xkcd

by **Cartofel** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:38 am UTC

Like this a lot more, if only for introducing me to Burma Shave ads...
Ah, sweet wordplay...

by **guyy** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:39 am UTC

This comic is
The best in weeks
Sadly, though,
My poem reeks
Burma-Shave

by **albert** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:55 am UTC

Does Randall have a twitter account?

by **Kinami** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:57 am UTC

What I thought
When this verse I read:
"Randal, get out
Of my head"
Burma-shave

(No, not really, but it had to be said)

by **1+1+1 is 3** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:26 am UTC

I am one of those who needed to do some searching in order to understand the comic, I get it now ! :mrgreen:

*is proud* I hadn't even heard of twitter before :oops:

by **brownthighedgirl** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:37 am UTC

Proud to say
I registered
Just because
I knew the word
Burma Shave

and twitter. And this comic made me so happy that I needed a place to express my love for it, so here I am. Hello, forum world.

by **neelakantankk** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:42 am UTC

This comic at first,
I did not get.
But Wiki was there,
So I did not fret.
Burma-Shave

by **Two9A** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:59 am UTC

Now, you see, your rhymes
they don't make sense
because they don't
tangentially reference
Burma-Shave

(That's the point, after all, right?)

by **TjOeNeR** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:11 am UTC

Might be that I'm a European not natively English speaking,

but I think that I speak for a lot of us when I say:

"I don't get it."

And that's the first EVER.

by **Cynical Idealist** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:21 am UTC

I'm happy to say that I immediately got the "burma shave" thing.

I'm even happier to say that I've subverted ads for community college classes on campus into burma shave ads. They didn't exactly fit the format, since there wasn't a verse to them, but it got quite a few laughs from the professors.

by **Murch** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:27 am UTC

Have you seen the old British Wool Board ads? They're pretty nifty too.

'Avast, you scum!' cried Captain Bligh
(Three months adrift) 'The shore is nigh!'
He seized his log: 'We owe salvation
To pluck -- to faultless navigation --
To discipline -- to lack of gin --
To wearing wool against the skin.
This last, a most essential rule;
There is no substitute for wool'.

'Quo Vadis?' cried the Palace guard.
'Upstairs!' yelled Nero, running hard.
'My wardrobe must be saved tonight,
Before the looters heave in sight.
Rome's burning brightly now', said Nero,
'But temperatures will drop to zero.
For keeping warm in weather cool,
There is no substitute for wool'.

And so on. Plenty more, as well as some of the story behind them, here and here.

by **vodka.cobra** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:55 am UTC

GodShapedBullet wrote:
sje46 wrote:This one reminds me that I don't know that much about internet culture.

Ha ha, they did have culture before the internet, sje46. They had memes and everything.

Shut your filthy liar mouth. You know that culture cannot exist outside of the internet! Why else would I stay at my computer desk for 10 hours per day?

by **pueben** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:27 am UTC

This was one of the best xkcds I've seen in a long time.

by **pjt33** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:39 am UTC

Alt text: If long tooltips / cut off for you / then upgrade from / Firefox 2 / Burma Shave

I wish I could easily upgrade from Firefox 3 to Firefox 2 - and yes, that way round is the upgrade. FF2 may not wrap alt text, but its rendering engine works better on the sites I visit most.

by **paniq** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:51 am UTC

XKCD
is crossing borders
Randall Munroe
gives us orders
with
Burma-Shave

audio preview
and such themes
Randall Munroe:
king of memes
- Burma-Shave

by **blockandtackle** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:04 am UTC

On Florida's Turnpike:

Oil and Vinegar
Windows and Bricks
Drinking and Driving
Do not Mix

I swear I pass by it once a week.

by **tonerow12** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:16 am UTC

I just watched the Quantum Leap pilot (a lovely pun in of itself) yesterday. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, XKCD!

by **Paranoid__Android** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:20 am UTC

I still dont properly get this

by **madjo** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:21 am UTC

(sorry for not following the Burma-shave rhyme-meme) After reading the wikipedia article, I got this cartoon.

And for the Dutch readers, certain commercials on Dutch radio and TV use a similar structure:
Ad1 / Ad2 / addition to Ad1 / Ad3 (or addition to Ad2) etc...

Some newspaper ads work the same way.
Ad on page 5 / Addition to Ad on page 7 / Addition to Ad on page 9 / Addition to Ad on page 11... For instance the ads for the Dutch Royal Airforce in today's Metro newspaper follow a similar way. Though not as witty, and certainly not as self-referential.

by **klg19** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:25 am UTC

Today's comic made me SO HAPPY. I first read the Burma-Shave sign collection book, The Verse By the Side of the Road, geez, probably about 35 or 40 years ago. (I'm OLD.) Truly never expected to see it in xkcd. You truly are the master of all media.

by **PatrickRsGhost** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:46 am UTC

I instantly got
This comic's joke
I must be more knowledgeable
Than some Internet folk
Burma-Shave

I then checked
The Burma Wiki
I see they added
A ref to XKCD
Burma-Shave

This comic is
One of the best
It's probably funnier
Than all the rest
Burma-Shave

I really must
Get back to work
Because my boss is
A big fat $#@%
Burma-Shave

I cannot stop
These funny poems
I've been attacked by
Rhyming gnomes
Burma-Shave

by **mikhail** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:01 pm UTC

SoapyHobo wrote:Ah, Burma-shave, I thank Bill Bryson for the knowledge of such things.

