Monday, August 6, 2012

Comics Blah Blah Etc: Duck Milk

[More guest reviews! These come from "priority shitten" on the IRC channel, probably. The second one is actually a special political commentary about how freedom is dead, forever. -Ed.]

nipples

ducks

177 comments:

  1. This blog has entered a new era of excellence.

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    1. Below this line, Fags.

      __________________________________

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  2. OK this is what I originally came to xkcdsucks for.

    Finally.

    These are both like 100 times better than my shit rewrites.

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  3. Many types of birds have no penis. HOWEVER! The duck is one of the few that does in fact possess a penis. Thus this cartoon is valid.

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    1. The duck does not, in fact, possess a penis.
      The drake does, however.

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    2. A duck drake possesses a penis, a duck hen does not. A trans-duck ¯\(°_o)/¯

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    3. Yet another baseless and rumour-ridden canard from the Capn.

      Duck hen?
      Tautologistic cuntery!

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    4. Duck-clad ducks duck ducks, duck.

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    5. Yins is such and old coot, kittens - a loon even.

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    6. I base it on the American tradition of killing other entities with technology that those entities will never be able to comprehend, AKA hunting. You should appreciate the inherent feminism in hunting, you always try to shoot roosters rather than the hens. Unless you can't tell the difference (i.e. Quail).

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    7. "......You should appreciate the inherent feminism in hunting, you always try to shoot roosters rather than the hens....."

      That is why the Caucasoids will lose in the end. Kill the females and young - nits grow up to be lice. Besides, Capon tastes like shite!

      There is no word for 'feminism' in my mother tongue. There is, however, a word for 'masculinism'.

      Funny, Innit?

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    8. no, not really.

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  4. SO MUCH CUNNING POLITICAL COMMENTARY

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    1. Oddly enough, this post fits in perfectly after ALTF's last comment.

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  5. I awoke from my long nap with my wife prodding me in a frightened voice on the edge of hysteria, saying "Sweetie, I think you need to get up, you should see this."

    As soon as I opened my eyes I realized my throat was raw from breathing in smoke. I had slept on the arm of the couch for about 4 hours. I rose up suddenly and grabbed my wife by the arm. "What is it? What's happening?" I said. I had been dreaming that "Benny" was looking for me and was on the verge of finding me.

    "The news said it is in our neighborhood now - right down the street. They are moving towards Hollywood Boulevard," she said with a worried expression.

    "Honey, Why did you let me sleep?!? You should have woken me up!" I said, leaping to my feet and reaching for the Desert Eagle underneath a couch cushion.

    "I thought you said I should let you sleep when you were tired!" she blurted out.

    I glanced at the television. They were panning our neighborhood from the sky and everything was on fire. Hundreds, thousands of people were running everywhere.

    "Yes, honey, that's normally a good rule of thumb, except during the collapse of civilization or else when our house is in the middle of a firestorm!!! I yelled, really angry she had not awakened me. "Go to the back of the house and sit in the bathroom near the water cooler. Take the television back there with you and something to eat. Lock the door and stay in there until I come to get you. Run the bathroom ventilator, it will pull air through the house and filter some of the smoke out as it comes under the bathroom door." She knew I was not going to argue with her in a situation like this so she did as I said.

    I checked the blinds, took a glance outside the house. Chaos. It was insane. People were running everywhere. Fire engine horns, sirens, helicopter blades whishing over the roof again and again. I took a deep breath, stuck the Desert Eagle under my belt beneath my shirt and ran outside.

    A dark haired woman was screaming for help at my front gate. Her mascara was running and she looked either crazy or terrified. She didn't appear to have any marks on her, I helped her to her feet, asked her to stop screaming, what did she need help with. She backed away and ran towards the other end of the block as though she were trying to catch up to someone. Everybody was running down from Sunset past me, mostly all black people, as though something was coming from the east. Some teenage kids went flying past with arms full of cell phones, I thought they were laughing at first but then I realized they were crying hysterically.

    I went down to the junction of Sunset and Martin, less than twenty meters from my front door ... people bumping against me in blind terror, some of them staring at me like I was somebody they knew. I had no idea what the hell was going on. The air was thick with smoke and the sheer volume of noise was deafening. Beneath all the emergency horns and sirens, there was another noise, a kind of rushing sound like you might hear come from a seashell if you put it to your ear.

    I recognized it. I had heard it at sporting events. It was the sound of thousands of people cheering, yelling, hollering all at once.

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  6. I peered around the corner of the drycleaning store to the east, towards La Cienega. The street I had run down in the morning to get to the Quik Mart which had been deserted at the time.

    Holy Kee-rist, I thought. This can't be happening.

