ABCD

[[A figure with a shotgun runs into the scene and addresses a standing woman.]] Figure: I'm from the future! You're being stalked by an unstoppable robotic assassin! [[We see a close-up of the figure.]] Figure: Of course, in a sense, we're *all* being stalked by an unstoppable robot. A robot called *time*. [[The figure looks at a ticking clock on the wall.]] Figure: I see it in the mirror. I see wrinkles, grey hairs. I hear its metallic footsteps in the relentless rhythm of the ticking clock. [[We pan back out to see both figures.]] Figure: Anyway, uhh– come with me if you want to live for a while. You'll still die eventually. We all will. {{Title text: NO FATE BUT THE NARRATIVES WE IMPOSE ON LIFE'S RANDOM CHAOS TO DISTRACT OURSELVES FROM OUR EXISTENTIAL PLIGHT}}

Every time someone says something negative about a person who's not in the room, I scoot my chair back a few inches. [[We see four figures sitting around on a table, talking and drinking. Figure 4 is scooting his chair back.]] Figure 1: *He's* not so bad, but his friends... <<Scoot scoot>> [[Figure 4 us now quite a way away from the table.]] Figure 3: ... His band is never gonna take off if... <<Scoot scoot> [[The table is now out of view from the left side of the panel. Three more figures are sitting on the floor to the right, with drinks and talking.]] Offscreen from the table: Yeah, his sister is even weirder. Did you see she had... <<Scoot scoot> Figure 7: ... And there's a video, but it's blurry... [[Figure 4 is now up to the new group. He leans back over his chair.]] Figure 4: What're you talking about? Figure 5: Giant squid! Figure 4: Mind if I join you? {{Title text: 'Yeah, that squid's a total asshole.' [scoot scoot]}}

[[A man and a woman are on opposite ends of a two-way moving sidewalk, poised to get on. The sidewalks are divided up into 5 square outer segments and one double-length inner segment each. Each segment has an arrow in the direction the sidewalk travels. The outer-most segments are labeled "moving sidewalk". The next segments in are labeled "moving sidewalk (2x speed)". The next is "3x speed", followed by "4x speed", and "5x speed". The center is labeled "High-five location".]] Man: Ready? Woman: Ready. {{Title text: I think I could spend hours just stepping on and off of conveyor belts moving at various speeds.}}

[[A really damn stupid website being viewed in a mobile browser. A popup covers absolutely everything and makes the entire page unusable. "Want to visit an incomplete version of our website where you can't zoom? Download our app!". With buttons "OK" and "no, but ask me again every time". Assholes.]] {{Title text: If I click 'no', I've probably given up on everything, so don't bother taking me to the page I was trying to go to. Just drop me on the homepage. Thanks.}}

[[An indescribable being of energy and a person are walking along]] Being: Explain to me this "steroid scandal" Person: Well, uh... We humans are made of chemical which stay alive by finding other chemicals and putting them inside us Person: We hold contests to see which humans are fastest and strongest. But some humans eat chemicals that make them *too* fast and strong. Person: And they win contests! Being: That does sound bad. Person: It's awful! {{Title text: A human is a system for converting dust billions of years ago into dust billions of years from now via a roundabout process which involves checking email a lot.}}

[[Changelog for version 10.17 of a piece of software. One change listed: "The CPU no longer overheats when you hold down the spacebar" Comments: LongtimeUser4 writes: This update broke my workflow! My control key is hard to reach, so I hold spacebar instead, and I configured Emacs to interpret a rapid temperature rise as "control"e Admin writes: That's horrifying. LongtimeUser4 writes: Look, my setup works for me. Just add an option to reenable spacebar heating.]] {{Title text: There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN.}}

[[Two figures stand facing each other. One is wearing sunglasses.]] Figure with sunglasses: If you're havin' Perl problems I feel bad for you, son- Figure with sunglasses: I got 99 problems, Figure with sunglasses: so I used regular expressions. Figure with sunglasses: Now I have 100 problems. {{Title text: To generate #1 albums, 'jay --help' recommends the -z flag.}}

[[A teenager stands talking to a parent off-screen.]] Parent: No, you can't go. Teenager: But all my friends- Parent If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? Teenager: Oh Jeez. Probably. Parent: What!? Why!? Teenager Because all my friends did. Think about it - which scenario is more likely: Teenager: Every single person I know, many of them levelheaded and afraid of heights, abruptly went crazy at exactly the same time... ... or the bridge is on fire? Parent: ... I, uh... hmm. Teenager: Imagine reading this on CNN: "Many fled their vehicles and jumped from the bridge. Those who stayed behind..." Is something good about to happen to those people? Parent: Maybe they'll find cookies? Teenager: OK, *you* stay. I'm jumping. {{Title text: And it says a lot about you that when your friends jump off a bridge en masse, your first thought is apparently 'my friends are all foolish and I won't be like them' and not 'are my friends ok?'.}}

[[A man sits at a desk, typing a diary entry.]] February 4th: Departed the mouth of the Lena river, heading south. It has been nearly half an hour and still no sign of civilisation. The scroll wheel tempts me, but I will not cheat. <<Click click click>> {{Title text: I'm pretty sure I've logged more hours in Google Maps over the past decade than in any game.}}

[A woman and a man wearing a white hat stand next to a nuclear bomb. The bomb has a hatch open on top, and a small blinking screen. The two people are shouting off-screen.]] Woman: Rob! You use Unix! Man: Come quick! [[The woman, man, and Rob look at the screen. Rob peers closely. The screen reads: To disarm the bomb, simply enter a valid tar command on your first try. No Googling. You have TEN seconds. ~# _ ]] [[They continue to peer.]] Man: ... Rob? Rob: I'm so sorry. {{Title text: I don't know what's worse--the fact that after 15 years of using tar I still can't keep the flags straight, or that after 15 years of technological advancement I'm still mucking with tar flags that were 15 years old when I started.}}

[[A man sits at a computer, talking to a woman off screen.]] Man: Oh, *wow*. Look at Wikipedia's talk page for Star Trek into Darkness. I have a new favorite edit war. Woman: Oh? [[The woman walks up to look over his shoulder.]] Man: Forty *thousand* words of debate over whether to capitalise "into" in the movie's title. Still no consensus. Woman: That's *magnificient*. Man: It's breathtaking. Woman: They should have sent a poet. [[We see a close-up of the man. He's typing.]] Well, I'm making an executive decision. I hope both sides accept this as a fair compromise. <<Type type>> [[We see the Wikipedia page. The title is now "~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~"]] {{Title text: Of course, factions immediately sprang up in favor of '~*~sTaR tReK iNtO dArKnEsS~*~', 'xX_StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNess_Xx', and 'Star Trek lnto Darkness' (that's a lowercase 'L').}}

[[A thread on the "Free energy forum" messageboard. The title reads: "You're all crackpots who don't understand thermodynamics." Page 547 of 547, with comments including "No, idiot, only the *north* end of a magnet increases entropy. The south end decreases it", "I wiki'd this "first law" and I don't see the issue. My device isn't a robot and doesn't harm humans.", and "What if we trick the government into only suppressing the *left* side of the flywheel?".]] Ironically, the argument I started on a perpetual motion forum in 2004 shows no signs of slowing down. {{Title text: The misguided search for a perpetual motion machine has run substantially longer than any attempted perpetual motion machine.}}

Round 14: Estimated outflow volume in cubic meters per second [[Amazon: A 220,000 m^2 block of water populated with dolphins and fish, with some people who have driven up in a car to observe it. Amazon.com: 0.9 m^2 in packages]] {{Title text: Amazon.com took a surprise early lead with 'Time required to transport a package from Iquitos, Peru to Manaus, Brazil' but then lost it at 'Minutes to skeletonize a cow'.}}

[[A bearded man stands at the top of some stairs. A paintcan on a rope is swinging from the top down to the bottom. Small child #1 has just been hit in the face with the can. Small child #2 is lying on the floor crying.]] Small child #1: Ow!! Small child #2: Waaaaaaaaa! Rejected movie ideas: age-reversed Home Alone reboot. {{Title text: Starring Macaulay Culkin.}}

[[Two characters are silhouetted on a hill. The first sits, the second is lying down.]] Character #1: I don't understand how my brain works. [[The second sits up slightly to look at the first.]] Character #1: But my brain is what I rely on to understand how things work. [[The second lies back down.]] Character #2: Is that a problem? Character #1: I'm not sure how to tell. {{Title text: It can take a site a while to figure out that there's a problem with their 'report a bug' form.}}

[[A bar chart on a sheet of paper labeled "Fuel energy density in Megajoules kg. Values are as follows: Sugar: 19 Coal: 24 Fat: 39 Gasoline: 46 Uranium: 76 000 000 The bar representing Uranium is so large that it extends onto a stack of paper taller than a human]] {{Title text: Knuth Paper-Stack Notation: Write down the number on pages. Stack them. If the stack is too tall to fit in the room, write down the number of pages it would take to write down the number. THAT number won't fit in the room? Repeat. When a stack fits, write the number of iterations on a card. Pin it to the stack.}}

[[A man stands in front of a poster with a bottle in his hand.]] Poster: An invisible sneeze droplet can contain *200 million* germs! [[The man looks at the bottle.]] Bottle: Our hand sanitizer kills 99.99% of germs! [[The man taps a calculator.]] 200000000 x 0.01% = Man: Ew. {{Title text: Hipster CDC Reports Flu Epidemic Peaked Years Ago}}

