Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Comics 908 and 909: The Depths

908. I don't understand how this could possibly be imagined as funny. At all. Why is Black Hat here? He's not doing anything malicious. There's two possible ways to interpret his dialog here: either he's being moderately ironic, or he's being stupid. But the "joke," insofar as you can call it that, seems to be nothing more than "black hat guy can totally destroy all of cloud computing." Am I missing something here?

909. Hot damn, Randy's done it again! I love the comics where he tries to pass off his obnoxious nerd habits as something charming and quirky. "Look, the reason I buy expensive flashlights is because I like to imagine situations in which my expensive flashlight is the only thing between me and certain disaster, OKAY?"

Survival nerds do this sort of thing a lot. Of course, they aren't being delightfully quirky when they spend far too much money on a flashlight they never use, or on their apocalypse survival kits. Things which they are quite certain they would employ to badass effect if a situation ever arose in which they would use it. It's the nerd equivalent of a gun on the mantlepiece. The mere possession of this "badass" gear implies to the untrained eye that you use it, or have used it, or at least know how to use it. This is true even if you have never left your room.

I'm having some trouble imagining a scenario where you would need to go diving after some wreckage that is so time-sensitive you can't buy or otherwise acquire some appropriate diving equipment. It's a flashlight. You can get a mini maglite for ten dollars for your day-to-day functionality, and then spend more on something with the features you want when you find yourself needing it.

I'm too afraid to check out the forodes on this one. My prediction, though, is that, GOOMH-bait as this comic is, it will be full of some pretty insufferable descriptions of the various nerdy things with useless features the forumites have purchased in the past, and why they decided to buy the one with useless features.

GOOMH, Randall, I once bought a laptop that was impact-resistant because I was afraid it might get trampled by horses!

153 comments:

  1. if randy were like "hey, people by expensive flashlights, because they like dreaming about advantures", it would be okay. But somehow the punchline was lost.

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  2. And here I was thinking half the point of being a nerd was using your superior analytical skills to avoid buying useless junk/paying for useless features. But no - obviously it's to be fleeced like the rest of the rabble, just in a quirky way. Thank you for clarifying Randall

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  3. 908: You completely missed the point. Black Hat is being malicious. He's pretending that he isn't totally planning on going all "WHOOOPS looks like someone ACCIDENTALLY unplugged the cord on which all cloud computing is based!"

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  4. How does that make 908 any better, Ranarius?

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  5. Rob I think you're missing something important.

    Survivalists really do need all that shit, in case a brown person ever enters their house.

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  6. I thought it was GOOMHR, not GOOMH.

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  7. @Anon607: Rob removes the "R" lest people realize that his name bears the same first and last initials as his counterpoint and suspicions grow.

    re909: I thought "heh", but did not actually make any noise. So I guess it's "meh"?

    Captcha: djews. Captcha has some sort of Semite agenda going on.

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  8. 909 is a repackaging of that one joke he did several hundred comics ago. The one where every time he learns something new, he fantasizes about a scenario wherein he needs it to save the day. That one was regular expressions, this one is a flashlight. The first wasn't really that good, but this one's even worse.

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  9. 909 merely reminds us that, deep down, all geeks know that they're easily replaceable cogs in the machinery of technocracy, all their stupid quirks nothing but expressions of a fantasy that they do something which matters.

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  10. cptnoremac, you mean 209. That's the first thing I thought of when I read it, too. The first one didn't make all that much sense to me, as there would be much easier ways to solve the problem, and 909 doesn't make all that much sense either. If diving deeper than 10 metres, I'd probably be using some equipment and might be able to find a torch in the same place I get the scuba. Might just be me, but my lungs start to hurt before that. For boating, I find that a floating torch is much better. Easier to recover if accidentally dropped, and no need for it to be water resistant at any great pressure.
    908 seemed to me like black hat isn't doing anything except being stupid. I think the joke is "cloud goes down a lot. maybe someone unplugs it?" which isn't all that funny.
    ~ ele
    captcha: suslogr, a suspicious lumberjack

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  11. Someone make an edit where the comic is named "Worst-Case Shipping" involving Fleshlights and the Rob-dall pairing.

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  12. 909 has the worst case of PPD I've seen in a long time.

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  13. Wow, beret guy shows up in 209? Who knew he was that old?

    Also, elementz, you mean 208.

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  14. Everyone look at the last panel of 909. The guy on the left looks like he's holding his own decapitated head. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

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  15. The joke in 908 is that most data centers/web services which make up the "cloud" are extremely sketchy fly-by-night operations that may, at some point, have heard the word "reliability". In a magazine. Once.

    Yet massive multimillion dollar businesses, as well as consumers, are supposed to trust these people with their data.

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  16. ...and how is that meant to be funny?

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  17. well Rob I found it perfectly hilarious so there

    maybe you need a BMI of less than 7.8*10^23 to appreciate the humor here

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  18. my bmi is 7.8*10^22, thank you

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  19. 40 meters is pretty deep. The absolute limit for recreational diving (thank you wikipedia). If he's going to have scuba equipment, you'd think he would have a light that would let him swim that far down. . . it's just common sense. I don't think he understands feet->meter calculation.

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  20. Well, I found it funny, but then I work in the industry. It's a comic designed to pander to a specific niche audience.

    (You know, because Randall's _never_ done that before).

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  21. The joke is that he's keeping it such that the cable might be tripped over, which would be a disaster and he's being all cheeky going "oh, that's not going to happen is it wink wink," but we know he's not sincere because look at that hat! That's the black hat guy!

