The Staple Madness
The Staple Madness
[Beret Guy and Cueball standing.] Beret Guy: [holding up a staple gun] I found Megan's staple gun! Cueball: [facepalming] Oh no.
[Beret Guy kneeling over a laptop on the floor.] Cueball: [from outside panel] Oh God, what are you-- Beret Guy: [stapling a DVD to the laptop] Installing Debian! kaCHUNK
[Beret Guy standing over a table.] Beret Guy: [stapling a sandwich together] Sandwiches! kaCHUNK kaCHUNK
[Beret Guy running with the staple gun.] Beret Guy: Must affix everything to everything!
[Unframed panel.] kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK
[Megan enters, holding a tote bag.] Megan: ...Have you been abusing my staple gun? Beret Guy: No. God: [as voice from above] YES!

Optimistic Beret Guy can never take life seriously. He loves to play with everything, and nothing is more exciting than a tool that sticks things together with an impressive kaCHUNK sound when he pulls the trigger, even on things that (definitely) shouldn't be stapled.
Installing Debian is a pun on the installation of software, and the installation of real life things by attaching them to things.
This comic may reference an engineering truism describing a similar scenario: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The truism's actual meaning refers to the scenario where when a novice has only learned to use one tool (such as one programming language), they may attempt to solve all problems using only that tool, which may end badly. This saying is referred to explicitly in 801: Golden Hammer .
From just reading the comic by itself, one may presume that in the last panel, Cueball has been stapled to the ceiling (as obvious evidence to Megan that Beret Guy has indeed been abusing her staple gun). According to the comic's official transcript , however, it is in fact God who is speaking. Due to Beret Guy's strange powers, it is rather likely that God has been stapled as well -- perhaps to the ceiling.
Duct tape , thanks to its combination of tensile and adhesive strength, is commonly regarded as the ultimate do-it-yourself repair tool. Like a staple gun, it can also be used to stick things together. Although it does make a nice sound when pulling a strip out quickly, it does not make a loud kaCHUNK sound upon fixing two objects together.
In 291: Dignified , Beret Guy hangs upside down and says (in the title text) that he has stapled his hat to his head to make it stay on. That may very well have been the inspiration for this comic.
This was the fourth time the name Megan was used in xkcd, the first time being in 159: Boombox .
[Beret Guy and Cueball standing.] Beret Guy: [holding up a staple gun] I found Megan's staple gun! Cueball: [facepalming] Oh no.
[Beret Guy kneeling over a laptop on the floor.] Cueball: [from outside panel] Oh God, what are you-- Beret Guy: [stapling a DVD to the laptop] Installing Debian! kaCHUNK
[Beret Guy standing over a table.] Beret Guy: [stapling a sandwich together] Sandwiches! kaCHUNK kaCHUNK
[Beret Guy running with the staple gun.] Beret Guy: Must affix everything to everything!
[Unframed panel.] kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK kaCHUNK
[Megan enters, holding a tote bag.] Megan: ...Have you been abusing my staple gun? Beret Guy: No. God: [as voice from above] YES!
