Thursday, September 10, 2009

Haiku Hump Day Results: Robots! Catfreeek is your master!

By my gears and circuits! That was some amazing output. This might go down as my favorite topic of the ones I've presented. You, my robot homies, were on fy-er. Here's my breakdown (get it?) of the results:

('Cause, like, robots break down sometimes. Cough.)

First of all, I wish to address the stumpers. There were a couple of haikus I could not make head nor tails of. This one here might be just about dancing:

Unexplained dance move
"Malfunctioning robot"? 'Kaaaay...
Why not "broken stove"?

But I'm not sure. Is there another reference at work here, HandsomeStan? Do tell.

This one baffled me even more:

R.O.B. was a disgrace
His solitary function?
Gyromite Crapfest

I'm sure it's some movie I haven't seen. Or am I? What's the skinny, Sweatpants?

My lady posted a joke 'ku so inside that only I could get it, but I'll deliver the skinny now. Here's the rhyme:

Photo of lunchbox?
"Looked like a robot to me,"
Octo explains. Geek.

To explain myself, here's a picture of the top of our refrigerator

Note the yellow handle sticking out of the basket. That's the user's half of a toy robot claw, which I keep there because it allows me to grab new rolls of paper towels off of the high shelf in the cabinet to the right. The object to the left of the basket is Julie's canvas lunchbox, in which you can see, just peeking out, the cap of an empty sports bottle of Arrowhead water. I looked upon that the other day and thought it looked the the eye of a robot, encased in a squarish head/body assembly. So I moved the claw and took the following picture:

There ya go. Robot. This is what it's like to live in my head. I have a box in storage of objects -- dead remotes, scissor halves, random industrial trash -- that I think look like spaceships. Does that make me a geek? Yes, yes it does.

Getting on to the material that my stuffy head could actually understand, here are some standouts. JPX emailed me explaining he was having blog trouble at work, which is too bad, but he still managed this gem:

Robocop saw things
From a black and white view point
Yep, OCPD

In case you don't get why that's hilarious, Robocop was built by Omni Consumer Products or OCP, and this bit of cleverness is just what we're looking for here at Omni.

Despite bewildering me as shown above, Johnny Sweatpants threw down some great stuff, my faves being these two pairs:

The robot’s regret
Incapable of feeling
Human compassion

The robot’s triumph
Incapable of feeling
Kick to testicles

And pair number 2:

Robot in disguise?
You're not fooling anyone
Giant Flying Truck

Yearning for the day
Transforming toys are robots
Transform your damn self

Hell yeah! Anyone who's tried to transform one of those hinged hunks of junk should feel the burn on that last one.

As always, I was keen to witness the various bits of sparring going on in haiku form between the competitors, from JSP's

Vote Yes On Sexbots
Snub AC's propaganda
She's into "feelings"

To HandsomeStan's outrageous "Third-person haikus awesome" series, ending with priceless last lines like these:

(ZING! says HandsomeStan)

(Stan is here all week)

And what a good week it will be. HandsomeStan's other faves of mine were as follows:

So I'm Knight Rider
I'd get hammered all the time
Robot gets me home

Aaaah!!! Magnum P.I.!!
Gene Simmons' robot lobsters!
You must Runaway!!!

For the record, "fire" does rhyme with "higher," but it's still one syllable. That nice Mr. Webster tells me so.

I said "cyborgs are fair game" in my opening post, never imagining it would reveal the deep pit of rage that AC has towards that particular Van Damme movie. Reading that batch of poetical venom, I felt like a proud attack dog trainer watching my puppy grow up and tear into his first hippie.

And Mr. AC finally makes an official stand! Clad in an avatar that arch-enemies that of his wife! That's the kind of moxie we like around here. This one was my favorite of his:

Hal, Ash, and the Borg
The moral of the story
Never trust a bot

Well, true dat!