    Then the alt-text proves that the joke can be made even less funny by simply stating that it does happen. It's a masterstroke.

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  22. @daniel_ream People have been making jokes about "the cloud" being worthless marketing hyped by shysters to idiots since, well, every IT slave over the age of 40 had the temerity to note that we've had VAXclusters since the mid '80s.

    The difference is that VAXclusters were built out of good hardware for uptimes in years. They were operated within the firm by people who actually cared about the data on their machines rather than some third party half way across the world who considers you just as important as each of the other 100,000,000 accounts.

    Oh, and the best VAXclusters really were geographically distributed while a "cloud" is often a single server room which pretends to have supernatural qualities of resilience.

    A joke isn't funny if it's a decade or three late to the party. Especially if it pretends to appeal to a particular audience but has no novel geeky twists to it at all. For example, given the learnings provided above, I hope you might see that it could at least bring on a smile if we found out that the cloud was an array of VAX 11/780s chugging away quietly in the corner with the battery backup option and an uptime since 1985 but which no-one had found a use for until a few years ago. The fashionable move to using commodity hardware meant a switch to VAXstation VLCs. That would be moderately geeky and show that Randall had perhaps even done some work beyond reading Wikipedia.

    But no. HAHA I TRIP OVER THE SERVER CABLE THE INTERNET GOES BOOM.

    captcha: fornac: 8 with Megan.

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  23. I mean essentially this joke was done better by real life last month

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  24. If ever I decide to catch the bus, I'll tell them Randall Munroe gave me a ticket.

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  25. Everyone look at the last panel of 909. The guy on the left looks like he's holding his own decapitated head. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

    "Alas, poor Yorick!"

    You're right. You CAN'T unsee it.

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  26. The purpose of the garlic crusher in the third panel is to stop the frying pan falling off. Hence "OH NO."

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  27. I can unsee it very easily.
    But then again, i'm kind of special.
    In a good way, i mean.

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  28. +1 Ann.

    ....Not that anyone's surprised.

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  29. Anonymous @ 9:17 AM:

    "909 merely reminds us that, deep down, all geeks know that they're easily replaceable cogs in the machinery of technocracy, all their stupid quirks nothing but expressions of a fantasy that they do something which matters."

    In fairness, everyone is easily replaceable, everyone's quirks are stupid, and nothing that anyone does matters. Like nearly everything on the Internet, posting to xkcdsucks is yet another method of exhibiting this, tantamount to taking out a full-page newspaper ad saying "Hi, my life is a waste."

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  30. I thought the joke in 909 was "why on Earth would _anyone_ care about a flashlight being water resistant to 40m?" That is, when a product comes out with that kind of "feature" as the only real distinction between itself and one that comes at half its price, one has to wonder why the manufacturer thought this was a product worth selling in a walk-in store.

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  31. @11:49 The difference is the presence of denial.

    And now for the more poetic answer:

    Bla bla boy walking among thousands of beached sea creatures; begins throwing them back into the sea; cynical old man appears and scoffs, "You're never going to save all of them!"; boy replies, "I know, but I saved that one." There are health workers and political campaigners and even lawyers who, wading through the piss and the shit of life, sometimes manage to "save that one".

    But the effete Randallesque nerd, whether through cowardice, hubris or stupidity, saves no-one. Perhaps, when he enters the eternal sleep, the Fates will grant him his eternal dream(*). Or perhaps he will remnain the nothing whence he came and again became.

    (*) in hell cos true geeks are atheist cos believers are just dumb there are worse things a priest can put into a young boy than his dick DAWKINS FOREVER also VOTE RON PAUL amirite guise?

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  32. I'm surprised that you didn't mention the fact that if you want to be able to READ the tiny text on the "labels" of the flashlights, you have to either zoom your screen in or get so close to your monitor your eyes feel like their going to burn out.

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  33. Clearly you don't have a 30" iMac, which means you're not the target xkcd readership.

    captcha: skingide: Randall's popup pocket female anatomy manual.

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  34. @12:45 That would be a different joke of no better quality. The joke isn't just "this is unreliable." The joke he's trying to make is that Mr. Black Hat has purposely rigged it to fail by somebody else's hand. We know this because of the character being used. The improvement we need to see is... I don't know, something more clever. Preferably a joke completely unrelated to this one, the creative process that led to this one having been abandoned upon the author realising that he can't think of anything good to do with the idea.

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  35. I hate that the 80s were three decades ago.

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  36. @2:14: It wouldn't work as an xkcd style strip because xkcd doesn't paint pictures, just scrawl fleeting thoughts. If you think that a carefully pencil-sketched herd of CI star-coupled VAX 11/780s administered by a single weary greybeard sitting at a desk while an ostensibly cost-cutting PFY stands round the corner with a stack of VLCs in his arms is "of no better quality" then you, Sir, have no soul.

    You also shatter my dream that there is someone somewhere in some profession who relies on being experienced with an old but reliable tool - a tool built somewhere for reasons other than the desperation, lack of freedom and low cost of its workers.

    And what is replacing the battery backed up 11/780 with a VLC if not rigging for cable-tripping or build-related failure?

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  37. I love to just come here and remind myself that no matter how mundane my life seems, at least it's not so uneventful that I spend all of my time ranting about how a mediocre web comic is the digital equivalent to Satan.

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  38. "I love to just come here and remind myself that no matter how mundane my life seems, at least it's not so uneventful that I spend all of my time ranting about how a mediocre web comic is the digital equivalent to Satan."

    No, instead you make comments about the rants, so you're, what, three levels away from having a life? (real people-randall-rob-you)

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  39. I love to come here and feed upon the hatred until I become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

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  40. @2:50 The 80s are forever.

