Dan Q

Tag: funny

A Very Confused Courier

I’ve just had a phone call from a very confused courier. My mother (who many years ago for reasons both too long and silly to go in to I nicknamed “Crusty Pasty”) texted me last night to say that I was to be delivered an early Christmas present that would arrive today, and that she’d given the courier my phone number so that he could ensure that I was in when he came around. My mobile rang:

Me: Hello.
Him: Hi, is this Dan… Q?
Me: Speaking.
Him: Hi: I have a delivery for you from a… I just want to make sure I say this right: Crusty Pasty?
Me: That’s correct. I’m expecting it.
Him: I think there might be something wrong with your landline: I called and got a strange robot voice.
 Me: Oh, that was you? That phone is never answered. Best to call this number.
Him: I just wanted to double-check the address: [number] Corpse Lane?
 Me: Copse Lane.
Him: Oh yes, sorry. Just my bad handwriting. I’m on the M4 right now; I’ll be there in about an hour: is that okay?
 Me: Yes, I’ll be at that address all morning.
Him: Okay. See you at about 11.

Codenames? Mysterious parcels? Phone numbers that always go unanswered? Yes, that’s right: I’m about to be treated as being part of some kind of terrorist cell. If my “early Christmas present” is something that can be used in the construction of an explosive, then the jigsaw will be completed and this will probably be my last ever blog post… until I’m released from Guantanamo Bay.

A Video Game Movie I’d See

Video game movies are notoriously bad, no matter how awesome the game that inspired them. Wing Commander took a classic video game series and completely ruined it. Doom was incredibly dull, even though it was based on one of the most popular game series that have ever exited. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had so much potential and the chance to draw from the multi-rebooted Prince of Persia video games, but in the end its only redeeming feature was that it co-starred Richard Coyle, whose earlier appearance in hit comedy series Coupling lead Ruth, JTA and I to rename the film after his character from that series, calling it The Legend of King Jeff, which would honestly have been a better film.

And let’s not forget the truly dire Street Fighter: The Movie, which ultimately lead to the short-lived arcade game Street Fighter: The Movie – The Game, attempting to cash in on the film before the developers realised that this wasn’t actually a very good idea. And it’s only the eighth-worst video game movie of all time, according to this video on GameTrailers. Let’s face it: video games don’t convert well to films.

That said, I’ve had an idea for a video game-inspired film that I think could really be good. Or, at least, so awful it’d be good.

Asteroids: The Movie

Don’t you dare tell me that you wouldn’t go to the cinema to see Asteroids: The Movie: CGI like this just has to be enjoyed on the big screen.

The plot is as follows: Earth governments have been secretly tracking an enormous asteroid for many years. Under the cover story of satellite launches, they’ve been firing nuclear weapons at long distances to try to destroy or deflect the mass, but all they’ve managed is to break it up into many hundreds of smaller (but still devastatingly-huge) rocks, many of which are still headed towards our planet.

We’re introduced to our main characters: a cocky ace fighter pilot who’s just been expelled from his wing group for being too cocky and ace, a young and immature geek who spends his life playing retro video games, and a love interest who spurns both of them and is probably employed by the shady government agency. Early in the film, she acts professionally and doesn’t approve of the other main characters’ respective aggressive self-confidence/childish behaviour, but eventually the three become closer as they work together (and probably save one another’s lives a few times).

Recruited for their various “talents” they’re recruited to pilot an experimental spaceship right out into the asteroid field and fire their cannons to destroy them. All is going well, but there are occasional sightings of fast-moving metallic objects around the edges of the field. These turn out to be aliens (in flying saucer like spaceships) who had originally propelled the enormous rock towards Earth in an effort to wipe out humankind, who they – as a result of their warlike culture – perceive as a threat to their galactic dominance. Earth has been on the brink of cracking faster-than-light travel for a while now, as evidenced by secret test flights of the ships which preceded the vessel used in the movie, and this makes the aliens twitchy.

There’s a fight, and it momentarily looks like the aliens stand to destroy the human ship. “This isn’t a video game: we don’t get extra lives!” shouts the love interest character, at one point. “No,” agrees the geek, “But we do have this…” He engages the highly-experimental “hyperspace jump drive” and the ship disappears just seconds before the alien missiles destroy it.

While drifting in hyperspace, the crew find evidence of the aliens’ culture and history, and the other planets they’ve destroyed. They also discover a possible weakness. They’re just beginning to understand what they have to do when they reappear in normal space, apparently only a split second after they disappeared. The chase is on as the aliens pursue the humans through the asteroid field in an exciting chase scene. Finally, the humans discover what they need to do to penetrate the alien shields, and fire upon them. They rush away as the alien ship explodes, vapourising the remaining asteroids as it goes.

