But is it art?

Designer Ze Frank has a creative way of dealing with those annoying client emails that he has to answer politely, and dare we say, with a certain amount of unctuousness. The customer is always right, but this kind of constant kowtowing can cause anger to build up, and eventually, something bad will happen. You know, an event that involves sniper rifles and bell-towers, or epic schnapps benders that end with you found dead and naked (not necessarily in that order) somewhere in Tijuana. Or, it might just develop into an internal time bomb [youtube clip].

But wait, Ze has found a way to write those cringing, polite emails without a Vesuvius of Rage building inside your brain. Just mentally replace the punctuation with your own set of phrases that will make you feel like you’re saying what you really mean. Click on the image or here to go see Ze’s (older but still funny) presentation:

Everyone always says what they mean at humor-blogs.com and alltop too.

Possibly not safe for work.

Today’s video doesn’t have the same indirect grooviness of this one celebrating potato salad. Humor-blogs.com is always groovy.

Well, the people have spoken, and in their wisdom, this is the order:

First Place: Nexus 6

Second Place: Spice

Third Place: Soma

So now Kittrick, the creator of Nexus 6 must make the difficult choice: a walk-on part in my next novel, a copy of my last book, or the “mystery item” from my desk? Oooo. Congrats to Paul and Bagel as well.

Thanks to everyone who entered this contest. To make that more concrete, if anyone who entered would like a copy of my first novel, THE AMADEUS NET, it’s yours for the cost of shipping. Email me at author-at-markarayner.com.

The full gallery is here, the finalists here, and the original contest notice here. We’ll do it again sometime, for sure.

I was going to save this for the Carnival of Satire (which will be delayed), but it’s too good not to pass along.

The pseudo-post-modern essays are created using something called a “Dada Engine” — how FlapperPunk is that?

Generate your own pomo masterpiece.

Hosted at a website called Communications from Elsewhere, the author notes:

“If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy reading about the Social Text Affair, where NYU Physics Professor Alan Sokal’s brilliant(ly meaningless) hoax article was accepted by a cultural criticism publication.”

Tip o’ the hat, and a hearty thanks to Neatorama for linking the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures final.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a weasel — I couldn’t pick three out of the thirty excellent submissions on the gallery. I had trouble getting it down to ten, and there are still some that I wish I could include. Here is the short list of finalists, and a web thingy you can vote with — remember, you can pick your favourite three! (You can click on the thumbnails for a larger view.)

(And if any of the artists would like to explain why their submission is superior, please feel free to do so in the comments.)

Pan-Galactic

Spindizzy

Spice

451

Palanquin

Carousel

E-Secretaries

Soma

Nexus 6

Holodeck

There are prizes!

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left.

Voting ends at 8 am, April 28th!

The full gallery of entries is here. Everyone from humor-blogs.com is invited to vote early and often.

Any fans of Samuel Beckett will want to check out this little gem on YouTube. It’s strongly reminiscent of the absurdity of Waiting for Godot:

Estragon: I can’t go on like this.
Vladimir: That’s what you think.

The premise is that Charlie Rose is interviewing Charlie Rose about technology. (And its absurdities.)

Via Very Short List, which has this to say about their favourite moment: “One Charlie successfully unnerves the other with a simple “Steve is not happy” — hands-down the most portentously sinister non sequitur since “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”". Humor-blogs.com has recently been in non sequitur mode too, but it seems better now.

The last updates are on the gallery page.

Thanks to everyone who has put together a product, service or concept from a fictional future with a vintage ad — there are 30 entries all told, and boy the judging is going to be tough. I’ll post the finalists tomorrow morning, and then let you all vote on who wins. What are the stakes? Well, they’re listed below.

In an effort to keep this page from crashing again, I’ve done a collage of just a few of the entries. Click on it, or here, to see all 30 entries:

The Rules:

So, find some vintage ads, and then insert a product from a fictional future — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. (Someone else’s bizarre future is fine, so all you William S. Burroughs fans are not barred from competition.)

1. create your masterpiece
2. post it to your blog
3. link to this post (or better yet, let me know where it is via email or in the comments)
4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

There are prizes!

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

You may want to check out plan59.com or Flickr or Photobucket for inspiration.

You can find my original post about this here. All the artists at humor-blogs.com are invited!

The incomparable Spencer Evans posted this to my FunWall and I thought I’d share. Mostly because it’s … well, let’s just say you got to watch this:

And while we’re dealing with those images, perhaps you might want to even things out with a visit to the Carnival of Insanities.

You know what goes great with potato salad? Weiners.

And I know they’re really apes, so don’t put it in the comments. M’kay?