    I am not good at estimating numbers in a crowd. I would guess that I was looking at a mob of somewhere between 20,000 to 50,000 people about four blocks away. It was a liquid dynamic mass of human beings which flowed like a single living organism. They were so obscured by smoke at that distance that sometimes they seem to ripple like a mirage in a spaghetti western.

    The entire mob was waiting patiently out in front of the gigantic Walmart super store as two large 18 wheel trucks backed up slowly to the security gates. I could hear the roaring of the engines idling in reverse, slowly backing up. Men jumped off the rear gates and attached chains from the bumpers of the truck to the security gates. Then the crowd drew back in a large circle to give the trucks some room.

    There was an ear-shattering roar of approval as the trucks pulled forward and tore the security gates from the front of Walmart, clattering behind in pieces. I saw some of the rioters jump on the gates and ride them like surfboards as they were pulled away.

    Then the colossal human mob rushed into the Walmart like air filling a vaccuum. They kept coming and coming, I didn't see how so many people could fit in there all at once.

    I had been staring in open mouthed shock as the entire vignette took place, then realized that now looters would be making good their escape once they had their fill of stolen goods. This way, possibly.

    I turned and ran back to the house. An alleyway I had passed less than three minutes ago, to the immediate left of the front our house, had been empty. There were now three black guys standing right outside our chain link fence, one of them trying to light the wick on a beer bottle while another held a bottle of kerosene. It so took me by surprise I almost fell trying to come to a halt.

    I reached for the Desert Eagle, hands shaking, and pulled the gun out. I had never pointed a gun at another human being in my life. "HEY!!!!!" I yelled, "WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?! DROP THAT BOTTLE!! GET YOUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR!!!"

    The three black guys were hard, crusty looking types, all of them dressed in filthy clothing and matted down with dirt. One of them with a big set of dreadlocks spoke before anybody else. "White boy, you must be tripping. Don't even think about pointing that gun at me." The other two nodded at their friend, apparently the leader, but they had frozen irregardless.

    "THIS IS A CITIZENS ARREST! GET YOUR HANDS UP!" I yelled, chambered a round in the gun and pointed it at the guy with dreadlocks. "DROP EVERYTHING AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" I screamed in the scariest voice I could come up with. I sounded sort of hoarse from all the smoke in the air.

    "Sissy bitch, whatchoo think you are? We ain't dun nuttin, not a damn thing! You can't arrest nobody, you punk arse little white boy!" the dreadlocks guy said, but they all dropped everything on the ground. The beer bottle broke and I caught the odor of kerosene immediately from the contents that poured out.

    I stared at the liquid as it ran across the floor of the alleyway. I could not believe it. These guys were getting ready to burn us. Of course, we were a corner house with a blind alleyway running alongside us. Our house was the perfect candidate to burn, just like all the other corner houses we had seen on television. Nothing personal, you understand, these guys were getting ready to torch our house because it was conveniently located for just that purpose.

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  7. I felt weird all of a sudden. Really weird. The gun wavered. "Okay, nobody ... nobody move," I said, feeling my gorge rising. The three black guys were watching me like a hawk.

    With complete astonishment, I vomited a huge mouthful of foul smelling water up into the air, soaking my shirt sleeve. One of the black guys chuckled in amusement. I was trying to keep the gun trained on them and suddenly I was vomiting profusely, gouts of greasy dark water into the air. Nothing like that had ever, ever happened to me before. I think the sheer amount of black tea, coca-cola and coffee I had drunk to stay awake had rubbed my stomach lining raw.

    "Don't you f**king move, asshole! I will put a bullet in your ass, I promise you," I said, but I was bent over and fell to my knees as soon as I finished the sentence, dry heaves racking me. I was trying to keep the gun pointed at them and vomit at the same time ... they were already backing away down towards the alley from where they had come. They were all giggling and uttering little expressions of awe at their good luck. I tried to keep the gun on them but they knew I wasn't going to shoot them, they hopped backwards until they were well down the alley and then took off running while guffawing at the spectacle of me dry retching with the Desert Eagle in my hand.

    It took me about a minute to clear my stomach where the heaves would stop. I definitely felt a little better, but they were long gone. I stood up slowly, still coughing weakly. All three of them had vanished in the blink of an eye. They could run like the wind, they were probably three blocks away by now.

    I suddenly realized how the arsonists had created the illusion of fires breaking out spontaneously and why the newscasters kept claiming they were "organized."

    The truth is, nearly all the arsonists were on foot, traveled light and made their escapes simply by running away. Chances are they found bottles for containers as they ran. In a dense urban area like Los Angeles, you could torch a building with a single bottle filled with accelerant and be many blocks away before the smoke attracted a police or news helicopter. It was so simple a child could do it and if you were a fast runner your chances of being captured were nil.

