Tag Archives | satire

Still time to enter the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures contest

There have been lots more great entries — I’ve got a sample below. You have until midnight on October 4th (that’s Monday) to get your entries in. Details on the contest and the full gallery can be found at the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures page.

Slurm
Title: Enjoy Slurm
Based on: Futurama
Gonzo
Title: Gonzo
Based on: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Soylent greent
Title: The Exciting New Soylent Green Bar
Based on: Solyent Green
RealCrave
Title: RealCrave: the small difference between mecha and glamour girl
Based on: AI
Alltop is already vintage.

Meat Treat — A Lunchtime Odyssey

I’ve actually had a job wearing big mascot-like costumes. For a brief period in 1988, I was employed as a singing telegram man, singing birthday greetings, anniversary congratulations and nuptial announcements in a number of places around town. I was able to play guitar and sing, so most of the time, I was given the top hat and tails costume, which yields just a small amount of psychic residue. However, the gorilla suit… (Well, just look around my website, and you’ll see it caused a certain amount of damage.)

All things you should keep in mind as you watch Meat Treat.

YouTube Preview Image
Alltop doesn’t see the problem.

Forty-seven signs of the Apocalypse (#42)

From the Book of Renovations:

Computer in a beaverAnd in End Times there shall be many False Prophets, and they shall be Legion, and they shall learn of a magical land called Internet.

One of these False Prophets will provide the people with Devices that allow them unfettered access to the land called Internet.

And others will not be pleased by the shape of these Doodads, and devise all methods of making them more Pleasing To The Eye. They shall put these Thingamabobs into the Skin of Animals.

They will dance and sing around the Blue Light of their Unholy Instruments, and regale each other with tales of Beaver they have Split and Stuffed with Parts of their Devices. And rodents will become unto them as chieftains, and there will be great confusion.

Alltop loves a little split beaver. Originally published May 2007.

Paging Dr. Godhead

Paging Dr. Godhead - photo of charismatic chimp

“…whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”

–Bertrand Russell

“The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.”

–Italo Calvino

“There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

–Napoleon Bonaparte

“All human race would fain be wits.
And millions miss, for one that hits.”

–Jonathan Swift
Alltop would fain be a wit. Verily, brother. Beauty is relative, originally uploaded by True_Bavarian.

Schism opens way for creation of SinoPope

RoboPopeVATICAN CITY (The Skwib) — In the ecclesiastically chaotic schism between the Pope at the Vatican and the RoboPope at Avignon, the warring Popes have been able to agree on one thing: there is no room for a SinoPope.

Both the Vatican and Avignon Holy Fathers have excommunicated two bishops ordained by China’s state-controlled church without papal consent.

The state-conrolled quasi-religious Communist-Catholoic church — the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association — announced that it was splitting from both Vatican- and Avignon-based Holy Fathers, was constructing its own android Pontiff to lead the Chinese “Catholics”.

A press release stated that the so-called SinoPope, would be superior in design to RoboPope, and that its organic components would include brain tissue cultured from the Chairman (Mao Zedong), thus ensuring its political purity and popularity with the Chinese people. (According to the Chinese schematics for their robotic religious leader, other organic parts must be replaced frequently, and thus will come from tissues harvested from recently executed “criminals”.)

Chinese officials have said they expect the SinoPope will be 70 percent infallible, and that the 30 percent fallibility is an acceptable loss.

RoboPope told The Skwib in telephone interview that “SinoPope can kiss my shiny metal ass.”

The Vatican did not return our phone calls.

RoboPope saga:
RoboSchism | Avignon releases Robopope schematics | No room for SinoPope

Alltop is HumorPope! Originally published November, 2007.

Robo-schism

RoboPopeROME (The Skwib) — Last night more than 75,000 faithful assembled in St. Peter’s Square to worship at a special ceremony. Instead they witnessed the beginning of a new schism in the Catholic church.

All seemed to be going to plan as Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar-general for the diocese of Rome, read the liturgy of the rosary. Then the lights went out dramatically, and Pope Benedict XVI appeared in the papal apartments, a scarlet cloak draped over his white soutane.

Before he could say anything, a spotlight came on, pointed towards the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica. The whir of motors and the clanging of metal feet thumped for a moment before RoboPope appeared before the astonished masses.

Its deep, robotically augmented voice blessed the crowd, and then proceeded to accuse Benedict XVI of usurping papal authority, and pronounced him ultra vires, or without powers.

The light went out in Benedict’s apartment, and members of the Papal Swiss Guards appeared in the spotlight near RoboPope. (The guards were not dressed in their traditional uniforms, but wearing modern combat armor and bore automatic weapons.)

When they appeared, RoboPope said, “alea iacta est” and opened fire with its automatic pistol.

Its sonorous voice could be heard even above the screams of the crowd, as it blessed the guard amongst the staccato rhythm of its eerily accurate marksmanship, sounding like: “brrrrr-at-at-at … dominus vobiscum … brrrr-at-at-at … ego te absolvo ….”

The surviving guards in the papal palace were able to rally and, using the terrified crowd as cover, were able hold off the robotic pontiff with massed small arms fire. When the Swiss guard managed to set up heavy machine guns and their rocket-launchers, even the high-impact titanium exoskeleton of the resurrected cyber-cleric could not withstand the firepower, and it was driven from St. Peter’s Square.

There are reports that RoboPope and his “Bishops of Death” have set up a rival court in Avignon, reminiscent of the Papal Schism in 1378.

Now, more than ever, we need a RoboPope. Alltop says amen. Originally published October 2007.