xkcd sucks

Comic 1207: Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'

2013-05-05T01:41:00.003-07:00

1207. I've always wanted to get a tattoo that just says 'you are wrong', and whenever I'm talking to people just roll up my sleeve and look at them expectantly. B

Comic 1198: Ugh Who Cares

2013-04-13T16:19:00.003-07:00

1198. I do not get it, at all. F-

In other news, it has come to my attention that the old IRC link is broken for some reason! So try this new one instead.

Comic 1190: Time To Find A Better Webcomic

2013-03-26T16:15:00.002-07:00

[Alt text: Wait for it.]

Apparently this has been updating itself every half hour or so. The first several updates were just Randy and Megan sitting on a hill, moving around slightly. It took forever for them to start actually building their sand castle or whatever.

I just wanted to go on record that this would be a lot better, conceptually, if it weren't so incredibly uninteresting. Watching stick figures build a sand castle is not interesting, and it certainly isn't so interesting that I want to wait two days to see the finished product.

Comics 1177-1182: Randy Sucks

2013-03-06T18:59:00.001-08:00

1177. Randy, you really, really suck at existential horror. F
1178. Randy, you really, really suck at making your contrived jokes actually work. F
1179. Randy, you really, really suck at not reusing your jokes. F
1180. Randy, you really, really suck at not being an elitist fuck. F
1181. Randy, you really, really suck at making jokes that anyone cares about. F
1182. Randy, you really, really suck at everything, ever. F

Comics 1170-1176: Time Cube

2013-02-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

1170. Randy is really fond of rehashing really obvious jokes. F

1171. Also really old ones. F

1172. lol linux D+

1173. Randy is totally cool with Lance Armstrong. C-

1174. Randy is also pretty fond of using his own jokes over again. F

1175. Why? F

1176. Every now and then, Randy posts a comic about why he hates people. As a weird misanthropic recluse myself I should get behind it, but he's trying to make it sound so profound. D-

Comics 1165-1169: I'll Save You, Randy!

2013-02-05T18:20:00.002-08:00

1165. Did you know that Amazon originally refers to a rainforest and/or river? Randy does! F

1166. Did you know the idea of a perpetual motion machine defies the laws of thermodynamics as we currently understand them? Randy does! F

1167. Did you know that Wikipedians like to argue about pointless shit like capitalization? Randy does! F

1168. Did you know that Randy likes to invent scenarios in which I fail to save the day and therefore cause everyone to die, over and over and over again? Randy does! F

1169. Did you know that you can use Google Maps to look at the planet? Randy does! F

Comics 1160-1164: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

2013-01-24T15:12:00.002-08:00

1160. Contrived as most of my jokes. F
1161. Uh, okay. F
1162. I have no opinion on this at all. C
1163. Brains: they suck! C
1164. I like how the old man in this is the same figure he uses to draw RMS. C

Comics 1154-1159: Bad Resolution

2013-01-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

You clamored for more Rob, so here are the always hotly anticipated reviews:

1154. Randy is taking the bold stance that New Year's resolutions are frequently not successful! F for being dumb.

1155. Did Randy ever tell you how quirky he is? He is so quirky. F for being dumb.

1156. Did Randy ever tell you how quirky he is? He is so quirky. F for being dumb.

1157. Did Randy ever tell you how quirky he is? He is so quirky. F for being dumb.

1158. Did Randy ever tell you how quirky he is? He is so quirky. F for being dumb.

1159. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to find amusing here. F for being dumb.

Comics 1150-1153: Randy's Paradox

2012-12-30T20:37:00.002-08:00

1150. Randy stands up for the evil corporation trying to exploit the intellectual property of its users! It's good to know that someone is willing to defend Corporate America against the evils of the consumer. F-- for being a fucking class traitor.

1151. Ha ha she dumped her present on the other presents! F for not being remotely funny.

1152. Ha ha Randy is an EDGY ICONOCLAST!!! F for not being an edgy iconoclast.

1153. I would have liked this a lot more if he didn't bash us over the head with the joke. D for bashing us over the head with the joke.