The crew return to Earth as heroes.

Now: isn’t that at least as good as whatever Hollywood would come up with? And it’d certainly be far better than the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Hmm. Further research indicates that this might be already going to happen…

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Parsing XML as JSON

This morning, I got an instant message from a programmer who’s getting deeply into their Ajax recently. The conversation went something like this (I paraphrase and dramatise at least a little):

Morning! I need to manipulate a JSON feed so that [this JSON parser] will recognise it.

Here’s what I get out of the JSON feed right now: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<module-slots type="array">
  <module-slot>
    <title>Module3</title>
    ...

“Umm…” I began, not quite sure how to break this news, “That’s XML, not JSON.”

“Is that a problem?” comes the reply.

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Civilization V Release Day

For those of you in the USA, at least, today is the release day for the much-anticipated Sid Meier’s Civilization V. With the promise that this will be the most groundbreaking Civ game since Civilization II, I’ve managed to acquire a leaked screenshot of the very first thing that players will see when they launch Civilization V for the first time:


With apologies to those of you who haven’t had the experiences to find this funny.

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The Modern Programmer’s Dictionary

In the field of  software development, there’s always something new to learn. Whether it’s a new language, framework, API or methodology, your need to study is never through – even if you’re a FORTRAN developer. But one of the more esoteric areas of your education will come in the form of the language programmers use, and I don’t mean programming languages.

And so I present to you a dictionary of modern programmer language (much of it shamelessly lifted from a discussion on Stack Overflow):

Ajah

Ajax, but returning HTML rather than XML (e.g. using jQuery‘s $.load method). Similarly, Ajaj, when you expect script to be returned (e.g. $.getScript).

Bicrement

Adding 2 to a number.

Boolean Zen

A principle of programming lacked by those who perform expressions to compare variables to boolean constants. For example, if (userHasLoggedIn == true) lacks Boolean Zen, because the == true at best does nothing at all, and at worst results in an unnecessary evaluation.

Classtrophobia

When someone chooses not to use the obvious object-oriented approach when it is available.

Common Law Feature

A bug in some software which has existed so long that it has begun to be depended upon by the users, who will complain loudly when it is “fixed”.

Doctype Decoration

In web development, the practice of putting a Doctype Declaration (e.g. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">) into the document despite not actually writing standards-compliant code. Often accompanied by putting a “Valid HTML & CSS” link on the site, but never actually checking that the site passes the validator’s test.

Egyptian Brackets

That style of coding which puts the opening brace { of a block on the same line as the expression (wrapped in parentheses) before it, e.g.:

if (expression){

So called because the ){ sort-of looks like a stereotypical ancient Egyptian pose, depending on your preferred coding font:

Floater

A bug that sits at the top of the bug tracking system, but nobody claims responsibility for it. Everybody just works around it.

Flock of Geese Code

A block of deeply-nested and heavily-indented code forming a tight V-shaped wedge. Often occurs when adding functionality to a complex block of evaluations, by a developer who hasn’t noticed that perhaps a return statement, exception-handling, the && operator or even a goto statement might be more appropriate! Especially poignant when using a bracketed-block language, where you’ll see a string of closing braces flying away at the end of the code.

Hi-Driven Development

A variety of printf-debugging where you pepper your code with alert('hi'); in order to find out where it’s going wrong, rather than breaking out a proper debugger. Other acceptable string literals include “hello”, “here”, “xyzzy”, etc.

Higgs-Bugson

A bug that you believe to exist based on sparse log data and theoretical examination, but you have no evidence to support the idea that it has ever actually been observed, except perhaps vague anecdotal evidence from users.

Hindenbug

A catastrophic bug resulting in a devastating loss (typically of data). “Oh, the humanity!”

headlessCamels

CamelCase words lacking a leading capital letter, as required or recommended for various languages, frameworks, and styles. As opposed to ProudCamels.

Heisenbug

First noticed on Usenet in the 80s, but still awesome: a bug that defies investigation because, during debugging (when you’re observing it), it behaves differently.

Hydra Code

Code so bug-riddled that killing one problem results in two more in it’s place, like the mythological Lernaean Hydra‘s many heads.

IRQed

Interrupted while you were trying to program. Not necessarily by somebody with an actual flag.

Loch Ness Monster Bug

An important bug, if ever it could be proven to exist. Only ever observed once or twice by users who were unable to back up or reproduce their claims. These users often go on to swear by the existence of the bug, blaming it for all kinds of unusual phenomena even in completely unrelated systems for years to come.