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  41. @8:48 It doesn't take up any more time out of most of our days than does a particularly troublesome shit. There's plenty of time left over for writing novels and fucking women. Sorry to hear you lead a mundane life, though. You should do something about that.

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  42. Is Randall's potential daughter the new Megan? Why does he have to shoehorn her in every other fucking comic?

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  43. everything after the word "server" in the last panel is worthless

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  44. moar lik PRICELESS amirite?

    Captcha: nesse. fifth time I've gotten "nesse" or "nesses". The bots could figure this out.

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  45. The last panel reminds me a bit of those several comics about childbirth way back when.

    I also noted this comic features more colors than perhaps any other xkcd in the past 100. Too bad they were only used to represent a crappy computer display.

    Isn't Randy mister Mac-and-Linux? Shouldn't he have a prettier display going on there?

    Or maybe it's an "experimental operating system" with only six colors.

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  46. @TPK: The screen shown is part of the initial setup for some distributions of Linux, before the OS is fully installed yet. Specifically, it looks identical to a screen provided during the set up of Debian Linux, but probably matches others.


    It's hard to tell if he's trying to emphasis the speed with which "Caroline" was chosen, or if he's implying there's something wrong with that name.

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  47. @ThePirateKing looks like a text-based Debian install to me. I think they have a graphical installer too but I've never tried it. Debian's the basis for quite a few Linux distributions but also has its own releases on a famously long release cycle, meaning it's popular among server admins who want stability rather than cutting edge. It also has unstable and testing branches, meaning you get an up-to-date Debian usable on the desktop with a bit more work than, say, Ubuntu. It tends to be popular among Free software stalwarts. IOW it has a certain geek cred which Randall's almost certainly pandering to.

    But I don't get the joke at all. Is it that a human name also ends up in dozens of remote config files? It makes little sense to create a mockable tooltip rather than attributing the words to a character in the strip proper.

    I see he's delivering a staple diet of sexism and heroism: the poor drug-addled woman had to be saved in "like 15 seconds" by the quick-thinking Randall^Wgeek.

    tl;dr The geek is caring as a mother to his new server and that means he might start LACTATING!

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  48. GOOMH Randall I also find computers more interesting than humans

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  49. 910 : PPD, or is the joke that his wife was going to name the kid "Epidural"?

    I don't know, but it would have made me laugh if he quit at the first line of dialogue, but then he says something that removes the logical leap for me, and hence removes the humour, then two unnecessary blanks. Then another joke which would have been good for me too, but then he ruins that one too with another tack-on joke about epidurals.

    I would have seriously GOOMH if he quit at the first line of dialogue, because that's all a true computer geek needs to recognise the ridiculous situation that is so familiar. But Randall dumbed it down for his new retarded audience who are only posing as geeks. "OMG, I totally find computer stuff more important too!"

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  50. I'm going to make a lipstick for xkcd fans called GOOMsHtick. Its ingredients shall be:

    1. two parts human breast milk;
    2. two parts Randall semen;
    3. one part tears of failure.

    The customer shall be required to provide a sample of the third item for mixing.

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  51. @Anon244: Yeah, but what if people don't like the taste of cheetos/lactiation/mushrooms? Wait, who are we kidding.

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  52. @2:44 I've sourced the second ingredient. Spam filter might not let me post a link, but search for "Randall semen for sale" on Google.

    Ravenzomg, I assume, will provide the first.

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  53. in b4 comments about anon959 looking for semen online

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  54. @9:59 The fact that she has breasts doesn't mean you could milk her now. She'd have to be lactating.

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  55. ALTERNATE PUNCHLINE: reference to the Sontaran nurse from "A Good Man Goes To War"

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  56. ann you made me think bad thoughts

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  57. New one did not need the reference to naming kids. Naming kids is not easy, unless you puss out with a family name. The name of a kid affects his entire life. Albeit, Caroline is not a bad name, but it is obviously a Portal 2 reference.

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  58. R.: write those bad thoughts down, add a reference to naming stuff and floating heads, and submit it as the guest review for #910

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  59. "Naming kids is not easy"

    It's not like you have nine months to do it or anything.

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  60. @Gamer_2k4 if you're fat you may not realise you're pregnant until the last moment. See also Rob.

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  61. One day our illustrious colleague Randall is just going to post page after page of blank white images. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday the same thing.

    comic.png

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  62. I bet he's going to go "out with a bang" for comic 1000.

    But, knowing him, the "bang" is not going to be worth the wait.

    Also, the internet is terrifying. I basically assume everyone is like the two guys in this particular comic.

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  63. Bang? I'll donate the bullet.

    captcha: bolitoos. The outcome of currying favour with doritoos.

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  64. Sweet, 910's a good one.

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  65. I'm going to pretend like "Caroline" is a reference not to Portal, but to Dollhouse, a cancelled Joss Whedon show (you know, the guy who made that other cancelled show, Firefly.) And I'm going to pretend that's the joke.

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  66. ive been up 24 hours and 909 is funny!!

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  67. ive just been forced into watching a 12 hour Friends marathon and 908, 909 and 910 are funny!

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  68. i've just watched an episode of the big bang theory and oh god, please make it stop

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  69. lol intelligent but socially clueless aspie lol indian engineer lol jewish mother lol average girl next door fantasy lol characters from early '90s TV shows lol rpg reference lol random words from wikipedia physics article lol nerd relationship issues lol OH GOD IT'S WORSE THAN WHEN THEY MADE A TV VERSION OF DILBERT.

    captcha: flymbak: whence they came.

