Category (f)Art

It’s Alarming!

There are many alarm clocks on this earth, each one designed to wake you up at an hour at which you would not naturally rise, in order to do shit that you don’t want to do. Some attempt to lessen the blow with subtle chimes that are supposed to integrate into your dreams to wake you naturally, while others wake you to music to entice you out of bed, while yet others attempt the “foghorn blast announcing the end of the world” method. These might work at first, but eventually you’ll grow used to them, rolling over to hit the snooze button six or seven times, or maybe even turning the alarm off entirely, leading to an interesting telephone conversation with your boss during which you groggily attempt to understand why he’s asking you if you intend to come into work today.

Congratulations! Your “late to bed, too-goddamned-early-to-rise” problems are solved with my new invention: The Dog/Cat vomit alarm clock. How many times have you been woken out of a deep sleep full of sexy dreams instantly by the sound of a “GURK…GURK..GUUUUURK” occurring somewhere in the vicinity of your home? Unlike conventional alarm clocks which use the same sound every morning, it will randomly choose between a number of vomit and hairball sounds, ensuring that you’ll never say, “Oh, it’s just the alarm clock” and drift back off into sleep…because each time, it could be for real. Are you going to take that chance with your carpets? Remember: your pets always know what items in your home have the most value, sentimental or otherwise, and those are the items that will be destroyed if you allow pet stomach bile to remain on them for more than ten seconds. But wait, you say, if the sound is always coming from the same place, won’t that indicate it’s the alarm instead of a real hurl emergency? It would, if this were a conventional alarm clock. However, this clock comes on wheels and throughout the night, will silently move through your home, stopping in a different spot every morning that will have you rushing out of bed to your kitchen, your laundry room, your office, with paper towels and spot cleaner in hand.

Say hello to being on time for work every day for the rest of your life. Say hello to the Vom-Larm Clock.

Born, and then born again, and then sold on Ebay.

After the most recent Harry Potter movie was released, a number of “reborn” Harry Potter characters went up for auction on Ebay. If you’ve never heard of the reborn phenomenon, they’re very lifelike dolls that are collected and cared for by their owners as if they were real infants, oftentimes having a separate nursery in the house for it, changing its diaper regularly, and taking it on trips to the grocery store or out for walks in a stroller. Occasionally women will have them made to resemble what their own children looked like as infants. Separate breathing and heating apparatuses can also be added for the most lifelike doll imaginable, and will only serve to make the encounter extra awkward when you compliment a woman passing with a stroller on her child’s cuteness, only to realize it’s made of latex.

So on to this Harry Potter Reborn thing. I understand, Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon AND a cash cow, so it makes sense that people are trying to cash in on it while they still have the opportunity, and nevermind pesky things like licensing and ownership of the characters. But is there really a lot of crossover between the two fanbases? Apparently there was at least one, and thus these nightmares were auctioned on ebay:

The Voldemort one is wrong; he didn’t get freaky features until after he started in with dark magic, so there’s no reason for him to have snake eyes as an infant, unless the creator was trying to depict his “birth into evil”, in which case wouldn’t this have been more accurate?

But rather than nitpick these works to death, I’ve decided to jump in myself on one of these moneymaking ventures and unveil my plans for new line of reborn Twilight dolls.

Here’s my first, reborn Edward.

Limited edition! Get yours today!

Farmer Homer’s Sweet Sweet Sugar

In February, I helped my friends Emily and Tom bottle the wine they had made at Classic Winemakers in Lacey. Emily said they like their wine “big” and “bitey” and that they were struggling with a name for their creation. Immediately, I thought of the Simpsons episode where Homer drives the monorail, which is infested with opossums: “I call the big one Bitey!” Emily didn’t go for it. My other suggestions of “Tyrannosaur Attack” and “Bad Neighbor Dog” were met with similar criticism.

After bottling the wine, dubbed Magna Admorsus, they gave us a few bottles apiece and suggested we hang on to them for six months or more for aging purposes. The six month mark hit right around their anniversary, and to celebrate, I gave them a bottle of their own wine back, with a far more appropriate label.