Ninja Comments

Comments which are so stealthy that you can’t see them at all. It’s almost as if the code weren’t documented at all!

NOPping

Like napping, but what programmers do while they’re downtiming while waiting for a computer to finish a task. Based on the NOOP or NOP operation found in many low-level languages.

NP Hilarious

An algorithm whose complexity is a joke, whether deliberately (e.g. Bogosort, but not Quantum Bogosort) or not.

Object Oriented Pasta

Spaghetti code wrapped up into classes to look like proper object-oriented code. Also Ravioli.

Pokémon Exception Handling

For when you positively, absolutely, “gotta catch ’em all.” I’m talking about hideous code like this:

try {
MessageBox.Show(message);
} catch(Exception exc) {
MessageBox.Show(exc.Message);
}

See also Try, Catch, Forget.

Refucktoring

As defined by Jason Gorman: refactoring code in such a way that you are now the only person capable of maintaining it. E.g. stripping all comments and whitespace from an arcane bit of code that you wrote in order to give yourself the illusion of being indispensable. Results in Mortgage Code (code which pays your mortgage because you can’t be fired while it exists).

Rubberducking

Sometimes you’re working on a problem and what you really need to do to solve it is to talk through the problem with somebody else. The other person doesn’t even need to be a developer: often, they don’t even need to listen – they just need to be there while you talk your way to your own solution. So much so, that they might as well be replaced with a rubber duck, sat atop your monitor. A name come up with by a programmer who apparently actually did this.

Scar Tissue

Commented-out blocks of old code, after refactoring, that have been checked in to the main codebase.

Shrug Report

A bug report which contains no reproducible information whatsoever, or is so unclear as to be ambiguous. Often contains phrases like “doesn’t work”, or doesn’t show how the anticipated behaviour differs from that observed (e.g. “when I click the print icon, the document is printed onto A4 paper from the feeder tray of the printer”).

Smug Report

A bug report submitted by a user who acts as if they know more about the system than the developer does.

Stringly-Typed

Use of strings for all kinds of inappropriate variables, like strings containing the words “true” and “false” for use in comparisons (not helped by the fact that some languages, like PHP, will let you get away with boolean comparisons on these). Also common among inexperience database developers, who’ll make an entire database of VARCHARs because they’re then able to store whatever they want in there, right?

Troolian Logic

Using a boolean variable to deliberately hold three states of information: true, false, and null. Often requires the use of the === operator to function properly.

Try, Catch, Forget

An exception handling strategy based purely on catching exceptions and then doing nothing with them. In other words, telling your program “if something goes wrong… carry on anyway!” Sometimes also seen as a Trynally – a block of code with a try and a finally block, but no catch blog at all. See also Pokémon Exception Handling.

Unicorny

Adjective used to describe a requested feature that’s so early in the planning stages it might as well be imaginary. Used by Yehuda Katz to describe some of Rails‘ upcoming features.

Yoda Conditions

Expressions that test for (literal == variable) rather than the more-common (variable == literal). The former is preferred by some programmers because it reduces the risk of accidentally using a single-equals rather than a double-equals (this mistake would produce a compiler error rather than simply misbehaving). So-called because it results in Yoda-like phraseology (e.g. “has no errors, the form does”).

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Amateur Lesbians

I’ve recently reformatted and reinstalled, and that means that – briefly – I ended up seeing advertisements on the Internet again, until I had my ad-blocker reinstalled. And so I came to see an advertisement that promised to let me see “amateur lesbians”.

Now you and I both know perfectly well what they mean, but I’ve always been amused by the term. It somehow carries the implication that there are “professional lesbians”, who aren’t just hobbyists or weekend-homosexuals. I get the image of a conversation along these lines:

A: “So, what do you do for a living?”

B: “Oh, I’m a lesbian.”

If there is such a thing as a professional lesbian, I wonder if it’s one of those careers that is protected from gender discrimination laws, so that it’s allowed to disallow men from applying. And I wonder if you can get a vocational qualification in the field: you know, a BTEC in Lesbianism or something. I also wonder if there are any perks to the job – I mean apart from the obvious: do you get a company car? Do you have to pay for your own uniform?

I wonder, sometimes, if I wonder about things a little too much.

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The Game Disbalancer

Coming to an Arkham Horror game near you… never.


Click for large-o-vision. You know, I think that having this guy on the team might just make the game winnable. Maybe.

