8/31/16

Watch your feet, The Dutch! You can't spot heal a foot.

Great. I had several German jokes lined up to go with this poster, like the one about commemorating the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1st, 1939 (So long ago already? They grow so fast!). Turns out that text on the poster is Dutch, not German. It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong, and I'm gigantic, and an idiot.

And guess what? This Photochop didn't require anyone in GO! Tower to lift a finger! It was sent in by Alert reader Sandy! She done it her own self! How bout them Dutch apple strudels?




Be careful where you leave your naily boards and chocolate bars (apparently), kids. You might need to put your finger in your foot-dyke, stemming the spray of foot-juice.

Thanks for the free post, Sandy! Nice job rubbing out the original text. Making blank space is always the most important and least-fun part of making a Photochop. It's tedious, thankless work... except when someone thanks you for it... which they never will.

Did you use Photoshop's "spot healing brush" for any of your text deletion work here? If you haven't tried it, definitely give it a go. It could be a real time saver for deleting letters and other blemishes.

It does it's best to figure out what you're trying to remove, and then remove it. When it works, it's nearly magical. When it doesn't -which is about half the time - the results are comical. Good news is, even when it screws up, you don't need to undo. You can just try it again on the spot it already ruined. You can do this again and again until it gets it right... or until you just reach for the clone stamp tool and do it yourself.

You can use either the clone stamp or the spot healing brush to erase the drops of blood you leave on the floor when you step on a nail because you can't read Dutch, partially because you think it's German, which you also can't read.

8/30/16

8/29/16

The 1950 Hudsons - You call that an eight?

This ad for the 1950 Hudson lineup seems to be semi-tumescent over the new "step down" feature, where the vehicular enter-ee descends a flight of stairs, an escalator, a water slide, and a rope ladder to get inside. They also make some mention of calling one of their cars an eight. We're going to fix that for them.

The key message is that lowness equals safety. Of course, this is an ad, so reason and logic are the first things thrown out the window. A car's lowness does definitely does not equal safety. Also, stepping into this car obviously doesn't require you to step down. That would require some kind of Tardis effect that bent the laws of the universe. You know how to make the floor of a car seem lower? Make the door sill taller. Anyway, Hudson's "step-down ride" trademark has thirty-three percent of its words wrong, in the words-used-are-the-exact-opposite-of-reality way. You definitely and obviously step up tino this car from ground level. Maybe the car came with a little portable and very tall curb for you to stand on, in order to step down into the vehicle? Gotta love advertising.

Hudson also offers this car as an "eight". Sure, they're referring to the number of cylinders in the motor. Still, it doesn't look very eight to me. Here, let me get that for you...

That's how you make an eight, Hudson. Let me know if there's anything else I can straighten out for you.

Tex Avery made an animated short called The Car of Tomorrow in 1951 - just one year after this ad ran. Funny enough, there's a bit about a car that requires you to step down. Skip ahead to 0:53 to get to the "step-down" gag.

Tex Avery - MGM 1951-09-22 - Car of Tomorrow

Here's a couple of PNGs to add to your hard drive's multicar pileup. It's been a while, hasn't it? You'll notice that these two PNGs feature an alpha background as well as transparent windows, because I'm a pro. For no extra charge, I made sure the Husdon badge on the hub caps aren't pointing the same direction on the doubled-up front axle of the "eight" version of the car. That way, you'll never guess the image has been altered, because who would bother with stupid details like varying the wheel rotation? A maniac, that's who definitely wouldn't!!! YOU'RE WELCOME, GODAMMIT!!!!!!




8/25/16

Buying the ring.


Joke #1 - De Beers. Because a very common stone, used as a monetized symbol of personal suffering and financial sacrifice, made obligatory by a spectacular marketing campaign, artificially rarefied by a global monopoly with historically unethical business practices is forever.

Joke #2 - "See? This is the ring from my last husband. You can do better, can't you darling?"

Joke #3 - It was perfect. The stone, the setting, and the weight were all perfect. This ring would look amazing sitting in the window of the other pawn shop three years form now.

Joke #4 - Mr. Grumsch wouldn't sell any ring until he had personally "pinkied" it himself. It was his way.

