Category: Curios & Humor

It’s a wake-up droid!

But it’s not an ordinary wake-up droid, like the one already sitting on your nightstand.

This one is designed to run away from you!

Specifically: When you hit the snooze button the first time, it rolls off your nightstand of its own volution and bounces softly on the floor (courtesy of its soft covering) and then rolls a random distance away (courtesy of Fred’s two feetit’s two wheels) and then sounds off again when the snooze period is up, forcing you to get out of bed and find it to shut it off.

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EXCERPT:

ONTARIO, Calif. — Jack Chick, author of Christian tracts, made a surprise purchase of some of the world’s best-loved comic strips and is spreading the gospel in typical Chick fashion through the Sunday funnies.

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OTTAWA — The Rapture occurred March 31, 2005, at 9:43 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time and took both people on the planet whose theology was exactly correct.

Dan Wilson of Ottawa, Canada, was snatched away while sleeping.

"He spent years refining his eschatological scheme," says his wife. "Just last week he told me he had it all right, but I still disagreed with him on a minor point. I regret that now."

READ MORE.

The simple answer is that it’s a curio I found sitting on the counter at my local comic book dealer’s.

But it’s much more than that.

You’ll notice that at the top center of the lid it has a little silver circle with a gold ring sitting on it.

(Look up and notice this before reading further. I’ll wait.)
.
.
.

Okay, so everythig is fine and good.

UNTIL YOU TRY TO TOUCH THE RING!

In fact, when people ask what the curio is, the counterman will simply tell them "Touch the ring."

They (or you) do, and suddenly you find out

THE RING AIN’T THERE!!!

Yes! There is NO GOLD RING sitting atop the curio. You swish your finger around an empty HOLE IN THE LID.

The illusion is not caused by holography or magic or anything like that. It’s far simpler–and far more insidious–than that.

Turns out that there is a gold (well, gold-colored) ring at the  bottom of the inside of the curio, surrounded by a curved mirrored surface that makes the image of the ring reflect in such a way that, for any person of normal height, when you look into the hole from a normal eye-angle, it appears that there is a little silver disk there with a gold ring sitting on it.

BUT THERE’S NOT!!!

It’s all deception and trickery, y’see.

Now, if you look at the curio dead-on from the side (i.e., not from a normal eye-angle), you’ll see that there’s nothing there. Similarly, if you look straight down into the hold (again, not from a normal eye-angle), you’ll see through the illusion. In fact, you’ll see the ring sitting at the bottom of the curio. You can also stick your finger down and feel the ring and the curved mirrored surface around it. (I did.)

I asked if you could open the curio and the counterman said no. When they first got it, he wanted to open it and put something else besides a ring in it. (I’d like to see him put a quarter in it. Imagin customers trying to pick up that!) He also said he thought this was a design flaw as it made would hard to clean if it got dirty.

Still . . . kewl illusion, huh!

The simple answer is that it’s a curio I found sitting on the counter at my local comic book dealer’s.

But it’s much more than that.

You’ll notice that at the top center of the lid it has a little silver circle with a gold ring sitting on it.

(Look up and notice this before reading further. I’ll wait.)
.
.
.

Okay, so everythig is fine and good.

UNTIL YOU TRY TO TOUCH THE RING!

In fact, when people ask what the curio is, the counterman will simply tell them "Touch the ring."

They (or you) do, and suddenly you find out

THE RING AIN’T THERE!!!

Yes! There is NO GOLD RING sitting atop the curio. You swish your finger around an empty HOLE IN THE LID.

The illusion is not caused by holography or magic or anything like that. It’s far simpler–and far more insidious–than that.

Turns out that there is a gold (well, gold-colored) ring at the  bottom of the inside of the curio, surrounded by a curved mirrored surface that makes the image of the ring reflect in such a way that, for any person of normal height, when you look into the hole from a normal eye-angle, it appears that there is a little silver disk there with a gold ring sitting on it.

BUT THERE’S NOT!!!

It’s all deception and trickery, y’see.

Now, if you look at the curio dead-on from the side (i.e., not from a normal eye-angle), you’ll see that there’s nothing there. Similarly, if you look straight down into the hold (again, not from a normal eye-angle), you’ll see through the illusion. In fact, you’ll see the ring sitting at the bottom of the curio. You can also stick your finger down and feel the ring and the curved mirrored surface around it. (I did.)

I asked if you could open the curio and the counterman said no. When they first got it, he wanted to open it and put something else besides a ring in it. (I’d like to see him put a quarter in it. Imagin customers trying to pick up that!) He also said he thought this was a design flaw as it made would hard to clean if it got dirty.

Still . . . kewl illusion, huh!

