Comic 676: Wasted Effort

Holy crap, look who is posting a full day early it is THIS GUY. In part that's because I don't have a lot to say on this comic. Mostly it just reminds me of the kind of comic you would see over at Abstruse Goose, which, as that link shows, only recently dealt with the topic of the Awesome Powers of Computing. Abstruse Goose is, needless to say, perhaps the single worst webcomic out there that has any sort of following, so I try not to link to it much. Oh, the promise it had back in the early days...

Anyway, today's comic just seems boring to me. Yes, computers are complicated, and you use them for frivolous things. What's next? I mean lots of things are complicated. Every damn thing in your body - in every living organism - is complicated as hell, way more complicated than a computer - plus, you can more credibly claim credit for "causing" it - but anyway. To make up for a lack of thoughts about the comic, I made you all an edit:

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Guys! Aloria is going to guest post in like a week! GET EXCITED NOW.

Comic 606: Being Annoying

Oh god it's more fucking memes. Oh hey guys, remember Portal? Yeah I do, too, maybe because it's not 2013 and we haven't forgotten about it yet and I think I speak for the rest of humanity we I say I am fucking sick of hearing about it. Yes it's fun, yes it's quirky and funny, yes, you've mentioned it before. So shut up already. I don't care if you are mentioning them in order to say that it is annoying to mention them; it's annoying to mention them. The end.

Remember when xkcd people used to talk like real people? I wonder what happened to those days. "Where have you been?" "Playing Half-Life 2" "Didn't that come out in 2004?" That's a real natural response - what's next? "What are you listening to?" "The Beatles?" "Didn't they break up in 1970?" People do play old games, you know. Is that so crazy?

I guess this comic is an example of what I've called Randall Munroe's Illustrated Picto-Blog - a place to write about ideas he has without the pressure of being funny. Not that this is a particularly interesting idea - but it's an even worse joke.

It doesn't stand up to even an iota of thought: The dude knows he is 5 years behind the times - so in 2013 he should know that everyone else has played Portal years ago. By spouting off the jokes, he isn't facing a "downside" to his idea so much as a "downside to him being fucking annoying."

Did Portal really come out in 2008? Because I remember playing it in 2007. Let's see if wikipedia knows - "The game was released in a bundle package called The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007, and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007." Ah, ok, good. Randall: Get an editor, or try harder yourself.

In xkcd world, people look the same 5 years into the future as they do now.

Comic 524: Wuzzle Wazzle

Oh how far we've come, from passing a meme along to pretending to be over it. There are a few humor eggs nestled together here, let's pick apart the yolks for starters:

-Mr. Hat hired Rick Astley to do some mischief! Not a bad start, even if it leans on an aging meme.
-Astley's going against the grain and not performing his most popular song. What, then?
-The girl can't stand a mute Astley and goes nuts waiting for him to sing. Mental torture ensues.
-Astley gloats for a moment and pulls a CSI: Miami by flipping sunglasses on during a one-liner.

This comic had appeal for me until that fourth panel. Mr. Hat's in action, Rick Astley is going to do something original...but the victim goes nuts all on her own. You could mute her computer speakers during a Rickroll and get the same reaction. The comic plays on people's obsession with memes, then spins around and endorses them by pretending Rick can beat the system.

Rick appears cool with his girl-maddening powers, but he should be more sad than anything. If the public has such a strong love/hate reaction to his claim to fame, then Mr. Hat must have paid him out of pity, because Astley has no choice but to embrace his Internet-fueled popularity. Why? Because of meme-passers like xkcd that repeat forum-born jokes until only the final person who hears of them is spared the vomit-inducing repetition of "Have you heard of ________ yet?" That's how Astley wound up performing the song during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and he was paid to sing -- he must roll both ways, then.

There's also the loose end of why Mr. Hat wants to drive a seemingly innocuous girl insane, anyway. It's not evil, clever, or in the name of piracy; it's just an anti-Rickroll.

Rickrolling was fun for its time, and like any punchline, can be forgiven in spare doses. But Randall, GET OUT OF ASTLEY'S HEAD. David Caruso thanks you.

Note about the alt text: Those are some lame-ass guesses for the next big trend. Even Urkel did better ("I've fallen, and I can't get up!"), and in my ultrabiased opinion, we folks have, too. While I don't expect anything born here to find a new home, calling Anonymous posters Cuddlefish and shouting down blind worship with "GET OUT OF MY HEAD" are both small, anti-internet-mob gestures (assuming we don't kill the new phrases, too). Randall asks us to place our bets, but only he knows what the Internet will hail next! Tell us, Randall! Deliver to us from on high the catchphrases of your drunk programmer friends, and they shall show us a funnier, more easily repeatable future!

*EDIT* What the hell is this?! We were first, forums!!

Comic 512: Worthless

GUYS remember how Randall Munroe is not just a super-funny cartoonist but also knows everything about what is happening in the world? Probably you don't because the time he wrote a short story about the federal reserve was more than two months ago!

GUYS do you remember how Randall Munroe is aware of the traditions of the internet, which include humorous pictures? Probably you don't because the time he wrote a long comic series about it was more than one month ago!

GUYS do you know how sometimes instead of writing a full fleshed out idea for a comic he just had a little idea like "what if jpgs were currency?" Probably not because the last time he had a similarly lazy comic was more than one week ago!

GUYS remember the Onion book Our Dumb Century which had the headline, "Cambodia Switches to Skull-Based Economy”? Probably you do because Our Dumb Century is an amazing book and I trust that you've all read it.

Oh and also inflation is not actually really one of the problems with the US economy these days but whatever if Randall wants to think it is I'll be glad to buy his dollars.


Speaking of dollars, would people think I was selling out if I put up google ads on this site? I'm really just curious how much money they could make, and I would put the money back into anti-xkcd efforts (assuming I could think of any).