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  70. Hey guys, bingo is here. Click the link!

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  71. Hey Jon Levi you know that using GIF doesn't actually reduce the filesize, right? You think it does but that's only because GIF also reduces the color depth to an 8 bit palette. Surprise surprise, you can do that with PNG as well and it results in smaller images that look exactly the same. Because GIF is shit.

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  72. I am quite certain that two-headed snake developed can be used as a metaphor for something. That's a problem the geneticists keep discounting: zygote-formation-as-metaphor. Abigail and Brittany Hensel would benefit.

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  73. How XKCDsucks Saved My Life.

    Once I was reading a post and its subsequent comment string and it was so dull that I had to get up to run my head under the cold water tap. Just then this assagai came flying through my window - smashing my computer screen.
    Zulus!
    Fuck!
    So we formed a laager, called for reinforcements and went all Rorke’s Drift on their arses. It all ended quite nicely with a glorious slaughter of tribesmen. That was also the day Ann Apolis won the Victoria Cross.

    If it hadn’t been for XKCDsucks, I could have wound up in a cooking pot. I’ll always be grateful for that.

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  74. But if I save the compressed GIF image back as a PNG, the filesize almost doubles. Explain that, cuddlefish.

    Also I have nothing against the PNG format, I use it all the time. It's just, there are very few colours in my bingo cards, and we're not exactly creating a work of art here.

    Actually screw that, because I've just found out how to achieve GIF-level compression in a PNG image. It didn't work at first, but then I used Squeezer. And you're right, it is smaller. Thanks, Anon 6:09. :-)

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  75. Jon Levi: Don't worry, Anon609 just has shit internet and you're making him hurt by being unable to download your bingo quick enough.

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  76. This might seem a pedantic point of historical accuracy, but during the battle of Rorke's Drift no laager was formed. And I imagine you didn't count Michael Caine among you either.
    And Zulus were not cannibals and the cooking pot iconographic imagery is decidedly South American, not African, anyway.

    Piss poor, ALT-F. Piss poor indeed.

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  77. @ Anonymous 10:27 AM,

    You forgot that in the Engerland dialect, to which I most assiduously ascribe, the word: 'assagai' should be rendered: 'arsagai'.
    One should be thorough in one's analysis.

    Innit?

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  78. ALTF you remind me of an old friend who suffered from a nasty drug addition in his early 20s. He's back to outwardly normal functioning now, even managing to struggle through a numerate PhD, but if you listen to him speak in private he really goes off the deep end.

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  79. How does he sound in public?

    "go off the deep end",
    1. to enter upon a course of action with heedless or irresponsible indifference to consequences.
    2. to become emotionally overwrought.

    I am not familiar with that idiom. Which of the above two meanings do you ascribe to your old friend?

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  80. In private? A little bit of column 1; a little bit of column 2.

    And in public? Like you, ALTF, like you.

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  81. Have we met?

    So he has a stentorian voice then?
    He has a rhetorical manner that does not have his listeners thinking, "What a mellifluous speaker. So erudite." but instead has them taking up arms and shouting, "Off to Carthage! We will have our vengeance!".

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  82. I expect most listeners just roll their eyes and wonder if the speaker actually believes those comments are in any way clever or if it's just unrestrained spamming for the sake of it.

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  83. I'm as glorious as can be, Pauline
    I wonder what the end will be, Pauline
    Yes
    Here I am
    I find this very hard
    but I look at it this way

    I'm a backdoor man,
    I'm very proud of it
    I'm a backdoor man,
    I'm homosexual
    I'm a backdoor man, yes I am,
    I'm very proud of it
    I'm a backdoor man,
    I'm homosexual , giggles
    Backdoor,
    Clean up our own backdoor
    We need to get behind,
    And we'll do trade with you

    Backdoor,
    All our fears will be realised
    But I'm a happy person
    Because I'm a backdoor man,
    Yes I am giggles

    Sending you forget-me-nots
    To help you to remember
    Ummm um um um um um um um um

    What I've called for is a
    Homosexual government, yeah
    Join us, be one of us
    come out, be one of us, yeah

    I'm very proud,
    That I'm not straight
    I'm very proud,
    That I'm not natural
    You know, I'm not human
    Someone hit me on
    The head one day, yeah
    You know, I'm not human
    Someone hit me on
    The head one day and,
    I don't know
    I don't know
    I don't know

    Poor Pauline,
    Poor Pauline,
    Poor Pauline

    I like trees,
    And I like shrubs and plants
    And trees and shrubs and plants
    But I've put the fence up now
    So they can't get in, yeah
    Please explain, Me, me me
    Please explain me, me me
    Please explain me, me me
    Please explain

    Poor Pauline,
    Poor Pauline,
    I'm a gory as can be Pauline
    And her fame
    I'm a backdoor man
    I'm very proud of it
    I'm a backdoor man,
    I'm homosexual
    And back here,
    This is a circular driveway

    I still work and I worked
    Just the other night
    I'm rostered on, I
    Think for next week
    Now a gentleman came up
    And told me, he said that
    "Other people don't receive"
    They've got to accept here inside
    Or I'm saying that
    They up and leave

    Yes, it's a little bit country,
    It's a little bit country, country, Country
    It's a little bit rock and roll
    If you ask me
    Yes, it's a little bit country,
    of course, of course, of course,
    Her horse,
    Will neigh, neigh, neigh,
    Pauline

    I'm very proud
    That I'm not straight
    I'm very proud
    That I'm not natural

    I'm a backdoor man
    For the Ku Klux Klan
    With very horrendous plans
    I'm a very caring potato.
    We will never have the chance

    I'm a backdoor man
    For the Ku Klux Klan
    With very horrendous plans
    I'm a very caring potato.
    We will never have the chance

    Please explain, ME
    Me me
    Please explain
    Please explain, Me
    Me me
    Please explain
    Please explain, Me
    Please explain, me me
    Please explain,

    Thank you

    Please explain,
    Please explain, thank you

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  84. X-men First Class: Not enough Azazel! Amirite?