Seriously, though, let's revisit 1150. This is the one where he compares Instagram changing their TOS so that they own everything you upload and have the right to use it commercially with no royalties paid to the user without any sort of notification (I think that the natural outcry against this bullshit has since convinced them to rescind this policy, but I'm too lazy to look for a link) to storing all of your stuff in your friend's garage. Apparently, in Randy-land, when you use a free service, you basically deserve whatever horrible shit happens to you when the assholes in charge decide to fuck you.

This was extra surprising because Randy's readerbase probably consists of a lot of people who are pretty big into the whole privacy thing. In fact, even among total douchebags, there are very few people who think that a corporation is totally within its rights to exploit your intellectual property merely because you're putting it on their servers.

It's doubly offensive because Randy literally makes his living off his intellectual (we are clearly using the word very broadly here) property. His work is licensed under a Creative Commons Noncommercial license. So this is not only stupid, it's hypocritical. "I don't want anyone using my work commercially, but you people who are using Instagram to take and upload pictures totally deserve asshole corporations using your work commercially."

I shouldn't be as surprised that the forumites aren't giving Randy a hearty "what the fuck, since when are you an apologist for these douchebags?", but I am. It's been a while since I paid any attention, I guess.

Finally: a fond farewell to ALTF, who is apparently leaving us on the eve of the year of our Lord 2013. Go bravely, ALTF. You will be missed.

Comics 1145-1149: The Quality Is Falling

2012-12-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

1145. Meh. C-

1146. Ha ha Randy doesn't know how to interact with other humans! He also doesn't know how to tell a joke. D+

1147. What if Pokemon evolution was just like real evolution? F, that's what.

1148. What if Winston Churchill just listed a bunch of bodily fluids instead of giving a speech? F, that's what.

1149. Here's another one for you, Randy: what if the eagles just flew everyone to Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings? WHAT A WACKY INSIGHT. F

Comics 1139-1144: Everything Is Meaningless

2012-12-09T11:48:00.003-08:00

1139. Trying to imagine a world in which any child would think that this was frightening and not just unimaginably lame. Failing. F

1140. The only good thing about this was the people complaining that he forgot to make dates like Christmas big, as if this were an oversight, like he just forgot that Christmas existed. F

1141. Negative bonus points for the "but caaaancer" line. F-

1142. no. F

1143. Can't be bothered to look up what he's referencing here. F

1144. It's like he wrote a sequel to 859 after it achieved unexpected commercial success. Like all unplanned sequels, it is even worse than the original. That's saying a lot. F

In other news, remember that redux guy? Me neither. But intrepid commenter "David" has sent me a link to a tumblr where he's reposting all of the guy's old reviews, if you're into that sort of thing. Relive the past! You can never escape it.

Comics 1134-1138: A Map Of Terrible Things

2012-11-25T13:54:00.004-08:00

1134. no. F

1135. I like spiders. C+

1136. Someone's been reading Ecclesiastes! C-

1137. LOL WHAT IF PEOPLE WERE LIKE COMPUTERS F-----

1138. no. F

Comics 1130-1133: Fly Me To The Moon

2012-11-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

1130. Contrived, but with a good heart. D+

1131. As fascinating as I find the inability of both the media and the political campaigns to understand how math works, this is not the best way to take a jab at that. C

1132. Hasn't Randy done a joke about p and .05 before? F

1133. Kind of amusing, I guess? B-

Comic 1129: Ring, Ring

2012-11-04T16:33:00.002-08:00

Man, it sure has been a busy couple of weeks, what with all the reviews I've been posting! But I missed 1129, so here it is:

1129. I frequently have this problem where people I need to call for work don't answer my cell phone because of its area code. Fun fact! Anyway, the point is this is a really boring observation. F

Comics 1116-1121: Time, Flight, & Etc.

