Editing 1750: Life Goals

The first eight goals on this to-do list feature one or more strange words containing an excess of the last three letters of the alphabet (X, Y and Z), often using several of them in the same words, even several of the same rare letter in a row. (See [[#Table of life goals|Table of life goals]] below).  

All of these words can be looked up in the English version of Wikipedia, but only a few are {{w|common noun}}s, three of them weird animal names, the rest being {{w|proper nouns}}, i.e. persons names (fictional or artist) or obscure names for places or video games. The first goal is the one with fewest of these letters, only using two x's, and only the first word is strange, {{w|Skrillex}} being the artist name of a musician. All later entries have at least three of these letters, which are most often used in very strange, often unpronounceable, words.

The punchline, in the final and ninth goal, expresses that the writer of this list often uses these unexpected and bizarre words in {{w|Scrabble}} games, which exasperates his opponents to such a great extent that he has yet to finish a game without getting punched. All of these words would theoretically earn a player many points in Scrabble, but usually it is not allowed to use proper nouns (see [[#Scrabble points|Scrabble points]] below).

In the title text, a reference is made to the fact that none of these goals have been checked off yet. It also turns out that it is indeed [[Randall|Randall's]] list, since the writer of the list did (at least) manage to check of the goal ''Make something called xkcd'' early. Sadly there are neither y's nor z's nor even more than one x in that four letter combo.

This comic was published the week after the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|152|Flood Death Valley}}'', which referred directly to the city {{w|Zzyzx}} in one of the pictures. It's the second comic in that week after the what if? post that references it more or less directly, the previous one being [[1748: Future Archaeology]]. It seems likely that Randall created this comic after doing research for this what if? post, and came across the city Zzyzx as the shortest way to dig a channel to flood Death Valley.

*The total is the total number of these four letters (including Q) in the entire sentence

| Meet Skrillex in Phoenix || Randall's goal is to meet the musician using the artist name {{w|Skrillex}} in the city of {{w|Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix}}. Not that Skrillex has any specific connection to that city. || 2|| 0|| 0|| 2

| Study zymurgy  || Randall's goal is to study {{w|fermentation}}. {{w|Zymurgy}} (or zymology) is an applied science which studies the biochemical process of fermentation.|| 0|| 2|| 1|| 3

| Get a pet axolotl named Hexxus  || Randall's goal is to obtain a pet salamander (an {{w|axolotl}}) and name it after the malevolent Hexxus from the animated film {{w|FernGully: The Last Rainforest}}. The axolotl is a critically endangered species in nature, but are relatively popular in captivity, with well established captive breeding populations. || 3|| 0|| 0|| 3

| Observe a syzygy from Zzyzx, California  || Randall's goal is to observe an astronomical event in which three celestial bodies form a straight line (known as a {{w|Syzygy (astronomy)|syzygy}}), from the Californian city of {{w|Zzyzx, California|Zzyzx}}. That city was just mentioned in the last [[what if?]] ''{{what if|152|Flood Death Valley}}'' released less than a week before this comic. || 1|| 4|| 4|| 9

| Publish a Zzzax/Mister Mxyzptlk crossover  || A {{w|Crossover (fiction)|crossover}} means that two different stories (often comics) are mixed together, mixing either characters from the two, or the world of one and the characters of another story. In this case Randall's goal is to make a cross over of {{w|Zzzax}}, a {{w|Marvel comic}} book villain, with that of {{w|Mister Mxyzptlk}}, a {{w|DC Comics}} villain. Since Zzzax and Mxyzptlk come from different companies, a crossover story involving them both might run into license problems, though the two companies have come together on several occasions for similar projects.  || 2|| 1|| 4|| 7

Note: the Azerbaijani village is misspelled as Qazaxbəylı (QAZAXBƏYLI) in the comic with a dotless ı at the end; a dotted i would have its dot even in the uppercase version in Turkish and Azerbaijani, i.e. QAZAXBƏYLİ.

| Paint an archaeopteryx fighting a muzquizopteryx || Randall's goal is to make a painting of two {{w|Ornithodiran}}s fighting. Unfortunately the {{w|Archaeopteryx}}, a famous small feathered dinosaur, and {{w|Muzquizopteryx}}, a {{w|pterosaur}} (the famous flying "dinosaurs"), lived in different time periods, so such a fight (most likely) could not have ever taken place, therefore a painted picture of it would require a fair amount of {{w|artistic license}}. The feathered dinosaur was only about half a meter long, but with clear feathers. It is a clear candidate for a {{w|transitional fossil}} between non-avian dinosaurs and birds. It lived in the {{w|late Jurassic}} epoch around 150 million years ago. The pterosaur had a wingspan of about 2 m, was one of the first (and smallest) of this type of pterosaur, and lived in the {{w|Coniacian}} age about 86-90 million years ago. This means the two ornithodirans live as far apart in time as we live apart from the last of the dinosaurs. Since only the bigger one could fly, it seems most likely that the pterosaur would have won such a fight. Randall has previously made several comments on the feathers of dinosaurs, as recently as the comic released a week before this one [[1747: Spider Paleontology]]; see more there.|| 2|| 2|| 2|| 7

| Finish a game of Scrabble without getting punched  || Randall's final goal is to avoid getting punched during a {{w|Scrabble}} game. As he uses these unexpected and bizarre words mentioned in his other goals when playing Scrabble games, he exasperates his opponents to such a great extent that he has yet to finish a game without getting punched. This sentence is the only one with zero of the four letters. || 0|| 0|| 0|| 0

| Make something called xkcd  || '''Title text''':  Here it is made clear that it is Randall's list, as this is his only xyz goal that he has succeeded, and quite early, as he has celebrated 10 years anniversary with {{xkcd}} see [[1581: Birthday]].  || 1|| 0|| 0|| 1

All of these strange words would theoretically earn a player the prize of many points in Scrabble (Go to the [[#Table of words|table of words]] below). However, most of them would not be found in {{w|SOWPODS}}, the combined list of all words valid in either British or North American Scrabble tournaments, and many include too many X's, Y's or Z's (there's 1 X, 2 Y's, 1 Z in a standard set), meaning at least one would have to be substituted for a blank (which is not worth any points). Some words would also be very difficult to play in reality, since there are only 7 letters in a Scrabble hand, so they could only be played in extremely rare circumstances (there are only a couple of ways to play MUZQUIZOPTERYX: for instance, from MU and OPTER; or MU, QUIZ and ER; or an astonishingly unlikely set of crossing letters). Many are long enough that, in theory, they could net the player the additional 50 point bonus for using all seven letters in a hand if played right.