Tetherd Cow Ahead

Just a reminder that you should make very frequent visits to engrish.com. In case you’re not already. It’s truly super amusive!

The capacity for stupid people to part with huge amounts of cash on schemes concocted by morally bankrupt swindlers never ceases to amaze me. It’s as if there’s a reservoir of schmucks out there who are just busting to empty their bank accounts into the pockets of criminals. Here on The Cow this is very familiar territory. Over the years we’ve seen the duplicitous Shoo!TAG™ scammers bilking all and sundry with their nutso pest repellent scheme; the smarmy Steorn with their ‘free energy’ shell game (a scam that’s centuries old in one form or another); the Space Diamond fraudsters who promise untold wealth via implausible interstellar retrieval schemes. And the list goes on.

Sometimes I like to play this game in my head where I make up the weirdest scheme I can imagine and speculate on whether people would pay money for it. For instance, I’ll look out my window and see something like, oh, let’s see – bird shit – and then make it the centre of some daft scam. I’ll imagine, for instance, that there’s some place that offers to rub bird shit on your face for money. Maybe I’ll even elaborate on it a bit to make it even more implausible – maybe it’s not just bird shit they’re offering to smoosh all over your dial but, oh, let’s see something really off the wall… I’ve got it! Nightingale shit!

Hahahaha! No-one would believe that in a BILLION years. No-one on the PLANET is dumb enough to fork out for that.

Hahhahahahahahaha!

WRONG!

The Continuing Misfortunes of Simple Graphics Man ~

#40: The Wayward Whoopsie.

In which Simple Graphics Man appears to have encountered two embarrassments simultaneously. Poor, poor, SGM.

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SGM comes to you today courtesy of Leon of Canterbury and Taupo Thermal Springs Reserve

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Well now Acowlytes! After the biggest commenting frenzy in Cow history it behooves (!) me at last to announce the winner of the inaugural TCA Rupert Murdoch Encouragement Award For the Preservation of Meretricious Journalism.

Let me say from the outset that this was the most difficult of all the Cow contests I’ve had to judge so far. There was mirth galore here at Cow Central, and so many worthy entries that I’ve decided to award two prizes – an outright winner, and a ‘Best Laugh’ award.

The challenge in this competition was to create a headline that was so inherently non-informational that its banality was unparalleled. At the same time, I felt the winner needed to have an appropriate ‘newspaper reality’. In other words, I was looking for something that might have conceivably found its way onto the front page, but that would have provoked a ‘Huh?’ response about three steps after you passed the news stand. I am also impressed by economy of wit, and a certain Bee Joke je ne sais quo, so I kept all these things in mind when making my final choice.

Out of around 430-something actual headlines, there were many contenders.

The very first Sir Joey Polanski entry was smack on the money:

IMAGE ON WINDOW NOT THE VIRGIN, EXPERTS SAY.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that headline has actually appeared in all seriousness, somewhere in the world. King Willy was not far behind with a proclamation so convincing that I doubt many would have even noticed the threadbare content:

CERN FUTURE UNCERTAIN
Particles May or May Not Be Found!

Not to be outdone, and winner of the Sheer Volume Award (if there was one) was Atlas, throwing into the ring:

THIS HEADLINE IS BOLD
But the Subheading is Not, Typographer States.

It got a big laugh. As did:

NET OUTAGE CAUSE IDENTIFIED
“Not the Blinking Light,” Telstra Admits

… from Sir Joey. It’s a bit of an in-joke though, so despite its inherent truthiness, not the winner.

Of course it would have been a disappointing competition indeed if Billy hadn’t appeared and Cissy Strutt got a big laugh with:

TEATS OF CLOTH
Billy Struggles To Keep Place In Herd

Joey, who surely has a keen understanding of how I judge these humorous escapades, made a (not so) subtle play for the adjudicators’s attention with:

BEEKEEPER CONVICTED OF ABUSE
Cramped hive conditions were intolerable, prosecutor says

Funny, I’ll grant you, but he’s going for the gag, so no cigar. It became contagious for a while. Queen Willy tried:

SHOE IS ON THE OTHER FOOT!
Dyslexic amputee tells all.

Also hugely mirthful, but far too clever for any of Rupert’s mob.

Around the 150 mark we saw Colonel Colonel enter the fray with a barrage of hits. He got a bunch of laughs, but his most apposite was the pithy:

MURDER VICTIM DIES

Again, quite tragically, I speculate that this one has actually appeared at some time or other in recent history.

Another of Joey’s was right on the mark:

JAZZ MUSICIANS LOOSELY INTERPRET COMPOSER’S SCORE

A headline worthy of Jazz Club. Nice.