[[We see a poster taped to a wall. It has two people in the bottom left, a silhouetted crenellated tower in the bottom right, and a thin arc between them. It reads:]] Struggling with those 2013 resolutions? We'll help you hit your target By dropping thirty pounds FAST WEB: http: [illegible].com CALL: (555) 123-4567 {{Title text: If the flyers don't work, we'll switch to the LEAST subtle method of informing a town of the existence of a trebuchet club.}}

[[Hat guy sits at his computer. A man stands behind him. On the wall is a digital countdown, partially obscured by a picture of a sunset. The part of the countdown we can see reads "0002409".]] Man: What's that? Hat guy: Countdown. [[The countdown now reads "0002400".]] Man: To what? Hat guy: Supervolcano, I think. I forget which one. [[The countdown now reads "0002396".]] [[The countdown now reads "0002382".]] Man: Maybe we should move that picture? Hat guy: Too hard to reach. It's probably fine. {{Title text: For all we know, the odds are in our favor.}}

[[A woman is standing on the left edge of a rubber sheet. In the middle is a bowling ball. A man in a beret is standing on top of the bowling ball.]] Beret guy: Imagine a giant bowling ball on a rubber sheet. The ball's weight makes a dent in the sheet. [[A rope has been attached to the sheet, and is pulling downwards. The woman peers down.]] Beret guy: Now imagine a rope that pulls the ball down even further. ...Annnnd... [[The rope snaps. The woman loses her balance as the sheet shakes and the ball flies into the air.]] BOOOIING Beret guy: Wheee [[The woman stands on the now stable sheet. The ball falls down towards it.]] Woman: ... Oh. I thought this was about physics. Beret guy: Imagining is fun! {{Title text: It IS about physics. It ALL is.}}

Activities while sick: [[Pie chart. All percentages are estimates. Shifting around in bed feeling my skin crawl: 55% Pondering hooking an aquarium pump up to my sinuses: 5% Thinking about how cool it is that I'm partly made of an army of critters that patrol my body ruthlessly dispatching anything they find trying to prey on me: 10% Staring at a news site but not reading it: 7% Wiping various face holes: 23%]] {{Title text: Wikipeida path: Virus -> Immune system -> Innate immune system -> Parasites -> List of parasites of humans -> Naegleria fowleri -> Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis -> Deciding I DEFINITELY shouldn't connect an aquarium pump to my sinuses}}

[[A Rube-Goldberg-ish device]] Every few hours, subwoofer plays throbbing bass for 10 seconds.. ..then breadcrumbs are dispensed into box [[Box of breadcrumbs attached to a box that looks suspiciously like the front door of a car with an open window]] Local wildlife [[Birds and a squirrel are nearby]] Protip: Leave this device in your yard for a week, then watch as the problem of loud music from passing cars solves itself. {{Title text: 'Why are you standing in the yard wearing a papal hat and a robe covered in seeds?' 'Well, the Pope is visiting our town next month ...'}}

[[A man stands talking on his cellphone.]] Phone: How do I get to your place from Lexington? Man: Hmm... OK, starting from your driveway, take every left that doesn't put you on a prime-numbered highway or street named for a president. When people ask for step-by-step directions, I worry that there will be too many steps to remember, so I try to put them in minimal form. {{Title text: People get really grumpy when they realize you're giving them directions for how to go to the store and buy a GPS.}}

Man: I'm scared of being stuck – thinking I'm fixing things about myself but never actually changing. Man: My 2013 resolution is to break out of loops. To recognize when I'm not making progress, stop yelling at myself, and try a different approach. Off-screen character: Wasn't that also your resolution last year? [[The man shakes his fist.]] Man: Yeah, but *this* year's gonna be different. {{Title text: If at first you don't succeed, that's one data point.}}

[[A courtroom. A judge sits on a stage at the right. Another man sits, downcast, behind a desk at the left. A man, Zeno, stands centre left holding an arrow.]] Zeno: My client couldn't have killed anyone with this arrow, and I can *prove* it! Judge: I'd like to examine your proof, Zeno. You may approach the bench. Zeno: – But never reach it! {{Title text: The prosecution calls Gottfried Leibniz.}}

[[A man and a woman are walking along together.]] Man: How was Christmas? Did you go to church? Woman: Yup. We celebrated the birth of a child, then we ate of his flesh and blood. [[They keep walking.]] Woman: *Seriously* hope we got the right child this time. {{Title text: The local police, growing increasingly concerned about this church, ask parishoners to take a sip of wine and then spit it back out for DNA testing. It's blood, and it matches a 1970s murder victim.}}

[[A woman stands next to a Christmas tree with presents underneath it. She has a bucket full of pink liquid next to her, and a bucket full of purple liquid in her hands.]] Purple bucket: Pour [[She has the pink bucket.]] Pink bucket: Pour [[She stands with hands on hips, scrutinising the now-covered presents. [[She walks up behind a man sitting at a computer.]] Woman: All my presents appear to be gram-negative. Man: I wish you hadn't opened the home bio lab kit first. {{Title text: In fact, of the boxes is full of Staphylococcus. The wrapping paper is coated in E. coli, though, so it's an understandable mistake. You know, we should really stop accepting gifts from that guy.}}

[[One man sits at a computer. Another stands behind him, talking.]] Man #2: I've been putting all my stuff in Chad's Garage. He has nice shelves. And he lets me in to see it whenever I want. [[We see a handwritten note.]] Man #2: But I just got this note from him: Note: Dude, in like a month im gonna Craigslist all that shit you left in my garage. Just FYI. -- Chad [[A close-up of man #2.]] Man #2: It's an *outrage*! This is no way to run a storage business! Man #1: Are you paying him to look after your stuff? [[We see both characters again, as in panel #1.]] Man #2: No. Man #1: Then what he runs isn't a storage business. Man #2: Well, I'm *this* close to not giving him any more stuff. Man #1: That'll teach him. {{Title text: I'm gonna call the cops and get Chad arrested for theft, then move all my stuff to the house across the street. Hopefully the owners there are more responsible.}}

[[A woman in red slippers, Dorothy, stands talking to somebody off-screen.]] Off-screen character: Bring me the broomstick of the wicked witch of the West and I'll take you home. Dorothy: Got it. [[The woman stands at the foot of a staircase talking to the off-screen wicked witch of the West.]] Dorothy: You can have the slippers if you let me borrow your broom. Wicked witch of the West: Deal. [[Dorothy, now slipperless, walks along whistling with a broom over her shoulder.]] [[Dorothy and another character are in a hot air balloon floating off the ground. Mountains are in the background. Looking on are the tin man, the lion, and a scarecrow.]] Dorothy: That was easy. {{Title text: 'Broom first, then slippers.' 'How do I know you'll return the broom once you've secured your ticket?' 'I'll leave my little dog as collateral.' 'Great. Pleasure doing business!'}}

[[An old-fashioned radio sits atop a dresser.]] Radio: I have nothing to offer but Radio: blood, toil, tears, sweat, Radio: spit, bile, vomit, urine, [[The space above the dresser and behind the radio is filled with names of bodily fluids and excretions, some partially obscured by the radio.]] mucus, semen, earwax, lymph, gastric acid, sebum, pus, endolymph, intracellular fluid, blood plasma, vitreous humo[ ]eces, pleu[ ]uid, chly[ ]al flui[ ]d {{Title text: cerebrospinal fluid, pericardial fluid, sputum, aqueous humor, perilymph, chyme, hydatid fluid, interstitial fluid, rheum, and gin.}}

[[A drawing of a cluster of bacteria.]] What? STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS is evolving! [[The same bacteria.]] ... [[The (seemingly) same bacteria.]] STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS evolved into METHICILLIN-RESISTANT STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS! Off screen: Aww, crap. {{Title text: Biologists play reverse Pokémon, trying to avoid putting any one team member on the front lines long enough for the experience to cause evolution.}}

[[Two guys are walking along together.]] Man #1: I mean, let's be honest here-- Man #2: Ok. [[They stop walking and turn to face each other. Man #2 gestures with one hand.]] Man #2: I don't understand why anything happens and I'm confused and scared and trying really hard all the time. [[They stand facing each other.]] Man #1: ...too honest. Scale it back. Man #2: Sorry. {{Title text: I didn't understand what you meant. I still don't. But I'll figure it out soon!}}

[[A woman with a ponytail leans back on her office chair, back to her computer, gesturing as she speaks to a little girl in front of her.]] Girl: Mommy, why is the sky blue? Mother: Rayleigh scattering! Short wavelengths get scattered way more (proportional to 1 lambda^4). Blue light dominates because it's so short. Girl: Oh. So why isn't the sky violet? Mother: Well, because, uh... ...hmm. {{Title text: Feynman recounted another good one upperclassmen would use on freshmen physics students: When you look at words in a mirror, how come they're reversed left to right but not top to bottom? What's special about the horizontal axis?}}

[[A line of html that reads, "<div>Q: How do you annoy a web developer?< span>"]] {{Title text: <A>: Like < a>this.&nbsp;}}

