For many people, robot vacuums like the Roomba have solved a minor nuisance by taking over a mundane household cleaning task. However, for a small number of people, those same robot vacuums have created a much, much larger problem.
If you’ve never heard of this “poop+Roomba” phenomenon, you definitely shouldn’t ever Google it and click on the results that pop up…robo vacs have a lot of moving parts, like wheels and spinning brushes. This is great if you’re driving over and picking up dry dirt, but if the robot encounters a soft mass of something that it can grind up, those spinning brushes quickly become paint rollers. Then the robot drives all over the house. It’s bad.
Roomba has apparently been working hard to avoid this horrible problem. Their newest vacuum offers a Pet Owner Official Promise (POOP), where they’ll “replace any Roomba j7+ that doesn’t avoid solid pet waste”. That’s a pretty solid offer, but if the machine fails, I think they ought to throw in a deep cleaning of your house as well.
Many moons ago, I received a rather bizarre offer to purchase the domain baronvd.com. As I noted then, it sounds like a site for fancy sexually-transmitted diseases. Early this morning, I received a new and perhaps even more ridiculous come-on:
Long-time readers will recall that I own the Barvd.com domain, which is no doubt why I’m receiving this email. Still, despite the closeness in letters, there’s no actual relation between the domains. Barvd.com was initially purchased to showcase the grossest in social media tweets, and now covers all matter of vomit-inducing unpleasantness. Though this bearvd.com domain adds just one letter to Barvd, it is about as related as pens.com1 and penis.com2 would be.
However, if you’re a veternarian specializing in treating venereal diseases in bears, this could be just the site for you. Let me know, and I’ll put you in touch with Lloyd Childs.
Footnotes:
At the time of publication, this is a site for crappy branded items, including pens, as well as notepads, glasses, and much more. ↩︎
Shockingly, this domain currently leads to no site at all, though it is available for purchase if you have a spare $1 million (USD). Alternately, you can lease it for just $21,667 per month. ↩︎
If you’ve been reading the news online, watching television, listening to the radio, or having conversations with any other human beings, you may be aware that there’s a global pandemic going on. It’s smart to take some basic safety precautions to protect yourself and others. This includes social distancing, frequent hand washing, and wearing a mask when you go out.
What you really don’t need is a fake metal finger to touch things for you. And yet, in recent days I have been shown five different variations of a “touch tool”, via ads on Instagram and other places.
These are promotional images from five different products.
Firstaball1, just how many elevator buttons is the average person pressing in a day, particularly these days? And secondaball2, has no one considered just using a knuckle?
I suspect part of the reason I’m seeing this pop up so much is that I just can’t stop clicking the ads. The first time, my sheer amazement at the stupidity of the idea compelled me to learn more. Since then, I’ve been stunned that hey, there’s a different version of the same nonsense again. The various robots working behind the scenes are undoubtedly mistaking my clicks for serious interest in this ludicrous concept.
From the $6 “Clean Key” by “Vetted Security solutions” (who also offer an optional $15 Tiger King-themed paint job) all the way up to the egregiously expensive $35 “Keychain Touch Tool” from Peel, it seems everyone is looking to cash in by making a touch tool. Three of them are even using the exact same “Clean Key” name! One claims to be “The Original Clean Key”, but much like a Ray’s Pizza in New York City, you should be skeptical.
Meanwhile, KeySmart’s version of the CleanKey has the benefit of looking sort of like a Tommy Gun:
If you get this model, you can make rat-a-tat-tat machine gun sounds as you imagine you’re blowing away the virus. You won’t be, of course, but it’s fun to pretend. Keep the change, ya filthy pathogen!
KeySmart’s site features an infomercial-style video, which included this delightfully cheesy frame:
The “As Seen On TV” production values you see should tell you a lot about what we’re dealing with here.
However, the version I’ve seen advertised most often makes a point of focusing on quality. The COVID-KEY is made by Milspin, a company which sells “high end CNC products for American patriots”. That appears to mean making accessories for motorcycles and firearms that feature all manner of trademark infringement, as well as juvenile quips like “Get McFucked”. But hey, if you need your handgun to show off the brand of chewing tobacco you favor, Milspin has you covered:
Barvd 🙊
Milspin is making their own claims to originality, urging customers not to fall for “the knock-off pre-order China made keys!”, which appears to be a jab directed at KeySmart.
Regardless of who makes it, or in what country, a touch tool remains a useless waste of time, energy, and material. The design implies you should attach it to your keychain, where you also have, ya know, keys. If you really feel the need to avoid pressing buttons, those keys themselves have you covered pretty well.
It’s true that a standard key can’t grip and pull, while these tools can. But after they do, they’re going into your pocket or purse. Unless the tool is sanitized after each use, it’s just going to serve as a possible vector for moving the virus onto your other possessions. When you reach in to pull it out again, you’re definitely getting virus all over your hands.
