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He also yells!
Nov. 3rd, 2008 10:29 amI received an unsolicited and exclamation-filled mail order catalogue the other day. 'Christmas with Innovations' it's called, and it claims to have 'hundreds of gift ideas to inspire you!'. I'm particularly inspired by the Very Realistic Tarantula ('So scary!'), which is a remote-controlled 18 by 16 cm spider with a furry body and eight independently moving legs (AAA batteries not included). I also like the Flying Monkey ('He also yells!').
I'm less keen on the alarm clock that projects the time onto the ceiling in giant red digits (big enough even for those of us who need glasses to read without them): a recipe for insomnia, surely? And I'm just plain baffled by the Sub Jumpa, the 'underwater pogo stick!'.
My single favourite thing, though, is the half page devoted to an item that is 'much easier and cheaper than a laptop!'. That's right: surprise your loved ones this Christmas with a typewriter. The best bit is the close-up photo of the backspace key with the caption 'Easy to use correction key!'. The second best bit is the selling point that 'you don't need a separate printer!'. All of those claims are completely true, but I still feel that the recipient would be less than thrilled.
In the weekend paper was an excerpt from this book, celebrating thirty years of winners of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The wikipedia page I linked to lists the winners (and they're well worth perusing), but a few of my favourites among the runners-up mentioned in the book extract were Knitting with Dog Hair, Nuclear War: What's In It For You?, A Pictorial History of Tongue Coatings, Neurosis Induced Cannibalism in Antarctic Pigs, How Green Were the Nazis?, Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself and the very useful Big and Very Big Hole Drilling. I'm sure our friend the Innovations catalogue would describe them all as 'Excellent additions to any library!'.
I'm less keen on the alarm clock that projects the time onto the ceiling in giant red digits (big enough even for those of us who need glasses to read without them): a recipe for insomnia, surely? And I'm just plain baffled by the Sub Jumpa, the 'underwater pogo stick!'.
My single favourite thing, though, is the half page devoted to an item that is 'much easier and cheaper than a laptop!'. That's right: surprise your loved ones this Christmas with a typewriter. The best bit is the close-up photo of the backspace key with the caption 'Easy to use correction key!'. The second best bit is the selling point that 'you don't need a separate printer!'. All of those claims are completely true, but I still feel that the recipient would be less than thrilled.
In the weekend paper was an excerpt from this book, celebrating thirty years of winners of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The wikipedia page I linked to lists the winners (and they're well worth perusing), but a few of my favourites among the runners-up mentioned in the book extract were Knitting with Dog Hair, Nuclear War: What's In It For You?, A Pictorial History of Tongue Coatings, Neurosis Induced Cannibalism in Antarctic Pigs, How Green Were the Nazis?, Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself and the very useful Big and Very Big Hole Drilling. I'm sure our friend the Innovations catalogue would describe them all as 'Excellent additions to any library!'.