Joke #5 - "It's wonderful, darling. I really love it. But... we could get a bigger stone if you were willing to suffer a little more. Don't you love me?"

Joke #6 - "And this one we call 'the Precious'. You won't believe how it will make you feel. Go ahead. try it on. I think you'll find the size is just right."

Joke #7 - "Son, do the right thing. Every thousand you spend on the ring is another year before she cheats on you."

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.   -Mgmt.]



8/24/16

Tor Concrete Incinerators - The sweet smell of success.

Way back in Yore, and the days of it, society had a happy-go-lucky, it'll-sort-itself-out attitude toward pretty much everything. In order to find a period in history that was more deeply in denial, you'd probably have to go back to the Victorians, whose outward prudishness and conservatism was matched only by their depravity and their freaky-deakyness.

In 1963, lots of people had incinerators in their back yard, for burning leaves (okay, kinda bad), and for burning garbage (yikes).

YOU (Who? Me?) can cash in on a virtually untapped market with these almost universally needed "lifetime" concrete incinerators!

Yep. It used to be a common thing for people to have their own little Barad-dûr in their back yard that would spew stinking smoke into the neighborhood of a bright summer's morn. People would burn whatever they want in them. Leaves, sticks, rotten food, old televisions, newspapers, worn-out pets. But hey, it was The Sixties. Something that went up in smoke was real gone, baby. Like, gone forever and nothing to worry about gone. What was the big deal? It's just one of a rich tapestry of things that we were kidding ourselves about at the time.

Great. The neighbors are getting rid of their used diapers. Cancel the block party.
My grandma had an incinerator in her back yard. It was always just a curiosity to me. She never used it, so it was just this derelict monolith from a mysterious bygone age. My brothers and I would just sprinkle leaves into it through the rusty grate on top, because we didn't have video games yet. Once you watched the leaves hit the bottom, the show was pretty much over. Time to round up some more leaves! We really needed someone to invent video games.






We're much more "eco" and stuff now. We don't have incinerators any more because they're gross and bad for pretty much everybody. Now we have "fire pits". They're like a really big wok on little legs that you drag out of the garage when company is coming over. Sure, people (probably) don't burn garbage in them, but it's surprising that these are legal. I suppose the fires, when you consider the big picture, are pretty small and inconsequential.

Side note: Somebody needs to make a backyard fire pit that looks like a lidless, staring eye. I would find excuses to invite my friends over for a singalong around the fire if I had a Sauron fire pit in my back yard.

Yes, we're so eco now that people aren't allowed to get rid of certain things but once or twice a year. When we were clearing out my dad's basement, there were loads of cans of paint and varnish and stuff like that. Some of it was still good, and now sits in my garage on the Shelf Of Things That Are Useful But Are Probably Making Me Dumber By Permanently Damaging My Brain Every Time I Open The Can. Why, just last weekend, I used some of my dad's lacquer thinner to remove the sticker residue from a new lug wrench. "Fanks, dad! Dat racqer finner weally came in hrandy buh gruh wuh wuhwuh...."

Anyway, so there I was, stuck with a car's trunkload of what officially qualifies as "hazardous waste". Being all enlightened and responsible, I went onto my town's website to see what Enlightened and Responsible steps I should take to get rid of the stuff properly. My town collects stuff like this on a very special day that comes in the spring time. It was July. Great. Alternately, I could drive it several towns over and drop it off at a recycling center that wouldn't mind taking it off my hands. Fine.

So, load crap into car trunk. Drive an hour to the address using GPS. Drive up and down the road for fifteen minutes in the industrial park I found myself in, eventually pulling in to the parking lot that was at the exact address and street name as described on the website. It was a warehouse-looking place with forklifts and a couple of guys standing around at the loading door. Get out and ask them if this is the place. Guys look at each other and tell me they never heard of the place, and that they're sorry. Fuck. This.

So, after wasting three hours of a perfectly good Saturday morning trying to do The Right Thing, I wound up back in my garage, with a trunk full of original sin, having been screwed over by standard municipal buffoonery. That's what I get for trying to do the right thing.

