Talk:2590: I Shouldn't Complain

Added title text explanation. I'm intrigued to know if it was a clothes-dryer, hand-dryer, hair-dryer or some other form of dryer, because that puts different interpretive spins on the trope I've suddenly remembered the name of. This is surely intentionally vague? 172.70.85.211 02:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right trope, as "noodle incident" is something mentioned by name but never explained, but here we have an explanation, more or less (it was the tennis ball). 172.70.242.93 11:35, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I suspect it is a dish dryer or clothes dryer. Both produce a lot of heat and have vents to remove the heated air, which is close enough to be considered an exhaust vent. R3TRI8UTI0N (talk) 02:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Dish dryer? That's a plastic thing on your draining-board that you stand wet dishes on when you use a sink, surely? If you use a dish-washer, I presume it's easier to dry things in that than transfer - like some do with clothes from washing machine to tumble-dryed (I hang mine up to dry, personally). Sorry, culture-shock of strange terms/practices, clearly. 162.158.159.73 04:38, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

For sure it is a clothes dryer since it is common to put in tennis balls with for instance pillows to keep them fluffy. One of these got jammed in the exhaust and was shot out. In old type clothes dryers (we still have one) the exhaust goes out of a hole in the wall, which is great because it gets the humidity out, but then again, it leaves a hole in the wall which is bad for the cold season... But this could explain why it shot a tennis ball at Megan and the nest... outside, and running while she was on a latter. Maybe even to do something about the nest. --Kynde (talk) 19:14, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel that the key ingredient missing from this discussion is that, with all the terrible things happening in the world right now, there is more of this kind of apologizing for even mentioning your own problems than usual. 108.162.250.190 03:14, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

This comic together with 2587 (for the sake of simplictiy) feel a bit like they form a new series of "Misleading sayings" 172.68.50.15 07:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I really do not see a connection. One is a trick to make complicated things go easier down for those you tell it to. This one is about a real world situation, that Randall has just made worse. And for sure it could be related to the war in Ukraine, but not necessarily. --Kynde (talk) 19:14, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with the comparison to the situation in Ukraine. It's really too much of a stretch. 172.70.211.18 06:57, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I also would not have mentioned it, myself. But it's probably one of the biggest current news-stories worldwide (except in Russia, where it's effectively a censored issue!) and so I'm not surprised it was used by some reader/explainer as a possible comparison of "things that being unavoidably stung by insects is better than", in far too many real-world cases.

If I'm any judge of Randall, he wants to voice support to all the besieged and fleeing Ukranians, and would freely do a 'comic' to mark current events if he had something in mind worth publishing. I don't think this is that comic. I don't know how he would even do it, but that's not my call to make.

C'mon. Remember long standing banner "BLM, how you can help"? Remember "I'm with her" comic? If he wanted, he would do it. Tkopec (talk) 09:07, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I remember both. I half expected a banner thing (I tend to visit explainxkcd more frequently than xkcx, so I might miss it at first except for such notes about it made in the appropriate wiki-pages) and can only guess as to why there isn't one.

"I'm with her" got a lot of push-back (as might have the BLM-banner, but that wasn't displacing a 'funny comic' space) and I really can't predict what he'd do (with loads of blue and yellow?) to put forward a message of support for the legitimate occupants of Ukraine that is worth a 'comic slot'. He might be blogging it/twittering/etc, but I'm not sufficiently a cyber-stalker to keep my eyes on those.

Hence my conclusion that while I think he's sympathetic, the message hasn't been made yet. Not in this comic, anyway. (I've seen that Wednesday is out early, already, but not yet visited its page on my current systematic read-through.) It's all just an impression, though. Didn't mean to make this (or the prior comment that we're in the middle of) an essay. It just takes more words to voice than is really quite a simple conceptual thought. 172.70.90.121 20:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, if untold future readers can't benefit from knowing it as a contemporaneous comparison then it would be very strange (or worrying). I say leave it, at least until more reflection (or subsequent events) changes the perspective/provides a newer and 'better' example. 172.70.86.64 08:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

"Given such an attack, Megan would probably not be standing around in routine conversation, casually discussing the incident. She would far more likely be in a hospital bed, and in a gruesome fight for her life." Given that nowhere in the comic is it said that this conversation is happening immediately after the incident itself, it seems reasonable to assume that said hospitalization has already happened, quite possibly a long time ago. Somdudewillson (talk) 15:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)