Fifty Toys That Never Quite Took Off

  1. The one piece erector set
  2. Lesbian Barbie™
  3. Difficult Bake Oven
  4. Coolidge Logs
  5. The 100% Negative Magic 8 Ball
  6. Ralph Nader’s Jungle Fort Playset
  7. Edible mini-Slinkies
  8. GI Joe™ KP Duty Playset
  9. Matchbox’s Cars of the Soviet Bloc Deluxe Set
  10. Wretch-a-Sketch
  11. The Doll Hovel
  12. Lawn Daggers
  13. The Flaming Kite
  14. Bucket o’ Twigs
  15. Slug Mansion
  16. Smurf® Collective Farm Playset
  17. Transformers® Plywoodobots
  18. Garfield Calculus Activity Book
  19. My Little Serpent
  20. Fully Satisfied Hippos
  21. Pre-Socratic Philosophers dress up set
  22. The Mud Tub
  23. Assorted Lugnuts in a Can
  24. Severed Rabbit Head
  25. Jr. Accountant Spread Sheet of Fun
  26. Nonexistor!® The Incorporeal Action Figure
  27. Mr. Taro-Root Head
  28. Bag of Fire
  29. Napoli & Sons Slaughterhouse: The Role Playing Game
  30. Human Antenna Suit
  31. Locktite™ Legos™
  32. Vivisection Dance Party
  33. Bob Dole Virtual Reality Goggles
  34. Hobby Porcupine
  35. The Electric Hoop
  36. Lead Duck
  37. Rubik’s Point
  38. Viscera in a Jar
  39. Fisher-Price Anal Beads
  40. Kiddie Chain Gang
  41. Toddler-Time Whetstone
  42. Plasticized Eyeball Marbles
  43. checker
  44. Ampu Tee Ball
  45. Cocaine Mule (Water-soluble Lubricant Included)
  46. Reality Television Slut Kit
  47. Tiny Torturer
  48. Aerosmith: The Experience
  49. The Kid in the Iron Mask
  50. Vlad Tepes Chamber of Hamster Horrors

50 Ways to Better-Market Cereal

1. Include a coupon for 50% off next gallon of milk.
2. Corner the Mediterranean demographic by including dried chunks of goat marrow in the recipe.
3. Encase cereal in bio-engineered melon. Sell with “bowl included.”
4. Include sugar-water packet with pin set to prick on a timer counting down three months inside box with light-sensitive exterior which changes over time so that the expired product can then be sold as an alcoholic beverage called “Liquor Charms.”
5. Continue the practice of not combining the thought of cereal with the thought of menstruation.
6. Free glow-in-the-dark combination cock-ring/secret decoder ring in every box.
7. Fill package with CO2 for that fun “dizziness” effect.
8. Package the cereal in a container which by its very nature not only prevents resealing, but encourages the spilling of valuable cereal product all over the floor.
9. “Not Manufactured in Newfoundland & Labrador” stamped on each box.
10. “Authentic $20 Bill Included!”
11. Put nude women on the box.
12. “Free laser with purchase.”
13. “Now without phlegm.”
14. Include a ticket for free robot sex.
15. Small RFID transmitters which broadcast the amount of cereal in the box wirelessly to your home computer via RSS feed.
16. Ads which proclaim “Eating this cereal is comparable to anal sex.”
17. Embark on a global campaign for Asian Bjrnto, the cereal with prawns.
18. Tell people they can only eat your cereal if they are awesome.
19. Don’t create commercials that are black and white homage to film noir and late Sixties French cinema.
20. Label your cereal as “Inspired by the television series Firefly.”
21. Create cereal boxes that double as rape whistles.
22. Point out how much less fiber your cereal contains. You don’t want to be on the toilet all day because of some Crusty Crunchy Roos.
23. Include a touch-sensitive keypad on the back so consumers can take notes during breakfast.
24. Have your cereal endorsed by The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.
25. Take Cancer-Os™ off the shelf once and for all.
26. Replace deadly razor blade chips with colourful marshmallows.
27. Put chapters from Great Expectations on each box, so you have something to read at breakfast besides boring nutritional information.
28. Endorsements from RadioShack CEO Julian Day.
29. Create new promotion “Buy twelve boxes and we won’t kill your mother.”
30. Replace the standard six sided rectangle box with an eye pleasing dodecahedron.
31. Mention, via advertising, that the cereal meets the rhyming description of “nutritious and delicious.”
32. Print Bible verses on the box.
33. State on the record that the rival, store-brand knock-off cereal supports communism.
34. Increase the levels of highly addictive nicotine in your corn puffs, flakes or whatnot.
35. Announce that you will reduce prices by 3%, then wow the public by actually reducing prices by an astonishing 3.0125%.
36. Get the stamp of approval from the Union of Ultra-Reformed Rabbis.
37. Tell children that if they don’t eat your cereal their parents will stop loving them and sell them to Gypsies. Particularly cruel Gypsies.
38. Make it fully compatible with the CerealCaddy5000™.
39. Use science to create an alternate universe where your cereal is more valuable than gold.
40. Make the average breakfast cereal thirty percent more flammable.
41. Have an octopus in every box who can dispense the cereal without the need for complicated pouring.
42. Attach a plug to the box for some reason.
43. Get all four members of KISS to put blood in each batch.
44. Convince retail merchants to give you an end cap display.
45. Replace the traditional toy prize with a coupon good for one free informative lecture from Richard Dawkins.
46. Create Latin packaging to corner the ecclesiastical market.
47. Put a cartoon dinosaur on the packaging. Hey, it can’t hurt, right?
48. Tell women that eating puffed corn will somehow reduce the pain and discomfort of the menses.
49. Put nanites in every box that, once consumed, travel to the consumer’s brain and take over higher functions, turning the person into a cereal buying robot.
50. Stop advertising the cereal as “the Nazi way to start your day.”