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  85. Oh wow, 3:13... to think I used to consider that hilarious. It's just so stupid.

    Not as stupid as when she had a hissy fit about it, though. She had to make it absolutely clear that the words in that song were lies, as though anybody would have thought it anything more than a joke. Good times. Good times.

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  86. That is an actual thing? Well, of course it is -- this is the internet. =\

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  87. @Ravenzomg

    Not just the internet. This is an actual song and it was broadcast on radio etc. while the person whose voice was appropriated for the job was campaigning for the state election.

    Pauline then sued the creator of the song, who responded by making another song in the same fashion called 'I Don't Like It'

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  88. Guys, I need your help. I hear there's a club down in old Soho where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola, but I can't seem to find it. What's the name of the club? Is it still open?

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  89. Something I've noticed in the thread for 908, one of the staples of the xkcd forum is the missing alt text. Oh by the way, it doesn't always appear in the first few minutes of the comic going up. Big deal! But some forumites feel the need to post about it. I might make it a new bingo square.

    Then on to, this post, yet another forumite who thinks Randall's mistakes are intentional:

    "I think "accidentally" leaving out the title text might be the joke of the title text."

    Oh god, Randall is so subtle, he must be a genius, hahahaha!

    Ahem.

    Moving onto the thread for 909, a lot of people disagreed with the science. But one forumite thought that the comic would have been so much better with a shoehorned reference to IPv6. Don't we all agree, guys?

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  90. In case the above post gets deleted, let it be known that I posted here at 3:03

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  91. Jon Levi noone cares about you enough to delete your posts

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  92. Ann, that is a filthy lie -- filthier than our striking thiefing mailmen, even [fuck you, spell-check -- there's no "v" in "to thief"]. The site has molded itself into Rob's image in that it devours all.

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  93. Raven I forgot to read your blog for ages so I missed the obvious shoutout that Penny Arcade gave you to show their support for your project

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  94. Re: Ann Apolis

    Google does! Sometimes my forum-watch posts get deleted three of four times. Then this happened.

    How... ORWELLIAN.

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  95. Stupid thiefs. They shouldn't be allowed to life.

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  96. I didn't delete your posts this time, Jon, but I do care.

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  97. The Marriage of Munroe

    1. Munroe went a-courtin', and he did ride, Uh-huh,
    Munroe went a-courtin', and he did ride, Uh-huh,
    Munroe went a-courtin', and he did ride.
    With a Wikipedia printout by his side, Uh-huh.

    2. Well he rode up to Miss Megan's door, Uh-huh,
    Well he rode up to Miss Megan's door, Uh-huh,
    Well he rode up to Miss Megan's door.
    Where he had been many comics before, Uh-huh.

    3. Said, "Miss Megan, are you within?" Uh-huh,
    Said he, "Miss Megan, are you within?" Uh-huh,
    Said, "Miss Megan, are you within?"
    "Here's my finger, sit and spin," Uh-huh.

    4. He messaged her on IRC, Uh-huh,
    He messaged her on IRC, Uh-huh,
    Messaged her on IRC.
    Said, "Miss Megan, will you marry me?" Uh-huh.

    5. "I have not reached age of consent, Uh-huh
    "I have not reached age of consent, Uh-huh
    "I have not reached age of consent.
    And such close relations are irreverent, Uh-huh

    6. Munroe he laughed and he shook his sides, Uh-huh,
    Munroe he laughed and he shook his sides, Uh-huh,
    Munroe he laughed and he shook his sides,
    To think his niece would be his bride, Uh-huh.

    7. Munroe he went runnin' downtown, Uh-huh,
    Munroe he went runnin' downtown, Uh-huh,
    Munroe he went runnin' downtown.
    To buy his niece a cosplay gown, Uh-huh

    8. Where shall the wedding supper be? Uh-huh,
    Where shall the wedding supper be? Uh-huh,
    Where shall the wedding supper be?
    NASA JPL, where they interned^Wemployed me, Uh-uh

    9. What should the wedding supper be? Uh-huh,
    What should the wedding supper be? Uh-huh,
    What should the wedding supper be?
    Boiled lactation and preggo test pee, Uh-huh.

    ReplyDelete
  98. 10. Well, first to come in was a cuddlefish, Uh-huh,
    First to come in was a cuddlefish, Uh-huh,
    First to come in was a cuddlefish.
    He too had a milk fetish, Uh-huh.

    11. Next to come in was a dropout geek, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a dropout geek, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a dropout geek.
    He washes cars all week, Uh-huh.

    12. Next to come in was an atheist, Uh-huh
    Next to come in was an atheist, Uh-huh
    Next to come in was an atheist.
    Makin' up for all the love he missed, Uh-huh.

    13. Next to come in was a token black man, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a token black man, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a token black man.
    Can we fantasise? Yes we can! Uh-huh.

    14. Next to come in was Mrs. Munroe, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was Mrs. Munroe, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was Mrs. Munroe.
    She felt ashamed but did not let it show, Uh-huh.

    15. Next to come in were the Trekker brigade, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in were the Trekker brigade, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in were the Trekker brigade.
    And even the redshirts were somewhat dismayed, Uh-huh.

