Comic 986: Water You, Stupid?

And we have yet another guest post! This one is from T-Jack.



Hi, it's me, T-Jack, and I'm back with another idiotic xkcd strip. Do you ever get in those situations, where you drink from a water fountain and then you're like "Oh my god, I have to pee like RIGHT NOW" and then you go and then you're like "Wow, that peeing sure made me thirsty, better drink from that water fountain again" and then you drink and pee and drink again? If not, then congratulations, you live in a real world. Unfortunately for all of us, Randall doesn't and he wants us all to know.

The biggest problem with the strip is its premise. Yes, it's true, drinking (or, for that matter, experiencing running water in any way) may make you want to pee, but it's not that simple. See, I'm not a physiologist, but even I understand that this only slightly amplifies your already present need to relieve yourself. So, unless your bladder is, shall we say, considerably full, this won't send you to the bathroom. (Geez, I'm explaining the mechanics of taking a piss. I hate you, Randall Munroe.) Of course, you could say that this is just some paranoid madman's fear instead of reality, but then said madman should seek help instead of drawing shitty comics for the internet.

Now, the main problem dealt with, we approach nit-picking. First, could you imagine worse drinking sound effects than "drink drink"? Well, of course you could, but still. Couldn't Randy use "slurp" or "gulp" or "I was too lazy to think of a good sound effect"? Or, better yet, how about not using anything and drawing the picture better, instead? Huh, how'bout that?

Then there's the word "WATER" just floating there next to the bottom picture. Maybe it's supposed to mean something, but I think Randall simply messed up and he's going to silently remove it later. Above, of course, is the original picture in all its shameful glory.

Just a minor detail, but why does the bathroom door stay open in the upper right picture? I don't see a knob on it, so it must be one of those closes-on-its-own doors.

The alt-text... the less said the better. All I'll say is that it transforms a relatively harmless piss joke into a disturbing venture into Mr. Monroe's mind.

Whoa, the paragraphs are getting shorter.

In short, my problem with the strip is that it has too much text, or rather that it has text at all. The situation depicted is kinda amusing on its own ("kinda" being the key word here) and coupled with a "sloppy programming" joke, it could've been an actually good strip. But Randall, being Randall, had to totally overdo it. Here, I'll show you ("WATER" left in out of nostalgia):



Tooltip: God must be a sloppy programmer if he left in an infinite loop.

Let it be known that I am not a master of comedy.

PS: No, I did not steal the title of this review from Not Always Right, I just borrowed it. Shut up.