Delivery Notification
by Jeff
Image text: You can arrange a pickup of your sword in Rivendell between the hours of noon and 7:00 PM.
So, in the US, when the package delivery company called UPS knocks on your door or rings your doorbell and cannot reach you, they leave these annoying package notifications stuck to your door. Usually, I have found, as this comic hints at, that the threshold for the UPS delivery person to put the notice on the door is unreasonably low. The delivery personnel do not wait very long before quickly driving away to their next delivery and leaving the yellow delivery notification in the first frame.
After missing the delivery, Cueball (which is directly referencing Lord of the Rings) asks the Elves to reforge the sword in order to go on the quest. In Lord of the Rings, Aragorn (accepting his role as the heir to the king of men) had the sword of Isildur called Narsil reforged.
But, of course, when the elves come to deliver the new sword for the quest, the delivery person is not able to reach anyone in the house by knocking and has to leave another delivery notification.
In the image text, Rivendell is one of the home of the elves. The broken shards of Narsil lived in Rivendell with Elrond and his elves. The image text is a reference to the limited hours that you can pick up your packages from UPS.
Stingray Nebula
by Jeff
Image text: Eärendil will patrol the walls of night only until the sun reaches red giant stage, engulfing the Morning Star on his brow. Light and high beauty are passing things as well.
The Stingray Nebula is the youngest known planetary nebula in the galaxy. In 1987 it was an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) B1 supergiant and then became the Stingray Nebula in 1987. Well, didn't become that in 1987, the light of the incident reached the Earth in 1987.
This comic went from a reassuring comic about stars at night giving hope in the darkness, but then as with most xkcd's, it took a turn. In this case, the twist is that because Cueball's star he got attached to exploded into a nebula, we should only become attached to stars that aren't quite as volatile as the one that formed the Stingray Nebula.
UPDATE: Sorry for the late post, but I wrote this all out early this morning but didn't post it. I blame it on the fact that I brushed my teeth with a bottle of Jack... (not really).
Open Mic Night
by Jeff
Image text: Ever notice how the more successful observational comics become, the more their jokes focus on flying and hotels?
Alright, open mic night. Everyone's favorite night.
In the first frame Cutie/MC Aphasia is not a very good rapper because Aphasia is a disorder that effects the part of the brain that controls the ability of speech. So, as you can see in the comic, MC Aphasia has a very difficult time speaking let alone rapping.
In the second frame, Black Hat is reacting to a Yo Momma joke that someone in the audience possibly yelled his way and starts off a common "Yo Momma" joke - "When yo momma sits around the house, she really sits AROUND the house." But instead he goes in another direction to something that is a bit more off the beaten path.
In the third frame Cueball/MC Quine is a computer science joke. A Quine is a program that produces its source code as its output. In other words, what MC Quine puts into the rap is exactly what he gets out of it. Hence the repetition of the same line. In this case, the source code of the rap is "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say,".
And completing the xkcd trifecta is the last comic, is a Lord of the Rings joke. I'll call him "Beret" and is riffing off a common observational comic routine in which the comic observes that men go to the bathroom alone and women go in groups.
The image text is a reference to how when comedians become more famous, they travel more to other cities to do their comedy. In the case of observational comics, the more they travel, the more they have time to observe both hotels and flying and nothing else.
Moria
by Jeff
Image text: Someone should really bring them a ladder and remind them to build the Endless Stair *first* next time.
This is a Lord of the Rings reference and the character with the beard and hat is Gandalf. The four shorter characters are the hobbits that were also members of the Fellowship of the Ring. The comic is making a joke on the fact that if the dwarves dug too deeply, then they just were unable to get out.
Single Ladies
by Jeff
Image text: Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgȗl.
The song playing in this comic is "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. Which apparently had one of the best videos of all time... Anyhow, Gil-Galad was the last high king of the Noldor in Middle Earth. Galadriel was a queen of the elves in Middle Earth. Eru was the one god of Middle-Earth who created the Elves and Men, and Aule created the Dwarves, but Eru eventually approved Aule's creations. So, he sort of created the Dwarves as Eru was the only god to give a spirit to a being, as he did with the Dwarves.
The character in the beret is apparently the bartender in a bar that Sauron frequents. In the comic, Sauron upon hearing the song by Beyonce in the bar, has the idea to create his magic ring plan which presents the plot of the Lord of the Rings triology of books and movies.
Fiction Rule of Thumb
by submission
Image Text: Except for anything by Lewis Carroll or Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I'm looking at you, Anathem.
This explanation is by Harm. Harm is a reader of xkcd and explainxkcd. Harm writes explanations. Harm wrote that sentence mentioning that he writes explanations. Harm didn't write the previous sentence.
Here the author remarks on the trend of making up words in a work of fiction. Since fiction often takes place in other worlds, it makes sense that the natural language would be something other than English (or whatever language the book happens to be). Some writers will attempt to make up words to add a false sense of depth to their stories. Since those stories are told in English, there's little reason to over-use a fictional language when it doesn't serve the plot (hence allowing a few words for when they're required).
Lewis Carrol is the author of many works, but is most famous for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel which have heavy use of intentional nonsense (his other works use a similar style), as well as "Jabberwocky" which in itself is a made-up word.
J.R.R. Tolkien is known for his "Lord of the Rings" series, which cover the MASSIVE world of Middle Earth. These books have many different races of fantasy creatures (elves, dwarfs, orcs, etc.) and each have their own (fictional) language and writing system.
Anathem is a fiction novel by Neal Stephenson that references quantum mechanics and philosophy, and uses many made-up words. Taken from Wikipedia (enjoy your citogenesis): "most of the technical words used in Anathem are derivations or puns on Latin words." Some examples include "auts" (rituals), "praxis" (technology), and "convox" (conference). To illustrate the comic author's point, reading through the article alone proved difficult due to the sheer volume of these words, and it would likely make any spell-check software cry.