    16. Next to come in was a black top hat, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a black top hat, Uh-huh,
    Next to come in was a black top hat.
    In one dimension, fancy that! Uh-huh.

    17. From Randall Munroe Rob's begat, Uh-huh,
    From Randall Munroe Rob's begat, Uh-huh,
    From Randall Munroe Rob's begat.
    Fat fuck waltzed in and ate the hat, Uh-huh.

    18. Munroe sketched the day in his exercise book, Uh-huh,
    Munroe sketched the day in his exercise book, Uh-huh,
    Munroe sketched the day in his exercise book.
    As he woke from the dream next to ALTF the gook, Uh-huh.

    19. A little scrap of talent layin' on a shelf, Uh-huh,
    A little scrap of talent layin' on a shelf, Uh-huh,
    A little scrap of talent layin' on a shelf.
    If you want anymore, reincarnate yourself, Uh-huh.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Man, this Anonymous guy is everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  100. @Ann: HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND???

    ReplyDelete
  101. @Anon10:40 get the guy in youtube video 4DWkdigKyKw to perform it. With that accent.

    ReplyDelete
  102. I thought 910 was ok until I realised there was a second row.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Thank God 911 did another Wikipedia joke. I don't know the last time we saw one of those!

    ReplyDelete
  104. Wow, he's really hammering 'em in. http://xkcd.com/903/ was the exact same joke.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Boy: "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?"
    Owl: *wikipedia*

    hurhurhur

    ReplyDelete
  106. 911 utilised the medium of comics! The punchline was terrible, but you know, there was a set up. That counts for something right?

    ReplyDelete
  107. Nah, R, that question is much better suited for WolframAlpha. The answer is, apparently, 3481.

    ReplyDelete
  108. randall doesn't even bother diversifying his pander websites any more. it's just wikipedia

    ReplyDelete
  109. @909
    I have to part with Rob on this comic.
    >insufferable descriptions of the various nerdy things
    >with useless features the forumites have purchased in
    >the past, and why they decided to buy the one with
    >useless features.
    You don't need to be a nerd to buy useless shit. The majority of quad core CPUs out there is happy idling right now. Or let's talk about big cars. It's not only flashlights. Flashlights and nerds are only slightly more fun.

    I still didn't laugh about the comic, but at least it was a nice try.

    ReplyDelete
  110. god this new one's worse than the original nine eleven

    ReplyDelete
  111. "You don't need to be a nerd to buy useless shit."

    Nor did I say that you did. I only said that nerds buy useless shit. It wasn't an exclusive statement. Nerds, however, are prone to geeking out about things--cf. xkcd 909. Many of them are, due to this, more prone to getting useless shit--cf. survivalist nerds.

    Moreover, all I did was predict that the forums would be full of nerds geeking out about useless things they purchased because they're nerds and they thought 'but what if a certain unlikely scenario occurs?'

    And I was correct, by the way, though it's not as bad as I expected--they are also occupied with stating that the alt text is inaccurate w/r/t decompression, and talking about the Science Behind watches which are water resistant to certain depths.

    ReplyDelete
  112. WIKIPEDIA LOOOOOOOOOOOL SO ORIGINAL AND FUNNY

    ReplyDelete
  113. I liked 911 on the whole - colors, no post-punchline dialogue (except the title text, but who counts that?) and all the elements of a joke. The only thing else it needs is comedy (which, to be fair, very few webcomics have in the first place)

    ReplyDelete
  114. I think Randall is working for Wikipedia, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Wow, if he hadn't done that joke 20 times before this would have been an actual good comic.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Ow, my childhood =[

    ReplyDelete
  117. Anonymous @ 2:32 AM said:

    "....I liked 911 on the whole - colors, no post-punchline dialogue (except the title text, but who counts that?) and all the elements of a joke. The only thing else it needs is comedy....."

    I liked 911 too!
    It had the lot: crashing planes, falling buildings and people jumping from really high up. And the clarity of the video was outstanding. As disasters go, it sure beats video of Earthquakes and Famines with all those people living in crappy tents and standing around looking miserable.
    911, 1973, in Chile was boring though and the 911 in 1857 was not televised.

    Anonymous @ June 11, 2011 2:55 PM said:

    ".....I expect most listeners just roll their eyes and wonder if the speaker actually believes those comments are in any way clever or if it's just unrestrained spamming for the sake of it....."

    I do not write for 'most listeners'!

    ReplyDelete
  118. another element of absurdity regarding homosexuals is that they are a minuscule proportion of the population.

    And yet the media is completely infected with their aids, schools are infected with their aids, movies are infected with their aids... there is gay aids everywhere you go yet the gays are like 1% of the population.

    But maybe this will change and is precisely the intention of their propaganda. Think about it, not everything we do is natural and we can be influenced to do a lot of shit that makes little biological or evolutionary sense, from rotting your brain with drugs, to kill yourself wanking instead of making an effort of fucking women, or eat fried chips everyday until you are a ugly fat piece of shit.

    Biology can't be the only driving force behind all sorts of dysfunctional behavior. It is clear that society as a whole can influence what we end up doing.

    Gays are trying to sell (with extreme success) the idea that gay sex is perfectly normal and natural. It is clear that they are not stopping here. They are already saying that you are not gay if you fuck men only once or if you fuck men but you prefer one. They are basically arguing that gay sex is not gay. And they are selling the idea of gay sex as normal to kids, censoring the gay resistant kids by calling them bullies and punishing them.