[[A man is sitting at a desk typing at his computer while a man and a woman look over his shoulder.]] Man: (typing) Hey, party tonight? We'd all love to come see your new place! PC Screen: Wait, what? [[The other side of the conversation: a guy typing on a laptop at a table.]] Laptop Screen: We want to hang out! Guy: (typing) We're not, like, good friends. Laptop Screen: I know, but we were thinking about it and we really like you! [[The three people again. The man behind the man in the chair is clasping his hands in anticipation.]] Man: (typing) You should have us over tonight! For, like, an hour. It'll be fun! PC Screen: Well, uh, sure. [[A black panel with white outlines and letters. A view of the guy's house from above. Four green explosions are seen in the house's yard.]] {{Title text: Ingress: Foursquare With Space Noises.}}

((An inset panel inside the main panel.)) [[A close-up on a man holding a cellphone.]] Man: Man, the coverage in here is awfu- ((The main panel.)) [[The man is interrupted by another man punching him in the face, and he drops his phone to the ground.]] FARADAY CAGEMATCH {{Title text: My resonant tunneling diode phone has limited range but a short enough wavelength to penetrate even the densest cages. This gives me a major combat advantage, hopefully.}}

[[A man and a woman sit on a bed, the woman is talking on the phone. The person she is talking to, a doctor holding a clipboard, is shown inset.]] Woman: Oh god. [[The man and woman sit together while the woman, now bald, is receiving chemotherapy. They are both on their laptops.]] << ... BEEEP ... BEEEP ... BEEEP ... >> [[The man and the woman (who is wearing a knit cap) are paddling a kayak against a scenic mountain backdrop.]] [[The man and woman sit at a table, staring at a cell phone. There is a clock on the wall.]] Woman: How long can it take to read a scan? [[The man and woman are back at the hospital again, the woman receiving chemo. They are playing Scrabble.]] Man: "ZARG" isn't a word. Woman: But CAAAANCER. Man: ...ok, fine. [[The man and woman are listening to a friend speak.] Friend: So next year you should come visit us in the moun... (the rest is obscured by a thought bubble). Man & Woman: (thinking) "Next Year" [[The man and the woman (with short hair) getting married, a heart above their heads.]] [[The man and the woman (wearing a knit cap) stand on a beach, watching a whale breach.]] <<FWOOSH>> [[The woman is sitting at a desk with several books and a laptop. The man stands behind her.]] Man: Hey - you're doing science, and you're still alive. Woman: Yeah! [[The man and woman sit under a tall tree on a hill.]] Man: It's really only been two years? Woman: They were big years. [[The man and woman sit at a table in a fancy restaurant, the waiter brings them a dish with a cover on it.]] Waiter: Happy.. anniversary? Woman: Biopsy-versary! Waiter: ...eww. {{Title text: She won the first half of all our chemo Scrabble games, but then her IV drugs started kicking in and I *dominated*.}}

Calendar of Meaningful Dates Each date's size represents how often it is referred to by name (e.g. "October 17th") in English-language books since 2000 (source: Google n-grams corpus) [[A 3x4 grid of months, laid out left to right, top to bottom from January to December. The days of each month are arranged in typical monthly calendar format. Some day numbers are larger than others.)) ((Due to the 365 different days in a year and individually varying sizes, not every number is mentioned below, only outliers. January's 1 is much larger than any other number for that month. Feburary's numbers don't very all that much, but the 1, 14, and 28 are slightly larger, and the 29 is very small. March's 1 and 21 are larger than most of the other numbers. April's 1 and 15 are somewhat larger than the rest. May's 1 is significantly larger than any other day in the month. June's 1 is significantly larger than most of the other days, but 30 is the 2nd largest. July's 1 is fairly large, but its 4 is even bigger - about twice the size of most other day's numbers. August's 1 and 15 are both fairly large. September's 1 is somewhat large, but its 11 is by far the biggest number of any in the entire year, 3 times as tall as most other numbers from any month. October's 1 is its largest, followed by the 31. November's 1 is by far its largest. December's 31 is the largest, followed by its 1, 7, and 25.)) {{Title text: In months other than September, the 11th is mentioned substantially less often than any other date. It's been that way since long before 9 11 and I have no idea why.}}

[[A playground. The black hat is large on one child, who is sitting and reading. Other children surround him.]] Kid A: Whatchya reading, hatboy? Hatboy: The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Kid B: You are such a loser, it's painful . Hatboy: I'm rubber, you're glue. Kid A: Yeah, well-- Hatboy: Glue can't speak. Hatboy: You try to scream, but your mouth fills with glue. Hatboy: Your face is glue. Your body is glue. [[The black hat child stands up, leaving the book closed on the ground. He holds his hand out to the other children.]] Hatboy: I wrap my rubber arms around your sticky bulk. Hatboy: Your neoprene base bonds instantly with my surface. Hatboy: Never to let go. [[The view zooms in dramatically on the hat child, whose fists are clenched.]] Hatboy: You are glue. I am rubber. Hatboy: Staring at you with my dead, rubber eyes-- Hatboy: Forever. Kid A: Moooom! {{Title text: I'm rubber. You're rubber. We contemplate the reality of our existence in mute, vulcanized horror.}}

[[There is a screen, and a chap standing in front of it pointing at one of the images on the screen. The screen contains 3 maps, each with a title under them.]] [[A heat map of the USA, with red spots on larger cities.]] Our site's users [[A heat map of the USA, with red spots on larger cities.]] Subscribers to Martha Stewart Living [[A heat map of the USA, with red spots on larger cities.]] Consumers of furry pornography Chap: The business implications are clear. Pet Peeve #208: Geographic profile maps which are basically just population maps. {{Title text: There are also a lot of global versions of this map showing traffic to English-language websites which are indistinguishable from maps of the location of internet users who are native English speakers.}}

[[A chap is standing next to the black hat guy, who's sitting on a chair working on a laptop.]] Chap: And that's not even the worst part! The worst part is that-- Black Hat: <<U+202e>> Chap: ...neve t'ndid yeht-- Chap: ?lleh eht tahw... ...uoy did woh Chap: .elohssa... {{The chap's text, read right to left, reads: --they didn't even... how did you... ... what the hell? ...asshole.}} {{Title text: Collaborative editing can quickly become a textual rap battle fought with increasingly convoluted invocations of U+202a to U+202e.}}

[[The man in the black hat is standing next to a vanity cabinet, with a broken mirror on the floor. Another chap is in the room with him.]] Black Hat: Oops. Guess this means seven more years of the illusion that my actions somehow influence the indifferent hand of probability which governs our lives. [[Black hat guy stares at the shards of glass on the floor.]] Chap: Plus like half an hour of sweeping. Black Hat: No, I think I'll leave it. Chap: You'll get glass in your feet. [[Black hat guy holds up a shard of glass, looks at it.]] Black Hat: Eccles. 9:2 - All things come alike to all: To the clean, and to the unclean. Black Hat: My fate is as these shards. Chap: Dude, chill, it's just a vanity mirror. Black Hat: All is vanity mirrors. {{Title text: 'I see you're in this mood again.' 'I am always in this mood.'}}

[[The artist has a book titled Spider Psychology, and is carefully adjusting one of those things with clips that's used to hold objects in place.]] [[The artist puts it in the corner of a room which has cobwebs in it.]] [[Spiders move into the thing, and start weaving webs on it.]] Six Weeks Later: [[The artist tears a sweater covered in spiders out.]] {{Title text: SPIDER PSYCHOLOGY (21st Ed.) is a comprehensive overview of arachnoneurology, neuro-arachnology, forensic arachnology, neuro-arachnoneurology (the study of the brains of spider neurology experts), and arachnoarachnology (the study of too many spiders).}}

[[A person shows up at a boat docked at the edge of a river. The person has brought along a head of cabbage, a goat, and a wolf.]] Problem: The boat only holds two, but you can't leave the goat with the cabbage or the wolf with the goat. [[The wolf looks curiously at the lumpy bally that's been left behind while the person goes off with the goat]] Solution: 1. Take the goat across [[The goat remains tied up on the far side. The wolf watches the person come back]] 2. Return alone. [[The wolf thinks "aww no mo bally" as the person goes off]] 3. Take the cabbage across. 4. Leave the wolf. Why did you have a wolf? [[The wolf goes off all sad-like]] {{Title text: Or a cabbage, for that matter. The goat makes sense. Goats are fine.}}

