LOL-December 7
Cidu Bill on Dec 7th 2009
Everybody sent me this one. Literally. And people stopped me on the street and handed me copies.
Filed in Argyle Sweater, Arlo and Janis, Bill Bickel, Bizarro, Black Friday, Cyanide and Happiness, Dan Piraro, Dave Blazek, Francesco Marciuliano, Jimmy Johnson, Leigh Rubin, Loose Parts, Rubes, Sally Forth, Scott Hilburn, chess, comic strips, comics, comics that made us laugh out loud, humor, lol | 31 responses so far
Frank the curmudgeon Dec 7th 2009 at 12:22 am 1
I’ve managed to avoid DOMINOS and forget the NOID - had to google it.
Arthur Dec 7th 2009 at 12:25 am 2
I almost sent in the Kasparov one with a comment of,
“It took you HOW many years to come up with that joke?”
And, I had to search for NOID, too. I had never heard of it.
Pirk Dec 7th 2009 at 12:51 am 3
I still remember the Yo, Noid! videogame for Super Nintendo
furrykef Dec 7th 2009 at 01:24 am 4
Pink - probably not as well as you think, because there wasn’t one. It was for the original Nintendo.
Charlene Dec 7th 2009 at 01:57 am 5
How pathetic that despite the fact that I have no grey hair, I am TOO OLD for the noid joke.
Molly J Dec 7th 2009 at 02:03 am 6
I remember the noid. I had a bendy rubber noid that I guess must have been a Dominos freebie back in the day. Good times. Well, sorta.
mkilby Dec 7th 2009 at 04:30 am 7
I read the caption “Everyone sent me this one…” several times before I figured out that the thin gray line meant that “this” referred to the (mediocre) Arlo and Janis BELOW the caption, and not one of the four (hilarious) panel strips ABOVE.
John B. Dec 7th 2009 at 05:52 am 8
Avoid the Noid! I actually heard that Dominos is bringing it back. So that cartoon may not be so geezerville after all
Sili Dec 7th 2009 at 06:08 am 9
Hey! I liked the A&J pun!
Bill, can we vote mkilby off the blog?
Its Justme Dec 7th 2009 at 07:15 am 10
Not literally. But I almost sent it in, too. Then it could have been.
Ron Dec 7th 2009 at 08:27 am 11
Re: the Noid
It’s not geezer territory. Current news says that
Dominos is bringing it back temporarily.
http://food.aol.com/dominos-noid-returns
mitch4 Dec 7th 2009 at 08:27 am 12
Well, not literally literally. Just figuratively literally.
mdt48302 Dec 7th 2009 at 08:41 am 13
It was a good Arlo, not a great one. But the ones above it were good, not great, too. Literally.
mkilby Dec 7th 2009 at 11:34 am 14
@ Sili (9) - No offense meant (or taken). Actually, all I wanted was a colon (:), an m-dash (–), or an elipsis (…) at the end of the caption, rather than depending on the thin gray line as separator. Replacing “this one” with “this Arlo & Janis” would have been more precise, but it would have run the caption to two lines.
Elyrest Dec 7th 2009 at 12:46 pm 15
“Well, not literally literally. Just figuratively literally.’
mitch4 - Perfect. Just perfect.
Matt Dec 7th 2009 at 12:56 pm 16
Wow, If my mom had given me the choice between going to school and using a meat thermometer, I would have probably chosen the school every time.
Cidu Bill Dec 7th 2009 at 01:44 pm 17
No, literally literally. It was very creepy, and I suspect Jimmy Johnson put them up to it.
Winter Wallaby Dec 7th 2009 at 04:14 pm 18
I didn’t send that one.
Kaitlyn Dec 7th 2009 at 07:38 pm 19
I’ve heard of the Noid - thanks Simpsons!
Mark in Boston Dec 7th 2009 at 10:16 pm 20
I would have sent it to you literally if I knew how.
Matthew Dec 8th 2009 at 10:48 am 21
That killer app is very tempting.
Lost in A**2 Dec 8th 2009 at 06:05 pm 22
Literally. If you didn’t send it in, you aren’t somebody.
mkilby Dec 9th 2009 at 05:07 am 23
@ Todd (23) - There’s another variant of Rock/Paper/Scissors that includes a “well” (fingers and thumb form an open vertical cylinder). Rock and scissors fall into the well, but paper covers the opening (it must be a very large sheet).
In game theory terms, the “original” version is perfectly symmetric, so the best strategy is a balanced random selection (1/3rd probability for each). The additional items (well, dynamite, or whatever) break the symmetry, but do not change the fact that the best strategy is still a random selection. The trick is to figure out the correct percentage proportions.
Cidu Bill Dec 9th 2009 at 05:48 am 24
And then of course there’s rock/paper/scissors/lizard/Spock:
(or watch it in action here)
Rainey Dec 9th 2009 at 09:10 am 25
mkilby: I was taught a version of rock/paper/scissors in which paper covered rock and snuffed dynamite, rock filled well and broke scissors, scissors cut paper and diffused dynamite, dynamite exploded rock and well, and well didintegrated paper and rusted scissors. There was also a reversal on the original game in which scissors lift rock, rock tears paper and paper wraps around scissors. I’ve never heard of a reversal of the “deluxe” version of the game but I’m sure that with enough imagination, one could be made.
P.S. Why in the title of this game, is paper and scissors never mentioned first?
Matthew Dec 9th 2009 at 01:25 pm 26
This begins to remind me of the moment on SEINFELC when Mickey told Kramer that “rock busts through paper”, at which point the two of them simply go “Rock”, “Rock” from then on, no one winning.
Araxie Dec 10th 2009 at 02:42 pm 27
Hasn’t anyone here seen Family Guy? “Perhaps the Noid should have avoided ME.”
paperboy Dec 10th 2009 at 05:32 pm 28
Adam West still has his Batman skills.
mkilby Dec 10th 2009 at 05:46 pm 29
The cute thing about adding “Spock” to the mix is that there is an obvious hand gesture for the Vulcan (”live long and prosper”). I can’t imagine what the gesture for “Lizard” would be (perhaps “stick out your tongue”?) Adding those two items does reduce the probability of ties (from 1/3rd to 1/5th), but since the result is 5-fold symmetric, the ideal strategy is still an evenly balanced random choice (20% each).
For Rock/Paper/Scissors+Well, I’m guessing that the optimum strategy would use probabilities of 1/3rd each for Paper and Well, and 1/6th each for Rock and Scissors, but I would have to review a couple of chapters on game theory to prove it.
P.S. The link (CIDU Bill @ 24) is broken or outdated, I can’t find anything relevant to rock/paper/scissors on the CBS page that it now leads to.
P.P.S. (Rainey @ 25) Poetic metrics: Rock is the only single-syllable object in the (original) collection.
CIDU Bill Dec 10th 2009 at 06:16 pm 30
mkilby, the link goes to a clip (precededed by a commercial, unfortunately) of a Big Bang Theory scene that shows rock/paper/scissors/lizard/Spock in action.
mkilby Dec 10th 2009 at 06:54 pm 31
Thanks, Bill. CBS is engaging in silent extraterritorial censorship. Previously, I was redirected to the main www.cbs.com page, but I just tried it again using Hotspot Shield, and it worked OK.