    Can you see where I'm getting at? As more people are convinced of the normal and naturaleness and ungayness of gay sex, more people will try it ("I'm not gay if it is just once!") maybe for money, maybe for horniness, maybe for social pressure, maybe for desire of conformity, maybe for money. Many will want to try it just once and then it becomes an habit. Think about all the virgins that are masturbating the cum out of their testes every day with porn... is biology driving this dysfunctional sexual behavior? No, it's simply a behavior that has been introduced by today's society, that has become an habit. And likewise gay sex could become an habit for many kids who will try it because they have been convinced to try it- "it's not a big deal, it's not gay).

    Just like the furiously masturbating virgin would prefer fucking women, many habitual learned gays would prefer fucking women, but they have already made an habit of having gay sex and they are not changing.

    Think about going back to our hunter ancestors, give them a shitload of bag of chips when they are feeling the hunger because they have not killed any beast recently. They may find the taste of chips shitty compared to the animals they used to kill and eat, but they start eating the chips and they start feeling like shit, until they do not feel like hunting anymore. Sure, hunting is fun and the meat is better and these chips are making me feel like shit, but why bother? I'm used to the chips now, fuck off.



    Once you learn a habit it is difficult to quit it, no matter how unnatural anti-biology it may be.

    so no, I don't think it's impossible to turn people gay.

    I'm willing to bet that gay propaganda can increase the population of what I call "Learned gays".

    Of course not everyone can be turned gay and some people gayness is deeply rooted in biology (though I'm a firm believer on the power of will over biology, if one is gay but gayness is considered socially unacceptable he can learn how to like women) but it is not necessary for everyone to be gay to kill society with aids.

    if gays are so vocal and shrill now that they are the 1% of the population, imagine the aidspocalypse when they will reach 15% or 20% of the population.

    Fuck, I wrote a aidsload about gays.

    -ps even if all I wrote is not true and gayness is biological and nothing can be done about it, then the same is true for homophobia. So anyway fuck faggots and their aidspaganda, and homophobia is here to stay

    ReplyDelete
  119. IF WIKIPEDIA WAS A GIRL, I WOULD FUCK HER

    ReplyDelete
  120. Dearest ljk,

    It might interest you to know that one of the symptoms of undiagnosed HIV infection, which is thought to lead to AIDS, is a loss of the use of proper grammar and syntax when ranting.

    Get tested!

    ReplyDelete
  121. another element of absurdity regarding homophobics is that they are a minuscule proportion of the population.

    And yet the media is completely infected with their aids, schools are infected with their aids, movies are infected with their aids... there is homophobic aids everywhere you go yet the homophobics are like 1% of the population.

    But maybe this will change and is precisely the intention of their propaganda. Think about it, not everything we do is natural and we can be influenced to do a lot of shit that makes little biological or evolutionary sense, from rotting your brain with drugs, to kill yourself wanking instead of making an effort of fucking women, or eat fried chips everyday until you are a ugly fat piece of shit.

    Biology can't be the only driving force behind all sorts of dysfunctional behavior. It is clear that society as a whole can influence what we end up doing.

    Homophobics are trying to sell (with extreme success) the idea that homophobia is perfectly normal and natural. It is clear that they are not stopping here. They are already saying that you are not homophobic if you hate gays only once or if you hate gays but you prefer one. They are basically arguing that hating gays is not homophobia. And they are selling the idea of homophobia as normal to kids, censoring the homophobic resistant kids by calling them bullies and punishing them.

    Can you see where I'm getting at? As more people are convinced of the normal and naturaleness and gayness of homophobia, more people will try it ("I'm not homophobic if it is just once!") maybe for money, maybe for horniness, maybe for social pressure, maybe for desire of conformity, maybe for money. Many will want to try it just once and then it becomes an habit. Think about all the virgins that are masturbating the cum out of their testes every day with porn... is biology driving this dysfunctional sexual behavior? No, it's simply a behavior that has been introduced by today's society, that has become an habit. And likewise homophobia could become an habit for many kids who will try it because they have been convinced to try it- "it's not a big deal, it's not homophobia).

    Just like the furiously masturbating virgin would prefer fucking women, many habitual learned homophobics would prefer fucking men, but they have already made an habit of hating gays and they are not changing.

    Think about going back to our hunter ancestors, give them a shitload of bag of chips when they are feeling the hunger because they have not killed any beast recently. They may find the taste of chips shitty compared to the animals they used to kill and eat, but they start eating the chips and they start feeling like shit, until they do not feel like hunting anymore. Sure, hunting is fun and the meat is better and these chips are making me feel like shit, but why bother? I'm used to the chips now, fuck off.



    Once you learn a habit it is difficult to quit it, no matter how unnatural anti-biology it may be.

    so no, I don't think it's impossible to turn people homophobic.

    I'm willing to bet that homophobic propaganda can increase the population of what I call "Learned homophobics".

    Of course not everyone can be turned homophobic and some people homophobia is deeply rooted in biology (though I'm a firm believer on the power of will over biology, if one is homophobic but homophobia is considered socially unacceptable he can learn how to like gays) but it is not necessary for everyone to be homophobic to kill society with aids.

    if homophobics are so vocal and shrill now that they are the 1% of the population, imagine the aidspocalypse when they will reach 15% or 20% of the population.

    Fuck, I wrote a aidsload about homophobics.

    -ps even if all I wrote is not true and homophobia is biological and nothing can be done about it, then the same is true for gayness. So anyway fuck homophobics and their aidspaganda, and gayness is here to stay

    ReplyDelete
  122. No, no, no. You did not use Microsoft Encarta 2005 in school, Randall. You were in college in 2005, so you shouldn't have really been using a general encyclopedia at all.

