Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a viking!..?

as someone who's been having sleep problems for the past week I envy Ralph for being a viking at sleep

what the fuck, Mordy

you're totally misreading Ralph's character

misunderestimate ralph at your own peril

this is the roach motel of arguments

btw ralph is totally capable at understanding/using metaphors & puns cf. his valentine's day card exchange with lisa

an entire episode based on ralph taking something literally!

ok, so not that he can't distinguish -- more that his life is so sad and pathetic that he enjoys sleeping so that he can escape the tiring, failure existence he lives in for just an hour or two so he can dream of being an excellent viking. that he lacks the emotional facilities to realize that dreaming can't be a substitute for life and his escapism can only hinder his ability to succeed in the real world.

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 28, 2010 12:48 PM (3 minutes ago)

I'm not a Simpson's completist or anything, but I've seen enough to know that Ralph is too stupid/developmentally disabled to think his life is a failure. WE are supposed to think it, for lolz, but Ralph's just a holy fool who didn't get enough oxygen in the womb.

lol Dan

Ralph choo-choo-choo-chooses to be a Viking

you're right, I swore I wouldn't post in this thread, but DAMMIT

WE'VE GOT ANOTHER ONE

FUCK

LET ME OUTTA HERE

just drink the gatorade and wait for the spaceship to pick you up wmc

keep in mind that said spaceship may or may not be a Predator ship

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005LWKY.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

kinda lolin that j. lo vince vaugn and vincent d'onofrio are sharing the title credits

Good call, WmC: He's not so upset himself. It's more like this is another thrilling chapter in Ralph's life. Like he experiences life as series of vignettes that are totally unrelated to the previous one. I ate a worm. Now that's over, something totally new: Taking a nap! For the teacher, who realizes Ralph is unteachable, the two are clearly related: "Fuck, he ate a worm? Why the fuck would he do that? I can't reach him, I'll just tell him to take a nap." But Ralph is like the guy from Memento, he can't remember anything that happened more than 10 seconds ago, now he's onto something new, taking a nap. And like everything else, he's exuberant: Naps are great. In naps you get to be a viking. (Remarkable that he remembered a time when he dreamt of being a viking, but I guess that's the kind of thing that would make an impression on him -- not like eating a worm which is totally unremarkable in Ralph's life.)

kinda lolin that j. lo vince vaugn and vincent d'onofrio are sharing the title credits

kind lollin' that I saw this in a first-run movie theater

there's probably some dumb recent episode where Ralph says "Miss Hoover my worm went in my mouth again!" and then winks at the camera.

see I get that ralph likes dreaming about being a viking but making the hermeneutic leap that he has trouble distinguishing between dream/reality is where I can't make the leap of faith

http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~aka32/index_files/image004.jpg

Also:

Ralph: "Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent."
Miss Hoover: "Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?"
Ralph: "He was going to the bathroom."

since when are hallucinations = dreams

Who cares? Kid clearly has trouble distinguishing between real/not real.

ralph dreaming that he's a viking = ZzZZzZZzzzZzzzzzZZZ but ralph being proud at being good at sleep = looooool

but it's not ralph dreaming he's a viking in and of itself that's supposed to be funny. it's a)random viking reference mixed with b)dude is excited about getting to be a viking again and prob doesn't even know dreams aren't real.

http://www.amandinealessandra.com/research/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/zhuangzi.jpg

omg the line just isn't that funny either way. probably the unfunniest thing ralph ever said.

He might even know dreams aren't real, but that doesn't matter. He loves them. (See sad lulz above.)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2087/1931470865_52d749c05b.jpg

would love for this thread to take a turn to epistemology

If explaining a joke always makes it much funnier, then arguing about which interpretation of a joke is more lolworthy is clearly the pinnacle of excellence!

i could help with that but i aint coming back

xpost

http://home.wlu.edu/~mahonj/images/Descartes_ontol_pic.gif

I'm not sure how we could bring epistemology into it -- I guess there's how you know what it means, but that's seems like a hermeneutic question, not an epistemological question (beyond the extent to which hermeneutics are a way of creating epistemology?)

butts

buttology

Btw: People bitching about the argument are even more annoying than people stumping for option A imo. How boring to go on an ILX thread like this and make snide remarks about how useless the argument is, or how inane the discussion is. Thanks for the heads up, dude! Can I hire you as an ILX life consultant to tell me which threads are worth spending time on or what discussions are valuable?

"Hey, Molly's looking pretty angry! I wonder what I did?" said Tom epistemologically.

true but it's an ilx tradition that 3-5 people must snidely judge any good clusterfuck

and that those same people all have like 50 posts on the clusterfuck thread

Btw: People bitching about the argument are even more annoying than people stumping for option A imo. How boring to go on an ILX thread like this and make snide remarks about how useless the argument is, or how inane the discussion is. Thanks for the heads up, dude! Can I hire you as an ILX life consultant to tell me which threads are worth spending time on or what discussions are valuable?

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 28, 2010 6:13 PM (2 minutes ago)

how much money u got?

I mean, worse comes to worse, one day I fondly look back on this and remark that I once wasted some time arguing about the character of Ralph, what kind of person he is, and how audiences should be responding to the things he says -- and I lol at lol how stoned I must've been at the time. But like, will you ever be, "Guys, I once totally told off these dudes who were arguing about Ralph Wiggum. They thought they were having fun arguing a meaningless debate, but I totally showed them by making snide remarks and then posting the thread-link on the CLUSTERFUCK thread with a snarky description." Totally lame, imo.

now you told off those people so proud of their snide remarks.

but it's not ralph dreaming he's a viking in and of itself that's supposed to be funny. it's a)random viking reference mixed with b)dude is excited about getting to be a viking again and prob doesn't even know dreams aren't real.

But dreaming of being a Viking isn't particularly funny in itself, it's probably a rather common dream. And nothing in Ralf's sentence suggests he can't distinguish between dreams and reality. Many people talk about dreams like that: "in my sleep I was happy", "in my dream I float over the Atlantic". If Ralf is saying "in my sleep I'm a Viking" is no proof that he thinks he actually turns into a real Viking.

Whereas the alternative interpretation is funny because...
A) the teacher has just criticized Ralph for being dumb and unproductive, therefore it's funny that he feels so proud about his sleeping skills, and
B) Ralph thinking that "a Viking of sleep" is something you can use to describe yourself is funny in itself, because it's such an unusual metaphor, kinda like "a viceroy of sex" or something.

Oh shit I've fallen into the meta rabbit hole where I'm viking at telling people off at things.

Btw: Going back to viking thing -- whatever it originally means, I think it's awesome that it means something new now, and that's a wonderful contribution to the english language.

wait. WAIT.

Being a viking is a common dream, Toumas???

dyao that's your cue to post the mirror jpg
xps

I learn new things about Finland every day.

it's probably a rather common dream

for realz?

lol xp

I love the idea that in Finland it's common to dream of being a viking -- probably because viking'ness has seeped into the dreaming unconsciousness of the people of Finland and in some weird Jungian archetypical way they dream of being a viking like I might dream of flying, or swimming.

"I had that teeth falling out dream again."
"I had that raping and pillaging a village as a viking dream again."

ok tuomas now explain why the funnier interpretation should be the correct one