So, apparently, every house needs to have a closet-sized corner of their garage piled high with old electronics and cans of semi-dried up paint, waiting for the one day a year when they can get rid of it. This is not a proper solution. Until cities make it practical and easy possible to get rid of evil stuff, I'll keep distributing cans of used paint to neighborhood children, which are roughly hobbit-sized, telling them to run off and cast them into the fires of Mount Doom. Kids are spoiled anyway, and they need quests. So, I'm helping.

Here's a couple of clip arts for your ever-growing stash of stupid images, courtesy of us. First, there's the awkward-viewing-angle pointing finger. You know, sometimes, people ask you to draw a a hand pointing right at the viewer, and fingers never look right when drawn foreshortened. As you can see, this hand has the index finger bending slightly downward, and it looks - you guessed it - weird. Enjoy!


You should always avoid trying to use the pointing-to-you finger as a graphical element. The only place it was ever gotten right was Uncle Sam. Hmm. That gives me an idea...



Now that even makes me laugh, and I'm a horrible person.

The other Graphic Gift is the elegant incinerator lady looking graceful and balletic as she dumps out her trash can. She makes it look fun and easy to burn filth in your own back yard. What's she dumping? Only you and Photoshop can decide! She's a PNG with an alpha channel background, and you're welcome!




8/23/16

Old Dingleberry Whiskey


8/18/16

Marineland, Southern California


8/17/16

Little Ads - Groovy clothes, 1971. Hey, you're not uptight are you?

If you're holding a magazine, and you want to see who the publishers think you are and what you're into, flip to the back and look at the little cheapo ads you find there.

This morning, a bright-faced intern dropped this Esquire Magazine from 1971 on my desk. Flipping through the pages now, I think I need to send him an email reminding him to do a few laps in our special Esquire Magazine Olympic-sized pool of Purel, and then take about fifty Silkwood showers. As for me, I'm gingerly turning the pages using my special Esquire Magazine salad tongs.

Berwyn Community Theater presents Space Hamlet.

With reassuring "front pelvis ass pockets" to make people think you're always walking
away from them.

Berwyn Community Theater presents Space Hamlet with Genitals Pretty Much Made out of Herpes Sores.

Fashion researchers in The Seventies annually spent millions in public funds trying to rigidly define the boundaries of "almost too much." It proved elusive.

CRITICAL UPDATE!!! Alert Reader John (last name withheld because he didn't specifically say it was okay to spew his full name all over the Ultranet) has done some nice, clean Photoshoppery and provided us - and the world - with a PNG of Jumpsuit Man, with and without head. Now you and your heirs can all stick each others' heads on Jumpsuit Man. Observe...

Jumpsuit man. Each sold separately.

Most of Jumpsuit Man, ready to receive your head.

LBJ in a jumpsuit, provided by John as a serving suggestion. I like the way he chose not to match the tint of the two not-quite-black-and-white images. Makes it better, dontchaknow. That's some nice work, John! You're a true patriot.

8/16/16

Christy Trades School - Earn big money, Pac-Man.

So you're Pac-Man, and you've graduated from high school, and you're wondering what's next. Maybe you could get a desk job, but that's just not for you, am I right? You're good with your hands. There's hope for a man like you.



If you're good with your hands, Christy Trades School can teach you to fix appliances at home in your spare time. That's not such a bad opportunity, is it? Better jump at it while you can. I mean, it's not like someone's going to pay you to just eat all day, are they?

Here's your Handypacman avatar, ready for all your social networky, chat servicey, online profiley type of things. Everyone will assume it's something Japanese, but everyone are jerks. Why do you hang out with jerks like that? Stop hanging out with that "everyone" crowd. You can do better, buddy,

Click for 1000 px.
UPDATE: Helpful Reader Gunnar did himself some P-Shopping and extracted Pan-Man from this ad, and then extracted Pac-Man's eyes. He didn't mention what he did with Pac-Man's extracted eyes, but the world's probably better off not knowing. There's also a serving suggestion for what kind of fun you could get up to with the PNG he created. Thanks, Gunnar!







8/12/16

Oh my darlin', Unguentine.