    It also would not take many arsonists if they were torching and running on an hourly basis.

    That's when I began to comprehend what had happened. The arsonists had destroyed an entire city and brought it to it's knees with empty beer bottles and a few dollars worth of lamp oil available anywhere. Probably less than thirty human beings had ravaged the city of Los Angeles worse than a nuclear weapon might have for less money than what most people spend on lunch. They simply ran away in the time it took for police to respond.

    If this were the case, it meant the entire facade of civilization was a complete sham, a brittle fake painted monolith made out of candy glass. If any city could be destroyed by thirty guys on foot with ten dollars worth of kerosene, everything I'd ever been induced to believe in my life about civilization was hollow, false, a lie. We were never more than fifteen minutes away from absolute anarchy in any large metropolitan city.

    I tucked the gun back under my shirt and walked back to my house to check on my wife, people running all around me with stolen goods and looted valuables. A helicopter buzzed overhead saying something over a loudspeaker but I couldn't make out what it was ... it was just a weak little warbling noise against a sea of madness all around me.

    I will conclude my account by telling you of the last few hours of the riots that afternoon and the moment when I had to produce the combat shotgun.

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    1. Everything you had been induced to believe in your life about civilisation was predicated on thirty people being unable to destroy a city? Man, it's a mutually beneficial social contract, not an indestructible fortress. The fact that it hasn't already happened to every city should strengthen your belief in it.

      Also, you shouldn't be a dick to your wife just because she let you get a bit more sleep. You obviously hadn't been looking after yourself adequately. Maybe if you hadn't been left to sleep you would have passed out while vomiting, and then where would you be?

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  8. As far as batshit political cartoons go, nobody can match David Dees.

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  9. The president of the United States ... is a DUCK?! :: shitting sounds :: A duck is president, and the whole country is going to the dogs. :: more shitting sounds :: Or whatever, the president is a dog! Who cares? Coming June Something. :: shitting sounds ::

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  10. What's the deal with American political cartoons continuing to take the form of a bunch of clearly labeled metaphors, anyway? It's so old fashioned.

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    1. No, it's treating the reader like he's not an idiot.

      The point in the labelling is to say, "I know I'm not being subtle with these things and leaving you to guess what they symbolise." The people who consider themselves politically aware today are more stupid, so they think that just figuring out what each thing depicts is a sign of intelligence.

      With a political cartoon, it's the setup that's the message, not the individual elements.

      Contrast with Randall where he usually explains the joke but the artwork is so bad that sometimes it's fucking impossible to work out what he's drawn.

      Delete
    2. It's possible to draw a political cartoon that isn't a Rube Goldbergesque system of symbols, you know. You don't have to blatantly explain the joke that way.

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  11. can someone explain why proper healthcare is such anathema to americans? no one ever says why. the sanest commentary i've read is adam baldwin's batshit paranoid twitter stream.

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    1. Since the Cold War, much of the nation has come to view any social program as a waypoint on the insidious march towards Communism.

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    2. weaselsoup, perhaps you should pay more attention to the UK. Since 1979, Britain has voted in Parties which have ostensibly wanted to dismantle the NHS. Perhaps you'd be excused for not thinking this of New Labour in 1997, but you're a fucking idiot if you didn't see it by 2001.

      We now have a whole generation of people who haven't experienced GPs making fuss-free visits to your home, cradle-to-grave long term supervision of health issues (esp. mental health) rather than short programmes, clean+dedicated wards staffed by permanent nurses and permanent cleaners rather than expensive agencies, &c. And Lansley has just removed, in law, the duty of the government to take care of the health of the nation (and formally broken up the NHS into such itty bitty pieces that it's no longer "national", but the work began long before Assent was received and no-one raised any significant objections).

      I want the proper healthcare, but the British people don't. It's one of the many reasons I think democracy is stupid.

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    3. Not all Americans. Just conservatards and people who will believe lies if they're repeated often enough (a major GOP strategy in recent years).

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    4. I don't think anyone is genuinely right wing. There are merely insecure people who are afraid that what isn't "theirs" to keep might be taken away from them.

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    5. I think that's a bit unfair 12:56. We do want to keep and protect the NHS, but we're spoiled and apathetic as an electorate, and we've accepted the despicable betrayal of what the Labour party's principles were meant to be because we don't believe we have credible alternatives. granted the outcome is the fucking same.
      also complaining about the state the NHS is in now doesn't really answer the question as to why the principle is so terrifying. I guess it is as simple as what 1:02 says.

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    6. I think the young/middle age chattering classes like to act like we don't have acceptable alternatives - they've done well enough during the Blair/Thatcher years that they've all become entirely champagne socialist. I think the spoonfed classes have been fully convinced that the state doesn't do anything properly, even though every Western crisis since Oil in 1973 has been the result of market interference on democracy.

