Archive | Parody & Satire

The Best Levitation Belt

By Mark A. Rayner on October 3, 2011 in Parody & Satire, singularity

from the 2037 Hammacher Schlemmer Glaven catalog

The Best Levitation Belt This levitation belt earned The Best rating from the Hammacher Schlemmer Glaven Institute because it was the easiest to put on and operate while falling from a building.

48 out of 49 of our tests were successful, and only one of our Testing Drones was killed during the extensive investigation into this levitation belt. A levitation belt industry expert described The Bests model’s inertial dampening as “great and most dampening by far” because it was able to dampen terminal velocity to gravely injuring velocity with enough alacrity to save 48 Testing Drones from “street pizzafication”.

The Best Levitation Belt is also capable of actual levitation, if the inertial dampening dial is turned to “full” and the wearer jumps up in the air. The Best model can allow wearers to levitate for several minutes, or prevent certain death from a single fall from up to a 20-story building. It is highly recommended that the batteries are recharged after such use. Sizes: XS-XL. (Not recommended for larger sizes.)

You will float with laughter if you sign up for The MonkeySphere, a monthly rising of absurd humor. When it reaches 500 subscribers, I’m giving away a Kindle. ($139 Amazon gift card, if you already got the ereader). More chances to win if you buy one of my books. Full contest details here.

Alltop is terrified of street pizzafication.

Insecurities Worksheet

By Mark on September 30, 2011 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

Insecurities Worksheet, a photo by lunchbreath on Flickr.

Offered here on The Skwib, not as an admission of any of these anxieties, but as a public service. If you put #58 on everything, then seek immediate psychiatric help.

Alltop is already calling its therapist aggregator.

Every little thing gonna be all right

By Mark on September 29, 2011 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

Welcome To Earth II, a photo by sartiax on Flickr.

Instructions:

Click play on the YouTube video to hear the song.
Scroll back up and stare intently at the egg.
Don’t worry!

Alltop is really freaked out. (Not doing it right.)

The wonderful thing about tautologies

By Mark on September 26, 2011 in Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

damned freaks in the alley... by IntangibleArts

damned freaks in the alley…, a photo by IntangibleArts on Flickr.

After a certain point, the previous night was all a blur.

He’d started the usual way: he burst through the door, landing on the nearest (and fattest) person, introduced himself, and then sang the song. (He’d paid the Sherman Brothers a fortune for it, so he sang it at every opportunity. And he enjoyed the frenetic dancing and bouncing too.)

The wonderful thing about tiggers
Is tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber;
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy,
Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!
But the most wonderful thing about tiggers is
I’m the only one!

“That’s a tautology!” the enormous biker he’d landed on said. He weighed about 300 pounds and had the most impressive mullet that Tigger had ever seen. It was magnificent!

“Thank you!” he’d said.

“It wasn’t a compliment. You can’t say you’re wonderful, and then prove that by saying you’re wonderful. It’s a self-reinforcing statement that can’t be disproved because you’re assuming you’re correct.”

The other bikers in the bar agreed, nodding their heads.

“If you’d said, Tiggers are wonderful because we’re bouncy, that would have been fine,” the guy behind the bar said. He was wearing a leather vest and had nearly as much hair on him as Tigger, though it wasn’t a wonderful orange color.

“But I AM wonderful!” Tigger said, confused. “The Sherman Brothers wouldn’t lie about it.”

“I don’t know who the Sherman Brothers are, but they have very poor logic skills,” said the giant biker Tigger was sitting on.

“And I don’t want to be one of those guys,” said the bartender, “but their rhymes are kind of pedestrian and that bridge does not scan well at all.”

He reached under the bar and produced a baseball bat.

Alltop is great, because it’s just so fabulous!

The perils of evolution

By Mark on September 23, 2011 in Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

Cradle of Humankind - Flora by Martin_Heigan

Cradle of Humankind – Flora, a photo by Martin_Heigan on Flickr.

One day you wake up and watch the sun rise, ripe and scarlet over the savanna, and you know it can never hold you back.

The next, you’re unable to hold a conversation with other humans in the flesh, and you have the attention span of an unhinged hummingbird. Inside your head there are noises that would have terrified you before, on the plains, but now they are the background radiation of your mind. You’re surrounded by voices. Within this clamour there is only the silent pulse of a thought that never comes, an impulse suffocated by plenty, a drive misdirected by old mythology.

You long for the reality of stone, the scrape of grass on your bare legs, and the silence of nature, tooth and claw. You wonder if you should Tweet this yearning, but — hey, new Facebook interface!