I'm An Idiot
I'm An Idiot
[Ponytail approaches Cueball, who is sitting on porch steps, laptop in lap and backpack open.] Ponytail: Should I ask? Cueball: I'm locked out, and I'm trying to get my roommate to let me in.
[Unplugged cell phone on table.] Cueball: First I tried her cell phone, but it's off.
[Cueball sitting on steps, laptop in lap and gesturing.] Cueball: Then I tried IRC, but she's not online.
[Cueball standing in front of house and looking up at window.] Cueball: I couldn't find anything to throw at her window,
[Living room with couch easy chair and computer set up.] Cueball: So I SSH'd into the Mac Mini in the living room and got the speech synth to yell at her for me. Computer: Hey I'm locked out downstairs
[Megan sitting at table with laptop open.] Cueball: But I think I left the volume way down, so I'm reading the OS X docs to learn to set the volume via command line.
[Ponytail facing Cueball, who is still sitting on the porch with his laptop.] Ponytail: Ah. Ponytail: I take it the doorbell doesn't work?
[Beat panel.]

Cueball , locked out of his dorm / apartment , is trying to get his roommate Megan's attention so that she'll unlock the door. He tries various increasingly obscure ways of contacting her: calling her cell phone, IRC , the window, and finally remotely logging into their Mac computer (via SSH ) to make it shout at her, which involves working out a way to turn up the computer's volume. Ponytail informs him of the most obvious solution—the doorbell—which prompts a moment of realization.  The content of this realization—"I'm An Idiot"—is stated in the title of the comic.  The humor of the comic derives from the rhythm of the panels: a long buildup followed by a short quip, then a sudden, silent pause for the implied realization moment.
Additionaly some readers will be familiar with the behavior shown in the comic, since most every person who likes solving problems has experienced a moment of realization similar to Cueball's at one point or another.  They, like Cueball, get distracted by solving an interesting problem because solving problems is fun , and fail to notice that the problem has an easier solution that they haven't considered.  This same issue of getting lost in a sub-problem [in this case, the-sub problem of how to remotely control text-to-speech in OS X] at the expense of overall problem-solving ability is further covered in 761: DFS .
The title text states that this is a true story, so Cueball must represent Randall . It also mentions that, although missing an obvious solution can be humiliating, one often learns a lot from trying new solutions, which would explain why the behavior persists.
This comic follows a similar storyline to 349: Success and 1518: Typical Morning Routine , as Cueball and Hairy respectively in these comics, encounters an issue and attempts proceedingly more absurd solutions to the issue.
[Ponytail approaches Cueball, who is sitting on porch steps, laptop in lap and backpack open.] Ponytail: Should I ask? Cueball: I'm locked out, and I'm trying to get my roommate to let me in.
[Unplugged cell phone on table.] Cueball: First I tried her cell phone, but it's off.
[Cueball sitting on steps, laptop in lap and gesturing.] Cueball: Then I tried IRC, but she's not online.
[Cueball standing in front of house and looking up at window.] Cueball: I couldn't find anything to throw at her window,
[Living room with couch easy chair and computer set up.] Cueball: So I SSH'd into the Mac Mini in the living room and got the speech synth to yell at her for me. Computer: Hey I'm locked out downstairs
[Megan sitting at table with laptop open.] Cueball: But I think I left the volume way down, so I'm reading the OS X docs to learn to set the volume via command line.
[Ponytail facing Cueball, who is still sitting on the porch with his laptop.] Ponytail: Ah. Ponytail: I take it the doorbell doesn't work?
[Beat panel.]
