headphones, and if I'm working on homework sans computer (I know, wtf math?), I use my nice headphones and my CD player. If I buy an iPod, I would like to be able to use my own headphones.
Oh, and the fact that you have to click through 4 gigs of songs because you can't see which ones you're clicking on, that's really, really fucking retarded. Especially if you have to click twice to get to ever single one. The wheel was way better on the nanos (I've used my friends' nanos).
The new shuffle really isn't so bad. It's sleek, tiny (about the size of a bluetooth headset), and clippy. I've been using a demo all day in the store and it only takes a minute or so to get used to. I gotta admit, though, after seeing this comic, I'm a bit nervous about putting the headphones in my ear. : )
yeah I was super impressed with the "speech synth" feature.
Clearly, you are neither old nor from anywhere in the south.
I am laughing out loud for any number of reasons at iCoon – most of them I'm going straight to hell for.
Hey! That's my sister! But she's way cuter IRL.
I love your comic btw, especially when involving family cameos. 🙂
i guess that would be weird if you didnt know it was going to happen.