Citizen Kong
The latest thing I did for Uncyclopedia: The epic story of the long long rise and very short fall of a 25 foot gorilla.
May 12th, 2006. | 2:30 pm cet. | Thoughts: 71 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
Walrus on a stick
Tags: norwegian walrus experiment
In 1923, the great Norwegian inventor and tap dancer, Thor Lingus, had the idea of putting walrus on a stick. Up to that point, walrus had not really penetrated the market sector for convenience foods, mostly because they preferred to spend their time laying around on ice floes, grunting and scratching. No one gets far in marketing if they spend all their time doing that - apart from Michael Bolton of course, but then he's got unique hair.
Thor sent a team of walrus capturing experts to wherever walrus happened to live at the time. They brought the walrus back to New York and Thor set up a vending cart in Times Square. He had decided to use cocktail sticks because they are light, portable and allow customers to pick walrus from their teeth after the meal. When the consignment arrived, however, Thor realised his terrible miscalculation. All he had seen up to that point were photographs of Walrus, and he had thought that they were much much smaller - about the size of a golf ball.
Still, Thor wasn't a quitter. With the help of ten other people, he managed to get one Walrus on a cocktail stick and sold it to his first customer for $100, which was a lot of money in those days. Soon, Times Square was filled with city folk all staggering about under Walrus and a number of traffic accidents occured as a result. The police were called and Thor legged it. The experiment has never been repeated, except with hot dogs.
May 8th, 2006. | 8:00 am cet. | Thoughts: 6 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
Doggists
The powerful businessman, bestriding the boardroom like a colossus, but in a suit, is almost certainly a secret doggist. The lowly clerk in the post room, sweeping up wood chips, and humming to himself in an odd way - he is probably a doggist too. Some of your closest friends may even be doggists without you knowing it.
Doggists believe that life is tough because dogs eat each other. Hence the phrase:
Dogs don't eat each other, of course. If they did, then how can we explain the existence of the Chihuahua? Surely they would be the first to go. Next would be the Jack Russell Terrier - and there's billions of them about too. Which is a shame, because they are vicious little bastards, but we all have to let nature take its course, I suppose.
If dogs really ate each other, all we'd see would be a lot of fat, happy, yet evil looking St. Bernards, eyeing us up, wondering if a group kill might be worth it at the pensioner's bus stop.
Spiders, on the other hand do eat each other. But you don't hear people going around explaining the latest hostile take over with:
Doggists, therefore, are a bunch of deluded fuckwits and I want my money back.
May 1st, 2006. | 3:31 pm cet. | Thoughts: 6 | Phylum: Dogs | Permalink
The happy existentialist's book club
The Bouncy Castle is a novel by Franz Kafka. A rollicking comedy that extends to over 6000 pages, it concerns the exploits of B, an unemployed postman. B wanders all over the Thuringian countryside in search a mysterious long lost bouncy castle. On the way, B meets lots of people, such as the dancing janitor and the keeper of the bells. At first he's happy, but then he realises that all of the people he meets are not real people at all, but just metaphors. This makes him quite dizzy and he has to sit down and have a cup of tea. The bouncy castle itself proves elusive, thus operating simultaneously as a ridiculous narrative device and a symbol of the encroaching fuzziness of Western Kleptocraticism.
If you really want more of this drivel, you can see the whole damned thing I wrote here
April 27th, 2006. | 6:15 pm cet. | Thoughts: 2 | Phylum: Books | Permalink
A random series of bizarre events
Things did not congeal well today. I nearly got shot and I saw Stephen Segal. I'm not sure which experience was more disturbing.
Yesterday, in Romania, was an official holiday. It was official eggs, meat and cake day. The streets of the city were deserted because everyone was indoors eating eggs, meat and, yes, cake.
Tia's grandparents made me a delicious lamb ciorba - which is a soup. Her grandfather, sitting opposite me, was lashing into a bowl of the stuff. He lashed with such gusto that his overworked spoon turned up a jawbone complete with teeth. It floated to the surface and grinned at me. Everyone pointed and said "Look, Frank, teeth!". It didn't stop me eating though. Nothing does.
Today was official walk in the park day. Cismigiu park was heaving with dogs and people. I sat in the sun with Tia reading "Letter to a Priest" by Simone Weil - a hilarious comedy of about 6000 pages. Tia whiled away her time by happily spotting idiots.
I was reading "...this postulate does not do away with the link between such acts and the supernatural..." when Tia said "Hey, look at those idiots over there".
They were a man and a woman in their twenties (IQ and age). They were carrying large guns filled with pellets which they happily fired at each other, trees, the sky and passing children. A security guard watched them for about ten minutes before sauntering over and checking their id. They wandered off into some trees. I went back to my book.
It was indeed. He was surrounded by an entourage of mostly Chinese. He walked into the park like he owned it. People took his photograph. I shouted:
But he didn't listen. It was probably his day off.
