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Me too! For one brief moment, my hopes soared! But then they were dashed! DASHED!

Like a Texan on the highway side.  Wait, is this the simile writing competition?

[Photoshop Phrenzy]

A little while back Selmiak had an awesome idea to resurrect Photoshop Phriday, the much loved competition that ran off and on from 2005-2010.  But all the cool kids know that the real action on the Forums is migrating from the over-regulated Comps Board to the wild-west Rumpus Room.  I therefore propose that Photoshop Phriday morph into Photoshop Phrenzy, whereby participants are freed from the strictures of a regulated competition and just have fun doing (or viewing) a creative activity.

So here's the non-rules:

1) Anyone can post an interesting picture to be butchered by the rest of us
2) Anyone can photoshop anything posted in the thread
3) Amusement shall be maximized.

To get things rolling I've taken selmiak's proposed picture....



...and turned it into this:



Surely somebody can do better: now prove it! 

Like a palm tree in a typhoon, kconan's always turning over new leaves.   What?  Is it too late to win you all over with flowery (or at least vegetative... ) metaphors?

The long toilet is for distance shooters, the short one for speed gushing?

Here's a creative and convenient TP hanging idea.  Well, convenient so long as you aren't using the toilet for "short" purposes.

I guess I should reveal: I voted #6, #8 & #12, although I nearly voted for (and regret not doing it now ) for #7.  My confusion about the rankings (above) stems from the fact that I actually voted for the 1st, 2nd & one of the 3rd place entries (and thus they were all bolded for me).  I guess I have good taste....

....Except when it comes to writing, that is.    My piece about yummy glop obviously wasn't tasty enough (#11)....  I'll be sure to concoct harder next time.

Beverly Hills Cop 2

Yes!

[kconan]

As has become standard, you are allowed to cast up to three votes. Think of it as "Gold, Silver, Bronze". Gold is worth 3 points, Bronze 1 point. Silver is worth
2.211242 points and a bagle.

Er.... OK.

Mutation kconan: I thought his slow transition into a human-devil worm hybrid was thorough and gritty.  I don't know about the scientific possibilities, but it was hilarious to consider a man-sized quasi-worm with half appendages worming itself through the subsoil!

Atmosphere Sinitrena: For "gold", since her take on a disbeliever's perspective of the mystical ceremony and metamorphic process was very insightful
kconan: for "Silver/Bagel", for the classic mutation atmosphere of medical quarantine with gadgets and guys in lab-coats.

Style - kconan: The lingo of the job site really sold it for me: "digit-heads", "ol' twisty", impressive sounding corporate divisions.  Also Sinitrena forgot to proof read this time.   

Character Sinitrena: I don't think he was ever named, but I could certainly empathize with her main character's train of thought.  The complexities of the character's outlook (believing in magic but not in gods, for example) made for some really interesting contradictions within his mind.  Kconan's characters were more straight up, which is understandable given his plot (smart-witted adventurers don't really go for roughneck drilling jobs), but it hurt his chances in this category.

Great stories, folks!  As always, a pleasure to read.  I especially liked the closure that I got from kconan's piece -he's going to make it!  For Sinitrena's I have to wonder: will he ever be more than just a one pond fish?

What I missed was at least a pseudo explanation for where the Carnivator come from at exactly the same time as the Veggie Man. (I just hate coincidences like that - personal taste, I guess. I realize that it really wasn't an improtant detail for this kind of story.)

Yeah, you got me!  I ran out of time to make a longer piece explaining more, and didn't want to stretch the story over too many time intervals (I find it reads more like a history than a story if I have to list events over weeks and months).  So I needed a device to show off Veggie Man's power, and I just picked the most polar opposite thing I could to a gentle nonogenarian vegetable lover: a wrathful domineering 4 storey ultimate carnivore!  Where this enigmatic and horrible villain emerged from in the story universe will, unfortunately, have to remain a mystery until the next exciting instalment of Veggie Man!

Another 48 Hours?

er... still close!

Beverly Hills cop?

Even closer!

Congrats, #12, you smooth wordsmith you!

Is there some reason why #5 & #13 don't share in the glory of third place?  What's the tie breaking criteria?

48 Hours?

Close-ish, but no.  Good eye, though!

Trading Places?

Nope.

I'm more of a measuring tape kind of guy myself....