US Space Team's Up Goer Five [NASA's Saturn V] The only flying space car that's taken anyone to another world. [The only spacecraft to take anyone somewhere other than Earth] (Explained using only the ten hundred [thousand] words people use the most often) ((The following is a top-to-bottom description of the various parts of the Saturn V, alternating between the limited-vocabulary version and the technical version)) Thing to help people escape really fast if there's a problem and everything is on fire so they decide not to go to space [Launch Escape System] Thing to control which direction the escaping people go. [Launch Escape System pitch motor] Stuff to burn to make the box with the people in it escape *really fast* [Launch Escape Motor] Place where fire comes out to help them escape. [Launch Escape Motor nozzles] Part that flies around the other world and comes back home with the people in it and falls in the water. [Apollo Command Module; includes "People Box, Door, Chairs"] Part that goes along to give people air, water, computers and stuff. It comes back home with them, but burns up without landing. [Apollo Service module] Cold Air for burning (and breathing). This part had a *very* big problem once. [oxygen tank; was the tank that exploded during the Apollo 13 incident] Part that flies down to the other world with two people inside [Lunar Module] Part that stays on the other world (It's still there) [Lunar Module Descent Stage] Feet that go on the ground of the other world [Lunar Module Descent Stage landing gear] Ring holding most of the computers [Instrument Unit] Part that falls off third (this part flew away from our world into space and hit the world we were going toward) [Third stage] Things holding that kind of air that makes your voice funny (It's for filling up the space left when they take the cold air out to burn it) [Helium tank] The kind of air that once burned a big sky bag and people died and someone said "Oh the [humans]!" (used for burning) (wet and *very* cold) [Liquid Hydrogen tank] The part of air you need to breathe, but not the other stuff (used for burning)(wet and *very* cold) [Liquid Oxygen tank] Fire comes out here [J-2 Third stage engine] Part that falls off second [Second stage] More sky bag air (for burning)(cold + wet) [Liquid Hydrogen tank, Second stage] More breathing-type air (for burning)(cold + wet) [Liquid Oxygen tank, Second stage] Thing that brings in cold wet air to burn [Fuel tank input, Second stage] Fire comes out here [5 J-2 Second stage engines] Part that falls off first [First stage] More breathing-type air (for burning)(cold + wet) [Liquid Oxygen tank, First stage] More funny voice air (for filling up space) [Helium tank, First stage] Opening for putting in cold wet air [Liquid oxygen tank input, First stage] This is full of that stuff they burned in lights before houses had power. It goes together with the cold air when it's time to start going up. [Kerosene tank, First stage] Lots of fire comes out here [5 F-1 First stage engines] [[Description of bottom end]] This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space, you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today. {{Title text: Another thing that is a bad problem is if you're flying toward space and the parts start to fall off your space car in the wrong order. If that happens, it means you won't go to space today, or maybe ever.}}

Did the sun just explode? (It's night, so we're not sure) [[Two statisticians stand alongside an adorable little computer that is suspiciously similar to K-9 that speaks in Westminster typeface]] Frequentist Statistician: This neutrino detector measures whether the sun has gone nova. Bayesian Statistician: Then, it rolls two dice. If they both come up as six, it lies to us. Otherwise, it tells the truth. FS: Let's try. [[to the detector]] Detector! Has the sun gone nova? Detector: <<roll>> YES. Frequentist Statistician: FS: The probability of this result happening by chance is 1 36=0.027. Since p< 0.05, I conclude that the sun has exploded. Bayesian Statistician: BS: Bet you $50 it hasn't. {{Title text: 'Detector! What would the Bayesian statistician say if I asked him whether the--' [roll] 'I AM A NEUTRINO DETECTOR, NOT A LABYRINTH GUARD. SERIOUSLY, DID YOUR BRAIN FALL OUT?' [roll] '... yes.'}}

[[A stacked bar chart representing the distribution of electoral votes for a US presidential election. The unusually darker-skinned, blessed, beautiful, twisted, Democratic candidate has 313 votes, while the much more pallid, glove-named Republican candidate has 225. The forecast of this result is noted, with the actual results being in the center of the predicted zone.]] Breaking: To surprise of pundits, numbers continue to be best system for determining which of two things is larger. {{Title text: As of this writing, the only thing that's 'razor-thin' or 'too close to call' is the gap between the consensus poll forecast and the result.}}

[[A man is kneeling on his desk chair, hunched over his laptop screen.]] Man: This Tuesday will be huge! If Obam wins the election, it could generate news coverage devastating to Romney's position in the tracking polls! Out of panel: ...maybe you should take a break. {{Title text: The choices we make Tuesday could have MASSIVE and PERMANENT effects on the charts on Nate Silver's blog!}}

[[Diagram outlining the true structure of a US Cell Phone number. The 3-digit exchange number plus 4-digit subscriber number are your 7 random digits. The area code is where you lived in 2005.]] Structure of a US Cell Phone number. {{Title text: There's also a +1 sometimes, which is there to keep everyone on their toes. In the future, people who got to pick cool numbers by signing up for Google Voice early will be revered as wizards.}}

As with most famous books, I've never actually READ Fifty Shades of Grey . I only know the plot from watching the Wishbone version. [[A kid is sitting on the floor, watching TV.]] <<Bark!>> <<Bark!>> <<SMACK>> <<Bark!>> {{Title text: Wishbone and the Illustrated Classics series have gotten me through every conversation I've ever had about Dickens, Treasure Island, The Anarchist's Cookbook, and Our Bodies, Ourselves.}}

A history of the United States Congress partisan and ideological makeup [[A chart showing the makeup of the US Senate and House of Representatives throughout history. It shows which ideological blocs (far left, left, center-left, center-right, right, far-right) made up what portion of the left-leaning and right-leaning parties in each chamber.]] {{Title text: It'd be great if some news network started featuring partisan hack talking heads who were all Federalists and Jacksonians, just to see how long it took us to catch on.}}

THE SAGA OF EPSILON AND ZETA The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw devastating storms like Katrina and Rita. But less well-remembered is just how strange the season got toward the end. The forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are the best of the best. Their predictions are masterpieces of professional analysis. But in November 2005, out in the center of the Atlantic - far from any land - the atmosphere stopped making sense. And the forecasters - who'd expected the season to be long over by now - started to get a little… unhinged. This is their story, as seen through the actual 2005 NHC Advisories: [[Two men, one bald and one not, sit looking at their respective computers, at separate desks, back to back. The advisory is printed above them in caps small-caps Courier type.]] Tuesday, November 29th, 2005: Tropical Storm Epsilon . . . The 26th named storm of the apparently never ending 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. [[The same scene, different text.]] 10 PM Wed: The window of opportunity for strengthening should close in 12-24 hr. 4 PM Thu: Slow but steady weakening is expected to begin in 12-24 hours. [[The man with hair now has questions marks above his head.]] 4 AM Fri: Epsilon does not appear weaker. 10 AM Fri: Epsilon has been upgraded to a 65-kt hurricane. [[The two still sit back-to-back.]] 4 PM Sat: Epsilon has continued to strengthen against all odds . . . [but] can not maintain the current intensity much longer since the environment is becoming increasingly unfavorable. [[Ditto.]] 10 PM Sat: Epsilon might or might not still be a hurricane . . . but in any case it likely will not be one on Sunday. 4 AM Sun: Epsilon is downgraded to a tropical storm. [[Yep.]] 10 AM Sun: Morning satellite images indicate that Epsilon has restrengthened. [[A closer view of just the balding man at his desk.]] There are no clear reasons . . . and I am not going to make one up . . . to explain the recent strengthening of Epsilon and I am just describing the facts. However . . . I still have to make an intensity forecast and the best bet at this time is to predict weakening . . . Epsilon will likely become a remnant low. I heard that before about epsilon . . . haven't you? [[The two men still sit back to back, but the man with hair is now turning his head toward the other man, with his arm resting on the back of his chair. The bald man is leaning forward in his seat, toward his computer while typing.]] 4 PM Mon: The cloud pattern continues to be remarkably well-organized for a hurricane at such high latitude in December. [[The other man has turned back to his own screen.]] 10 PM Mon: We have said this before . . . but Epsilon really does not appear as strong this evening as it did this afternoon. [[Just the bald guy now.]] 4 AM Tue: I have run out of things to say. [[The two of them again.]] 10 PM Tue: The end is in sight. It really really is. But in the meantime . . . Epsilon continues to maintain hurricane status. 4 AM Wed: The end is in sight . . . yes . . . but not quiet yet. I thought I was going to find a weakening system and instead I found that Epsilon is still a hurricane. [[Ditto.]] 10 AM Thu: Convection has vanished and Epsilon is now a tight swirl of low clouds. I hope this is the end of the long lasting 2005 hurricane season. [[This panel is blank and just reads: Nope.]] Enter Tropical Storm Zeta. [[The men are still at their desks. The bald man is leaning back on his chair and staring at his screen, the other man's hair is noticeably disheveled, and he has started growing a five o'clock shadow.]] Friday, December 30th, 2005: An elongated area of low pressure . . . which ahd its origins in an old frontal trough . . . began developing organized convection overnight. Advisories are initiated on the 27th tropical storm of 2005. Any new storms would be in the 2006 season. [[The men are still at their desks, the man with hair is even more bedraggled-looking.]] 4PM Fri: Although the atmosphere seems to want to develop tropical storms ad nauseam . . . the calendar will shortly put an end to the use of the Greek alphabet to name them. But 2005's wouldn't end until Zeta did. [[The bald man is now wearing a party hat and there is confetti in the air.]] 10 PM Sat: Zeta appeared on the verge of losing all of its deep convection a few hours ago . . . but since about 21z the convection has been on somewhat of an increase again. [[A close view of the man with hair at his desk.]] 10 PM Sun: This is like Epsilon all over again. Most of the conventional guidance suggested that zeta should have been dissipated by now . . . well . . . zeta is pretty much alive at this time. I have no choice but to forecast weakening again and again. [[Both of them at their desks.]] 4 AM Mon: By 24-36 hours . . . a significant increase in westerly winds . . . should act to shear away most of the associated convection . . . and finally bring the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season to a merciful ending. 4 PM Mon: It is hard to conceive that a tropical cyclone will be able to survive for very long in such a hostile environment. therefore I have not backed off on the forecast of weakening. [[And again.]] 10 PM Mon: Zeta is stronger than yesterday. 10 AM Wed: As you can see. . . I ran out of things to say. [[And again.]] 4 AM Thu: Satellite intensity estimates have decreased. Zeta is downgraded to a 30 kt tropical depression. [[And again.]] 10 AM Thu: Shortly after the previous advisory had been issued . . . regretfully . . . the intensity . . . increased to 35 kt and Zeta is a tropical storm once again. [[And again.]] 10 PM Thu: Although it seems as if Zeta will never die . . . the forecast continues to show weakening. [[Both men are now leaning back in their chairs, exhausted.]] 4 PM, Friday, January 6, 2006: Zeta no longer meets the criteria of a tropical cyclone. . . which means that both it and the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season have ended. This is the national hurricane center signing off for 2005. [[The bald man still sits at his desk, the man with hair is no longer in his chair.]] [[Again, we see the bald man at his desk and the other guy's empty desk.]] Bald guy: Actually, Zeta's cloud pattern is… Hair guy: (out of panel) NO. Bald guy: Ok. {{Title text: The average error in the NHC forecasted position of a hurricane three days in the future has shrunk to a third of what it was in 1990--a staggering accomplishment. However, as you may have gathered, forecasts of future storm *strength* have proved more difficult to improve.}}

