The Wikipedia page on Achilles is interesting. He is featured in the Iliad, but the part about him being invulnerable except for his heel was added centuries later, and directly contradicts parts of the Iliad. Also, there’s an alternate version where his mother tried to make him immortal by covering him in ambrosia and burning him.

I guess the ancient Greeks were less strict about the particulars of their religion than anyone in the present day.

TEXT OF COMIC:
The story of Achilles is STUPID.
When he’s born, his mother wants him to be immortal, so she dips him in the river Styx. But she holds him by his heel, so his heel isn’t immortal. And then someone kills his whole, immortal body by damaging his mortal heel! It doesn’t make sense!
I’m writing my own alternate history. In MY version, Achilles gets hit in the heel, and he stumbles and is captured… but no matter how much they try, they can’t kill any part of him besides his heel.
He lives in captivity until the regime that captured him crumbles and falls, and then he walks out of the ruins and wanders the world forever. He’s probably still around. Next time you see a crazy homeless guy walking with a limp…
I’m writing a better version. In MY version, his mother avoids the whole stupid problem by dipping ALL of him into the river, even though that means dipping her hand in too.
Her hand outlives her, and after the rest of her body dies, it wanders the world forever. Centuries later it gets a job acting in “The Addams Family.”
Wow. That– that DOES make more sense than mine.
I like how neither one of us is complaining about the unlikeliness of this magic river existing in the first place.

This is Erika in the year 2011, and I’m writing this comic for all of you great people in the year 2012.

TEXT OF COMIC:
Hello?
Hi, this is Abby in the year 2012. I want my computer back.
What are you doing?
I just made a recording that I’m going to save on my hard drive.
Years from now, when this computer is totally obsolete, some behind-the-times person might still be using it. He might be completely unwilling to heed his friends’ advice to get a newer one. Then they can grab it from him, play this recording, and say, “Dude, 2012 called, and they want their computer back.”
And it’ll be TRUE.
Thanks for letting me know, because that person will probably be you.

Thank you, spider in my cabinet this morning, for inspiring this comic. Enjoy the grain bugs you caught, and congratulations on your bundle of joy.

Really, I’m not an insane nature freak, I’m just cheap. Pesticides cost money, and that spider and its kids are willing to do it for free.

TEXT OF COMIC:
Ewwww.
What?
There’s a spider web in your food cabinet. With a spider. And its egg sac.
LEAVE IT ALONE.
Abby–
Do you see all the bugs caught in the spider web? They’re grain-eating bugs. They didn’t get into the flour, because that spider stopped them in time. You can thank that spider for the fact that we have muffins to eat.
Great, now I don’t feel like eating them.
People say they’re in favor of natural pest control alternatives, but they never seem to like seeing them in action.

To come up with the punny names Abby makes up, I had to spend a lot of time on a webpage devoted to listing all the words that begin with a given letter or series of letters. Not surprisingly, that webpage is intended as a Scrabble resource. To use it, just type in http://www.scrabblefinder.com/starts-with/something/ and replace “something” with whatever letters you like.

I think we should start a Scrabble club. We’d make an amazing team.
We should call ourselves the Orthograndmasters, or the Vocabulanoes, or the Triple Word Sorcerors.
We would crush our competition into crumbs with our crossword crossfire.
You saying we should compete in official tournaments?
Of course! We will be an integral part of every future Scrabble tournament. You won’t be able to spell “tournament” without our name.
Actually, “tournament” can be spelled without any of those names you suggested.
I mean you can’t spell the word “tournament” without the words “our name,” stuck in between the letters in “TNT.”
I’ll remember that, in case I need to use it in Scrabble.
Ooh, or we could call ourselves “Tri-nitro-tournament.”

But they don’t pop out as reliably. Kleenex is the default brand name for a reason.

TEXT OF COMIC:
What’s wrong, Hans?
I bought a used X-Box on eBay, and the previous owner hadn’t even cleaned the dust and cobwebs and crud out of it before putting it up for sale. It’s the filthiest piece of electronic equipment I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to spend so much time and money getting it cleaned, it’s not even worth the money I saved buying it on eBay. What do I have to spend to get a clean X-Box?
About three dollars at the drugstore.
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WERE GOING TO SAY THAT!
The store brand tissues are cheaper, though.

