Did the world really need another place to buy trash?
Tuesday, February 14th, 2023
During the Super Bowl on Sunday, an ad for “Temu” played several times.1 In it, a woman buys a flurry of products at what I can only describe as disturbingly low prices.
In 2023, a dress should really cost more than $9.
But what exactly is Temu? The ad was not clear. Is it a fast fashion site? Do they sell used items? I couldn’t figure it out, so I visited the Temu website. In a word, that was a mistake. Though the company had spent millions of dollars on advertising during America’s single biggest night of television, their site was the worst kind of spammy garbage. It had pop-up offers, flashing messages, countdown clocks, and a wide variety of very cheap and very crappy products. Once I ascertained that the company was a reseller of all manner of disposable crap, I quickly left, expecting never to return.
Now you might be thinking “Are those…bike nuts?! Truck nuts…but for a bike?”. I urge you to get your mind out of the gutter. No. Of course they are not glowing bike nuts. Perish the thought!
No, that is clearly a lovely upside-down glowing heart, and it’s just in time for Valentine’s Day. For the low, low price of $3.59, you can show your cycling sweetie how much you care, all while helping them stay safe. I can’t think of anything more romantical.
In a word: Yuck. In an emoji: 🙊. Though MassMutual is a Massachusetts-based insurance company with 170+ years of history in the Bay State, they simply don’t belong on the team’s uniform. No one does. Alas, I have little doubt that this scourge is coming for the rest of the league as well.
In better uniform news, friend-of-the-site Casey L. and I were recently discussing mock-ups for alternate jersey for the Boston Celtics. He had found a fun jersey design created by a fan:
This design plays off of Boston‘s public transit system (known as “The T”), including our four colored subway lines, two of which (Orange and Green) meet at North Station where the Celtics play. It’s a very nice idea. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an original one. I had actually seen and enjoyed this same image a day or two earlier, before learning that it was actually a fairly obvious knock-off of another artist’s better design:
Happily, when “timbo_sport” came to defend their honor, it led me to check out more of their work. That brought me to my favorite design yet, their “Cutting Edge”:
Built as part of Boston’s infamous Big Dig, the Zakim was at one time the world’s widest cable-stayed bridge, and it remains an icon for the city. Paying homage to it on the Celtics uniform would be delightful. Maybe some day.
From an ad-marred shame, to a decent image that turned out to be a knock-off, to the original creator’s better execution, to the above masterpiece, it was quite a uniform roller coaster. Of course, I’ll be forced to see the livery I most disliked all season next year, while the looks I enjoyed most don’t actually exist. A man can dream, though. A man can dream.
Though Halloween has passed, today still feels like a good time to post something scary. It comes courtesy of friend-of-the-site Colin T, who encountered the picture that follows in his hotel room at a Marriott. In Colin’s own words:
I don’t say this lightly, but I’d like someone at Marriott to be fired over this. Or at least have a formal reprimand placed in their HR file. This makes me want to never stay at another Marriott for fear they’ll come up with something worse.
With all that as preface, let’s have a look!
This was the “art” found in Colin’s room at the Auburn, Alabama Marriott TownePlace (sic) Suites, and “art” is an extremely generous word. Who would do this? Why would they do this? Just…well, what in the unholy name of wretched word clouds is that?!
It took me several minutes of staring at it to find the basic idea of it, which seems to be the phrase “Life is to be lived”. Alright…fine. But even if we accept that as a reasonable message for hotel art (and we really shouldn’t), what’s going on with the rest of it?
You can find three other full words, “it”, “terrific”, and “everything”. But beyond that, there’s an assortment of partial words, some of which I’ve made guesses at below:
fantastic
intrinsic
-astic
mag-
excessive
expressive
expevted (?!)
neglecting
explorative
everywhere
Most of those are positive words, but “excessive” and “neglecting” certainly aren’t, and “expevted” isn’t a word at all.
In addition to the poor content, the execution is also bad. Zooming in shows how sharp the letters in “life” are. Compare that against the falling “it” up top:
Those are compression artifacts on the “i” and the “t”, and they’re on the original poster itself, not caused by the photograph. You can spot plenty more on the letter jumble at the bottom:
If this is art at all, it’s bad art, poorly done. The worst of both worlds!
Finally, let us not overlook the location of this piece. As you can perhaps tell from the reflection, yes, this pile of crap is in the bathroom. In fact, it’s directly across from the location where it actually belongs, the toilet. As a result, hotel guests are forced to contemplate it while using the facilities. That’s just no way to start your day.
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.
Lloyd, I can't reciprocate your well wishes, because ultimately, you're a spammer.
Friday, March 5th, 2021
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. ↩︎
This idea seems to be as contagious as COVID-19 itself. Also, let's make “Trumpery” a thing.
Thursday, April 23rd, 2020
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! ↩︎
These Cuties stickers are pretty dumb, and thus, they will be studied.
Wednesday, January 1st, 2020
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.
In 2018, there are many options to convey disgust via emoji.
Wednesday, March 21st, 2018
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.