      The state of the NHS is the same reason for the non-state of American national healthcare: 1:02 + 1:52. It's very easy to convince people that the reason they're poor and struggling is because they're "not good enough" (to compete). As an old saying should probably go, neoliberalism is throwing ten starving dogs into a cage knowing that only two will come out alive. Yet the dogs still fight each other rather than try to attack their master.

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    7. ... snd attack the hand that feeds me a starving dog? I think not.

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    8. Protip: if you're posting to xkcdsucks, you're not one of the "two".

      Unless you're ALTF, but that's because you're being buttfucked rather than eaten.

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    9. Says you! I'm eating dog and dog food right now. An Oyakodon-esk dish for the duckbama generation!

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  12. Fun fact : duck penisisii actually ARE schwoopy-loopy. http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2010/08/duckpenis.jpg This cartoon is biologically correct.

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    1. Correct duckpenis anatomy is cancelled out by depicting Jews as dolphins. As any fule kno, Jews are rodents.

      Fun Fact: Douglas Adams was passionately anti-Semitic, which is why he depicted the world as being managed by mice. In his first draft, they were rats.

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  13. Replies
    1. It's true, the one who loves delicious gold is the least Jewish.

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  14. Thanks a lot Randall. I was up all night trying to download photos taken by a robot lowered onto Mars by a skycrane. Then I went to work and I fell asleep behind the wheel of the school bus I was driving. 30 children died. I tried to tell my supervisor that you'd said it was OK, but he fired me anyway.

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  15. What, no ALTF today? Don't tell me that pretentiously sesquipedalian orator found a source of employment or the like.

    I was actually hoping to find the ALTF twitter account, but then I realised that, of course, there probably isn't one. 140 characters would never suffice to express any coherent thought while maintaining that level of self-gratification and smug superiority throughout the verbiage.

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    1. I would agree with you, but there are a number of supporters here just dying to shit on your face right now.

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    2. I know I am. But that has more to do with my scat fetish than anything in particular he said.

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  16. Why has Randall disowned the Echocamber again? Did somebody say something naughty?

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Maybe he's trying to be a cool kid like Jeph Jacques. The front page of Questionable Content no longer has a link to the forum, because of how Jacques hates his own fans.

      Unless it was Randall who did it first. Maybe six links at the top of the page is just too much.

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    3. Jon Levi 2012

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    4. ryan north did it first when he renounced tabb

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  17. What if it turns out anthropomorphic global warming is false and we make a better world for nothing?
    What a fucking waste!

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    1. Or worse still, anthropogenic?

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    2. Plagiarise! let no-one else's work evade your eyes!

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    3. I like to think of it as serendipitous academic convergence myself - with added malapropism.

      Query?

      Why do you hyphenate 'no one'?

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    4. You'll under-stand when you're older.

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    5. Seems more elegant than "no one", which brings to mind noone.

      Noone cares.

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    6. Noone?

      Peter Noone?

      He was the Justin Bieber of the sixties with his mop-top hair, bee-stung lips and preternatural boyish charm.

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  18. Temporally older?

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    Replies
    1. Query:

      Why are you always so arbitrary on where you thread your reply posts?

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    2. What might appear to you as arbitrariness is actually a carefully contrived plot to force y'all to jump through flaming hoops.

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    3. Comment: That "Query"-before-a-question thing makes me think of Star Trek's Data.

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    4. Query:

      Shutup, you fucking nerd.

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    5. Comment:

      Calling someone a nerd on xkcdsucks is like calling someone a faggot in a bathhouse.

      Delete
    6. Sorry, you're thinking of xkcd. This is the jock fraternity and we despise nerds here.

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    7. xkcd is the nerd-fan posse, chief. Hipsters would surely hate xkcd, so we are at worst hipsters. Get your cliquology right.

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    8. I'm a jock so anybody not a jock around here is my servant.

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    9. jock more like cock

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    10. More like "gonna fuck you up the shithole, nerdboy."

      Delete
  19. Anonymous August 7, 2012 8:42 AM bemoaned,

    ".....while maintaining that level of self-gratification and smug superiority throughout the verbiage......"

    I am indeed serenely complacent, but not seemly complaisant.

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    1. To my bepuzzlement, I discovered my desires drawn inexplicably to this beholding of your reaction. Though I relished the newfound and fleeting curiosity, it was overshadowed by the truth so reticently unspoken, of which we are both calculatingly considerate. Nevertheless, I confess that I am quite captivated by your temerity.

