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Please, don’t say cheese

By on September 6, 2005 in Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

LONDON (Ruetars) – Many British citizens are outraged to discover that they are not allowed to smile for their passport photos.

Always a dour affair, applying for a UK passport has become even more unpleasant. Officials at the United Kingdom Passport Office service have told applicants not to smile for their passport photos, so that the portraits are more easily scanned by facial recognition technology.

“It seemed, like, reasonable to me and all,” Lucy Sheppard said. “But then I discovered what it’s really all about did’n I?”

Customs officials in the US and Canada have requested that passports do not have photos of smiling Brits because of the sub-standard dental hygiene in Merry Old England.

“It’s outrageous! Just ‘cause some Yank gets all squeamish about me teeth!” Sheppard said, between clenched jaws. (Which thankfully did not reveal her baked-bean-like chompers.)

Officials in both the US and Canada were unavailable for comment, but one Customs Officer in Toronto was willing to say, off the record, “look. It’s a terrible job, and we just don’t want to have to look at bad teeth on top of it all.”

Inspired by:

Don’t smile for passport photos

Get wormin!

By on September 5, 2005 in Odd Science, Skwibby fiction

Schisto the Happy Fun Time Breathing wormIn retrospect, the Surgeon General thought that they should have hired an American company instead of a Japanese firm to run the ad campaign. But they’d come so highly recommended!

And they needed serious help with the new asthma cure. The whole thought of implanting schistosome – the tiny parasitic worm that leads to bilharzias, a disease that they can cause anaemia and fatigue, and in some cases make the victim pass red urine – was not appealing to start with.

But the little buggers were capable of ending asthma, a much more serious condition, and much more prevalent. Still, nobody was excited about implanting worms in their own blood systems.

So they had begun an extensive educational ad campaign, and hired the same firm that prevailed upon the Japanese people to start cooking their fish. Now THAT was attidudinal marketing at its best.

Perhaps they were somewhat fatigued by that pr success. Perhaps it was a conspiracy. Whatever the reasons, the company had come up with a campaign that was not in touch with American youth.

Yep, Schisto the Happy Fun Time Breathing Worm had been a resounding flop.

Inspired by:

Worms to help combat allergies | Photo by Gusano

Monday Carnival Roundup

By on September 5, 2005 in General Skwib

Okay, a few things to note this morning. As is my wont of late, here is the link to the Best of Me Symphony first, guest-edited by Rodney Dangerfield this week. These posts get no respect.

Then there is the Carnival of the Godless, which The Skwib has been absent from for some time. Naturally, there is some interest in the Pastafarian Schism and our interview with its leader, Dr. Tundra. This post is also featured at this week’s Items of Interest, hosted at Multiple Mentality.

There is also a really nice heads up about the most recent edition of the Thag story at rethink(ip), which hosted the Carnival of the Capitalists this week.

Ask General Kang: If I say I’m going to be there, but then I don’t show up, does that make me a ‘douche-bag’?

By on September 5, 2005 in General Skwib, Monkeys!

Ask General KangYes. Yes, it does. If you say you are going to be there, but then never turn up, then you are a wanker, pure and simple.

You might be able to get away with it once or twice, and claim that you were unable to make it, but sooner or later this late-hare behaviour will catch up with you. You will lose all your friends, and you will die alone.

Or, you could have a really bad addiction!

Extreme alcohol or drug abuse will excuse this kind of lateness, and even better, get you more attention.

If you ARE habitually late, then perhaps you should think about becoming an addict and hiding behind that cover.

Either that, or you should get citizenship in a country where this kind of behaviour is expected (any place other than the UK, the US, Scandanavia, Austria, Germany, Canada, Japan and Australia will work).

Personally, I think you should just do what you say you were going to do.

But what do I know, I’m just an all-knowing simian overlord.

Next time: I think some kind of alien insect has crawled into my head and is causing me to say bad things. Can you help?

Atomic Transvestite Theater

By on September 4, 2005 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

Atomic valkyrieSylvia Nun-Fellows, Artistic Director and Interim Potentate of the Chesley Opera Company (COC) knew that this was their final season unless they could turn it all around.

Attendance had been steadily declining for years, and they were about to lose their grant from the Canadian Arbiter of Culture Office (CACO).

Reading the Opera Times, she saw that COC was hardly the only company in trouble. The San Francisco Opera was turning to historical themes, planning an opera about the building of the atomic bomb. In London (England) they were even more desperate, putting together some kind of new thing called, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. An opera flush with lesbian love, onstage nudity, and from what she could make out, themes of domination of submission.

Smart buggers. Why couldn’t SHE come up with something like that?

Yes, why couldn’t she? They had planned to do Wagner this year. What if the Valkyries were all gay? Even better … transvestites.

And they could be atomic – no, radioactive. That sounded cool. And so the first all-transvestite, irradiated version of Die Walküre was born.

It was pure CACO, and the COC was secured.

Inspired by:
Singing Lesbians to Rescue Opera House | The Epic, Tragic, Operatic Story of Doctor Atomic

Thag Not Like Angry Sky

By on September 3, 2005 in General Skwib, Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction, Thag

Image of lightning strikeThe Thunka Grunka clan had never been so frightened.

The storm had started the afternoon before, a clash of angry bull-mammoth fighting in the sky, but it had not seemed out of the ordinary. But the thunder did not stop. The light kept flashing. It went on, and on. Through the night. They’d never experienced such a storm. At least dawn was finally approaching.

It was the thunder, the terrible noise that sounded as though the mountains were falling on them, which terrified them so, but Thag knew that wasn’t the only danger.

He looked around the cave in the predawn gloom. The body of Nooka, one of their youngest had not been moved, and neither had her mother, Mrooga — everyone was afraid to go near them. The child had fallen dead, mysteriously, when she approached the wall of the cavern, and Mrooga had fallen when she went to get her child.

He wondered if they would continue to stay in the cavern after the tragedy.

Their shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother, said that Nooka had angered the Sky Mother, and that was why she was killed. Thag thought the medicine man was an asshole: he had no idea why Nooka died. Nor her mother.

The copious hair on his arms stood on end again, and another crash shattered the air around them. His mate, Onga, moaned in a fitful sleep and held onto him even tighter. He hugged her back; surely the storm would end soon?

At that moment, there seemed to be only two certainties: that despite everything, he loved Onga desperately, and that for all their wisdom and traditions, they were completely at the mercy of Mother Nature.

Hat tip to:
We are powerless in the face of nature| Lightning photo by jeffk