We’re running a contest. The idea is to find a vintage ads (the one pictured above is from an 1975 USPS stamp ad), and then insert a product (or service) from a fictional future (or past) — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. It doesn’t have to be as grim (or unlikely) as THE POSTMAN, by the way. If you’re more of an optimistic Star Trek kind of person, then I’m happy to see Oil of Olay ads featuring Warf, or ear-hair trimming systems endorsed by Quark. Or you may be interested in zombies.

Original image. More info about The Postman [wiki]

The Rules:

1. create your masterpiece
2. post it to your blog
3. link to this post (or let me know where it is via email)
4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

For more information, you can check out the original contest here. I fully expect most of the wackaloons at humor-blogs.com to enjoy this one, especially the zombiephiles. Note this is not a meme. There are prizes; that makes this a contest, so I don’t want any sword-wielding, hobbit-torturing, cubicle ghosts coming after me.

I spotted a Photoshop contest that looked like fun, so I thought I’d have a go at it (with a Skwibbish twist, of course.) You can see the results to the right. (Original ad here. Synopsis of THE ROAD here. [wiki]

In the original contest, the idea was to take modern products and display them in a vintage advertising light. (You could reverse that too, but boring.) So, find some vintage ads, and then insert a product from a fictional future — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. It doesn’t have to be as grim as THE ROAD, by the way. If you’re more of an optimistic Star Trek kind of person, then I’m happy to see Oil of Olay ads featuring Warf, or ear-hair trimming systems endorsed by Quark.

The Rules:

1. create your masterpiece
2. post it to your blog
3. link to this post (or let me know where it is via email)
4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

• a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
• a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
• a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

For more information, you can check out the original contest here. I’ll post a few more ads like THE ROAD baby food in the next week. I fully expect most of the wackaloons at humor-blogs.com to enjoy this one, but just to be sure, I’m going to tag a number of them, just to get the word out. Note this is not a meme. There are prizes, so that makes it a contest, so I don’t want any sword-wielding, hobbit-torturing, cubicle ghosts coming after me. Let the tagging begin, in no particular order: Bagel, Chelle, The Frogster, Brent, Rickey, Diesel, Don, Lobo, Quelqoth, Ellison, Rachel, Jon, Hurty, Alenja, Fiar, Bob, Mr. Snitch!. Finally, thanks to exnovo for the original baby food ad.

Ever since he’d started making the cave paintings, Thag had noticed that the women in the Thunka Grunka clan had been looking at him differently.

Perhaps it was his position as the leader of the hunting party, but he thought it had more to do with his artwork.

Whatever the case, he was gettin’ some on a regular basis.

Nominally, he was still mated to Onga, but she had all but deserted him for that scrotum-with-eyes shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother. In fact, it had been Onga’s desertion, and his ensuing depression, which had spurred Thag into creating more artwork for the cave.

The younger unmated women of the clan seemed to like his deft representations of the animals they hunted, particularly Vunga, the half-daughter of the Shaman.

“It looks so spiritual,” Vunga would say whenever he completed a painting.

“Thag suffer for art,” he confided, looking pained, unsure, filled with angst.

“Oh, poor Thag,” Vunga would say, and then take him by the hand so that they could go for a “walk” in the forest.

On such occasions, Thag could swear he could hear the sound of Weasel’s teeth grinding from his shaman’s perch outside the cave.

“Thag do art for Vunga tomorrow,” he would promise as they walked into the shaded trees, her hips swaying like the boughs in the breeze.

You can discover more about Sex and the single artist here. Other sexy beasts here.

Rickey has an overwhelming meme that must be obeyed:

• look up 15 of your favorite movies on IMDB
• take a quote from each and post them for your readership to properly identify
• as your movie savvy readers correctly identify the quotes’ cinematic origins in the comments section below, they shall be crossed out on the list (the quotes, not the readers)
• bonus points (in the form of a link to your site) if you can guess the speaker too.

Okay, here goes. Some are ridiculously easy, but I think I have a few curves in there too:

1. Mongo only pawn… in game of life. Blazing Saddles (Mongo)Ellison
2. Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you? Star Wars (original, Han Solo) Ellison
3. We’re all doomed, you know. The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. Doomed by the air we’re about to breathe.
4. I’m Brian and so’s my wife!
5. And, you know, the thing about a shark… he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. Jaws (Quint) Ellison
6. Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures! H. King
7. Oh, and remember: next Friday… is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. Office Space Leigh
8. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Bladerunner Ellison
9. Care for a little necrophilia? Hmmm?
10. The private life is dead - for a man with any manhood.
11. Apology accepted, Captain Needa.
12. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.
13. Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room. Dr. Strangelove (President