That paragraph used to be on Wikipedia, but it has been removed. I don’t know, maybe there wasn’t a credible source listed for it? It’s still on some sites that have quoted from Wikipedia, though.

TEXT OF COMIC:
I love the internet. You can find out anything.
Hah. Can you find out the meaning of life? Can you find out why people think dinner conversation is a good idea? Can you find out why Judy Blume left out the comma in “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret”?
Well, let’s see.
Here we are. “Blume’s preferred punctuation of the title is ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ with no comma between ‘there’ and ‘God.’ While this is incorrect in following the commonly accepted rules of written English, Blume intended this so there was no separation in the story between Margaret and God.”
That makes no sense, you know. The comma that should be added to that sentence wouldn’t even be between “God” and “Margaret.” And they already have two words, another comma, and a friggin’ question mark between them.
Well, looks as if the internet helped us find out that Judy Blume used a bogus explanation to cover up her character’s linguistic incompetency.
I guess the internet is good for something.

I hate shoelaces. They come untied, and get frayed, and catch on things. Someday they’re going to kill me at work, by snagging on the bottom of a pallet jack and making me fall on my head. Velcro sucks because it wears out too fast, but zippers on shoes would be a useful idea.

TEXT OF COMIC:
Have you ever thought about how strange it is that glasses come in so many different fashionable styles?
You don’t see that in any other device that compensates for a physical disability. You never see stylish prosthetic limbs or hearing aids.
There are stylish canes, though.
Okay, you’re right. Glasses and canes. Why those two?
Because they were invented so long ago. Fashion is slow to adapt to the use of new technology.
Yeah, that’s true. I can’t think of any other reason why people would still use friggin’ shoelaces.
Not everybody has as much trouble tying their shoes as you.

Abby knows DeForest Kelley’s birthday without even having to look it up.

TEXT OF COMIC:
What does it mean when a restaurant lists “close” as the closing time?
Huh?
I saw a restaurant downtown, and its hours were listed as “noon until close.”
That’s as if DeForest Kelley’s lifespan were listed on Wikipedia as “January 20, 1920 until he died.” Or if a history book said that World War II lasted “from September 1st, 1939 until it ended.” It’s a total lack of information!
Maybe the restaurant doesn’t close at the same time every night. Maybe it depends on how much business they have in the evening.
Then they should say that!
Well, why would they have to? What other meaning could it have?
It could mean “noon until a time CLOSE to noon.”

Maybe it’s squeezed purely, without any original sin in the process? Immaculate constriction?

(The original sin was eating forbidden fruit, so as long as the juice doesn’t contain any of that, it’s fine.)

TEXT OF COMIC:
This orange juice says “Pure Squeezed” on the carton. I wonder what that means.
It means it’s pure orange juice, squeezed out of an orange.
But all orange juice is squeezed out of an orange. Even if it’s from concentrate, the juice got squeezed at some point before it was made into a concentrate.
The “squeezed” part means nothing. It’s completely unnecessary. It was already implied as soon as they labeled the product as orange juice.
They only use the word because people associate it with the phrase “fresh squeezed,” which they can’t use because it’s not fresh squeezed if it’s in a carton. The only purpose of using that word is to delude people into reacting to this product as if it were something it’s not.
See, you didn’t have to ask me why they label it like that. You already knew why.
I had a forlorn hope it might not be true.

I’ve often thought about how much more complicated language would get if we had pronouns to indicate traits other than gender. Age? Race? Mental diagnosis? You’d have to know several details about people just to mention them in conversation. And the combinations and permutations of the various descriptors might result in hundreds of pronouns.

Plus, race and mental condition are spectrums; it’s hard to define just where someone falls, when the line between one side and the other is so fuzzy. But then, the same goes for gender, and we somehow think we can have pronouns for that.

TEXT OF COMIC:
I was reading a Wikipedia page about a famous transsexual.
Hmm.
A male-to-female transsexual. She wanted to be considered female, but people who objected to her lifestyle insisted she was really still male.
Well, that’s a controversial topic.
And it’s harder for Wikipedia to stay neutral on that than on most controversial topics.
Huh? Why would this one be especially hard?
Well, even the pronouns you use will reflect a bias.
The only way the article could remain completely neutral would be to avoid using pronouns altogether, and just use her name in every instance.
Abby is so wrapped up in Abby’s weird obsession with literalism that there should be a special pronoun just for talking about people as weird as Abby.