The Gift For Him

It's 10:30 pm, and the wife went to bed an hour ago. You are a middle-aged man and you were finishing off some of the day's work in the library when suddenly you find that you're thirsty... but the wife frowns upon drinking alcohol. Your eyes scan the bookshelves loaded up with classic tomes and alight on one in particular. "Ah," you think and pull down the ceramic book flask off the shelf. With great difficulty you manage to get the stopper out (you wouldn't want any spirits in there to dry up, now would you?) You pour a glass, sit back and sip. The cares of the world melt away.... no one reads those old books anyway, so who is going to figure out you're hiding a flask amongst them?


This ceramic book flask tries to give off a sense of affluence but fails miserably, especially from the front. Please excuse the crappiness of this photo. My camera was designed for taking pictures of people and buildings, not small ceramic objects. With a little imagination, a whole picture can be created. The image features a hobo who is falling-down-drunk, clinging to a lamppost for dear life, with a bottle of spirits jutting out of his jacket pocket. Yes, a hobo. His hat is floppy and his jacket doesn't fit. Is the lamppost also drunk, or did the hobo crash into it and break it? The image below is a ribbon, which states in a fancy red cursive font: The gift for him". Is there an implication that all men are drunken hobos at heart?


This is the view from the spine. It appears to be a compilation of five different books, which are:
The Concise Dictionary
Bright Spirit
*** (It is literally just three stars)
RYE
Modern Book Depot

It seems that dictionary is indeed concise, and while the 'Bright Spirit' and 'RYE' and even the stars make sense, one can only guess what 'Modern Book Depot' is all about. Unless there is an implication that all modern books are 'depots' for the booze.

I found this ridiculous object at a local junior high four years ago which was holding a garage sale in its gym. Can you believe the seller only wanted 50 cents for this gem?

PS I promise to get better photos as soon as possible.

Floatz, Not Orbitz

In 1996, I saw a beverage at the grocery store that I couldn't believe. Clearly Canadian, a beverage company, had released a new product. Here was a drink with actual floating chunks in it! I had to buy it; and picked the most ridiculous flavour available: pineapple, banana, cherry, and coconut. Those are all strong flavours, would they really mix successfully together?

But mainly, having chunks of anything in something I'm drinking is generally a bad sign, no matter how innocuous the chunks may seem. Yes, okay, there are exceptions, namely mini-marshmallows in hot chocolate. But even though they are tasty bits of sweet, the texture leaves a lot to be desired. It's gooey in a slimy way. You just suck those back immediately or you wait for them to melt. I imagine those white globules are quite like mini-marshmallows, except they rest in suspended animation and defy gravity. They don't actually orbit anything as the name of the drink implies.

There was a brief period where I almost opened it and drank it, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. This beverage is plain creepy. I've been waiting 12 years and those globule-thingys are still floating!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitz_(soft_drink)

Ridiculous Objects: The Early Years

I received the following pennant when I moved away from Nanton, Alberta in 1983, from a friend at a going-away party. At the time, I thought the pennant was goofy and I would have preferred something for my Barbie or a book. But, ever gracious, I said thank you and brought it home.

My slightly older cousins saw this and laughed their asses off. For here, we have a day-glo orange moose (or elk? I think moose have thicker antlers and the hump on the back of the neck) crossing a cool mountain stream in the middle of a refreshing and shady forest. It's kind of what you would picture for Western Alberta, what with the Rocky Mountains and all, so it's funny when you realize that Nanton looks like this:

Nanton, Alberta is a prairie town about 40 minutes south of Calgary. There are farms and cows and grain elevators. There are a profound lack of forests, cool rushing streams and day-glo orange moose. When my cousins pointed this out, I was not ever able to get rid of this pennant. I think this is the first ridiculous object I collected.