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Dan’s April Fools’ Jokes This Year

After JTA and I’s monster plan for a great April Fools’ joke got rained-off this year (maybe another year), I just had to go ahead with two smaller April Fools’ gags this year.

The Photocopier Prank (click for full-size)

The Photocopier Prank

A nice simple joke at the expense of the people in the office building I work in (and far less complex than last year’s prank against the same): I found a document online, printed it out, and stuck it to the photocopiers.

It instructs users that the photocopier has been upgraded with voice controls, so you can just “tell it” to copy, collate, staple etc. and it’ll follow your instructions. The document goes on to explain that it’s in “learning mode” right now and it might not get everything right while it learns your voice, so be patient and take the time to repeat yourself slowly and carefully.

I haven’t got eyes on the copier, so I’ve no idea how many – if any – people it caught.

The Abnib Announce/Joke Of The Week Prank

For the last few years, I’ve run two a text-message based mailing lists (I’ve got unlimited texts as part of my mobile contract, so it’s as-good-as free for me to do this). The first, Abnib Announce, lets people in Aber know about Troma Night, Geek Night, and similar events. The second, Joke of the Week, goes to a far wider audience and shares, every Friday, the best (by a loose and arguable definition of the word) of the jokes I’ve heard over the previous seven days.

This morning I sent out the following message to both lists:

Abnib Announce/Joke of the Week Update:

Bad news, everyone. My network has been in touch to say that running these regular bulk SMS lists is a violation of their Fair Use agreement, so I can’t run them from my “free texts” package any more. The good news is they’ve offered an alternative. These lists will now become subscription-based SMS services. This will cost you no more than 15p per message received, and a maximum of £1 per week (so £2 per week if you’re on both lists). I’m supposed to ask for your permission before subscribing your number, but I know you’ll all agree anyway. If for some reason you DON’T want to continue receiving Joke of the Week or Abnib Announce at 15p per message, please text me back BEFORE the first message, this afternoon. Ta!

I’ve had a handful of great responses, so far, including:

  • Nice try.x
  • Them: The rotters, what a bargain, keep the jokes coming please sir
    Me: Seriously? When I made up those prices this April Fools’ Day I should have put them higher!
    Them: Hahaha, got me, first one too. Love to the crew
  • Halfway through a serious response to this i remembered what day it is…
  • April fool?
  • Totally not falling for that, sorry! Happy April Fools
  • Them: Hey dan. Sorry i cant do that on my phone as my mum Pays my contract
    Me: Happy April Fools’!
    Them: Hee.very good
  • Them: I dont want to pay thanks. I have enough problems with arguing with orange over my phone bill at the minute, thanks. Hope you are good.
    Me: April Fools’!
    Them: Is it april already?! Damn i fell for it again! Nice one :-)
  • Them: Take me off the lists please! Ill get info from [other subscriber] and jokes from sickipedia
    Me: Tell you what: because it’s you I’ll negotiate with your network: you’re on Orange, right? I’ve kidnapped the dog of the CEO of Orange; I’m pretty sure I can get him to waive the charges in your case.
    Them: Is vodaphone, and their ceo only has a parrot and 5 fish.
    Me: =op
  • Them: Im confused, if its 15p per message why is it £2 a week?
    Me: NO MORE THAN £2 a week (well, £1 per week per list). So 4 Joke Of The Week messages would be 60p, 8 would be £1, 20 would be £1. Remember that it’s usually a multipart message spanning 4/5 messages each week. Full terms and conditions apply.
    Them: Lol, sounds confusing, being a poor student i’ll have to pass i think, though i’ll miss moaning at your messages ;-)
    Me: Really? You’re actually going? And, even more unbelievably, you’re actually falling for this obvious April Fools’ gag?
    Me: Gotcha ;-)
    Them: Yup and yup lol :-P
  • Happy April Fools day!
  • Them: oh arse, i can’t as i don’t pay the phone bill. is it possible for you to put them online?
    Me: April Fools’, dummy!
  • Lol, good one. Did you manage to snare anyone?
  • Them: Textin back.no joke
    Me: Gotcha! April Fools’.

Man, I love this day of the year.

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Smell Of Gas

The other evening, I was woken (yes, I was asleep at 6pm, might blog about why that was on a later date) by a man from one of the energy companies trying to get me to consider changing my gas supply to them. I’m not keen on door-to-door sales at the best of times, which, coupled with my why-have-you-woken-me-up attitude and a hint of my mischievousness, lead to a conversation that I’m sure he won’t soon forget.

Gas Man:
Hi, I’m from [name of energy company – he was keen to show off his shiny ID badge] and… oh; I’m sorry, have I just woken you up? Is this a bad time?