[[A view of the passenger-side sideview mirror from the inside of the car. A message on the bottom of the mirror reads 'Objects in mirror are bluer than they appear.']] Edwin Hubble's car. {{Title text: Universes in mirror, like those in windshield, are larger than they appear.}}

[[A graph, with a slightly curved upward trend. The x-axis is marked 'how often someone declares that they hate "drama" and always avoid it.', and the y-axis is marked 'rate at which they create drama.' ]] {{Title text: 'Drama' is just 'people being upset', when someone says they're always surrounded by drama and they just ignore it, it starts to make sense that their strategy might be backfiring.}}

[[A small rectangle, in the style of a food package's ingredients list.]] INGREDIENTS: HYDROGEN, TIME {{Title text: Works for any grocery or non-grocery. Even thyme is just H and time.}}

The Problem with Statements Like "No <party> candidate has won the election without <state>" or "No President has been reelected under <circumstances>" [[Each panel is a variation on the others, with the date in a small box at the top left, a stick figure speaking the line in the main panel, and the concluding sentence underneath.]] 1788… No one has been elected President before. …but Washington was. 1792… No incumbent has ever been selected. …until Washington. 1796… No one without false teeth has become President. …but Adams did. 1800… No challenger has beaten an incumbent. …but Jefferson did. 1804… No incumbent has beaten a challenger. …until Jefferson. 1808… No congressman has ever become President. …until Madison. 1812… No one can win without New York. …but Madison did. 1816… No candidate who doesn't wear a wig can get elected. …until Monroe was. 1820… No one who wears pants instead of breeches can be reelected. …but Monroe was. 1824… No one has ever won without a popular majority. …J.Q. Adams did. 1828… Only people from Massachusetts and Virginia can win. …until Jackson did. 1832… The only Presidents who get reelected are Virginians. …until Jackson. 1836… New Yorkers always lose. …until Van Buren. 1840… No one over 65 has won the Presidency. …until Harrison did. 1844… No one who's lost his home state has won. …but Polk did. 1848… The Democrats don't lose when they win Pennsylvania. …but they did in 1848. 1852… New England Democrats can't win. …until Pierce did. 1856… No one can become President without getting married. …until Buchanan did. 1860… No one over 6'5" can get elected. …until Lincoln. 1864… No one with a beard has been reelected. …but Lincoln was. 1868… No one can be President if their parents are alive. …until Grant. 1872… No one with a beard has been reelected in peacetime. …until Grant was. 1876… No one can win a majority of the popular vote and still lose. …Tilden did. 1880… As goes California, so goes the nation. …until it went Hancock. 1884… Candidates named 'James' can't lose. …until James Blaine. 1888… No sitting President has been beaten since the Civil War. …Cleveland was. 1892… No former President has been elected. …until Cleveland. 1896… Tall Midwesterners are unbeatable. …Bryan wasn't. 1900… No Republican shorter than 5'8" has been reelected. …until McKinley was. 1904… No one under 45 has been elected. …Roosevelt was. 1908… No Republican who hasn't served in the military has won. …until Taft. 1912… After Lincoln beat the Deocrats while sporting a beard with no mustache, the only Democrats who can win have a mustache with no beard. …Wilson had neither. 1916… No Democrat has won without Indiana. …Wilson did. 1920… No incumbent senator has won. …until Harding. 1924… No one with two Cs in their name has become President. …until Calvin Coolidge. 1928… No one who got ten million votes has lost. …until Al Smith. 1932… No Democrat has won since women secured the right to vote. …until FDR did. 1936… No President's been reelected with double-digit unemployment. …until FDR was. 1940… No one has won a third term. …until FDR did. 1944… No Democrat has won during wartime. …until FDR did. 1948… Democrats can't win without Alabama. …Truman did. 1952… No Republican has won without winning the House or Senate. …Eisenhower did. 1956… No Republican has won without Missouri. …until Eisenhower. 1960… Republicans without facial hare are unbeatable. …Kennedy beat Nixon. 1964… No Democrat has won without Georgia. …Johnson did. 1968… No Republican Vice President has risen to the Presidency through an election. …until Nixon. 1972… No wartime candidate has won without Massachusetts. …until Nixon did. 1976… No one who lost New Mexico has won. …but Carter did. 1980… No one has been elected President after a divorce. …until Reagan was. 1984… No left-handed President has been reelected. …until Reagan was. 1988… No Democrat who has won Wisconsin (without being from there) has lost. …until Dukakis did. 1992… No Democrat has won without a majority of the Catholic vote. …until Clinton did. 1996… No Dem. incumbent without combat experience has beaten someone whose first name is worth more in Scrabble. …until Bill beat Bob. 2000… No Republican has won without Vermont. …until Bush did. 2004… No Republican without combat experience has beaten someone two inches taller. …until Bush did. 2008… No Democrat can win without Missouri. …until Obama did. [[The next two panels share a date and ending caption.]] 2012… Panel 1: Alliterative tickets (e.g. Romney Ryan) are undefeated. Panel 2: No nominee whose first name contains a "K" has lost. Which streak will break? {{Title text: No white guy who's been mentioned on Twitter has gone on to win.}}

[[A character is sending a message from their phone.]] Character: Hey, I lost the server password. What is it, again? [[Someone at a desk with a laptop on it replies.]] Desk Haver: It's -- ...wait. How do I know it's really you? Character: Ooh, good question! I bet we can construct a cool proof-of-identity protocol. I'll start by picking two random-- Desk Haver: Oh good; it's you. Here's the psasword... Character: NO! {{Title text: Not sure why I just taught everyone to flawlessly impersonate me to pretty much anyone I know. Just remember to constantly bring up how cool it is that birds are dinosaurs and you'll be set.}}

[[A figure with a hat is talking to another figure.]] Hat: ... No, but see, it's a movie about movies. Figure: Sounds like masturbatory navel-gazing. Hat: No, it's about blurring the line between metaphor and reality. Hat: You just don't know much about art. Figure: I know all about blurring the line between metaphor and reality. I'm the goddamn Michael Jordan of blurring the line between metaphor and reality. [[The figure walks away.]] Hat: ... huh? [[A basketball flies into the panel and knocks the figure's hat off.]] {{Title text: People into masturbatory navel-gazing have a lot to learn about masturbation.}}

My hobby: [[A wind turbine has been disconnected from its transformer, and is wired directly to a large wooden fan. A figure stands proudly before the wooden fan.]] Undoing {{Title text: I've been sneaking out at night and installing lamps on the underside of every photovoltaic panel I can find. Sure, there are upwards of 80% losses, but I prefer to think of them as nearly 20% gains.}}

[[Two characters with long hair are talking.]] First character: Remember when we prosecuted Microsoft for bundling a browser with an OS? First character: Imagine the future we'd live in if we'd been willing to let one tech company amass that much power. Second character: Thank god we nipped that in the bud. {{Title text: Facebook, Apple, and Google all got away with their monopolist power grabs because they don't have any 'S's in their names for critics to snarkily replace with '$'s.}}

[[The first panel's scenery is upside down. An artist is hanging from the ground, looking down at the sky, where there is a cloud.]] Artist: Oh -- hello down there! Artist: Welcome to my sky! [[The artist is now standing on the ground looking up.]] Artist: It's pretty good. Artist: I like it. Artist: It's not the same color as anything . [[The scene zooms out, revealing more clouds.]] Artist: Wow! Artist: There are a lot of you! Artist: Good thing it's so big. [[A figure with long hair is talking to the artist at what's evidently an alcoholory, since the figure is holding a martini glass and there is a waiter in the background.]] Figure: And what do you do? Artist: I'm in the cloud storage business. {{Title text: According to my mom, my first word was (looking up at the sky) 'Wow!'}}

[[Six traffic lights are hanging from a wire. A bird is on the wire. This is animated.]] [[On the far left, a pole has a sign disallowing all directions.]] [[The first light on the left has a right turn only sign.]] [[The next light has straight and right turn only.]] [[The far right light has a left turn only sign.]] [[If you watch long enough, the lights do odd things such as turn purple, or light up all three red.]] {{Title text: There's an intersection I drive through sometimes that has a forward green arrow, a red light, and a 'no turns' sign all on one pole. I honestly have no idea what it's telling me to do.}}

