Life Goals
Life Goals
[A to-do list with a caption above:] Life Goals ☐ Meet Skrillex in Phoenix ☐ Study zymurgy ☐ Get a pet axolotl named Hexxus ☐ Observe a syzygy from Zzyzx, California ☐ Port the games Zzyzzyxx and Xexyz to Xbox ☐ Publish a Zzzax/Mister Mxyzptlk crossover ☐ Bike from Xhafzotaj, Albania to Qazaxbəyli, Azerbaijan ☐ Paint an archaeopteryx fighting a muzquizopteryx ☐ Finish a game of Scrabble without getting punched

All visible goals except the last one 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 below).
All of these words can be looked up in the English version of Wikipedia, but only a few are common nouns , three of them weird animal names, the rest being 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, 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 difficult-to-pronounce, words.
The punchline, in the final and ninth goal, expresses that the writer of this list often uses these unexpected and bizarre words in 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 outside of casual play it is not allowed to use proper nouns (see 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's list, since the writer of the list did (at least) manage to check off 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? Flood Death Valley , which referred directly to the city 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.
All of these strange words would theoretically earn a player the prize of many points in Scrabble (Go to the table of words below). However, most of them would not be found in SOWPODS (the combined list of all words valid in either British or North American Scrabble tournaments).  Also, 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.
[A to-do list with a caption above:] Life Goals ☐ Meet Skrillex in Phoenix ☐ Study zymurgy ☐ Get a pet axolotl named Hexxus ☐ Observe a syzygy from Zzyzx, California ☐ Port the games Zzyzzyxx and Xexyz to Xbox ☐ Publish a Zzzax/Mister Mxyzptlk crossover ☐ Bike from Xhafzotaj, Albania to Qazaxbəyli, Azerbaijan ☐ Paint an archaeopteryx fighting a muzquizopteryx ☐ Finish a game of Scrabble without getting punched