Personally, I see an idiot.
April 24th, 2006. | 9:15 pm cet. | Thoughts: 11 | Phylum: Life in Romania | Permalink
Phlegmy Gobbets
Tags: pigs
Phlegmy Gobbets is history's first recorded stand up comedian. He mostly worked the pig farm circuit in Gloucester in the 14th century. Only one of his hand crafted jokes remains with us today:
Pigs love that kind of stuff. Anything that mentions demons. But they're a tough audience. Les Dennis was once heckled by a pig in Dorset and had to go into hiding for a year.
April 21st, 2006. | 8:30 am cet. | Thoughts: 2 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
I love what you do for me - Toyota
Tags: telephone romania Toyota
The phone rings. Never a good sign.
We didn't tell each other our actual telephone numbers, of course, for fear of attack by snipers.
The whole affair was a missed opportunity, for myself, for the stranger and indeed for Toyota Romania. The next time someone calls, I will be ready.
And so on... Personally, I can't wait. I haven't had this much excitement since Nixon visited China.
April 17th, 2006. | 10:50 pm cet. | Thoughts: 2 | Phylum: Life in Romania | Permalink
I.C. Suckers visits his local Underworld
Hi there. I'm I.C. Suckers. Who the heck are you?
Today's top brand is 'Cosmote', by those fun lovin' Greek dudes who just love to provide advanced yet friendly mobile telecommunications plus related wireless services: and who doesn't?
But guys, what's with the logo? "In touch with life"? What market segment are you trying to reach with that? The undead?
It's like Socrates said, man, he said that something that's in touch with life is, by definition, not actually life, or something. I forget what he actually said but it was something like that. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn't Socrates. Maybe it was Neil Diamond.
Anyway, your slogan implies that Cosmote belong to some shadowy other world, where secretaries, analysts and filing cabinets all float merrily down the river styx and into the pool of nothingness that is guarded by the keepers of the pitch and it's dark dark dark. You know the place. There's one in every kitchen.
Still, Nokia had some success in Finland with their "We are become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds" campaign so I guess it might work, dudes, but nobody takes any notice of these things anyway, so fuck it.
April 14th, 2006. | 9:30 pm cet. | Thoughts: 7 | Phylum: I.C. Suckers | Permalink
President Bush congratulates Bono on the discovery of a lost napkin
Reuters P.A.: President Bush today congratulated the legendary singer, Bono Vox after Mr. Vox found a lost napkin during a presidential lunch.
Bono was meeting the president as part of his recent "Send a Wok to Every Child in Finland" campaign. The duo were on the cusp of tucking into a large bowl of spaghetti when presidential aids noticed that Mr. Bush was without a napkin. Sources state that, on hearing the news, Bono dived under the table and began searching. Half an hour later, Bono still hadn't found what he was looking for.
It was only when President Bush fell to his knees and led the gathered news circle in spontaneous prayer that Bono emerged victorious, clutching the napkin, an old fork and a small portion of stale bread roll. Bush kept the napkin. The other items were donated to charity. President Bush later read out the following statement, live on television:
April 12th, 2006. | 12:00 pm cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: Thnup | Permalink
I.C. Suckers spots a horse!
Tags: business model emerging markets
Well I woke up this morning. I thought, the morning, the beginning of the day, it's like a new customer fresh off the bus. You've got to squeeze it for all the juice you can get. Some people don't like mornings. Not me. Heh heh.
I threw myself out of bed, jumped out the window and went for a Supremacy Stroll around Bucharest. OK, so the place is a little shabby - actually, I'd say well south of shabby - but the important thing is that EVERYONE has carrier bags. And they're using 'em too. Using 'em to carry stuff in. It got me thinking about the carrier bag mind-word-brand-concept, but I can't remember what I was thinking about now.
OK, so I'm out there and I see these guys with a horse and cart. One of them is shouting something. It sounds like "Fiaaaaarebleck Bleeeaaaaarooooh", and I'm curious. So I whip out my portable Geiger translator (I never go for a Supremacy Stroll without it) and it reads out that these guys are looking for iron. This is what they do: They go around the streets, with a horse, shouting out for iron.
Straight away, without losing one second, I thought: "What in the heck kind of business model is that?".
I mean, if, and I'm talking IF here, I happened to have some old lump of iron laying around the house, I don't think I'm going to wait for some guy with a horse to chance along and maybe take it from me. No, I'm just going to bury it in the garden. So these guys are loosing out because they haven't discovered my super dollop number 3: Pull Your Customer.
One word: Pamphlets. These guys need to get their act together and print up some pamphlets that say something like:
Am I wrong? Tell me, am I wrong?
April 11th, 2006. | 8:30 am cet. | Thoughts: 4 | Phylum: I.C. Suckers | Permalink