[[A woman approaches a guy in a white beret, who appears to be doing a handstand on the lawn.]] Woman: What are you doing? Beret: Clinging to the ceiling of a bottomless abyss. [[The woman walks past him.]] Woman: You are very odd. [[The woman towards a mailbox.]] [[As she passes the mailbox, she looks up.]] [[This panel appears to be upside down. The woman is clinging to the mailbox, and a woman with a ponytail approaches her.]] Ponytail: What's wrong? Woman: I looked down. {{Title text: I dropped a bird and I didn't hear it hit bottom.}}

[[A man and a woman stand at the counter of a shop. A man with a beard and a beret stands behind the counter, holding a sword.]] Beard: This sword was forged from a fallen star. Antimony impurities make the blade surprisingly brittle and weak . [[A close-up on the man with the beard.]] Beard: And this dagger is made of metal from a far-off kingdom. It glows blue. Out of panel: When orcs are near? [[The man with the beard holds a dagger.]] Beard: No, always. Radiation from the Actinum content. Woman: ...does it have eldritch powers? [[The bearded man puts the dagger back behind the counter.]] Beard: It gives the wielder +2 to cancer risk. Other Man: I think we should find another shop. {{Title text: This exotic blade was wrought from a different fallen star. The meteorite was a carbonaceous chondrite, so it's basically a lump of gravel glued into the shape of a sword. A SPACE sword!}}

[[Five people are at a funeral, the casket is on a stand in the center. There are three people in the background, on the left side. On the right, in the foreground, are two police officers. One is male, the other female.]] Female cop: Good cop. It's a real shame - he was just one day away from getting put in the locked, heavily-guarded room where all cops stay for the last day before they retire. {{Title text: We can't let this happen again. We need to build a secure TWO-day-before-retirement safe room.}}

[[A guy in a knit hat is sitting at a desk, typing on a laptop. Another guy is looking over his shoulder.]] Laptop: *move* Other guy: Why'd you move your knight away? [[The guy in the hat turns around to look at the other guy.]] Other guy: Just think logically . The goal is checkmate, so you should always move pieces toward the other player's king. [[A close-up on the other guy, hand to chin in thought.]] Other guy: I guess occasionally you need to move backward, but it'd be trivial to make a list of those circumstances and-- [[The guy in the hat leans back in his chair.]] Hat guy: Have you ever played chess? Other guy: Not buch, but-- Hat guy: Wanna? Other guy: Uh, ok. [[The two have set up a chessboard on a stool between them, the guy in the hat playing from his chair, the other guy standing. The guy in the hat takes the first move.]] *move* *move* *move* *move* *move* *move* *move* Hat guy: Checkmate. [[The other guy stares at the board.]] [[The guy in the knit hat has turned back to his laptop, and the other guy is standing behind him, still looking at the chessboard on the stool.]] Other guy: This game isn't very well-designed. For starters, knights are too weak... {{Title text: I've developed a more logical set of rules but the people on the chess community have a bunch of stupid emotional biases and won't reply to my posts.}}

[[Standard vacuous entertainment newscast. An anchor starts off the segment with an inset feed of a field reporter]] In-studio News Anchor: All Hollywood is in town or tonight's star-studded premier! We go live to our reporter on the red carpet. How do things look? [[Field reporter feed switches to fullscreen. The reporter is stating on the red carpet in front of a full crowd.]] Field reporter: Bleak. In 800 million years, the aging, brightening sun will boil away the oceans, and all this will be blowing sand. [[Switch back to initial framing]] Anchor: Oh. Um. ..sounds pretty grim. How are the stars reacting? Reporter: Hydrogen fusion. But it won't last forever. Anchor. I mean the *movie* stars. Reporter: They won't last forever either. None of us will. {{Title text: 'But what's the buzz about the film?' 'We're hoping it's distracting.'}}

[[A character is dangling from a balloon. All text appears in rectangular bubbles.]] Character: From the stories Character: I expected the world to be sad Character: And it was Character: And I expected it to be wonderful. Character: It was. ((The last panel, unusually, is infinitely large, and this transcript is not wide enough to contain it. The part you can see in a normal browser window goes as follows.)) [[ The same character is dangling above the ground, next to an intricately drawn tree with no leaves. ]] Character: I just didn't expect it to be so big . {{Title text: Click and drag.}}

[[A fridge with most of the shelves as conveyor belts that feed off to a "bad" tray. The top internal one starts at 3 days, and has markings for 2 days, 24 hours, and 12 hours. The middle internal one goes from 1 week to 5 days to 3 days to 2 and then to 1 day. The bottom internal one goes from 3 months to 2, 1, and then 2 weeks. One belt is mounted on the door, marked from 2 weeks to 1 week to 3 days.]] {{Title text: I want this engraved on my tombstone like the Epitaph of Stevinus.}}

[[ A figure wakes up to an apparition hovering over their bed. ]] Apparition: OOOOOOOOOOOOooooo Figure: A ghost!? Apparition: I bring a cautionary vision of things to come! Apparition: This is the future: [[ Two people are standing between a pair of houses. There is a tree. An airplane flies past. ]] Apparition: And this is the future if you give up the fight over the word "literally": [[ Two people are standing between a pair of houses. There is a tree. An airplane flies past. The cynical might suggest the panel is copy pasted. [[ Back to the figure in bed. ]] Figure: They looked exactly the same. Apparition: OOOOOOOOOOOooooo Figure: Ok, I get it. Apparition: Seriously, this is duuuuumb . {{Title text: But then the Ghost of Subjunctive Past showed up and told me to stay strong on 'if it were'.}}

(( The panel is a chart. Months are arrayed down the first column, the second and third columns show sports, with the divisions in partial months rather than lined up with the ends of months. )) Which sport are they arguing about? -My cheat sheet- (( The second column, reproduced using approximate dates. )) US: Football [[ovoid ball drawn in brackets]]: Jan 1 - February 10 Basketball: February 10 - April 20 Baseball: April 20 - May 25 Basketball: May 25 - June 15 Baseball: June 15 - August 20 Football [[ovoid]]: August 20 - October 5 Baseball: October 5 - October 20 Football [[ovoid]]: October 20 - December 31 (( The third column, reproduced using approximate dates. )) non-US: Football [[truncated icosahedron, 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons]]: Jan 1 - December 31 {{Title text: I would subscribe to a Twitter feed that supplied you with one reasonable sports opinion per day, like 'The Red Sox can't make the playoffs (championship games), but in last night's game their win seriously damaged the chances of the Yankees (longstanding rival team).'}}

[[A person holding onto a balloon labeled "math problem" goes to grab another labeled "call mom"]] [["Check Oven" appears off in the distance]] [[The person lets go of the first two..]] [[..leaps up and grabs "Check Oven]] [[More balloons. "parking meter", "taxes", "buy soap", "phone call", "relax", "inbox", "clean", "beat game", "feed cat", "drink water", "call mom", "math problem", "send card", "check oven", "engine light", "read", "breathe" all show up at once.]] {{Title text: 20 balloons float away while I'm busy permanently tying one to a tree to deal with it for good. Unfortunately, that one balloon was 'land a rocket on the moon in Kerbal Space Program.'}}

[[A guy walking toward the left, holding a car license plate in front of him.]] Guy: Check out my personalized license plate! Girl (out of frame): "1I1-III1"? [[The girl is now in frame, sitting in an office chair, looking down at the license plate in her hands. The guy stands in front of her, rubbing his hands together with glee.]] Guy: No one will be able to correctly record my plate number! I can commit any crime I want! Girl: Sounds foolproof. SOON: [[A witness (a bald man in glasses) stands in front of yellow 'DO NOT CROSS' police tape, speaking to a pair of police officers. One officer is facing him, writing in a notepad, the other is turning to walk away.]] Witness: The thief's license plate was all "1"s or something. PO #1: Oh. That guy. PO #2: His address is on a post-it in the squad car. {{Title text: The next day: 'What? Six bank robberies!? But I just vandalized the library!' 'Nice try. They saw your plate with all the 1's and I's.' 'That's impossible! I've been with my car the whole ti-- ... wait. Ok, wow, that was clever of her.'}}

[[A woman approaches a little girl, who is sitting on the floor with a pile of books, once of which she is reading.]] Woman: What are you reading about? Girl: Dinosaurs! Woman: Oh, yeah. [[The woman stands talking to the little girl, who is still looking at her book.]] Woman: They've gotten all weird since when I was a kid. They used to be awesome, but now they all have dorky feathers, right? Girl: Yup! [[The woman is still standing, looking at the little girl.]] Girl: This says they now think raptors used their wings for stability, flapping to stay on top of their prey while hanging on with their hooked claws and eating it alive. *Fowler et al., PLOS ONE 6(12), 2011 [[The woman stares at the girl, who is still reading the book.]] [[The woman sits down on the floor with the girl and starts reading another of the books.]] {{Title text: Click to see a video of a modern bird using stability flapping during predatory behavior. It all fits! Also, apparently Microraptor had *four* wings? The past keeps getting cooler! (And there's more of it every day!)}}

[[A man stands at a microwave, which hangs on the wall above the stove.]] Man: How long do you zap these? Out of panel person: Two minutes. Man: Thanks! <<*beep* 1>> <<*beep* 5>> <<*beep* 9>> Man (whispering): It's ok, Nine. You are not forgotten. Ever since I heard the simile "as neglected as the nine button on the microwave," I've found myself adjusting cook times. {{Title text: FYI: If you get curious and start trying to calculate the time adjustment function that minimizes the gap between the most-used and least-used digit (for a representative sample of common cook times) without without altering any time by more than 10%, and someone asks you what you're doing, it's easier to just lie.}}