Check out this Australian urinal:

Cobra!

He did do a killer voice cameo for Blue Lobe Inc....

Baron von Müscherschwitzefrauenverstehlinggung........ (I forget how to spell the rest )

EAT YOUR GREENS

   Arnold Arkwright fumed like an old steam engine, with a boiler glowing orange with the heat of his anger and steam shooting out his funnel high into the sky.  Or maybe he raged red like a trolley?  No, the steam engine analogy was better.  Stronger, smoother, unstoppable.  Unless it missed a coaling station: if an old steam engine didn't refuel every twelve miles it would, well, run out of steam....  Was that purple broccoli?

   Arnold tried to focus, which wasn't easy for a man of his age.  At ninety-six he was about as well adapted to this crazy modern techno-world as a pair of fuzzy slippers were to D-Day.  Everywhere he turned there seemed to be a ringing this or a blinking that, and not any of it made a lick of sense.  Bunch of annoying power leeches was as best as he could figure.  Still, it wasn't just the newfangledness of today that confounded him: his arch-nemesis these days were stairs six-inches or higher.  With his cane and his bum knee, he walked much like a marionette on its last strings.  He'd tried to outflank stairs by taking the wheel-chair ramps, but more than once he'd had to flee for life and limb from an overweight “invalid” half his age recklessly driving a Rascal cart.

   Why back in his day, people had respect for their elders....

   But now he was angry with his son, some hotshot biomolecular agri-food scientist.  The boy was sixty and still wore his tired grey locks in a ponytail like some sort of giggly school girl.  And that little whiff of a goatee or “soul patch” as he called it: it looked like someone had snagged him by the chin with a fly-fishing lure!  Appearances aside, however, it was the boy's obsession with playing god with society's food supply that made old Arnold truly nauseous.  Or was that his medication conflict that tended to crop up on Tuesdays....  What day was it, anyway?   

   â€œThis frankenfood business has just got to stop, Terrance!  What would your mother say, god rest her soul?  Carrots the size of artillery shells?  Spinach that tastes like pumpkin, and -bizarrely- vice versa?  Layerless onions?!?  For the love of humanity, you've got to pull yourself back from the brink!”  Arnold teetered on his cane and spun around for dramatic effect, but all he achieved was to knock his lunch pail and a strange canister off of the counter.  It seemed as if Terrance had left a while ago, because the lights in the rest of the lab were turned low.  Row upon row of microscopes, centrifuges, and weird mutant vegetables lay abandoned for the night.  Had he fallen asleep in some corner without realizing it?  Or had his son tip-toed out mid-rant and let him carry on without an audience for several hours??

   Arnold shook his head and tried to shrug off the indignity of losing his faculties as well as his health.  If only he had had the benefit of wisdom when he was still young and strong....  He painfully eased himself down onto one knee to pick up the contents of his lunch pail, which had spilled everywhere.  It was dark, and he had to squint to make out the vegetables where they had rolled.  A radish here, a brussel sprout there; what's this?  It seemed to glow slightly in his hand.  It had what looked like a tiny turnip tuber on one end, and a broccoli flower on the other.  Arnold shook his head again: he was going crazy!  Thinking no more about it, for he assumed that it was just the tricks of an old man's eyes and mind that were confusing him, and feeling more than just a little hungry for the day had seemed to fly by without him eating anything at all, he decided then and there to take a big juicy bite.  His dentures sliced through the surprisingly tender and slightly peppery vegetable, and he chewed its succulent pulp with great relish.  It was tasty, whatever it was!

   And then there was a slight burning sensation in his throat.  Damned inflammation again!  He'd probably forgotten to take his pills again.  Arnold stared hard at the vegetable in his hand, but his limbs began to tremble such that he couldn't get a clean look at it.  Sweat beaded on his brow and he reached up with his handkerchief to wipe it, but in a spasm of muscle he knocked his glasses off by accident.  His throat was raw now, and when he attempted feebly to call for help nothing came out but a sickly wheeze.  His good knee failed him, and Arnold collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.  Shit.  I've probably gone and broken my pelvis, he thought, before he began to convulse violently and uncontrollably on the floor.  Then he blacked out.