The idea for this trumpery3 is itself like a virus, one which has infected metal fabricators across the internet. It’s often said the great minds think alike. The proliferation of these touch tools makes it clear that dumb minds think alike as well.
Footnotes:
This is an amazing formulation I received in an email from someone for whom English was a second language. I have since adopted it for comedic purposes. ↩︎
Honestly, “secondaball” cracks me up even more, but I seldom manage to get to it in conversation. ↩︎
Unlike the two previous example this is a real word in the dictionary and everything. It has centuries of history, but I learned of it only recently. It’s a fancier way of saying “crap”:
I can’t believe “trumpery” hasn’t gotten traction in the past four years. Let’s change that! ↩︎
Recently, I purchased a package of that delightful winter treat, the clementine. They’re easy to eat, and tasty, but this particular package really had some things going on. I didn’t notice what I’d picked up until after purchasing, but these were apparently “Cuties”, which seem to be made for small children:
On the other hand, it’s possible the target audience is some sort of citrusphile fruit freaks. The imagery features unzipping that’s more than a little obscene, as well as eyebrows that look rather lustful. Frankly, the whole thing feels sexualized, and that’s just gross. Try to unsee it! I know I can’t.
Still, I’d already bought them before I noticed this, and returning them because they were “too sexy” seemed likely to get me on some sort of list. So, I cut open the net to place them all in a fruit bowl and rid myself of the disturbing wrapping. When I did, I found that some of the clementines in the package had stickers on them.
These stickers appear to serve no real purpose, except perhaps to make me feel far less adult while I enjoyed a snack, and also to provide content for this site. Herein, a very brief review of the five Cutie stickers I saw:
Rudolph Cutie
This was the first of three stickers which were all appropriate for the Christmas season. Of course, if you take a look, you’ll see that Cuties don’t appear to have noses. As such, it seems as likely as not that “Rudolph Cutie” here actually has a giant, disgusting cyst. Barvd!
Jingle Cutie
This sticker is fairly innocuous, though with the hat, it looks more like a “Santa Cutie” than a “Jingle Cutie” to me.
Stocking Stuffer
I like this sticker, because it alludes to the tradition of placing oranges in a Christmas stocking. I don’t know that a single small Cutie would make a great stocking stuffer, but a few could be nice.
Captain Cutie
Things took an abrupt turn away from Christmas with this pirate-themed sticker. I’m not sure what this has to do with much of anything, but at least we know this is one buccaneer who won’t get scurvy.
Mouthcandy
I really have issues with this final sticker. There are many modifiers for candy. We use “ear candy” for catchy music and “arm candy” for a young person accompanying an older individual on a date. There’s even “nose candy”, for cocaine. But mouthcandy? That’s just candy! It’s the default. You don’t need the “mouth” modifier. It would be like saying “heart blood”. That’s just blood!
Also, I’m not sure why this Cutie was dipped like a candy apple, but it’s very unappealing.
Conclusion
At the moment, I’m on the fence about purchasing more Cuties. Ultimately, if I can find a clementine that doesn’t make me feel like I need to wait until the lunch bell rings to eat it, that would be best.
Thanks to a tweet shared by friend-of-the-site Daniel Jalkut, I’ve got a Barvd one-off to ruin your appetite today. As The Atlantic reports, this is an intact blood clot in the exact shape of the right bronchial tree.
Almost exactly a year ago, I noted the upcoming “Face with open mouth vomiting” emoji (🤮). This emoji is now available on the latest OSes, but if you don’t see it at the end of the previous sentence, here’s a massive version of Apple’s take on it:
Apple’s “Face with open mouth vomiting” emoji
I have some questions for the designer at Apple who drew this, including “Where exactly is this massive stream of vomit coming from?” and “Did this poor creature eat green Jell-o with a side of Mike & Ikes?”. Artistic choices aside, however, this would seem to be an obvious choice if I needed to select an emoji for Barvd in 2018.
There’s actually now a wealth of options available for consideration. In addition to that actively puking face, there’s this guy who’s right on the cusp:
This “Nauseated face” (🤢) was introduced in 2016. Props are due to the Unicode Consortium for not incorrectly calling this the “nauseous” face.
More recently, the “Face with hand over mouth” (🤭) was introduced:
Apple’s version of this could be holding it in, but the eyes fail to show any sort of panic or plans to dash for a toilet or trash can. Worse, other platforms actually show smiling eyes and even a smiling mouth, making “Face with hand over mouth” a poor choice overall.
Clockwise from top left: Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook
Of course, as long time readers may recall, the Barvd emoji was already selected way back in 2014. In that long-ago era, life was generally worse all around. The women and people of color of emojiland found themselves largely unable to hold down a steady job (👩🏽⚕️👨🏿⚖️), and it was also impossible to ask for a glass of bourbon (🥃) or even properly flip someone off (🖕). In part because the available emoji set was far smaller, this little guy was chosen to represent Barvd:
“Speak-No-Evil Monkey”/Barvd emoji
We’ve been using this emoji for over four years, and I think he holds up well. While the above choices may be more obvious, part of the enjoyment of emoji is interpreting them. I welcome the use of alternative emoji alongside an exclamation of the word “Barvd!”, but personally, I’ll be sticking with the classic puking monkey. He never goes out of style.