2012-10-15T23:33:00.001-07:00

1116. Traffic lights in the Boston metro area are frequently pretty weird. C+

1117. Haven't we, as a culture, gotten over the term 'cloud' yet? D-

1118. This is several years late, and not really a very interesting observation at that. F

1119. do not care. D

1120. Reasonably clever, I guess? B-

1121. The alt text: "not sure why I just told everyone how quirky I am, but you guys, I am so quirky!!" F--

Comics 1113-1115: The Quality Is Falling!

2012-10-02T19:15:00.002-07:00

1113. Meh. C-

11114. I'm sure I would find this more amusing if I were capable of feeling anything at all anymore. C-

111115. More of Randy staring into the void. Does beret man usually feature in these comics? C+

Comics 1110-1112: Deep, Man

2012-09-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

1110. The interface was horrible but this was reasonably fun. B-

1111. Wouldn't it be hilarious if a reporter started talking about the fact that the universe is dying instead of the event they were covering? D

1112. Is the whole point of this really "lol people who complain about game balance just suck at the game" or am I missing something? F

Comic 1109: Refrigerated

2012-09-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

(image credit to muad)

i just want to say that i'm very proud of Randy for coming to terms with his obsessions. he always seemed so uncomfortable about it before. good job, Randy!

Comics 1106-1108: Spooky Shit, Man

2012-09-16T16:44:00.002-07:00

1106. My favorite part about this one is the alt-text, where Randy implies that "focusing on one thing to the detriment of all others" is the same thing as having ADD. Go fuck yourself, Randy. F

1107. The Tweet in the alt-text is longer than 140 characters. The service described is also indescribably sad. The joke is also pathetically unfunny. D-

1108. Eh, not bad. B-

Comics 1100-1105: Six Times As Terrible

2012-09-09T17:07:00.002-07:00

1100. Randy has been trying for absurdism lately, but he's not very good at it. This one has the makings of something good but the execution is, as usual, pretty awful. D+

1101. I don't know why Randy thinks "sex dungeon" is not very sketchy. I also don't know why he thought this comic was funny. F

1102. Guess which Wiki article Randy has discovered? (Hint: it's this one.) D

1103. You know, I think it's actually been quite a while since Randy did the whole "LOOK HOW QUIRKY I AM, YOU GUYS" thing. For that I can forgive him. C

1104. Didn't Randy once say that birds literally are dinosaurs? This makes the whole "coming to terms with feathered dinosaurs" thing feel a little hollow. C-

1105. If you were to write a thesis on Randy's inability to use the alt text correctly, this would be the most important evidence in your favor. D+

Comics 1097-1099: The First One Really Sucks

2012-08-26T13:23:00.003-07:00

Well, with no guest reviews sitting in my inbox, I guess it's time I got back to the hard work of writing up a shitty one-sentence review for the comics. You brought this on yourselves.

1097. The thing that bothers me about this one: why is there a banana peel on the tarmac? Why is he walking in front of a jet engine? Why is the jet engine so low to the ground? D+

1098. This is occasionally a valid observation, but not a particularly useful one. Especially when it comes to reviews of movies and music. D-

1099. I get the feeling Randy has been reading House of Leaves again recently. He's been making some comics with jokes that hinge on a similar sort of absurd pocket infinity premise. Not terrible, but I actually liked the job interview one and this is just boring. C

Comic 1.21: Time Traveling Doom!

2012-08-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

[This guest review comes from faithful reviewer "Vid." Gripping stuff. -Ed.]

Comics 9-11: NEVER FORGET

2012-08-15T15:00:00.002-07:00

[New guest review courtesy of "Capn." -Ed.]

Comic XXX OIympiad: Ann Apolis Does A Guest Post

2012-08-10T15:20:00.001-07:00

[Nothing new to report today; here's Ann Apolis's guest post. Regular programming will return when I stop receiving these delightful commentaries on the modern world. -Ed.]

Comics Blah Blah Etc: Duck Milk

2012-08-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

[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.]