Dan:
/yawning/ Yeah, but I’m up now. What can I do for you?

Gas Man:
I might be able to save you money on your gas bill. Can I ask who you’re with now?

Dan:
I’m with [name of my energy company].

Gas Man:
Right, and do you pay quarterly or monthly?

Dan:
Monthly, by direct debit.

Gas Man:
Okay. Do you know how much you spend per month on gas?

Dan:
Hey, do you have any samples?

Gas Man:
What? Umm… I’ve got a leaflet if you’d like…

Dan:
No: samples. Of the gas your company provides.

Gas Man:
/laughing it off as a joke/ Ha! No… so do you know how much your average bill…

Dan:
/completely serious face/ I’m afraid I’d have to smell your gas before I could make any kind of decision.

Gas Man:
/stunned silence/

Dan:
I’ve been with a few different gas companies over the years. When I first moved in I was with [name of energy company]. Their gas smelled like walnuts, and I don’t like walnuts, so I switched to [name of another energy company], and their gas used to smell like cottage cheese, which was fine, but eventually it started smelling like it had gone off which means it probably was actual cottage cheese: which is great, but you can’t just put cottage cheese in your pipe and never replace it, can you? So that’s when I switched to [name of my energy company], about three months ago. Their gas smells like watermelons, which is perfectly good. I like watermelons.

/pause/

So you see; I couldn’t possibly buy your company’s gas unless I could smell it first.

/I continue staring at him with wide, “I inhale flammable gases for fun” look/

Gas Man:
Umm. All the gas is the same. It doesn’t matter which company supplies it: it’s all the same gas.

Dan:
Oh.

/puzzled look/

Then I guess I’ll stick with the gas I’ve got, if yours is no different. Goodbye.

/closes door/

(I assumed he’d already have head of this, of course)

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Pudd

pudd /pʊd/ (verb, third-person singular simple present pudds, present participle pudding, simple past pudded, past participle pudd)

  1. (transitive) to cause an observer to interpret meaning where none exists
    “The beauty of the sunset pudds me into believing that it was put there specifically for me to enjoy.”
    “Interpreting the lyrics pudded Dan with ideas far beyond those intended by the songwriter.”

  2. (intransitive) to interpret meaning (esp. into the meaningless)
    “Though I don’t understand your grunting, I pudd that you are angry about something.”
    “Despite the emptiness of her life, Mary was pudding.”

pudd /pʊd/ (noun, pl. pudds)

  1. The meaning or purpose of something, as understood through individual interpretation, without specific indication any such meaning exists.
    “His pudd is that life is for having fun while it lasts.”
    “Pudds are easy to find when you’re looking for them.”

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Too Busy To Blog

Duration

Podcast Version

This post is also available as a podcast. Listen here, download for later, or subscribe wherever you consume podcasts.

So I shan’t tell you about all the fun and exciting (read: horrible and exhausting) things I’ve been up to lately. Instead, to keep you amused, here’s an animated GIF that amused me.

Animated GIF adaptation of Adam in the Garden of Eden in which God is sproinging Adam's penis.

That is all.

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Ten Weirdest Sex Toys I’ve Ever Seen [NSFW]

This was one of my most-popular articles in 2009. If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy:

Warning: Not safe for work. Not even a little.

[wow; this has been a long while in the writing: I started writing this early in 2009 and finally finished in August – thanks for your patience, folks I promised this to!]

Sex toys are fun. Whether you’re playing alone or with friends, there are a million excuses to let a bit of silicon, plastic, leather or metal get involved, too. But all things said, I’m pretty vanilla: or, at least, I feel that way when I look at the sheer variety of fetishes that are represented on the Internet.

And I’m pretty open-minded. By the time I’m in a sex shop and I’ve turned my head sideways to work out what you’re supposed to do with whatever thing I’m looking at, I’m cool with it. It doesn’t have to be something that I’d want to put up my butt (or whatever) to make it so that I can understand how somebody else might like to.

But once in awhile, I come across something that simply makes no sense to me. Perhaps one of you guys can explain some of these to me:

The Baby Jesus Buttplug

“…make Baby Jesus the centerpiece of your magnificent Dildo Creche.” – Divine Interventions

I’m an atheist, but this seems to be a little disrespectful even to me. But more than that: supposed divinity aside, who wants to put a baby up their bum anyway? What’s the attraction in putting a small pink lump of plastic up your pooper? It’s not even like it’s a real baby and you’d have the excuse that you were just trying to stop it crying.