      Having anticipated an assertive assailment, imagine my astonishment that an adjective should be found so abjectly abused in your writing -- for it is assuredly asinine to apply adverbially; wouldn't you agree? However, while it would be more than apt to accuse such usage as unseemly indeed, I shall excuse this solecism lest my own hand be found in error.

      Delete
    2. ".....for it is assuredly asinine to apply adverbially; wouldn't you agree?...."

      No.

      Delete
    3. The adverb is seemlily. Brevity does not become you.

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    4. Thanks
      And
      I know.

      Delete
    5. 8:46 hasn't figured it out yet

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    6. Oh she has, Rob, she's just making me dance. And dance I do! And why not? I've the gams for it!

      Delete
    7. I live solely to spur the terpsichorean marionette.

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    8. It's only when other people try to talk like ALTF that I really see how good ALTF is at what it does.

      Anon@8:46, you suck.

      Delete
    9. Anon@1:35 It's called satire you witticaster.

      Delete
    10. 1) A poor copy is not satire;

      2) A statement of fact is not an attempt at wit;

      3) Give up and do something else with your day.

      Delete
  20. The Jews are obviously an albino raven and not a transparent dolphin, as someone implied here.

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  21. ALTF is a filthy Jew.

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    Replies
    1. Is there any other kind?
      Asking seriously

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    2. There's the coquettish Asian one, if that blog is anything to be believed.

      Delete
  22. Does anyone feel like today's XKCD "comic" is actually a Pokemon Slowpoke joke? Seriously does anyone care about Michael Phelps this year? (Excluding his stalker girl friend who we all know is actually Rob.)

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    1. Does anyone feel, besides me that is, that if you know what a Pokemon Slowpoke joke is you're a fucking moron?

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    2. Just wanted to say the captcha system here completely sucks. Was it designed by Randall?

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    3. I mostly just think today's comic would be better as just the first two panels.

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    4. Yeah it would improve its standing from "horrible for xkcd" to "horrible".

      Delete
  23. not science, not love, not math, not funny

    ladies and gentlemen: xkcd

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  24. I submit my political commentary for inclusion in the next batch of reviews: http://imgur.com/611xL

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    Replies
    1. needs brevity

      Delete
    2. This is like the opposite of xkcd. Randall is sometimes funny if you include only the first panel or two; yours would have been perfect for inclusion if you had provided nothing but the final panel.

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    3. hi where are the burger :DDDDD

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  25. ALTF rape countdown: 5

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  26. OMG GOOMHR I TOO HAVE HEARD OF MICHAEL PHELPS

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  27. Mini webcomic review, because I feel like talking about webcomics.

    Today's Folly and Innovation was: awful. It made the last Scenes From A Multiverse look quite good.

    P.s. I know I'm six days late, but xkcd 1090 was fuck fuck fuck awful. I'm sorry for dredging up that memory.

    But let's not forget Questionable Content. They finally kissed!

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  28. Many years ago I turned down Oxford becuse I felt it was full of stupid right-wing privileged idiots who had no intention of working beyond what would get them more power and riches than their families already had. I would probably have slit my wrists rather than spent a week in their company.

    Did I miss out on anything?

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    1. you can tell how he's new to the internet by how he wants a fucking medal.

      Delete
    2. No, I've been on the 'net since 1994-5. There was nothing intended beyond a request for an honest answer: did I miss out on anything?

      Anyone who is slightly above average and has been trained up for a few months could have got in. So I want to know if I missed anything by not actually being there.

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    3. assuming what you say is true,

      you missed
      A)the chance to be part of groundbreaking research, if this was for a postgraduate degree
      B)one of the best faculties in the world,
      C)the opportunity to experience a well nurtured intellectual climate,
      D)the opportunity to do all of this for a relatively affordable 9000 pounds (by comparison, as an international student at UWaterloo I am paying $30,000 in tuition i.e. ~=19,000 pounds)

      you gained
      A)a sense of superiority over those "stupid right-wing privileged idiots", many of whom are neither stupid, right wing, nor privileged

      Delete
    4. I was hoping for informed answers, not guesses.

      A) no, it was for an undergrad degree - I've had a couple of friends move from non-Oxbridge undergrad education to research at Cambridge. That's absolutely sensible and not at all what I'm talking about;

      B) for which degrees is Oxford one of the best faculties in the world from the PoV of delivering undergrad tuition?

      C) I got the impression that there wasn't a "well nurtured intellectual climate" among undergrads at all. It was more a "well privileged half-assed climate". I've followed the progress of schoolmates who went there as undergrads and they haven't changed my impression at all: the majority just do the work so they can get their piece of paper and enjoy their head start in a completely unrelated field;

      D) Plus accommodation. But tuition would have been even cheaper for me back then! Unfortunately, I wouldn't have been able to buy back 3+ years of wasted life, and - worse - amend any knock-on effects.

