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: Polar Bear Training: Deflationated
Mar 16, 2006

Some of us, I’m not naming names, can provide ourselves with hours of entertainment just by blowing up balloons and then letting them go and watch them jet around in their random fashion.

So I really opened up some serious discussion on how to refer to what I called water wings. Is it water wings, or is it floaties? Some even call them arm bands or swimmies. All these nicknames appear here on the Wikipedia page for Water Wings.

Apparently the phrase “Water Wings” was coined back with the original incarnation of them, which had a thinner strap area that wrapped around you and then the two larger parts of the sack stuck out like wings. See the picture:

http://www.victorianelegance.com/ve/vec1065b.jpg

Actually this was also explained by “The Dark Snack” over at the LiveJournal feed discussion of the comic.

Maybe today we can discuss whether we think these things are even safe or would allow a kid to learn to swim on their own. 😉

MySpace & LiveJournal

I’m in your extended network! I now have a MySpace account as well as a LiveJournal account, so feel free to add me as a friend if you like. I’ll be keeping the blog at the LiveJournal page with updates on whatever projects I’m working on aside from On the Rocks.

16 Comments

  1. Lee says:

    I hope somebody makes an animated version of the middle panels someday!

  2. SuperVegito says:

    Man Its Almost Like Osbourne is break dancing. that wud be fun 2 watch. but ne wayz i just wanetd to know how come wallys naked in this one hes not wearing his scarf or ne thing orange for that matter he realy looks naked. Tyler shame on you striping down wally 2 his bare naked self (Pun Intended) 😛

    nice strp bro U DA MAN 😀

  3. Jhon says:

    *go play with some balloons*
    very funny one, good job 😛

  4. HER says:

    Oh yay, penguins CAN fly!

  5. Marc Reeve says:

    so that photo of the original “water wings” looks a lot like the WWII inflatable life vest called the “Mae West” (‘cos, um, it made you look like you had enormous breasts when inflated.). I guess “Water Breasts” would have been a non-optimal product name in the Victorian era, eh? 😉

  6. Pete says:

    Finally got around to reading through the archives (been meaning to for some time). Good stuff!

    -Pete (roofpig from the BLC forums)

  7. Ashley says:

    lmbo!!!

  8. Matt D says:

    SHPLOT!

  9. Phill says:

    Heh, Wally doesn’t seem to realise that putting that much air in them will make the floaties heavier (simply because there’s more air), but the floaties don’t have the elasticity to inflate any further, so no more water displacement (and therefore buoyancy) will occur.
    But then being Wally, that’s not surprising 🙂 Poor, unsuspecting Osbourne..

  10. bobo says:

    wally rarely gets hurt.

  11. bobo says:

    Osbourne on the other hand…

  12. The Angel says:

    I think it kinda looks like Osbourne is wearing underwear in the last two and a third panels.

  13. hello says:

    whoa..

  14. nicola(da-bird-lover) says:

    The first penguin to fly i thought penguins dont fly heheh:):-)just my little joke:-)

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