Who is this marketed to? Christians who want to show how much they really love Jesus? Anti-theists who want to show their disdain for the Son of Man in the sexiest way they could think of? People who want to experiment with anal play but want their toy to be one that they can leave out and not worry about people seeing?

I’m not even sure that it’d be a particularly good buttplug. Okay, there’s a slight ridge there so you’d be in a good position to grind the Lamb of God’s face into your prostate, if that’s your thing, but if I really wanted a religious-themed sex toy – and I don’t – I’d be looking at something with some substance, like a Jackhammer Jesus. Or go for everybody’s new messiah, Barack Obama, with the Head Of State Pleasure Toy (why do we never make sex toys out of British politicians?).

The Bouncing Ball Fucker

“You gotta check our resident ass-pig-in-training BOUNCING and FUCKING HIMSELF on this crazy new toy.” – Fort Troff

Do you remember Space Hoppers? Can you think of anything more childish, more innocent, more fun than bouncing around on a big rubber football with handles? It was a time of simple things, when my friends and I would have Space Hopper races up and down the garden. A time of paddling pools and climbing frames. And they’d be memories I’d cherish, until I saw this… umm… toy.

What happens if you take a space hopper and replace the handles with a six inch ribbed cock? You get this, the “Bouncing Ball Fucker”. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how you’d use it, but if you’re somehow in the dark – or you want to see for yourself – there’s a video.

I’m no prude, but I don’t think I’d be able to take my sex partner seriously if they came into the bedroom bouncing around on a bean bag that happened to be raping their arse at the same time. I can’t think of a way you could use this without laughing. And while I’ve got no problem with a good sense of humour, it’s rarely always the most conducive thing to sex.

The Concubine Masturbator

“Pound the seductive vibrating pussy while fondling the pert breasts.” – LoveHoney

Somewhere in the world, right now, there’s a mad scientist who’s busily working on genetic improvements by which he plans to build the next generation of humanity. And he’s got an idea about what the women of the future should look like.  And it’s shown above.

Seriously, that would be a great premise for a horror film. Because I’m more scared of that… thing in the picture than I ever was watching John Carpenter’s The Thing.

There are so many things wrong with this sex toy that I’m not sure I know where to start:

  • What kind of person fantasises about fucking something that looks like this? I know that, as a man, I’m somehow supposed to be fixated on her boobs and vagina, but seriously: was it really worth removing everything else in order to fulfill this fantasy? Or where they just short on silicon when they built the prototype and said, “Sod it, let’s just make the bits that anybody cares about, all squished up together, and see how it looks.”
  • I’m guessing that the whole “cock head” thing is supposed to be reminiscent of getting a tit-wank: like, you’re supposed to be able to pretend that it’s your dick that you’re seeing, sandwiched between these shiny artificial knockers. But why bother simulating it: there’s an actual cock involved when you’re using this device. If it’s supposed to be a tit-wank simulator, why bother with adding another knob to the picture. It just makes it look creepy: “Hey, that’s not my willy! Where’d that come from?
  • It’s so confusing. I’d be too busy trying to puzzle through what I was looking at to be able to get off, I’m sure of it. Soo… I’m penetrating a vagina and then popping out from her neck? Do I have a four foot penis? Or is she some kind of uber-midget? I just don’t know.

There’s one further possibility: perhaps this is a toy to cater to the fetishes of those people who were turned on by the floating bits of organs and shit in jars in Alien Resurrection. That’d go some way towards explaining this monstrosity.

The Xenogon

“A cross between an alien and a dragon, the Xenogon has all the desires and needs of both parents. Here at Bad Dragon, we know that dragons are nigh-insatiable, but aliens are a whole new breed of desire, and this Xeno takes after his alien father! Be a test subject, and submit yourself to his dominant nature, we’re sure he could think of over a dozen experiments to do on you…” – Bad Dragon

What happens when you cross extreme furrydom with modern silicon production mechanisms and put it all on the Internet? You get people making dildos based on the imagined genitals of anthropomorphic fictional creatures. Like this toy, which is apparently based on what the penis of a dragon/alien hybrid would look like.

To be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference between a dragon penis and an alien penis without being told. And you know why? Because we made up what they look like. Why bother making a dragon/alien penis dildo at all? Why not just call it a dragon penis: after all, nobody’s seen one anyway – you can call it a unicorn penis if you like, it won’t change the fact that you’re making it up as you go along!

Now I’m not denying the existence of dragon fetishists – one wrote in to Savage Love last year – but I’m just amazed that there’s such a market for these toys: just Google around if you don’t believe me: there a lots of sites selling this stuff (my favourite is Yiffy Toys, just because their site design is cool). Maybe I’m the odd one.