[[A man with a combover, a book, and a clipboard approaches black-hat man.]] Combover: You should check us out. We're the fastest-growing religion in the country. Black hat: "Fastest-growing" is such a dubious claim. Combover: It's true! We grew by 85% over the past year. ((Between panels.)) [[Black hat man shouts to someone out of frame.]] Black hat: Hey, Rob -- wanna join my religion? Rob: Sure, whatever. [[Black hat man turns back to Combover and produces a notepad and pen.]] Black hat: Well, looks like my religion grew by 100% this year. [[Black hat man begins to walk away.]] Combover: We have 38,000 members! Black hat: Hope they're all ok with second place. {{Title text: I lead a small but extraordinarily persuasive religion whose only members are door-to-door proselytizers from other faiths.}}

[[A timeline style graph.]] WORDS Arranged by How Sketchy They Make the Sentence "HEY BABY, WANNA COME BACK TO MY SEX ________?" sketchy <--------> very sketchy party --- orgy --- dungeon --- palace --- house --- shrine --- room --- basement --- truck --- platform --- van --- area --- crate --- chute --- ravine --- tarp {{Title text: factory --- spire --- onslaught --- extractor --- judge}}

[[A bride and groom stand next to each other. Each has a hand outstretched toward the other.]] Officiator (out of panel): Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? Bride: ...no. [[The groom steps back in surprise. The bride removes her wig to reveal she is a man.]] Groom: What? Amy!? Bride: I'm not Amy. None of this was real. You're back in senior year. It's the big game. [[The groom puts his hands to his head in confusion. The "bride" holds up a football, still holding the wig in his other hand.]] Groom: What is this!? Bride: The greatest high school football misdirection play of all time. [[The groom puts his hands to his mouth as the man in the wedding dress begins to run backwards, away from him.]] ((Outside the final panel.)) [[The groom remains frozen in horror as the "bride" turns and dashes toward the goalpost in the distance.]] {{Title text: So, um. Do you want to get a drink after the game?}}

[[An unbuxom waitress begins to serve some customers at a table]] Waitress: ..and on Tuesdays we offer endless wings. White Beret Guy: Haha, cool. i have those. Waitress: You what? [[White Beret Guy sprouts a pair of wings]] Waitress: AAAAA!! [[White Beret Guy's wings start getting longer]] Everyone: AAAAAAA [[Wings start to extend into space out from the earth]] *Really* Everyone: AAAAAAAA {{Title text: Try our bottomless drinks and fall forever!}}

Understanding online star ratings: 5 stars: [has only one review] 4.5 stars: Excellent 4 stars: OK 3.5 - 1 star: Crap. {{Title text: I got lost and wandered into the world's creepiest cemetery, where the headstones just had names and star ratings. Freaked me out. When I got home I tried to leave the cemetery a bad review on Yelp, but as my hand hovered over the 'one star' button I felt this distant chill ...}}

[[A person at an airport slips on a banana peel and gets sucked into a nearby jet engine]] Person (thinking): Seriously!? *This* is what gets me? I wasted so many hours on WebMD worrying about the rash on my arm! {{Title text: BUT WHAT IF I REASSURE MYSELF WITH A JOKE AND THEN DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE RASH AND IT TURNS OUT TO BE DEATH MITES AND I COULD HAVE CAUGHT IT}}

I can't help but admire the audacity of the marketer who came up with the phrase "contains a clinically studied ingredient" [[Two people are about to enter a bed for.. activities]] Person 1: Don't worry - I've been tested. Person 2: ...and you're clean? Person 1: So many questions! {{Title text: Blatantly banking on customers not understanding that it's like a Hollywood studio advertising that their new movie was 'watched by Roger Ebert'.}}

[[Two people hang out with some beverages. The speaker here has a bright green crazy straw]] Crazy Straw Person: The thing to understand about the plastic crazy straw design world is that there are two main camps: The professionals - designing for established brands - and the hobbyists. The hobbyist mailing lists are full of drama, with friction between the regulars and a splinter group focused on loops.. Human subcultures are nested fractally. There's no bottom. {{Title text: The new crowd is heavily shaped by this guy named Eric, who's basically the Paris Hilton of the amateur plastic crazy straw design world.}}

[[Black Hat Man is interviewed for a job at an interviewer's desk]] Interviewer: ..but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [[Black Hat Man places a briefcase onto the interviewer's desk]] Black Hat Man: Perhaps *this* could change your mind? [[Interviewer opens the briefcase]] [[..the briefcase opens into a hole that extends below the desk]] [[The hole looks miles deep]] [[The view falls into the hole]] [[The interviewer falls down the hole]] [[The interviewer lands on a chair with a briefcase]] [[The positions from the original scene have switched and Black Hat Man is now interviewing]] Black Hat Man: ..but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [[Interviewer looks confused]] [[Interviewer notices the briefcase]] [[Interviewer places briefcase on the desk]] Interviewer: Perhaps *this* could change your mind? [[Black Hat Man opens the briefcase]] [[Black Hat Man looks inside]] [[Black Hat Man spins the briefcase around]] Black Hat Man: I'm sorry.. Black Hat Man: - that opening has been filled [[briefcase contains the normal business elements of a briefcase]] {{Title text: Hey, before you go, can you explain to me what job I now have?}}

When will we forget? Based on US Census Bureau national population projections. Assuming we don't remember cultural events from before age 5 or 6. By this year: the majority of Americans will be too young to remember: 2012: The seventies 2013: The Carter presidency 2014: The Reagan shooting 2015: The Falkland Islands war 2016: Return of the Jedi release 2017: The first Apple Macintosh 2018: New Coke 2019: Challenger 2020: Chernobyl 2021: Black Monday 2022: The Reagan Presidency 2023: The Berlin Wall 2024: Hammertime 2025: The Soviet Union 2026: The LA Riots 2027: Lorena Bobbit 2028: The Forrest Gump release 2029: The Rwandan Genocide 2030: OJ Simpson's trial 2031: Clinton's reelection 2032: Princess Diana 2033: Clinton's impeachment 2034: Columbine 2035: Forgot about Dre 2036: 9 11 2037: VH1's I Love the 80s 2038: A time before Facebook. 2039: VH1's I Love the 90s 2040: Hurricane Katrina 2041: The planet Pluto 2042: The first iPhone 2043: The Bush presidency 2044: Michael Jackson 2045: trying to say "Eyjafjallajökull" 2046: The Arab Spring 2047: Anything embarrassing you do today. {{Title text: 'Baby Got Back' turned 20 this year. My favorite nostalgia show is VH1's 'I Love The Inexorable March of Time Toward the Grave That Awaits Us All.'}}

[[Two people standing outside their en-Phelps-ified swimming pool]] Person 1: Why is Michael Phelps in your backyard pool? Person 2: I don't know. He's been there all day. Go home, Michael! Michael Phelps: Woo! 18 gold medals! [[The two people break out a pair of pool nets and unsuccessfully try to snag Phelps]] Person 1: Can you get him? Person 2: He's so *fast*! Phelps: Ha hah! Can't catch me! <<Splash splash>> [[One person heads off to fetch something]] [[Person returns with a hand truck full of jello mix]] Phelps: Oh crap. {{Title text: [shortly] ... he ate ALL of it!?}}

[[The Curiosity rover is lowered onto the Mars surface by a Sky Crane.]] Your excuse for anything today: "Sorry - I was up all night trying to download photos taken by a robot lowered onto Mars by a Skycrane." {{Title text: As of this writing the NASA JPL websites are still overloaded. Trying CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px].torrent.SwEsUb.DVDRip.XviD-aXXo.jpg instead.}}

[[A large banner is hanging over a podium, where a speaker is standing. A stick figure crashes through the left side of the panel, scattering glass.]] 10th Annual Symposium on Formal Languages <<CRASH>> Figure: Grammar! [[The figure runs off the right side of the panel, so swiftly it leaves a cloud of dust in its wake. The speaker at the podium just watches silently.]] {{Title text: [audience looks around] 'What just happened?' 'There must be some context we're missing.'}}

[[The scene is a party. Two characters are talking - the entirety of the text is a thought bubble of one of the two.]] Thinker: Am I smiling enough? Should I be leaning on something? Where should my hands go? I hope he doesn't ask me what his name is. I've said "yeah" too much; what are some other agreeing words? Oh crap, his story just got sad stop smiling stop smiling {{Title text: Oh right, eye contact. Ok, good, holding the eye contact ... holding ... still holding ... ok, too long! Getting weird! Quick, look thoughtfully into space and nod. Oh, dammit, said 'yeah' again!}}

[[ Two characters sit across from each other at a desk. One has a beret and the other has a bun. ]] Bun: Where do you see yourself in five years? Beret: Oh man, I don't know! Let's find out! [[ The characters stare at one another. ]] [[ Cobwebs and hair grow; the desk and chairs fall into disrepair. ]] [[ Five years pass. ]] Beret: Hah-- Beret: I thought so! {{Title text: 'Well, no further questions. You're hired!' 'Oh, sorry! I'm no longer interested. There's a bunch of future I gotta go check out!'}}