Fifty New Animals that God Should Create

1. Flying crabs.
2. Sheep with non-itchy wool.
3. Talking meercats, since meercats always look like they’re about to say something interesting.
4. Dogs that stay puppies forever.
5. Tigons and Ligers that can actually reproduce.
6. Rubber-toothed sharks for surfer safety.
7. Chihuahuas that don’t shake so damn much.
8. Butterflies with patriotic flag designs on their wings.
9. Moths that can tell the difference between a light bulb and the Moon.
10. Cuddly snakes.
11. Cats that can do like at least one trick or something.
12. Bishop birds, for the cardinals to oversee.
13. A birddog that doesn’t just find dead birds but is actually like a flying dog with a beak.
14. Bioluminescent elephants.
15. Land whales.
16. Turtles with hinges, so you could open up the shell and see how they work.
17. Gigapedes.
18. Abyssal fish that aren’t quite so nightmarish.
19. Dolphins who don’t give a damn about lost mariners.
20. Something that’s full of tasty lobster meat but doesn’t look so much like a giant sci-fi alien bug.
21. Hippos that don’t kill quite so many people.
22. Parrots that can say interesting things rather than just continually demanding crackers.
23. Squirrels that hand out small containers of relish.
24. Something, anything that actually wears underpants.
25. Rabbits than can play Parcheesi well.
26. Spaceborne orangutans with giant foil wings which produce nutritious energy through simian-compatible chlorophyll.
27. A carnivorous chinchilla which is just as cute as a regular chinchilla, but over 700 times as deadly.
28. Small lizards with built-in rocket/jetpacks.
29. Humans with spines fully-adapted to upright walking.
30. Deer whose eyes shine blinding light at over 100,000 lumens.
31. A species of clam which exhibits astounding sexual differences between its 13 different genders.
32. A wolverine shaped like a VHS tape which feeds on human hands.
33. The sinless manatee.
34. Hyperlinked marmosets.
35. Bees that buzz a major third apart.
36. Penguins in primary colours.
37. Bed bugs that form beds.
38. Hook-length worms that don’t produce mucous.
39. Shrimp which eat plastic bags.
40. Moles what build their hills out of bottle caps.
41. Proper human shemales.
42. Scallops exactly one millimeter thick.
43. Manta rays which grow human skin.
44. Lemon-flavoured bison.
45. Stick insects that die and dry out to create brushes.
46. Giraffes divisible by i.
47. Diatoms which die and leave skeletons usable as nuts for bolts.
48. Purple pigs.
49. Multi-cellular amoeba.
50. Pigeons that double as radio transmitters.