The manufacturers of the Xenogon are keen to point out that they can’t manufacture these dragon-penises in an ejaculating variety suitable for use with their “Bad Dragon Cum-Lube“. Apparently we know enough about dragons to make a lubricant in the consistency of their semen. Who knew?

The Pussy Snorkel

“Insert the breathing apparatus into your nostrils, rub the clitoral stimulator against your favorite coral reef and start with the tongue action. With the Pussy Snorkel, anyone can be a dive master.” – SexToys.com

Perhaps I should be expected not to “get” this. After all, I don’t have a pussy to speak of. But even in my furthest imaginings, I can’t see how this can be a winning idea. First, I’d like to pick holes in the quotation from SexToys.com, above: coral reef? Coral reef? Who calls a clitoris a coral reef?

But secondly, how wet do you have to have gotten your female partner before you’re in need of a fucking snorkel to go down on her? The website indicates that it’d be good for muff-diving somebody in a hot tub, but it doesn’t take a genius to observe that the design of the snorkel is such that it’d be pretty much useless for actual underwater use: the tips of the tubes point downwards: after a quarter-lungful of air (and the associated minute or so of hot slippery licking), you’d have to come up for a refill… and I can see this becoming quickly frustrating for your partner, who’s probably just about got long enough to get into it before you come up again, panting for air.

It doesn’t look comfortable. It doesn’t look sexy. It doesn’t serve any practical value. It’s not even a great novelty, because if you gave one to somebody you’d have to explain to them what it was for before they would “get it”.

Do you know what I think? I think that the manufacturers of the beer hat one day realised that they’d saturated the market (quite literally) and that they needed to come up with another product that can be built with food-grade adjustable tubing pre-cut into head-circumference lengths, and invented this silly product. At least the beer hat let you drink while you had sex.

“Jackson”

“Jackson is the model for our largest toy yet, measuring 21 inches of insertable length. His size has intimidated most, including the mares. Due to the size, his toy is one of our most detailed when it comes to veins and glans. But don’t just listen to us, try one for yourself!” – BB5T Industries

Whoah. That’s just… not possible. To give you a context of the scale of this dong, that’s a 2L drinks bottle next to it. It’s a shocking 21 inches tall – that’s about the distance between the vagina and the neck of an average woman.

This cock is so large that you could use it as a baseball bat. You could beat somebody to death with it. It’s in the region of four times as any penis you’re ever likely to have inside you. So why the fuck do you want one?

In case it wasn’t obvious from the quote, above, it’s a replica model of a horse’s penis. Yes, an actual horse – there’s pictures of him on the website, if you want to take a look, and he’s certainly hung like a… well, you get the idea. And he’s big for a horse.

I’d like to be able to pretend that the people who buy this toy do so to pleasure some horny mare in their stable, but I know that’s not going to be the case, and I’m sure you do too.

What’s the attraction? Can anybody enlighten me? We’ve heard breasts described in terms of “more than a handful” being a waste – surely the same is true of a cock – that any parts that are simply too large to fit into any of your orifices are a little bit pointless? Or maybe, somewhere, there’s a woman who can take this inside her? I’d like to say that I’d like to meet her, but it’s quite possible that we all actually live inside of her, like little insects in a microcosm of stars and planets, all inside her humongous vagina. And there’s another horror film plot, right there.

The Area 51 Love Doll

“It’s pussy-shaped mouth, 3 supples [sic] breasts, suction cup fingers and ass-shaped ears make it the kinkiest love slave in the galaxy.” – SexToy.com

And for the first time since the dragon thingy, we’re back to aliens again. For those of you who really want to be taken for a flying saucer ride and given a good probing (and who doesn’t), there’s this thing… the Area 51 Love Doll. She features purple skin (pretty alien), three breasts (very alien), and three – yes, three – fuckable holes (not so alien).

Is this actually somebody’s fetish? If so, I’m sorry to disappoint them: a little searching found this picture of what she actually looks like when she’s inflated (with thanks to this guy):

I’m not sure what the trading standards authority has to say about sex dolls, but that doesn’t look much like the thing depicted on the packet to me. Equally unarousing, but not the same, see?

It’s possible that I just don’t understand the attraction of inflatable sex dolls. I mean: I don’t see how putting your dick into a plastic-feeling novelty balloon with a surprised look on it’s face (and it’s always a look of surprise, isn’t it?) is an improvement on just having a wank the old-fashioned way: throwing your hand down onto the bed and raping it. Rotten.com did an article about inflatable love dolls, and I looked through it and thought: I wouldn’t fuck any one of those. Maybe it’s just me, again.