Which brings us to our winner of the weeek, Catfreeek. She had the winning entry early on, the one that made me laugh and mark it with "okay, that's the one to beat," and then she piled on a bunch more awesome sauce. There was this excellent double barb sent at Stan:

If Stan built robots
they would all spout compliments
directed at Stan

"Hello Handsome Stan
Have I told you you're awesome?"
"Yes, say it again"

This simple and deft tribute to the coolness of Lance Henriksen:

Ash went all crazy
Bishop, loyal to the end
Lance Henriksen rules

And this one, which references an old favorite movie and echoes my desire for a big silver orgasm ball

Sleeper house robots
shuffling about the house
I just want the orb

But is was this one that clinched the top spot:

Speaking of sexbots
Inspector Gadget would rock
Go go gadget *beep*

A special thanks to 50, who despite his busy evening cranked out some evening output -- and actually included the phrase "Go, go, gadget penis!" That totally made me laugh, too. Had you not been scooped by Catfreeek, I can't tell you how that would've gone. Perhaps I am overly interested in the sex-bot possibilities of Inspector Gadget.

And perhaps it's that latent interest that makes that *beep* seem so right. Because the Inspector is a gizmonic creature, and who knows how many and what kind of devices he may have hidden beneath that one-syllable beep? Vibrators, French ticklers, a gerbil-firing gun? Who can say?

Thanks, everybody!

12 comments:

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Congratulations Catfreeek. You were overdue.

I was worried that someone was gonna call me on the fact that the robot couldn't feel "regret" either. Whew!

AC - so did you watch KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park? Do you not appreciate their genius now? Did you catch the part when the guy with the Star Child makeup selling t-shirts looks directly at the camera not once, not twice, but thrice?

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Also I love your fridge-bot! I want one.

HandsomeStan said...

Domo arigato, Mr. Octo, for the props. I'll follow JSP's lead and do a separate post for explanation of the stumper. This topic was awesome, though, and the lead-in was priceless!

Congratulations, Cat! I am honored to be the target of your 17-syllable arrows as well. Fired by a robot.

Ditto on the Fridge Bot. I'd love to see some stop-motion footage of what it can do in action!

(Grab things, I suppose...)

Catfreeek said...

Thanks Octo, great topic and a great response all around. AC's fiery ku's were enthralling and Stan had me cracking up all day long. It was also great to see the appearances of Puffinslayer & Mr. AC.

Damn! Now I have think of a topic for next week.

Catfreeek said...

Oh and Octo you hit the nail on the head about the beep. I must have written a dozen words in there before hand and finally thought, it could be anything so I just inserted a beep.

AC said...

woohoo catfreeek! mr. ac and i thought the gadget haiku was a potential winnah, and your other haikus had me lmao all day long.

thanks octo for the cyborg hm. it's a movie i truly love to hate on, but can't stop watching.

no, sweatpants, i only saw a clip your brother sent me. i am willing to watch the full movie; is it on netflix?

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I'm sure Old Man JPX would be glad to give you a copy before the big concert.

Octopunk said...

My god! Where are my manners? I totally meant to give a shout out to Puffinslayer.

Wah! There's your shout out. I was psyched to see R.U.R. mentioned. I was just reading about how Ray Harryhausen wanted to make a movie based on that play but never did.

HandsomeStan said...

Hosting HHD is like winning at the Academy Awards - there's never enough time/space to thank everybody. And Puff has the so-far untapped intellect that this day and this blog needs and deserves. (Untapped on the blog, that is...)

I did want to echo my love of Lance Henriksen, and say that Cat was the #1 contender coming in this week, despite dark horse Mr. AC coming in and scorching the earth.

I still feel like he was the Rocky to Octo's Apollo Creed (Rocky I) last week. Went the distance, and lost by a (perhaps flawed) judge's decision. This mixes my Mr. T/Clubber Lang reference, but I feel like Mr. AC has a Rocky II AND III in him. Watch out!

HandsomeStan said...

That wasn't meant as a dis, Octo. "Gorblok" is STILL making me laugh.

Octopunk said...

No dis taken! Except that you misspelled Gorblox.

DKC said...

Congrats to all. I - um - totally forgot what day it was. Apparently I need a robot to help me out with my scheduling!

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