DCML digest #820

Don Rosa donrosa at iglou.com
Thu Jan 31 15:31:24 CET 2002


From: "Fluks, H.W." <H.W.Fluks at kpn.com>
>>>I wonder which date can be considered "right", and if a date is an
absolute
thing, or can be different locally. Time zones are different locally, for
instance.

Not only that, but there were different dates skipped in different
countries or groups of countries. Again, excuse me for not hunting down my
notes and giving a thorough report on this... but this isn't the place for
such details, and interested parties can seek the data elsewhere while
bored parties can be glad they can. But I made sure that my story involved
a certain thing happening (we should have long ago stopped getting so close
to spoiling the story) in Spain because that is a country where those dates
in question were skipped. If that certain thing had taken place in another
country, those dates would still have existed while it would have been
others which were skipped and my plot-twist would have been nullified, so I
just plain didn't let that little thing happen. America skipped the dates
very late, probably because we were so isolated from the rest of the
civilized world that, in the days when there was only sea travel, it didn't
much matter if we were on the exact same time-frame as Europe. And as I
said, Russia was last to skip the days, doing so well into the 20th
century.

>>>If Russia's official calendar says it's October, but other countries say
it's November, did the revolution happen in October or November?

The answer to this question can only be that if the revolution took place
on soil where it was deemed to be October, then historians have apparently
agreed to call it October even though it was November. This obviously also
applies to America's very distinct celebration of the day Columbus
discovered America as October 12 even though it was October 21. (I guess
the Julian calendar was deemed to be in effect in the America's as long as
Spain was in charge here.) We accept both the Julian and Gregorian
calendars as being valid even though one does not agree with t'other. He
*must*, otherwise the history books would be in a big mess. Who was it...
someone sent me an e-mail recently about how it is often mentioned by
literature scholars that Shakespeare and some other famous writer died on
the exact same day, even though they actually died over a week apart
regardless of the fact that they died on the same date. Huh?
My head hurts.

>>>I'm sure the pope didn't change the past when he decided to skip 10
days.

The pope can do anything. He's infallible. Hadn't you heard?

>>>This makes things even more complicated than conversion to the euro. I
just
realise that a remembrance day in my city of birth (Groningen), celebrates
August 28, 1672. Groningen converted to Gregorian calendar in about 1710.
So
what are we celebrating every year on August 28?

You are celebrating that Emperor Julian screwed up big time.
But... what's all this hafta to do with Mickey the Mouse?

From: "jlbovet" <jlbovet at hotmail.com>
To: <dcml at stp.ling.uu.se>
Subject: Scrooge's  drink and food
Date:   Wed, 30 Jan 2002 17:46:52 +0100
>>>In the french "The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut", the fine brandy is
transated
by "cognac".

Ah. Naturally they would. Good.

>>>He drinks Chicha in this story, but it seems that he doesn't like this
very
much...

It's not that he doesn't "like" it. That's one element in the story that I
had to change or risk the whole story possibly being considered unprintable
in a country where there are fans who wanted to see it. I originally had
$crooge describing chicha as what it is, a *very* potent fermented mixture
of corn mash. In fact, it's created by the Indian women chewing the corn up
and spitting it into the fermentation jugs -- I even originally *showed*
them doing that, another reason I thought better of leaving the full facts
in the tale. I finally described chicha as simply being very "strong" so
that you, for one, assumed it just tasted bad. But what actually happens to
T.R. and $crooge in the story when they drink the stuff is that they are
knocked out cold as carps by the alcohol content.
But I'm uncomfortable with that idea, too. Even though I do not consider
$crooge as someone who likes booze much, I also consider him, after his
years in the Yukon and other frontiers of the world, as someone who could
hold any amount of the strongest likker and never notice it. But that's
something that I guess will need to stay in my "private notes" category of
$crooge lore.

>>>- we also see the fridge of $crooge: !!!full!!! of freezed food like
pizzas,
Note that he hasn't anything from his garden in his fridge($crooge produces
lettuce - story by Barks- from his garden so why not other vegetables that
he will put in the fridge).

Well... I look upon that one panel of $crooge growing lettuce as a
story-device for that *one* story to introduce the fact that there are
gophers under the Bin. For example, there was one other single panel in one
other story where Barks needed to save panel-time in $crooge getting
somewhere, so he hops into the intercontinental rocket he keeps in a room
in the Bin and off he goes. We didn't include any sucha thing in our Bin
blueprints (though readers are still free to imagine for themselves that it
exists on one of the floors I don't show). But I don't see $crooge as a
gardener... I *know* from annual personal experience how much time that
takes, and that to grow vegetables just for your *own* private consumption
is actually more expensive than buying them, not even to mention the work
and time! Growing your own vegetables is a hobby, not a way to save $.
All that frozen food in $crooge's icebox (and did you note it was a 1910
style ice box?) was a clue to tell astute readers that $crooge eats nothing
but frozen TV dinners, too cheap to eat out or hire a cook, too lonely to
have someone to cook for him. I see him as leading a very poor life just as
Donald once told him. But, bah, kid talk, no man is poor who can do what he
*likes* to do once in a while.......

>>>As I read this story, one questions about the blueprint:
* Why an elevator? Sometimes we see $crooge using stairs, but I don't
remember seeing an elevator in the money bin.

They had elevators in 1902, so why *not* an elevator? He certainly would
not waste so much time going up and down 10+ stories of staircases, and
they would need an elevator to lift precious metals and gems up to the
storage vaults. But notice that the employees are not allowed in the
private elevator, and neither are the mailmen who must lug huge bags of
mail up and down the stairs from the whatever-it-was floor -- I refer you
to the small room on that floor with beds named "mailman recovery ward"...
at least it was in our original version.







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