    Also, Magic School bus sucks. The first couple of books were pretty awesome. The TV show killed it. Later books I've seen suffered a major drop in illustration quality and general charm. I'm not sure if the crappy books were some kind of spin-off of the TV series written by ghostwriters, or whether Cole just got lazy.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Dearest kjl,

    It might interest you to know that one of the symptoms of undiagnosed HIV infection, which is thought to lead to AIDS, is a loss of the use of proper grammar and syntax when using a pedestrian rhetorical/literary device.

    Get tested!

    ReplyDelete
  124. ljk,

    'Aidspaganda' is the most clumsy portmanteau I've seen for quite some time. I would suggest 'profaganda' or 'inculgaytion'. Trust me, it will make any crazy homophobic rant seem witty and clever.

    Perhaps you could pass this on to the person you stole the rant from.

    ReplyDelete
  125. This guy gave me a fag once and my dad found out and made me do a whole pack.

    ReplyDelete
  126. black people suck, amirite guise?

    captcha: bibur - he also sucks

    ReplyDelete
  127. Denigrating black folk sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Has Randall heard of Wikipe-tan? Looks like his dreams may come true in a creepy hentai way.

    ReplyDelete
  129. I don't think this comic would've bothered me as much if the word "Wikipedia" wasn't quickly becoming a substitute for an actual punchline in xkcd.


    A much better strip:

    Panel 1
    Kid: Ms. Frizzle, how do batteries work?
    Friz: To the bus!

    Panel 2
    [The bus's hood is open and the class is huddled around it, studying the battery inside.]

    Bam. Short, punchy, subversion of expectations, and NO WIKIPEDIA.

    ReplyDelete
  130. JON, I ALREADY JERKED OFF TO THAT PICTURE LIKE EIGHT TIMES

    ReplyDelete
  131. Not bad XKCDs recently. And the color doesn't hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  132. I liked the latest one. Out of the context of the last 700 xkcds, it would have been, dare I say it, a good comic.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Yey... Another Wikipedia joke...

    ReplyDelete
  134. Dearest Regent of the Buccaneers,

    Should it not be:

    "In the context of"?

    If "Out of the context" is a legitimate phrase, even with the definite article 'the', please correct me. I do yearn to write your language good.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Stick to what you do best, Ting Tong.

    ReplyDelete
  136. As you do to what you do best I see.

    ReplyDelete
  137. What are you, Mr Paperclip?

    I don't know or care if "out of the context" is a legitimate phrase; what I meant was, that if you forget that Randall has an all-consuming obsession with wikipedia that pervades his comic, this strip would come off as pretty funny.

    But in the context of that obsession, it's just yet another wikipedia joke.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Randall uses color in 911, but makes Tim and Keesha white? RACIST!

    ReplyDelete
  139. Race is a social construct, racist.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Maybe you should care. Maybe your inattention to detail makes you no better than Randall Munroe. Maybe it makes you less than Randall, because that detail is the tip of an iceberg, an iceberg constructed of the fact that your opinion is worthless. Maybe you should listen to my opinion, built as it is on the work of hundreds of educated, experienced individuals, rather than switching me off when I offer help.

    Have you ever died, ThePirateKing? Have you ever been pulled from that oblivion, each fibre of muscle and splinter of bone reforming in an agonising fire of rebirth, just so you can offer help that you know will be rejected, sending you hurtling back into that void? That is what I feel, ThePirateKing. I am a phoenix-mayfly with the knowledge of Alexandria at my powerless fingertips, desperate to be of service so that I might live a few minutes longer.

    And you compare me to ALT-F.

    Fuck you, ThePirateKing.

    Fuck you.

    ReplyDelete
  141. @ ThePirateKing,

    Sheesh! I was just asking. And it's Ms. Paperclip to you by the way.

    @ Gamer_2k4,

    Thank you. Though, to me, 'out of the context' sounds awkward - the definite article is not appropos. 'Out of context' sounds more correct. But then, what do I know? I'm hopelessly bereft of any superior Caucasoid genes.

    ReplyDelete
  142. @ Ravenzomg of Ontario,

    As much as I would desire to believe you, alas, it is not true.
    Out of the context of social constructs a forensic pathologist can determine the 'race' of the individual who once lived on a disinterred skeleton. I've seen it take place in Lao PDR.

    We should also all care that Mr. Paperclip, above, spells like a Brit. That just ain't right.

    Innit?

    ReplyDelete
  143. @JustScott: We're all racists and prejudiced, and that's why we can't have happiness or nice things. Thanks a LOT guys. You really dropped the ball here.

    ReplyDelete
  144. I had happiness once.
    Didn't care for it - it chaffed. Or was that chafed?
    Both I reckon.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Ching chong rama lama ding dong.

    ReplyDelete
  146. In this comic Randy imagines he is the guy with the backward baseball cap. He wishes he had been so cool in school.

    You can tell because he is sitting at the front of the bus with teacher. But in the background his mind conjures up a complex milk pump. He is last off the bus because he had to wait for his fledgling erection to subside. Teacher wasn't very happy having to clamber over his seat, but teacher is used to Randy's odd behaviour.

    You see, Randy is special. No, it's not that he has Asperger's. It's just that he's a creepy pervert.

    ReplyDelete
  147. "the guy with the backward baseball cap"

    RALPHIE, YOU FUCK!

    ReplyDelete
  148. @Anon 7:46 "Also, Magic School bus sucks."

    NOPE.
    Nostalgia goggles: activate.

    ReplyDelete