Fifty Reasons to Leave H.R. Giger Alone

1. He asked you politely to do so.
2. The long-bore rifle in his closet.
3. You want to sleep with his daughter.
4. Remember what happened last time?
5. You are not “the same way” he is.
6. There can be only one. You make two.
7. H.R. Giger reengineered death to be more efficient.
8. He’s a figment of your imagination.
9. Like the signs say, “Just don’t screw with H.R. Giger.”
10. H.R. Giger’s made of anti-matter.
11. Ron Popeil and H.R. Giger are bosom-buddies.
12. It’s not a nervous tick. It’s a highly-contagious disease.
13. His business card doubles as a sushi knife. That’s just geeky.
14. Dude brings you coffee in the morning. Why ruin it?
15. That one time H.R. Giger made you a drawing of bunnies and rainbows.
16. That biohazard tattoo on his arm isn’t referring to the band.
17. Your handlers would get suspicious if they knew.
18. He caused an earthquake and no one knows how.
19. H.R. Giger’s the only H.R. Giger you actually know.
20. Only he knows where to get that amazing tequila.
21. 25% of people named H.R. Giger are likely to give you money randomly.
22. He paid me to write this.
23. His birth name was Wilhelmina Hitler.
24. Poll numbers for H.R. Giger are through the roof.
25. If the government says so, you should do it like the good sheep you are.
26. There was the time he lent you his hat when it was cold.
27. He’s not the guy who signs your checks, but he’s the guy who gives your checks to the guy who signs your checks.
28. Remember that sealed court file in Fort Lauderdale?
29. His righteous window herb garden.
30. Remember what happened to Polyphemus?
31. H.R. Giger defeated the I.R.S., image what he could do to you.
32. He’s a vampire.
33. On his time off, he attends furry conventions dressed as a sexy Snoopy.
34. In his house he has forty three hammers and no pillows.
35. Fred already gave you eight dollars to leave H.R. Giger alone.
36. You already stole all his atlases, isn’t enough enough already?
37. Do you really want to get stabbed with a barbeque fork again?
38. The restraining order kind of mandates it.
39. The guards really don’t like it when you tap morse code on the walls with your spoons.
40. Leaving H.R. Giger alone got three stars in the Michelin Guide and two thumbs up from Roger Ebert.
41. Every time you bother H.R. Giger, Zeus throws more lightning bolts.
42. Thom Yorke said Radiohead would play a special concert for you in your bedroom if only you would leave H.R. Giger alone.
43. H.R. Giger’s wife is tired of cleaning up after you.
44. Because Grover sang “Be is for you can bemoan, L is for leave H.R. Giger alone.”
45. The Cray supercomputer has computed that leaving H.R. Giger alone would be advisable to eight hundred and nine decimal places.
46. Leaving H.R. Giger alone will help you avoid that pesky Gypsy curse.
47. What would Jesus do? Yep, Jesus would leave H.R. Giger alone.
48. Leaving H.R. Giger alone would get you two free stamps on your Subway Club card.
49. H.R. Giger is just so, so tired.
50. Leaving H.R. Giger alone would give you more time to pester Andrew Cotton.

Fifty Useful Things

1. Scratch-proof linoleum
2. Bread slice sized sandwich bags
3. Undies that dispense talc
4. Magazine insert vacuum
5. Dirt-repellent paint
6. Flopless flip flops
7. Freckle ointment for pale-skinned girls without freckles
8. Self-polishing leather
9. Quiet packing tape dispensers
10. Something, anything, to replace grout
11. Deodorant application flaps in t-styled shirts
12. Nail clippers that can do the job in one clip
13. Odor- and taste-free lubricated condoms
14. Universal inclusion of sales tax on all price tags.
15. An air conditioner that just fits
16. A tin beverage can that doesn’t leave a sip of liquid at the bottom
17. Boot-height loafers for old men who insist on wearing loafers with calve-length socks and shorts
18. Subway doors that withstand leaning
19. Homeless people armed with air horns to scare off pigeons
20. A human spine which is completely adequate for upright walking
21. AM radio that penetrates obstacles
22. Adequate training for bassists on bass line construction
23. One city willing to fully-commit to the grid system
24. Non-dribble spoons
25. Anti-gravity bread crumbs
26. A cell-phone that doesn’t need to be advertised.
27. Celebrities without personal lives.
28. Intelligent goth girls.
29. Non police car related metaphors for explaining the Doppler Effect and Red Shift.
30. A zombie movie that actually avoids every single Zombie movie cliché.
31. Forks that magnetically attract those last few peas or grains of rice.
32. An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of frying bacon.
33. Mid-Def for those who feel broadcast isn’t enough but aren’t quite ready for high definition television.
34. Neck ties for sloths.
35. Glow in the dark Norse figurines for playing Viking Raid in the dark.
36. Attractive gargoyles for those easily frightened by cathedral architecture.
37. Feeling bad after being shot down by the girl at the party insurance with complete blonde coverage.
38. Special corsages for accountants to wear on Arbour day.
39. Pants with asbestos reinforced seats for use with jet packs.
40. Idiot repellent.
41. A pope who supports birth control.
42. A little box on the TV news that tells you how likely you are to actually come to harm, much less die, from the latest health scare.
43. Double yo-yos with two strings and three separate orbs.
44. A third option besides the regular chutes and ladders.
45. Extra strength minty toe paste for when you scrub your toes with your toe brush.
46. Z-rays that allow you to see the outside of objects.
47. Tepid seeking missile.
48. Special stamps commemorating 150 years of philatelics.
49. A new Polish folk dance sensation to replace the aging Flyk Cryzok.
50. The cure for cancer.