In other news, I frightened myself almost to death when I saw the Frankenstein’s monster-like mess that these guys came up with when they attempted to build their own sex doll out of parts. Take a look.

The Mysterious Japanese Blowjob Machine

“I noticed what looked like a bright pink projector in the store window. But instead of a lens, the machine had a faux-flesh orifice with ‘Heaven’ scrawled across the side. And instead of a lightbulb, it seemed to have a motor churning away, tirelessly.” – Gizmodo

I am not popping my peter into that. Aside from the fact that it looks like it’s been converted from what was once a Polly Pocket (or, failing that, looks like it might be built in the body of what was supposed to be “my first tazer”), I can’t read any of the writing on it: what happens if I accidentally hit the “castrate” button instead of the “oh God, please, don’t stop” button? And how would I tell the difference given that I don’t speak a word of Japanese.

Also, I’m having difficulty imagining how this even works. Bear with me: I’m guessing from the photo that the “cartridge” (the bit on the left, labeled “Heaven”, can be removed when, umm, “spent”, and replaced with another: and they come in a number of different varieties based on what sensation you’re looking for) moves in and about of the barrel of the plastic body. It might rotate, as well. So: where do I put the device?

If I put it on the bed, I’m pretty sure that it weighs less than me, and even Newton wouldn’t need to run an experiment (although he might like to, if you gave him one of these for his birthday) to prove that what will happen is that my cock will stay exactly where it is and the machine will jump around on the bed, giving virtually no friction at all. Or you could grab hold of it, but by that point you might as well just be holding the damn cartridge and save yourself the two-million yen or whatever one of these pretty-coloured toys will set you back.

Maybe I’d be surprised: the Japanese have come up with a number of great things, such as Pocky, and maybe this is another one of them. But I doubt it.

The Elastisizer

“This toy is designed to stretch you out as you use it, the straight parts act to let you “rest” a bit before going on to the next level.” – Zeta Paws

Sooo… it’s a training sex toy? That you can use to “widen yourself up” in anticipation of even bigger sex toys? Oh-kay.

This beast of a toy stands a clear 8½ inches long and starts at 3 inches across at the narrow end. By the base of the thing, it’s 5½ inches wide. So; a little like putting a regular penis into you… sideways.

Okay, for sheer size, it doesn’t really compete with the horse penis we saw earlier, but, shit – 8½ by 5½ inches? That’s not a sex toy, that’s a doorstep! And I’m not sure it was wise to make it out of whatever that shiny material it’s made from is, because every time I look at it I think it’s not real – that perhaps it’s some cheaply-rendered 3D effect, like something The Lawnmower Man might put into his bumhole.

Mr. Jack’s Mouth

“His softly noduled throat will send you into overdrive. The mustache will make you remember that he’s a guy, and that he craves your juicy cock down his throat.” – Heartsfire Leathers

A man with the throat of a sandworm, what could be sexier than that? Oh, I know: a piece of rubber made to look like the mouth and chin of a man with the throat of a sandworm: that’s right! The thing that makes it most obvious that this sex toy is bad news is the same test that you can use to prove that anything is bad news: just write “I WILL DEVOUR YOUR CHILDREN” under it, in a speech bubble. If it doesn’t look out of place, it’s time to be alarmed. If you’re supposed to be putting your tool into it, be doubly alarmed.

I’m not sure what it is about Mr. Jack that’d be most likely to give me nightmares. Is it the mouth riddled with “nodules”, which makes it look either like he’s the child of a shark of that he’s got some horrible oral disease: either of which does not incline me to let him suck me off. Or perhaps it’s the obviously-fake mustache, somewhat reminiscent of the eyebrows of my old high school history teacher, that I’d be able to glance down at and imagine leaping off, like ravenous caterpillars, and biting into my balls. Or maybe, and this could be the big one, maybe it’s because fucking half of a disembodied face is fucking creepy.

Seriously. I’ve seen triple-breasted aliens, breast-vagina-penis hybrids, and plastic feet with vaginas in them, but even though they looked like mutants, at least they weren’t half a face. Half a face is the kind of thing that nightmares are made up of. If you fell asleep after spunking into your Mr. Jack, and woke up the following morning to find half a fucking face in bed next to you, well, you’re likely to need some new sheets afterwards. Please, please, manufacturers of sex toys, please stick to dismembered genitals and don’t start making half-bits of human faces. It’s just scary.

Thanks.