2195

So close, and yet so far

2194

Randall not only thought this was good enough to put into a book and sell for money, he thought it was good enough to advertise the book.

Also, Microsoft Surface laptops store files in the top part. Good job Randall

2193

wtf I hate Back to the Future now

2192

My God, is this a suicide note?

2191

Less of a comic and more of a cry for help.

2190

Do I have to?

2189

This is truly profound. Notice first that Randall has all of these games available on his PC (as indicated by the Windows-style mouse cursor). This shows that he is playing Super Mario Bros via an emulator, not the original version, adding another layer of commentary to what follows. The indicators of passing time (electric scooters, quadcopter drones, cell phone towers) are instantly recognizable, since all places age in exactly the same ways. But the juxtaposition of these more-technological signs of progress with the decay of the physical infrastructure represented by the crumbling blocks and pipes presents a jarring contrast. Randall invites us to consider whether we can truly possess all these things at the same time, or if we are sacrificing a rich heritage built up through generations of painful sacrifice for the momentary diversions of electric scooters and fancy bakeries. By building cell phone towers while neglecting the pipes, are we in effect trading our birthright for a mess of pottage?

2188

Is there anyone so unendurably provincial as the man who prides himself on his cosmopolitanism?

2187

goomh Randall that was my exact reaction to this speech

Thanks for using superior Imperial units at least

2186

What a disaster. "Two people having a conversation while doing tai chi in the park" is never an interesting way to show something, and the conversation is just awful on its own merits. This opening line is monumentally bad, and it just goes downhill from there. The closest thing to a punchline is the alt text, which is in the time-honored tradition of Randall clearly being convinced that he has produced a nugget of comedy gold (as evidenced by this comic being posted before noon EDT, in contrast to the recent run of 5-PM-squeakers-by). There way too many words in this comic, and none of them are funny. I'm not saying this is necessarily much better, but isn't it?

Dark matter isn't real anyway

2185

This is somebody else's meme, and not even a good version of it-- just a half-hearted attempt to throw in some science jargon. There's probably an interesting point to be made here about how the modern meme ecosystem has put an end to the age of the webcomic, but I'll content myself with observing that we now have concrete proof Randall doesn't respect his deadlines at all, since the "disappearing Sunday comic" was up until 7:00 PM GMT or so.

2184
Unfortunately, xkcd doesn't have comments, so Randall has to painstakingly write out his own boring Twitter threads. I think it's interesting that he chooses to outsource his opinions to Rotten Tomatoes (where Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a score of 78%) and not IMDB (where Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a score of 6.2). Does this whole comic not just amount to a retread of 920, in that no one actually wants to hear about banal trash you think is cool?