[[A character in a long flowing robe holds up a lantern in one hand; the One Ring is dangling from a necklace in the other. The scene is a cave, profuse with spiderwebs, bones hanging in some of them. On one of the webs are words, presumably written by the spider.]] SOME PIG {{Title text: My all-time favorite example of syntactic ambiguity comes from Wikipedia: 'Charlotte's Web is a children's novel by American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.'}}

((The panel appears to be the log from a 'wish bureau'.)) Eyelash Wish Log Wish Bureau ID #: 21118378 Date range: Jan-Apr 2012 [[The 'Wisher' is black hat guy.]] Wisher Date Wish Jan 09 That wishing on eyelashes worked Jan 12 A pony Jan 15 Unlimited wishes Jan 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes Jan 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Jan 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Feb 05 Unlimited eyelashes Feb 06 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher Feb 08 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience Feb 12 Unlimited breadsticks Feb 12 Veto power over others' wishes Feb 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation Feb 23 The power to override any veto Feb 27 The power to see where any shortened url goes without clicking Feb 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk Mar 07 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions Mar 15 A house of stairs Mar 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Mar 29 Free transportation to and from that universe Apr 02 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced Apr 07 The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about Apr 08 Zero wishes Apr 15 Veto power over clocks Apr 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets {{Title text: Ooh, another one. Uh ... the ability to alter any coefficients of friction at will during sporting events.}}

[[A social network feed with four status updates from four different people. Each one has a reply from the same account, which is called 'ContextBot', underneath.]] Close-up face w glasses: The things I put up with... ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.) Male female couple: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone. ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a ilnk to a survey.) Blonde girl w bangs: I officially give up. ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.) Spiky hair guy: Sighhhh ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.) Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life. {{Title text: If you read all vaguebooking vaguetweeting with the assumption that they're saying everything they can without revealing classified military information, the internet gets way more exciting.}}

Person 1, sitting at laptop: I, um, messed up my server again. Person 2: I'll take a look. You have the *weirdest* tech problems [[Person 2 uses the root prompt]] ~# ls [[computer returns the following]] usr share Adobe doc example android_vm root sbin ls.jar: Error: Device is not responding. [[Person 2 has an amazingly incredulous look on their face]] Person 2: What did you *do*!? Person 1: Maybe the device is busy. Should I try it later? Person 2: You should shut down this system and wait for the Singularity. {{Title text: Protip: Annoy Ray Kurzweil by always referring to it as the 'Cybersingularity'.}}

If you post: you sound like ((This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format)) "Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager "its gettin 18 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator {{Title text: I liked the idea, suggested by h00k on bash.org, of a Twitter bot that messages prominent politicians to tell them when they've unnecessarily used sms-speak abbreviations despite having plenty of characters left.}}

[[Two people are doing a geological survey]] Person 1: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley. Person 2: The spreading is recent. Person 1: See the friction breccia? Person 2: Oh - flow cleavage! Deeper in the rift. Person 1: Deeper. [[An idea pops into Person 1's head]] Person 1: This orogeny Person 2: is driven by a Person 1: *huge* Person 2: *thrust* fault [[The same idea pops into person 2's head]] [[They both drop to the ground in a fit of passion]] Geology: Surprisingly erotic. {{Title text: That's a gneiss butte.}}

Person 1, chatting on a cellphone: I can't believe you're so wrong. I'm backed by Snopes, Wikipedia, and a half-dozen journals. You're citing .Net ppages with black backgrounds and like 20 fonts each. Person 2, using a laptop on a desk: It's sad how you buy into the official story so unquestioningly. Guess some people prefer to stay asleep. Person 1: Watch closely - I'm about to win this argument. Person 2, responding electronically: how? Person 1: By *going down a waterslide*. [[The person is sitting at the very top of a waterslide preparing to descend]] Person 2: So? what does that prove? Person 1: Wheeee.. Person 2: You didn't win the argument! Person 1: ...eeee <<sploosh>> {{Title text: Really, the comforting side in most conspiracy theory arguments is the one claiming that anyone who's in power has any plan at all.}}

Your Central Visual Field ((This comic contains numerous visual elements arranged around a central point, and are intended to represent locations in a sphere with the eyeball as the center. Underlaid below all of the elements are concentric circles representing degrees from straight ahead, using the eyeball's point of view, denoting where these elements would appear in someone's field of vision given proper setup. For this description, elements will be described using this grid plus location in degrees within the specified circle, placing 0 degrees to the right and going counterclockwise, separated with the word "mark".)) [[At the top are the instructions to view this page]] Look at the center with your eyes this far from the screen. [[A rolled-up sheet of paper that equals about 55 total horizontal degrees in width in the measurement of the chart]] (You can roll up a sheet of paper and cut it - or zoom the page - so it matches this image) 17 mark 0: right eye blind spot. from 0 to 30 mark 15: [[The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees]] Detail - We only see at high resolution over a small area in the center of our vision where retinal cells are densest (the fovea). If you stare at the center of this chart, your eyes are seeing all these panels at roughly the same level of detail. 9 mark 105: Moon. 7 mark 112: Supermoon. from 0 to 20 mark 170: [[Sets 3 partially overlapping circles in multiple locations along this path. Each set has a primary color in each circle and additive colors in the overlap areas, with color saturation decreasing sharply as the sets leave the center.]] Color Vision: We don't see much color outside the center of our vision - our brains keep track of what color things are and fill it in for us. 17 mark 180: Left Eye Blind Spot. (not pictured: T-Boz blind spot, Chilli blind spot) from 0 to infinity mark from 180 to 205: [[A swath of blue, with heavier saturation up to 5 degrees from center to fading, but never gone out to the edges of the image]] from 0 to 7 from 205 to 235:[[A swath of red, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center]] from 0 to 7 from 235 to 270:[[A swath of green, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center]] Red and green-sensitive cones are mainly limited to the center of our vision. We have few blue-sensitive cone cells, but they're found out to the edge of our vision. 25 mark 205: [[A small whisp of white in a swath of blue]] Blue-sky sprites: These tiny, darting spots, visible against smooth blue backgrounds, are white cells moving in the blood vessels over the retina]] 5 mark 195: [[a long blob, slightly distorting the blue swath]] Floaters: Some types of floaters are caused by breakdown of your eyeball goop as you age, but this type is some other kind of debris near the retina. I don't know what. 10 mark 270: [[An askew crosshair and circle, with faint blue and yellow wedges inside]] Humans can see polarization - Stare at a white area on an LCD display while rotating it or your head fast [[use straight ahead as the axis of rotation]]. Polarization direction is shown by a faint central yellow blue shape. (Also visible in deep blue skies) from 0 to 30 mark 340: [[The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees. The brightness of the image varies from black at 2 mark 340, to gray at 5 mark 340, to nearly white at 10 mark 340, to slightly grayer at 20 mark 340, to medium gray at 30 mark 340.]] Night Vision: Cone cells (sharp, central color vision) don't work in low light, but rod cells (monochrome, low-res, non-central) do. This is why you can walk around in dim light, but not read. It's also why you can spot fainter stars by looking next to them. {{Title text: I recently learned something that solved a mystery that had bugged me since childhood--why, when I looked at an analog clock, the hand would sometimes seem to take a couple seconds to start ticking. Google "stopped clock illusion".}}

The United Shapes: A map of things states are shaped like ((Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders)) Alabama: A moai head facing east. Alaska: Winne the Pooh with a jetpack and a ray gun. Arizona: A refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries. Arkansas: A measuring cup. California: A vacuum. Colorado: The wiki article on Colorado. Connecticut: A train conductor's hat. Delaware: A meerkat. Florida: an eggplant. Georgia: Missouri. Hawaii: A snowball. Idaho: A garden gnome, sitting down. Illinois: A gangster with a guitar case, upside down. Indiana: The brush of a paintbrush. Iowa: A tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich. Kansas: A stand-up piano. Kentucky: A cloud. Louisiana: A boot with some gum stuck to the bottom of it. Maine: A Vulcan salute. Maryland: A howling wolf, upside down. Massachusetts: An elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea. Michigan: A mitten for the lower portion, an eagle for the UP. Minnesota: $160 in $20 USD bills. Mississippi: A moai head facing west. Missouri: Georgia. Montana: One half of a muffin. Nebraska: A blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back. Nevada: A clothes iron. New Hampshire: A tall brick factory building. New Jersey: A bent-over old person. New Mexico: A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger. New York: A hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half. North Carolina: A bouquet of flowers. North Dakota: The top half of an amp. Ohio: Underwear (Briefs). Oklahoma: A covered pot, dripping with boilover. Oregon: A locomotive. Pennsylvania: A very thick book with a bookmark. Rhode Island: The bow half of a boat's hull. South Carolina: A slice of pizza. South Dakota: The bottom half of an amp. Tennessee: A number of childrens' books, placed in a slightly askew pile. Texas: A dog sitting in a bowl. Utah: An oven. Vermont: A microscope, upside down. Virgina: A frog. Washington: A whale. West Virginia: A stegosaurid. Wisconsin: A skull. Wyoming: An envelope. {{Title text: That eggplant is in something of a flaccid state.}}

[[A chessboard. The black pawns have all gained longbows and have specifically taken down the enemy white knights (horses)]] {{Title text: 1. Ne3 ... ↘↘↘ 2. Nc3 ... ↘↘↘ 0-1}}