Tetherd Cow Ahead

So, as we recover from the longest-running Cow Competition ever, only one question remains: who gets the trophy?

Well, as we’ve explored at length in previous Cow discussions, what makes a person laugh is a highly individual thing and so I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on my decisions (yes, decisions – with 200+ entries, there has to be at least one runner up…), but I think you will all agree that this was one of the all-time best laugh-fests we’ve had on the Cow.

Numerous entries had me cracking up on first reading, and many of them are still funny on multiple visits. Joey’s very early entry ‘Okay. We stampede in two minutes. Twenty bucks says Billy’s ass outruns his head again’ set the tone for the hi-jinks to follow, but most importantly gave us ‘Billy’, who went on to be quite a Cow Headliner. Cissy Strutt chimed in with the hilarious ‘Tits!’ to be followed by Atlas’ classic ‘This ain’t what I had in mind when I told you to bring a Trojan’ (after a slightly surreal detour into existentialism from Joey).

And from there it never faltered. I won’t elaborate further – you can revisit them at your leisure for years to come. Or, if you’re really keen, download the pdf of the whole competition in situ, as kindly provided by Atlas Cerise.

Anycow, let’s cut to the chase. In my view, the competition peaked early, and no-one quite reached the rarified heights of entry #50 by Joey Polanski, which I declare to be the overall winner:

I can’t explain quite why this makes me laugh every time I see it, but to me it encapsulates the perfect comment on this photograph: the assertion from the speaking cow is condescendingly self-evident, but its implacable acceptance of the guys in the cow costume plays out the kind of humour that I really like. It does have a certain bee-joke-esque quality as Joey says, but it is very ‘cow’ in its own right. So, Joey, the question now must be – how the heck do I get you your SGM coffee mug?

Now, I’m going to award two runners-up, and I think you may find them just as puzzling as the main winner – but they both made me laugh a lot, and that, of course, is the only criteria for any Cow competition!

Honorable Mention number one goes to Cissy Strutt for:

This needs some explaining too. This is an excellent variation of an old situational gag that I invented quite some years ago, with which Cissy is quite familiar. The schtick goes like this: a bunch of people I know are standing around at a party or somesuch and a newcomer arrives on the scene. As they enter, someone proclaims loudly ‘…and that’s what happened to the cheese sandwich!!’, whereupon everyone else (clued-in by previous arrangement) bursts into laughter. The newcomer is then frustrated to find that no-one wants to tell them the (obviously hilarious) Cheese Sandwich joke. It’s a form of ‘meta’ humour that really tickles my funnybone. You can see how a cow performance elevates it into humour worthy of a prize!

So, Cissy, another SGM mug on its way to you for Christmas.

The second Honorable Mention goes to Queen Willy, for yet another in-joke, but one that was played as a marvellous slam-dunk to create a perfect end for the competition:

It does, of course, refer to this post, and elevates the scenario to a strange situation where two men in a cow suit become the bovine analog of the Archangel Gabriel presenting a mooing Virgin with strange news in the form of text speak. It doesn’t become any weirder than that!! ((But, it has to be said, makes for an interesting commentary on the ‘actual’ event…)) A collectible SGM coffee mug for The Queen too!

Even though I found the above three the funniest of the funny, don’t think I didn’t laugh at mostly everything. It remains only to thank you all for providing such hilarity on The Cow, and contributing to an escapade that I suspect will go into Cow Lore. With 230 comments, How Now Brown Cow? ranks as the highest commented Tetherd Cow Ahead post of all time. Of course we want to do MUCH better than that come January 1, 2010, n’est ce pas?

Oh, and be sure to check out Queen Willy’s Cow Wall for the last laugh!

Funniest comment wins an awesome Simple Graphics Man coffee mug.

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Thanks Kirke! (via Urlesque, via Everything Random – original domain unknown)

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The thought that occurred to me in the middle of the last post was, Faithful Acowlytes, that perhaps I was being a little shortsighted in so perfunctorily dismissing Simple Graphics Man as an appropriate mentor for the ‘lesser’ risks of a busy life.

To that end, I’ve stirred the elves in the Tetherd Cow Ahead Gift Shoppe from their hundred year slumber and I am pleased to announce the launch of the Tetherd Cow Ahead Simple Graphics Man™ Collection!

In these modern times, it’s not always easy to keep your wits about you every single minute, so who better to alert you to the perils inherent in your favourite caffeinated beverage than good ol’ SGM? These unique drinking vessels, handcrafted from the finest alabaster and lovingly detailed by skilled Nubian artisans are only suited to the discerning few. ((i.e. anyone with money)) A large mug will set you back $14.50 Australian, and the standard size a very reasonable $13.50. ((A little less than those numbers if you’re paying US dollars)) You know you can’t do without one – so don’t wait until you scald yourself again before forking out! Think of it as insurance!

Remember – Christmas is not far off – shop now to avoid disappointment! And you will, of course, be keeping Simple Graphics Man gainfully employed.

What are you waiting for? Go to the gift shop and spend some money!

The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~

#37: The Ladder of Liability.

One has to think that calling in SGM to warn people about the dangers of using a ladder is starting to seem like hysteria. It’s a LADDER for chrissakes! Next we’ll have SGM cautioning us to be careful that we don’t get our toes jammed in the front door, or that our coffee might be hot! ((Hmmm. Actually, that gives me an idea…))

Really, it’s a complete waste of his talents and in this particular example you can tell that he’s just doing the gig for the money. Overacting much?

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This one sent in by Atlas. Thanks!

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He said what?

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Thanks to Atlas (who else?) for bringing this to the attention of The Cow.

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This strange cloud anomaly over Moscow was captured on video last week. Predictably enough, the loonies are out in force attempting to ‘explain’ it and we’ve had everything from a ‘HAARP mothership’ ((If you don’t know what HAARP is, do a Search™, but be warned, your brain may rot due to a deluge of stupidity)) to a Sign of the End Times. More than a few have obsessed over the black dots that fly across frame at about the 5 second mark (birds, you idiots) and the most perplexing thing about the whole phenomenon is that there doesn’t seem to be – anywhere that I could find – a single rational attempt to explain it. I also note that there doesn’t seem to be any other footage of this odd event – in this era of ubiquitous image-capturing devices that does seem to me to be slightly unusual. Unless of course everybody who was actually there found it unremarkable, which is another fairly hefty indicator that it’s not a spaceship from Zeta Reticuli.

For the record, my hypothesis is that underneath it somewhere there is a source of thermal disturbance, perhaps a power station, which has caused some kind of convection activity in the low clouds above.

UPDATE: A single user comment on one of the many propagations of the video led me to a possible expanation: a hole-punch or fallstreak cloud. You can see lots of examples by doing a Search™. Hole-punch clouds are caused by aircraft disturbing thin cloud layers. If this is a hole-punch cloud, it is particularly unusual for its symmetry.