*     *     *     *

   Arnold Arkwright came to.  The blurry light of dawn was creeping gently through the lab windows.  He squinted at the blob in front of him, and to his surprise it came directly into focus.  EXPERIMENTAL SUPERVEG TX1207  read the label on the side of a broken canister.  DO NOT CONSUME.  CONTAINS RADIOACTIVE AGENTS.  MAY CONTAIN NUTS.  Arnold blinked in confusion, then sat up.  It was... easier than he remembered.  He carefully raised himself to his feet, and felt around for broken limbs or bruising.  He felt surprisingly good!  He clearly spied his broken glasses on the floor, and was momentarily angered by the expense it would take to replace them, but then realized that since he could see them so clearly he probably didn't need them anyway.  In fact, he could see the whole room in crisp, sharp detail, as if he'd eaten a life-time's worth of carrots in just one night.

   He saw his cane lying nearby and stooped to retrieve it, realizing as he did so that there was no pain in his back nor in his knees either.  In fact, he felt very light of foot.  As if he could dance a pirouette right here in the lab!  He dared not, for fear of falling and breaking something.  What would his HMO say?  But the lightness was irrepressible, and the devil in him made him try.  Success!  Arnold left the cane, and the glasses, and his day bag with the hated pillbox.  He left it all, springing spryly into the world as if he were a young buck in the meadow.

   He emerged onto the street, and marvelled at how suddenly all the traffic seemed to be moving so slowly whereas before it always seemed like such a confusing rush.  Suddenly there was a slight knocking sensation at his flank, and he turned to see a pudgy baby-boomer on a Rascal cart trying to barge past him.  Far from knocking him down, the poor blob was confounded as if he were knocking into a brick wall over and over again.  Holy Creepers!  I've got super powers! Arnold thought.

   Just then, there was a commotion down the street.  Women screamed and a tide of people was running towards him, away from ....something!  He tried to stop someone to ask what was going on, but no one would give him the time of day.  Finally he put his hand out and grabbed what looked like a football player, six feet and then some, weighing easily 20 stone.  He stopped the man dead in his tracks, which surprised both of them.  The football player grabbed Arnold back and tried to throw him out of his way, but Arnold remained firmly planted where he stood.

   â€œAre you rooted in there, Gramps?!?” the football player gasped at the effort.

   â€œJust tell me what's going on down there,” Arnold replied.

   â€œOK, OK, just don't hurt me!  It's a giant lizard.  Actually more of a dinosaur.  Actually, I don't know what it is.  All I know is it's hungry, and all it wants to eat is meat.  It's got to be four storeys tall and the police bullets don't seem to have the slightest effect!  Also it speaks perfect English, and called itself the Carnivator before starting a rant about the establishment and then eating everyone that came within reach!”

   Arnold looked at the footballer squirming in his grasp, and then down the street at the giant lizard that was grasping a couple of fatty-forty-somethings in each claw like a kid at a fair with two really round lollypops.  “I voted for that establishment!” he grumbled, releasing the fearful footballer to his flight.  Arnold grabbed hold of the building wall next to him and scaled it like a beanstalk climbs a trellis.

   â€œHey you!” he called down to the lizard.  “Hey Carnivator!”

   The dinosaur stopped mid-rampage, and looked around to see who was calling him so authoritatively.  It seemed more than just a little surprised to see a little old man clinging to the side of a wall six storeys up in the air.   

   â€œWho are you?!?” the Carnivator bellowed.

   Arnold sprayed him with a powerful burst of cabbage-breath, causing the Carnivator to list nauseously against the building on the opposite side of the street.  Arnold thought about it for a bit before heroically asserting:  “I am Veggie Man!”     

Thanks Stupot and Khris for this fun competition!
By the way, the European Qualifying phase is just near that corner...

It was fun!  

I know even less about it than football, but there is some sort of World Tournament of Ultimate Frisbee coming up in early August, if anyone is interested in another go....

Alive II: Desssert!

Is Pawlow Pavlov?  I guess that makes sense....  So, whenever you ring a bell the toilet dude salivates (thereby flushing)?  This hilarity requires slightly more explanation, my good Ghost. 

[12-Jul Brazil 1 - 2 Netherlands]

The following predictions are not formulated through any conviction but rather through contrarianism:  the only way I can win is by betting against popular opinion and hoping I get reeeeeeeally lucky!   

12-Jul  Brazil 1 - 2 Netherlands
13-Jul  Germany 2 - 3 Argentina