2017 is almost over, which means it’s well past time for this year’s edition of Barvd. We may not even remember most of the most nauseating social media posts of 2016, but they happened nonetheless. Let’s make this a very scary Christmas, with a long overdue summary of the most disgusting tweets and Instagram posts from last year. Thankfully, for six more days, 2016 still is last year.
January
Winter weather in Boston is frightful, but it doesn’t usually involve arachnids.
At the time of this writing, BeefyWattle.org is still available for registration.
March
March of 2016 had a large number of nominees, including several disgusting food items, which are always a favorite. And yet, this is insane “abbreviation” topped them all.
I guess we’d call it a “turpus”? At least until we cram a chicken in there to make it a “turpusen”, anyway.
October
In addition to being the last full month with hope and brightness in the world, October 2016 provided a bit of a mystery. When first looking at this tweet, it was not clear what was going on.
I first saw a person’s backside. OK, it’s a man, and he’s not in the best shape. Ah, jeez, is he at a urinal? That’s kind of gross. But ultimately, what’s the big deal? Let’s have a look at the full image:
Oh. Oh god. No. Why?! At least it’s a nice callback to our April selection.
November
I’m sure November had plenty of disgusting tweets. However, nothing was worse than this tweet (as well as others like it from news sources around the world):
As you can likely guess, I chose CNN’s tweet specifically. While I certainly wish this had been fake news, CNN is a credible news organization, and this was all too real. It was also all too sickening.
December
The day after the 2016 election, I quit reading Twitter cold turkey. I haven’t been back since. As such, I don’t have a selection for December. Viewing Donald Trump’s tweets from the entire month would provide plenty to be disgusted by, but you’re better off avoiding it entirely. The real world is stomach-turning enough without reading the ravings of the absolute worst president in history.
The End
That’s it for the year 2016, and likely for our annual Barvd reviews as well. We’ll likely still have Barvd one-offs in the future, though. If you seen an awful tweet, Instagram pic, or other post, send it in, or tweet a link to @OneFootTsunami.
Relatively recently, emoji were updated to include modifiers. This functionality enables multiple emoji to be joined into one, thus making it easier to have multiple genders and skin tones for people. Now, XKCD suggests a new modifier.
Despite attempts by domain sellers, you won’t find a collection of disgusting social media posts on baronvd.com. No, it’s only on barvd.com that you can get this kind of delightful content, and here you are, just in time for another year of Barvd. Let’s look at what was dreadful in 2015!
January
We start the year off with something of a mess. The winner (and sole nominee) for this month is a tweet which has been deleted. Fortunately, much like the Library of Congress, the fine folks over at Favstar handle the archiving of tweets.
As Brooklyn Nine-nine recently showed, mumps are both hilarious and disgusting.
February
Honestly, this one’s sort of a cheat, because it’s really just a tweet about a disgusting news story. On the other hand, it’s so foul that it’s easy to bend the rules so as to include it.
I have some questions about the structure of this headline. Should we not make yogurt with this grad student’s vagina, or with any vaginas? It’s unclear.
March
This next tweet actually seems relatively innocuous.
It didn’t start out so disgusting, but like mold, the foulness has grown over time. I’m sick of looking at this horrible creation, but now it’s your turn.
May
The crassness of this tweet is rather off-putting:
Even more sickening is the fact that this was just the beginning of many months of horrible Republican debates. Don’t worry though, just eight more months until the election.
September
This fantasy in three parts amuses, before it horrifies with the unpleasant yoga pants visual.
In recent years, traditional sexy/slutty Halloween costumes have really gotten played out. Thankfully, there are always innovators coming up with bold new ideas.
If you don’t remember Kim Davis, good for you. She’s too unappealing on both the outside and the inside to be pictured, even on the pages of Barvd, so you’ll have to do your own image search. If you do remember the dishonorable Ms. Davis, you know just how repugnant this idea is.
November
Let’s take a drive through almost 400 years of history. Halfway through we take a sharp left turn, so hang on tight.
In December, I wrote about “bully sticks”. The truth behind them is unappetizing to say the least. The response I got from one reader, however, was beyond the pail.1
➕1️⃣ to Mr. Bailey for his correct use of the Barvd emoji, but ➖💯 for providing us all with the idea of hot, smoking bully stick.
We’re Done Here
That’s it for the year 2015. Thank goodness this is a leap year, as it enabled me to get our 2015 review in before March 1st. Fear not though, because the collecting of awfulness for 2016 has already begun. As always, if you’ve seen an awful tweet, Instagram pic or other post, send it in or just tweet a link to @PBones.
Footnotes:
No, that’s not a typo. “Beyond the pail”, as in, it made me puke so hard I overshot the bucket for which I was aiming. ↩︎