      Gain:

      A) As proportions go vs rest of population, you'd be hard pressed not to find an academic institution with a greater proportion of "stupid right-wing privileged". I'd decided that no-one left-wing would in good conscience go to Oxford (see B). Those who are not privileged financially are privileged intellectually, i.e. knew how to pass interview - which is very different from actually being equipped to handle and interested in taking full advantage of a top education. This applies not least to me - I /was/ one of those stupid privileged kids prepped up for Oxbridge;

      B) Not contributing toward the progress of the next batch of Masters of the Universe. For example, I have a fairly socially conscious friend there who has ended up having to co-author a dissertation with one of the most horribly Young Conservative characters - the sort who will crawl his way up the Tory party like so many of the current leaders. Anyone who feeds the beast is as bad as the beast himself.

      * *

      The best answer I ever got from why I should have gone was from a ex-Cambridge admissions tutor who also taught me history at school: because Oxbridge tends to be full of keen polymaths who don't just have an ability in a narrow field. So e.g. the gaggle of mathematicians would be just as interested in the history of mathematics. But I have managed to get tutored anyway by some of the leading academics on history of maths, so I don't think I've lost out.

      Anyway, this suggestion wasn't reflected in the interests of people in my school who received offers to Oxbridge (see above re going to privileged school). They tended to be quite apathetic or single-minded. Maybe things had changed since that tutor was there.

      Delete
    5. Cool. This one time I was going to fart on a duck but then the duck looked at me and I was too scared to do it. Did I miss anything?

      Delete
    6. First off, there are no "informed answers" to a question as vague as yours. What you missed out on is subjective and cannot be precisely enumerated, since people value different things in an education (clearly you and I do)
      I cant fence with you on B), since I have never been to Oxford and do not know anyone who has, but it is demonstrable that the credibility and prestige of educational institutions increases with age. This results in (and is due to) the institution being able to forgo compromises in their choice of faculty, who are in many cases (at least at the undergraduate level) former students attracted by the renown of the university.
      As far as C goes, perhaps you have too high an expectation of what a well nurtured intellectual climate is at the undergraduate level. When I commented I was assuming you were talking about a postgrad because that's what most people go to oxford for.
      For some reason you keep talking about privilege, but do not seem to realise how incredibly privileged you need to be to turn down an offer from oxford. I guess my perspective is skewed because I had a hard time finding even the smallest intersection between the universities I got accepted to, the universities I could afford and the universities I wanted to go to.

      Delete
    7. Informed answers may be available, just not necessarily useful when (as you say) my question was so vague :-).

      B) It has "prestige" but that doesn't interest me at that level. If I had immediately entered the commercial world then it would have got me a better paying job /initially/, and that's clearly important to many people, but not to me. Indeed, that's one of the reasons I avoided it. I wouldn't consider a group undergrad experience worthwhile unless they'd filtered out anyone who wasn't committed for the long haul.

      C) Fair enough. It is obviously worth choosing the best place for research, and Oxford is certainly up there for certain disciplines (often overrated compared to some of the London unis, though).

      Perhaps you are (rightly) frustrated because you would have loved the opportunity to study at Oxford. In a country where money is a thing which might heavily influence choice, it must be worse for you. We're in the process of overhauling our undergrad education funding and it's way worse than it was. But be proud of what you have achieved and make the most of learning for its own sake rather than worrying about how your experience is perceived. It may be that you're reaping as much as anyone you perceive as in a privileged position.

      Delete
    8. Learning for its own sake leads to 50 hours of menial labor a week alongside people who only ever want to talk about sports and Lindsay Lohan's latest court case. Knowledge is as frivolous to the poor as money is to the rich.

      Delete
    9. Not true, some of the greatest intellectuals arose, ascetic like, through the the dirt and rags and banality of poverty. Ramanujan, for instance. 5:48 isn't in it for the knowledge. He's in it for the subculture that surrounds the acquisition of knowledge. Oxford isn't real enough, man.

      Delete
    10. You can't acquire knowledge optimally unless you're in a subculture which optimally supports the acquisition of knowledge.

      As scientists could only travel so far under the boot of Rome before they saw that its culture retarded them and broke free.

      The Internet is full of loner nerds who think amazing things can be achieved in mom's basement. But they fail harder than Rob's nutritionist.

      Delete
    11. Again, please refer to internet re: srinivasa ramanujan. In future please try harder with edgy commentary.

      Delete
    12. Ramanujan's productivity increased initially while at Cambridge. But 1) he was given the opportunity to get his degree by research; 2) his obsession with mathematics was somewhat /incompatible/ even with the environment there back then.