When a magazine is squozen dry of anything funny, noteworthy, or, in the case of The Seventies, astonishingly stupid, that magazine is thanked for it’s service and retired to a cool, dry shelf where it can live out its days being flat, and not bent, twisted or spindled, or cut up one page at a time and sold on eBay.

This 1962 issue of Family Circle didn’t have much to offer, but what it did give us was almost beyond belief. Remember the post for the fake instructional magazine “Easy Food Hats”, written by our own Vorbia Goatstain? You can recite the line alongside Neo when he realizes there is a robotic bug in his stomach. “Jesus Christ! That thing’s real?” Yes, as you say, that thing’s real.


The Phil Are GO! Resources Management Manager was about to put this Family Circle out to pasture when one last kooky ad jumped out at him. October 1962’s Family Circle still had one more weirdness to offer us. What the hell is unguentine?


Well, unguentine was is, most recently, a first aid goo. Yep. It’s still around. I’m sure the manufacturer of unguentine would be slightly engrumpened to know that people treat the name of their product as an archaeological curiosity. Actually, you can still find the stuff, buried deep within the many folds of Amazon.com’s soft, flabby underbelly.

Okay, so it’s a poorly named product. There must be a good reason for that, right? Well, there’s a reason. Call it “good” if you want, cuz I don’t.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/unguent?s=t
noun
1.
an ointment or salve, usually liquid or semiliquid, for application towounds, sores, etc. 1400-50; late Middle English < Latin unguentum, alteration (probably byassociation with the suffixes -men, -mentum) of unguen fat, grease,derivative of unguere to smear, anoint.

So, you could interpret “unguent” to mean “smeared fat”, which is only one step better than “smeared fat covered in ants”, and only three steps better than “Senator Strom Thurmond”.

Let’s see if Wikipedia can be less gross about it…

An unguent is a soothing preparation spread on wounds, burns, rashes, abrasions or other topical injuries (i.e. damage to the skin). It is similar to an ointment, though typically an unguent is less viscous and more oily. It is usually delivered as a semi-solid paste spread on the skin and is often oily to suspend the medication or other active ingredients.
During the Victorian era, the use of the unguent Macassar Oil on the hair became so popular that the Antimacassar was invented to prevent damage to furniture.[1]

Yep. Wound goo. Usually with some kind of oil in it. As a bonus fact, Wikipedia threw in the fun story about hair grease ruining the furniture, precipitating the invention of those cloths with the weird name. I guess a lot of Victorians had sore hair, and needed hair unguent.

Thanks, October 1962 Family Circle. You’ve earned your rest.


8/10/16

8/9/16

The Texas Jack Rabbit postcard

The Phil Are GO! Investigative Journalism Brigade had just learned that in 1962, Vernon, Dorothy and Carol took a road trip, at one point passing through Texas. They purchased this novelty postcard of a cowboy riding a huge jack rabbit, and sent it to their friends Eddie and Rita Horton, in Dwight, Illinois.




In the body text of the postcard, none of the involved parties saw fit to wonder what rules of capitalization the Dexter Press were following. At this late date, it's possible we may never have an explanation.


8/5/16

Botany 500 - Fashion Flare-Up.

It must have been easy to be an advertising art director in The Seventies The Very Late Sixties. Conceptualizing an ad for magazines like Esquire in '69, you could assume your readership had A) Plenty of money, and B) a consuming need for trendiness, no matter what.

As 1969 men's fashions go, this blue plaid suit is not the craziest thing you could expect to see. In fact, it's quite reasonable, coming from the era that gave us, uuh, this.

So, let's say you're 1969. How do you sell a suit to potential customers with loads of cash who insist on following the latest cultural departure from reason? You put your suit on a handsome dude and build a 1/4-inch plywood Peter Max holiday pantomime, of course. Grab a pretty model from your file cabinet full of headshots and paint her face like a trippy, puckish nymph. Wait. A prop. We need a prop. Eyeball cutout on a stick saves the day!

Advertising complete! Zeitgeist captured! Now, just put your feet up on your desk, blow a jay, and wait for the art direction awards to start rolling in.

Oh, by the way. $99.50 and $120 are about $100 and $600, respectively, in today's modern Futurebucks.