Great comic!

I too, have Bill Bryson to thank for getting this.

Still don't really know about Twitter though. Some sort of miniblog thingy, methinks.

by **Poobar** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:04 pm UTC

Yeah, Bill Bryson for me too.

Now I'm going to spend the afternoon writing poetry instead of doing Science. Curse you Randall!

...poetry about Science!

by **John E.** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:20 pm UTC

Usually it is just "Dear SB" that makes me feel old.

Of course I know what Burma-Shave is...

what the hell is Twitter?

by **littlesuz13** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:32 pm UTC

In Illinois they gunssavelife.com uses burma shave like signs. Here's an example of one.

When gun control
Has us beat
Criminals will
Own the street
Gunssavelife.com

Here's a link to more of their signs http://www.gunssavelife.com/burma/burmastats.html

by **Anoria** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:36 pm UTC

Aw man. I'm going to have to explain Twitter and memes to my parents now. Thankfully they're old enough to remember, and to have told me about, the last decade or so of Burma-Shave signs.

Today's, I think, was the best comic in quite a while.

by **twmcneil** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:58 pm UTC

I remember the Burma Shave signs. And barns painted with "Chew Redman Tobacco". And "See Rock City" signs. Once in a drunken dare, a few us of followed the "See Rock City" signs for about a week just to see where they led. It was a lesson in "It's the journey, not the destination."

Gawd I feel old.

by **aleflamedyud** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:15 pm UTC

Looked up the meme. Lame.

by **Sebastian** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:22 pm UTC

Moin Moin

I must admit I needed about half an hour to get this one.
I didn't know what twitter is (and simply trying to translate it into german was no use at all),
I've never heard of Burma-Shave (I'm to young and life in the false country I guess),
I didn't what the guy in the comic has in his hands,
and I thougt it had something to do with firefox cutting off the tooltips, which was totally wrong I must admit.
but I think I've got it now.

Just to make sure :
This guy in the comic has a cell phone in his hand.
He gets sms from the social-network-whatever website twitter and this sms are a Burma-Shave meme which is about memes on twitter feeds.
Right ?

This was a really hard one for me
Sebastian

by **toshiro** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:27 pm UTC

I upgraded from FF2 and it still cuts off tooltips.

And I did not know Burma Shave, but then I'm not from or living in the USA. But I smiled when I got the joke... or what I thought the joke was.

by **fealuinix** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:32 pm UTC

Okay, I admit the comic is funny, after you Wikipedia Burma-Shave. I mean, they quit that ad campaign 19 years before I was born! My dad was in Kindergarten!!!

by **DSDM** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:37 pm UTC

Paranoid Android wrote:I still dont properly get this

Ask your grandparents, kids. Probably one of the cleverest advertising campaigns of all time.

by **rqm** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:46 pm UTC

Lame. All of them, Twitter, Burma-Shave, this strip and its, alt text.

Looking forward to the next joke about math and love.

by **cyberblade** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:56 pm UTC

I knew Burma Shave-but had to look up twitter...

And I'm not OLD!!

by **Elipongo** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:05 pm UTC

fealuinix wrote:Okay, I admit the comic is funny, after you Wikipedia Burma-Shave. I mean, they quit that ad campaign 19 years before I was born! My dad was in Kindergarten!!!

I've never seen a real Burma Shave ad. I first learned about them via email forwards some years ago (pre-Wikipedia; when you actually had to a search engine to find things on the Internet)

I still get them via email. I just checked my GMail and here's a link I got as recently as January of this year. http://oldfortyfives.com/DYRT.htm

by **Sprocket** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:08 pm UTC

YEY Burma Shave!

I just like knowing that some old things are still alive in the minds of the childrens.

by **psyck0** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:09 pm UTC

I don't get it...

by **elnerdo** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:12 pm UTC

Surgery wrote:not entirely sure what twitter is, but if people start posting blogs and such and four stanza verse ending each post with "Burma-Shave" it will be one of the few internet memes that I heartily approve of.

huh, firefox says "memes" isn't a word, and dictionary.com agrees. What's the correct plural of meme? Which firefox also says isn't a word, but here dictionary.com disagrees.

I ended up looking it up, because I thought I knew, but wasn't sure (I didn't know). I came to two conclusions:

1. Holy shit! It's pronounced 'meem'??!
2. Since it's based off of the word 'Gene' in its shortening, the proper plural is most likely "memes".

by **Armadillo Al** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:16 pm UTC

cyberblade wrote:I knew Burma Shave-but had to look up twitter...

And I'm not OLD!!

Same. (Or is 23 old in internet-years now? I can't keep track anymore.)

by **raekuul** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:24 pm UTC

6453893 wrote:Didn't grow up in America, so I guess I'm excused for having had no idea what Burma-Shave was until now.

Also how many minutes until this meme is a twitter epidemic? I say 17.

It was already
a twitter meme
archive trawls will
say this thing:
BURMA SHAVE

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