      Today he'd have probably had his obsession better fed, as long as he wasn't too demoralised by the hordes of dolts who go into casino banking. Hardy would probably have had a breakdown on finding what sort of things number theory is used for today.

      tl;dr You're pretty much confirming my point. Also "read about X on the Internet" sounds a lot to me like "I read a Wikipedia article on X therefore you are wrong" and it's kinda Randall.

      Delete
    13. The culture surrounding the acquisition of knowledge was peripheral, dedication, talent and resources (which improved at Cambridge) were material.

      As examples, xkcd and late smbc are a product of our recent culture of deifying the seeker of knowledge, as opposed to knowledge itself. Also, lol @tl;dr

      Delete
    14. Availability of resources - space, security, brains to pick, (especially pre-Internet) scholarly material, &c. - results from and reinforces the "culture".

      Dedication and talent are useless or severely stunted without a degree of the above.

      Delete
    15. Spoiler:

      The best post in this thread revolves around farting on a duck.

      Delete
    16. Capn, don't be a fag.

      Delete
    17. Pretty sure that post should've been a reply to my post about the tranny down hither ---v

      Either way, according to that post way up there ---^ we're all fags.

      Delete
    18. Must I point out /every/ time you're a fag?

      trollface.jpg

      Delete
  29. anon 4:42

    assuming what you say is true,

    you missed
    A)the chance to be part of a potential postmodern masterpiece with results that can not possibly be predicted
    B)one of the best feelings in the world
    C)the opportunity to experience a well nurtured aromatic climate,
    D)the opportunity to do all of this for NO cost at all.

    you gained
    A)a sense of cowardice and shame that you will carry with you BEYOND the grave

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think tomorrow I'll fart on a duck for real except this time the duck might be a goat instead.

      Delete
    2. Perhaps you will win several academy awards

      Delete
  30. for me, reading today's comic is on the short list for worst life experiences ever. and i was bullied, beaten up and raped while growing up in a strict republican household as a m2f

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hey at least you didnt grow up in Texas Arcane's house - shit would be fucked up

      Delete
    2. I would have woken him up. His original request seemed sensible and his aggravation with her was justified.

      Delete
    3. then you would have put your peepee up his nono

      Delete
    4. hey bb. post-op or pre-op?

      Delete
    5. there's only one way to find out, Capn.

      Delete
  31. Well today's xkcd was a huge steaming turd (and a rehash of 647). I gotta give Randall credit for renewing my hatred though; the last 10 comics or so haven't inspired anything but apathy for me. Did he really have to screw around with Census Bureau population estimates? The result just isn't that interesting. The age of the average American is 33 (+5 or 6) in 2012 but is expected to increase all the way up to 35 (+5 or 6) in 2047. Yawn.

    All of the non-news event ones are especially lame. I've never used an original Mac, nor has pretty much anybody else (70k units were sold), but the people who owned one presumably used it for a couple years, not just in 1984. Iphones, same deal basically. I'll give him a pass on New Coke; I never had one, but I'm a giant weirdo with hippie parents who never bought soda. Forget About Dre? Never heard it, as far as I know, and was that really the most memorable thing about 2000? How about the Y2K bug?. I've pretty much already forgotten about that Icelandic volcano although Deepwater Horizon stands out in my memory of 2010.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. shh, its going to be okay. just let me into your heart.

      Delete
  32. hey rob put in some javascript that links all 3 or 4 digit numbers to the corresponding xkcd (unless you're feeling too fat todoit)

    ReplyDelete
  33. Several folks above have mentioned:

    "stupid right-wing privileged idiots"

    From my perspective, ALL westerners are hopeless left-wing liberal cunts. And no mistake.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. actually it was just one person.

      Delete
    2. Well you do have a pretty narrow perspective AMIRITEGUISE?

      Delete
    3. Prevaricating cunt!
      You have, unlike yours truly, deliberately made a mistake to create a falsely or misleadingly incorrect impression of reality.

      Delete
    4. 1) A satire is often nothing more than a poor copy;

      2) An attempt at wit may merely be a well timed statement of fact;

      3) Give up and do something else with your day.

      Delete
    5. "....1) A satire is often nothing more than a poor copy;....."

      Are you sure the word 'satire' requires the indefinite article?

      Delete
    6. If referring to an instance of satire, yes

      Delete
    7. Are you sure "the word 'satire'" requires "the word"?

      Delete
    8. Thank you.
      You mention that 'a satire is often nothing more than a poor copy'. There must be times, accordingly, when a satire is much more than a poor copy then, yes?
      Please to inform me how I might distinguish between a satire which is determined to be 'a poor copy' and one which is not.

      Delete
    9. Intelligence and experience.

