3192: Planetary Alignment
| Planetary Alignment |
 Title text: We're going to need to modify the surface to mount it on the test stand. Which ocean basin do you like the least? |
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Remember to buckle your seatbelts! King Pando (talk) 05:20, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Inferior loaner items
I have personally been the victim of a much-inferior mobile phone as a loaner. I owned a Nokia phone (probably a Nokia 239) that was on the United States AMPS analog network around 1997, and broke the LCD display. I brought it in for service, and while they worked on it, they issued me a Motorola MicroTAC type phone, which was only slightly better than the original "brick phone" design. Due to delays in repair and distance from the shop itself, I probably used the loaner phone for longer than the phone which I had nominally purchased. Elizium23 (talk) 06:10, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Not necessarily "inferior", but the last time I had a car in the shop I got a car very different from what I'm used to. I normally drive a sedan (Camrys and Accords for several decades), but the loaner was an SUV, which took some getting used to (I'm a short person, getting into the driver's seat felt like climbing into a truck). Barmar (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Relevant XKCD
Seems related to 3059, same clipboard and everything. 64.114.211.116 08:46, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Also related to 3037. These three comics seem to form an arc.
- these would fit into a "Planetary Inspector" category --Youforgotthisthing (talk) 16:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
I wonder if “Planetary Alignment” refers to the astrological notion of “the planets are in alignment…”?
- It's not just astrological, astronomers also call a group of planets close together in the sky an alignment, although the more technical term is syzygy. That's what I expected the comic to be a pun on. Barmar (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
“Which ocean basin do you like the least?” is also reminiscent of Hank Scorpio asking Homer Simpson whether his least favorite country is France or Italy, with the least favorite one being the target of the death ray. 96.250.83.179 (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- I believe that the premier nerd canon parallel here would be Princess Leia giving up "Dantooine" as the location of the Rebel Base in a vain effort to save her home planet, while the Imperial officials paid no real attention to her desperate lie. They probably knew she wouldn't give a real answer, but if she had to think of someplace expendable that she "liked the least", it certainly would be Dantooine. Elizium23 (talk) 04:17, 11 January 2026 (UTC)
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