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Archive | June, 2010

Selected Media Fads Through the Ages

By on June 29, 2010 in Hinky History, Parody & Satire, Uncategorized
Von Willendorf venus statue, circa 24,000 bce

24,000-22,000 BC: chunky fertility goddess statues (pictured at right: notice the prominent and large brains.)

10,000 BC: cave painting

4,000 BC: ziggurat construction

3,000-1,250 BC: pyramid raising (later revived by Mesoamericans and I.M. Pei)

1480-1700: Witch burning

1500s: homoerotic sonnet writing

1600s: pirate singing

1700s: pamphleteering

1760-1762: spreading syphilis

1790s: opera

1800s: novel-writing

1900-1914: being optimistic about the future

1919-1922: cutting up pieces of paper and pulling them out of a hat, also, painting

1925: jazz music

1927: soap-based radio

1933: burning books (mostly in Germany)

1951: find-the-commie (kind of like peek-a-boo, but with Senators)

1964: screaming (usually Beatle-related)

1966: TV

1976: disco

1977: DIY pet rocks

1982-1988: taking odds on Reagan-related nuclear holocaust

1987-1997: making answering machine messages (see below)

1998: web sites about your cat

1999: cappuccino drinking (related to dot-com bubble)

2000: looking forward to the future (this didn’t last as long as the previous fad in this genre)

2003: Friendster

2004-2005: blogging

2006: MySpace

2007: Facebook

April 2008: Twitter

2009 (Jan.-Aug): talking/writing/broadcasting about Twitter in MSM.

2009, Sep. 15: Blogging (again, briefly, but only about Dan Brown’s latest “masterstroke of storytelling”

2010 (Jan.-Feb.):getting really excited about the release of the iPad.

2010 (Mar.-May): trying to remember what all the fuss about the iPad was all about.

Answering machine messages: the most important creative outlet of the nineties!

YouTube Preview Image

Video here if it doesn’t beep. (via)

Alltop and enjoys their Bebo. Originally published September, 2009.

Bob, descendant of Queen Victoria, was never a joiner

By on June 28, 2010 in Skwibby fiction, Toulouse Le Grandfig
bob was never a joiner

He had to admit the outfit was pretty spectacular, and the fringe benefits of membership were pretty good too — not only would it forestall your evisceration via tongs and razor-fingers, but you also got to run the world.

The Fraternity of the Cone had been in charge since the Counter-Reformation, but they’d kept their nifty hats mostly on the down-low, only wearing them on extended “hunts” and during their annual Ribfest. Bob had been tracked by the “recruitment committee” for several days in the Scottish Highlands (at least, Bob surmised it was Scotland — he’d awakened in the thick grass and heather instead of his Boston apartment two days ago.)

They just couldn’t seem to take no for an answer, and Bob thought they were serious about the tongs and finger-blades thing, so he had one of two choices: let them feed on his intestines, or vaporize them all with his laser vision.

He sighed. So much for his white suit.

Alltop is totally in the cone. The Conemen. Originally uploaded by laurence.winram


6 excellent reasons not to have an opinion outside the “designated speech area”

By on June 25, 2010 in Parody & Satire

John Baird - Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Biting the Legs of ProtestersAs you may know, the authorities in Canada have set up special places where citizens may demonstrate, protest, rant, and stand on crates and do some lunatic speechifying.

Finally, Canada embraces the notion of free speech.

Now, it’s limited to a mosquito-infested field in the Muskokas, and a roped off area to the north of Queen’s Park in Toronto (behind the portapotties, underneath the low branches of the maple trees).

But what if you decide to have an opinion outside of these “designated speech areas”? (I notice that they didn’t even call them “free speech areas”, probably because we didn’t want to seem to liberal and free-wheeling to the other G20 nations. Good call.)

Many bad things can happen to you, as outlined in Bill C-1984, following your pepper-spraying, beating and subsequent arrest:

  1. an excruciating purple nurple-ing from Vic Toews
  2. you will be forced to watch Bev Oda pack for her next junket
  3. Jim Prentice will demand that you pull his finger
  4. have you heard the Good News? Stockwell Day has 10 hours free to tell you all about it.
  5. John Baird will chew off your leg
  6. a long and “frank conversation” about “accountability” with Stephen Harper.
Seriously, I’m not making any of this up. It’s right there in the legislation. (And to be fair, it was the Liberal Party who were in control when the bill was passed.) More details about the designated speech areas and the G-meetings here. Alltop is very afraid of anything designated as an “area”.

Ask General Kang: If you were running the World Cup, would you ban the vuvuzela?

By on June 23, 2010 in Ask General Kang

Ask General KangFirst of all, we should explain what a vuvuzela (pronounced vu-vu-zay-la) isn’t. It is not, as it sounds, the delicate private parts of a female Venezuelan sex dancer. It is a long, brightly colored plastic horn that can only be played in one pitch.

And it is delightful.

I would never ban it. Ever. In fact, I’d find a way to weaponize it. You see, you’re forgetting two things:

1) on my homeworld, Neecknaw, where I was undisputed and much-feared ruler for some time, some of my favourite forms of weaponry were sonic in nature. I still get a little evil thrill whenever I consider the Tune Brigade, a cadre of genetically modified baboons capable of carrying and playing the excruciating über-tuba. (I used them in the assault on that smug little ice world, Fofth.) Here are some of my other personal faves:

The Amplified Kazoo:
Amplified kazoo music is brutal. I once knew a bonobo who’s atonal rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me Fargentina” could drop a brigade of gorilloids armed with broadswords.

Electro-accordion:
While not quite as painful as the Amplified Kazoo, Electro-accordions can work as non-lethal weapons, and are especially effective means of crowd control with young hipsters. Warning: does not work anywhere people listen to zydeco, the Paris metro, or at sessions of Irish music. This is most effective when deployed by an armada of angry uber-chimps with no sense of rhythm.

Doom-worms:
On Mephitis VI, there is a kind of multi-appendaged gut worm that can emit a high-pitched whining sound, which is a combination of noise similar to a mosquito’s buzz and about 100 overtired children stuffed into a mini-van. If amplified, the sound will pop the eyes out of any primate.

2) Soccer is a ridiculous game; what kind of self-respecting primate would want to spend that much time upright, kicking around a ball?

You’re just jealous of human bipedal locomotion.

[Sob] It’s true. It looks so elegant.

Next time: I have just broken the egg for my Tyfragian omelet, and there seems to be some kind of miniature civilization in there. How do I fold that properly?

Alltop thinks the accordion is sexy.