      Delete
    10. 8:43 i see what you did there

      Delete
  34. Are you sure the phrase "the word" does not require the phrase "the phrase"?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Intelligence and experience?
    I'll get right on it.
    Thank you

    ".....Are you sure "the word 'satire'" requires "the word"?....."

    If referring to an instance of satire, yes.

    Well, if I use the indefinite article instead - 'a word' - I run the risk of sounding like the New World Bible translation of John 1:1 and that would not be intelligent or experiential.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you sure the world needs more of this bullshit?

      Delete
    2. Goodness gracious!
      Do you eat with that same mouth?

      My English tutor would have used the phrase 'sterculian rhetoric' instead.

      Delete
    3. Your English tutor failed.

      Delete
    4. You don't know the half of it!

      Delete
    5. And neither did he.

      Delete
    6. Rob Mason's joli is summoning me
      With a fatuous lick of leather.
      He holds my head 'neath Aquarian's pee
      And brushes my balls with a feather.

      Delete
    7. "joli"

      ???!?

      I've a catheter, by the way. You're welcome to the bag.

      Delete
    8. Should I provide a mailing address?

      Delete
    9. Anon 24 what a fellow was he,
      To a whale and a cunt he was tethered,
      His gonads were brushed as his cranium soaked,
      In the streams from Aquarian's nether

      Delete
    10. Jolliman is an old English catalogue shop catering "for sizes from medium to 8XL", catfish?

      Delete
    11. perhaps an abused french joli?

      Delete
    12. Perhaps Rob was wearing a prom dress? In for a penny, in for a pounding.

      Delete
    13. Thank you.
      "joli" is "Jolliman"
      like
      "Welli" is "Wellington"

      My tutor has a value-priced Jolliman 'Regatta' jackets - in Navy.
      He's a dapper guy!

      Delete
    14. Please, tell me more.

      Delete
    15. Well, right now he is spelunking a 16 year old blonde, Caucasoid high school girl who was utterly shocked to discover that Ireland was an island!
      He is more than 3 times her age, but she lacks even rudimentary arithmetic skills so it all works out.

      I am not bitter.

      Delete
    16. I must confess it is somewhat to know that somewhere in the world a man over 48 is spelunking possibly retarded 16 year olds

      Delete
    17. ALTF, I thought you batted for the other side?

      Anyway, Ireland is not necessarily an island: it's also an abbreviation of "Republic of Ireland", being only part of an island. If a rich man is buying you stuff then you can at least take pride in being technically correct while pretending to be dumb.

      What interests me more is how you know of this conversation. Did the old codger tell you, or did he introduce you to her? Better yet, did you "accidentally" bump into her? And did he somehow manage to convince her that you were from Ireland? Because Asian-Irish surely gives you some sort of logistical role in the provos and I like the idea of you in a beret doing a linear programming problem.

      Delete
    18. "possibly retarded 16 year olds"?

      Fi! Sir!
      She's a young American!
      The Yankee always gets what it wants.
      And he's charging her parents a premium for his tutorial services on top of it!
      The man's a lady-killing popinjay!

      Delete
    19. ".....Anyway, Ireland is not necessarily an island: it's also an abbreviation of "Republic of Ireland", being only part of an island......"

      Ireland is an island. And there are two Irelands: Northern Ireland and Real Ireland.

      Doing LP with a beret? Ha! Next you'll envision me in horizontal stripes and a black leotard too - fuck that.

      Black leather Bolero jacket, crisp white blouse, khaki jodhpurs and black riding boots.

      Delete
    20. Don't forget the inoffensive, muffled male to dub over your hushed voice.

      Although I'm not sure that even a particularly tight bolero could deny you the oxygen of publicity.

      Delete
    21. "muffled male"?
      Indeed. And dispirited too!

      "oxygen of publicity"?

      I do not seek publicity - I've had it thrust upon me. Besides, my notoriety is anaerobic, though I can be aerotolerant when sipping la fée verte at a café on the Amalfi Coast or supping at the Pera Palace Hotel in Constantinople.

      Delete
    22. You mean a caramel mochachino at a Starbucks in Minneapolis right?

      Delete
  36. I want to see a picture of the IRL room equivalent of xkcdsucks I wonder what it would look like.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aside from being full of Rob of course.

      Delete
    2. Students, basement dwellers, antisocial computer geeks, and a couple of middle age female misfits.

      IOW like everywhere on the Internet.

      Delete
    3. You are quadruple counting

      Also I swear my captcha was "candall" and a picture of two cows in the distance

      Delete
  37. I laughed so hard that I snorted like a pig. Thank you, really.

    ReplyDelete
  38. By 2042 the majority of Americans will be too young to remember when xkcd was still good.

    ReplyDelete