You may remember that it is official Church teaching that chocolate bunnies are the enemies of mankind. That’s why they have to be decapitated immediately by biting their heads off first, before eating the rest of them.

Well, some holy soul has found a new way to dispatch them from this mortal coil.

Yes! We can all breathe a little easier now that the SOLAR DEATH RAY has been invented.

The Solar Death Ray (left–click to enlarge) uses 112 mirrors to focus the light of 112 tiny suns on its target.

Its inventor appears to wish to remain anonymous, so we will simply refer to him as Dr. Genius.

Dr. Genius has a handy animation on his web site www.SolarDeathRay.com, to explain how the Solar Death Ray works.

Here’s a look (right):

As you can see, tiny dots fall from the sun, which strike the surface of the Solar Death Ray and are reflected up to the Target Point.

These dots, known as Solar Death Dots (my term), are not related to solarmanite (Thank God!).

Dr. Genius, a true benefactor of mankind, has already been benefacting mankind by turning his Solar Death Ray on a host of different targets. (Wide testing is necessary when you’re doing SCIENCE! of course.)

Among the victims on the altar of SCIENCE! has been this mankind-enemy (left), deceptively named "Sunshine."

Well sunshine is what this evil bunny got!

"Sunshine" did not long survive the ministrations of the Solar Death Ray.

Instead, "Sunshine" was soon treated to the fate deserved by all enemies of mankind. (CLICK TO SEE FIERY JUSTICE IN ACTION!)

Yes, Dr. Genius’s marvelous contraption has dispatched one more enemy of mankind, one more agent of horrible, loathsome (if delicious) abnormality from Outside that was secretly plotting against mankind and needed to be extirpated from this earth.

Look, then, upon the triumphant results! And let this be a warning to all enemies of mankind! The Solar Death Ray is your fate!

But wait! Is "Sunshine" really dead? Or has he just reverted to his sinister, protoplasmic Shoggoth-form???

Only time will tell!

In the meantime,

LEARN MORE ABOUT DR. GENIUS’S MARVELOUS CONTRAPTION!

And suggest your own victims for the altar of SCIENCE!

SCIENCE!

(Cowboy hat tip: Small But Disorganized.)

Resolutions to keep if you ever become an evil overlord:

1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
7. When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I’ll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

GET THE ENTIRE EVIL OVERLORD’S LIST.

As if Marmite were not repulsive enough on it’s own (my own sweet wife, who used to live in New Zealand, insists she really tried to like it) some brilliant British ad guys had the nifty idea to try to sell it by doing a TV commercial parody of the old sci-fi movie classic The Blob!, and showing the nasty brown gick terrorizing the streets of London. Now literally thousands hundreds dozens of traumatized British yutes are too frightened to watch telly. Can’t have that, old man. Not Cricket. So the commercial has been pulled from the airwaves and the aforementioned ad guys received a royal growling.

First sold in 1902, Marmite was billed as a "health giving" yeast extract. It is a concentrated brown paste with a "distinctive" somewhat salty/savory flavor. Eaten on toast, and all kinds of other ways.

GET THE "DISTINCTIVE" STORY

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MARMITE!

Cowboy hat tip to the reader who sent THIS LINK to the Cthulhoid parody of a Jack Chick tract.

I’d seen it ages ago, but then it got taken down as JACK CHICK WAS NOT AMUSED.

Minor content advisory (uses a bad word, has a disturbing image and sinister theme).

Cowboy hat tip to the reader who sent in this funny (which is posted to multiple sites and is thus a classic):

THE TALE OF ERIC AND THE DREADED GAZEBO

In the early seventies, Ed ran "his game," and one of the
participants was Eric. Eric plays something like a computer.
When he games he methodically considers each possibility before
choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick
the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise,
in all respects, a superior gamer.

Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed’s game. He was on some lord’s
lands when the following exchange occurred:

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you
see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: (Pause) It’s white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: (Pause) It’s about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It’s not good, Eric. It’s a gazebo.
ERIC: (Pause) I call out to it.
ED: It won’t answer. It’s a gazebo.
ERIC: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it
respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it’s a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: (Pause) Wasn’t it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT’S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: (Whimper) But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It’s a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to
destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you
could try to burn it, but I don’t know why anybody would even try.
It’s a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.) I run away.
ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It’s too late. You’ve awakened the gazebo.
It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I’ll roll up a fire-using mage so
I can avenge my Paladin.

At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a
modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the
tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least
the gazebo wasn’t on a grassy gnoll.

ARCHITECTURAL NOTE: What’s on the Grassy knoll in Dallas is actually a pergola, not a gazebo.