today's xkcd

[Two images of Earth are shown. At the top left is a small one, centered on southern West Africa, showing the Atlantic Ocean and the east coast of South America, with a dotted line through the Earth entering at the Yucatán Peninsula and exiting at the east-central Indian Ocean. Taking up most of the rest of the panel is a large Earth image centered on the Indian Ocean and containing a target symbol, comprising a circle and four spokes, aimed at a location in the east-central Indian Ocean.]

[Cueball and Ponytail are sitting at a table, looking at the wall behind them. On the wall is a screen showing a soccer field with some mostly unreadable score information above it. The only readable information is that the score is 2-1.] Cueball: They could be in trouble. Over the last 36 years, they've gone 0 for 2 when they've scored in the 37th minute to lead 2-1 against a team whose country comes before theirs alphabetically.

[An image of a planet, presumably Saturn, showing prominent rings as well as three distant moons (one to the apparent right of it, the other two at the left) and one close, large moon. In front of the large moon is a line of spaceships dwindling into the distance toward the moon, or perhaps toward an orbit around it. Each spaceship has prominent rocket nozzles aimed toward the viewer and away from the large moon, as well as what appears to be a pile of material on "top" of the spaceship, with tie-down ropes holding it in place.]

[Megan and Cueball in front of a large hadron collider. Cueball is stood on the ground in front of it while Megan is on a stepladder with her hand up to the beam pipe.]

[Cueball is standing, with his arms out, in front of a Prototaxite towering over a mossy landscape. To his right, a Tamagotchi (bottom-left) and milk-caps (referred to in this comic as "pogs", top-left) appear. The 3 milk-caps that can be seen show a skull with a snake through its eyeball, a figure 8 & a star (3 more milk-caps are also shown, but have obscured pictures).] Cueball: Who else remembers pogs? Tamagotchis? Vast forests of Prototaxites towering over the mossy landscape as armored fish stir in the deep?

[1st Panel. Cueball is on the left with a ghostly halo around him. Hairbun is on the right, holding a hoe vertically.] Cueball: Oh hi! Guess my time machine works. How's life in the Iron Age? Hairbun: Not bad. Developing new kinds of plows. Cueball: Cool. Hairbun: And my brother was just lost at sea.

[2nd Panel. Only Cueball is shown, with Hairbun out of the panel.] Cueball: I'm sorry. Hairbun [from outside the right side]: It's OK. I think sea navigation is probably impossible.

[3rd Panel. Cueball and Hairbun are both shown again.] Cueball: Oh yeah, you don't have the compass, right? Hairbun: The what? Cueball: The weird rock that always points north? Hairbun: What are you talking about?

Transcript Under the Cut

[Megan is standing behind a lectern, addressing an unseen audience.] Megan: Remember, Tuesday is the decennial particle census. Megan: Physicists will be recording the location of all particles in the universe.

[Zoom out to show Megan is on a podium behind the lectern. She holds one hand, palm up, out towards the still unseen audience] Megan: Of course, this will cause their momenta to become indeterminite, so please plan for some disruption.

The Aperiodic Table of the Elements

[Megan & Cueball talk.]

Megan: I still feel a little weird saying the phrase “my husband”. Megan: It makes me feel so traditional, like a Victorian gossip.

Cueball: Yeah, well, my plight isn’t much better. Megan: What do you mean? Cueball: What’s the most salient cultural reference for the phrase “my wife”?

[A section of a map showing the border between the geographic areas East Valley and Southlake. The border is shown as a dotted line, and it spells out a message:]

WE HOPE YOU'RE ENJOYING THIS MAP