Atlas was consistently funny, if wildly errant, but this one pleased me a lot:

MOON COMPLETELY COVERED WITH LUNAR SURFACE, NASA SOURCES CLAIM

And this from Queen Willy was a right on the money:

SWEATERS WARMER THAN T-SHIRTS, UNIVERSITY TESTS SHOW

University tests are always showing something-or-other, and I’m glad someone included them. Leaping up into the high 200’s Atlas made a witty play with:

ALEX TREBEK’S CAREER SAID TO BE IN JEOPARDY

One of the cleverest entries, I’m sure you’ll agree. After another strong run from King Willy in the mid 300’s we had a solitary entry from Casey:

SCIENTOLOGISTS: ‘BLOGGERS HAVE NO EFFECT’

…which was more a statement of irony than anything else, but got a laugh. As did:

Godwin’s Law proves self-fulfilling: long thread DOES mention NAZIs eventually!

… from JR, which was a massive self-referential cheat.

And on we went, well into the 400’s. Guys and gals, Acowlytes all, I loved every one of them. But I’m only awarding two prizes today, as I mentioned. My commiserations go to those who aren’t taking home a trophy, but I’m afraid that the inimitable Joey Polanski (Sir) has done it again with his precise and far too believable:

CHILD ACTOR ENDS 18-YEAR CAREER

It was an early entry, but it really captured the idea. Joey, another trophy for the cupboard, I guess. Congratulations.

And the award for the biggest laugh (although that was mighty hard to get down to just one) was for Cissy Strutt’s:

CULT MEMBERS ADDICTED TO STATING THE OBVIOUS
We literally can’t stop, they claim

I dunno. Even now it makes me laugh.

Thank you all for your stirling efforts, and for contributing to the ever-escalating heights of Cow Humour.

The Cow Salutes You!

One of the things we hear time and time again from the purveyors of what I shall term Old Media, is how awful things will be if we continue let the hoi polloi, you know, just do stuff without any ‘proper’ supervision. As I pointed out in my long philosophical post The King is Dead! Long Live the King!, it’s not just those with a commercial interest in the dying paradigm who fall for this spurious illusion, either. The lamenting of our ‘loss of standards and the disintegration of our culture’ is becoming a bit of an annoying whine throughout the media in general. So, as we endure all the moaning and the hand-wringing from Rupert Murdoch and other forecasters of cultural doom, I think the question we really need to consider is one that they haven’t cared to air: Just how good is this Old Media anyway? When the Wall falls, what kinds of carefully honed and insightful commentary will we be missing from the Fourth Estate’s cloisters of Quality Journalism?

Perhaps we’d lose masterpieces of perspicacity such as this one, by the accomplished and obviously highly credentialled Stephen Cauchi, ((I’m not picking on Mr Cauchi per se – he’s just one of about, oh, a billion people who would make very average bloggers but get paid as journalists.)) that appeared this week in the Melbourne Age:

Victoria Spared the Summer That Could Have Been Hell

The fact that the headline didn’t have exclamation marks is testament to the restraint of the sub editor, but one can feel the effort of will staying his hand – if he’d been at The Sun I’m sure he’d have caved.

In case you need some interpretation here, this is a story about something that didn’t happen. This is ‘news’ about something that isn’t actually news! Thank God we have journalists from the Melbourne Age on cases like this – I’d hate to think of what might happen if the (non) information got into the hands of someone less experienced!

I’m sure you’ve seen similar things, like the one implied in my headline in the picture at top:

Earth Escapes Asteroid Collision!

No it didn’t. It wasn’t in the way of the asteroid in the first place, so where’s the ‘escape’? Escape is when you dodge out of the way at the last moment and thank your lucky stars for your quick thinking.

So, fellow bloggers and blog enthusiasts. I propose that we are equally as good as Rupert’s cadre of sharpened pencil-heads, if not better. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to create a headline for something that might have happened if not for the Grace of God. A prize will be awarded (it will most likely be something from the Tetherd Cow Ahead Gift Shoppe, so I suggest you might like to pay a visit and browse to give you some incentive).

To get you started, here are a few ideas I prepared earlier:

•Thousands Not On Breadline As Banking Crisis Averted

•No Planes Grounded as Storm Fizzles Out!

•Killer Whale Fails to Mutilate Trainer – Family Oblivious

•Paris Hilton Not a Business Genius – Share Market Trades as Usual.

(It strikes me you could have an entire newspaper of such guff. The Non-News of the World, perhaps).

OK. Off you go. I want some laughs with my breakfast tomorrow.