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Emmet O’Brien has commended to my attention the Yasser Arafat cheese-flavored corn chips now being sold in Egypt:
Shopkeepers say the Arafat chips, named Abu Ammar — the Palestinian leader’s nom de guerre — are considerably outselling another new brand, The Hero, which hit store shelves earlier this month. The packaging for that brand pictures a schoolboy holding a stone in his right hand and books in the other as he confronts an Israeli tank.I just want to say that if I found a manuscript in the slush pile that had as many weird-but-logical things going on in it as I can read in the news in any given month, you can bet I’d sit up and take notice of it.“There’s no one who doesn’t love Abu Ammar,” said Iman Mohammed Darwish, a 12-year-old girl. “I like the taste, and I want to help the Palestinians.”
“I sell at least three boxes (150 bags) of Abu Ammar daily,” said Fatma Abdel-Ghani, a shopkeeper in the Cairo suburb of Thakanat Al-Maadi as she carefully placed boxes of Abu Ammar above those containing The Hero and other brands of chips.
I don't think you can make stuff like that up :)
Well, you -can- make up stuff like that -- after all, I doubt that the finger of Allah wrote, "Mene Tekel Cheese-Flavored Arafat" -- you just don't generally want to, because it loads the disbelief suspenders to a degree that a Cirque du Soleil performer would find excessively risky.
The corresponding American product that comes to mind is Ken Lay's Potato Chips -- Eat the Evidence!
Or, from seveal completely different angles, Ashcrofts(tm) Hemorrhoidal Wipes -- They Give Neither Aid Nor Comfort.
Many, many tickle a parson, and you and Neil and Ken MacLeod invent cool stuff all the time. So do other writers, of course; but you three are notable cases.
I can't think up any American products to give you in return. My inventive mind runs more upon subjects like the usefulness of near-vacuum, and why I wish I had access to it when I'm cooking. (I also have an idea for a thing that'll store and dispense spare bogrolls without using any floor or shelf space; I may yet build it.) So I'm not uninventive -- but jokes? Don't hold your breath. I wish I could devise them. They're an irresistible force.
I don't even know what a bogroll is. The word looks like something I might find in the D&D Monster Manual.
"Bogroll" == "T.P. for my BUNGhole!"
Heh-heh! Heh-heh! Heh-heh!
What *REALLY* freaked me the other day was passing an off-license (ObUS usage: liquor
store) with a window display extolling the cheapness and virtue of Victory Gin.
Big Brother Blair must be spinning in his grave fast enough you could hook him up to the national grid by now.
If you had the true Beavis-nature, you'd know there's a high-end brand of German tracing and drafting paper named "Bumwad".
I did in fact know about Bumwad (or at least I think I did, the factoid rang a bell) but in confirming that you weren't just having me on, I discovered what I had not known: you can buy Bumwad in rolls.
At this point, I can barely type, and the tears are making it hard to focus on the screen.
Dept. of Expired Horses:
Condolezza Rice krispies
We have Snap and Crackle, and are Optimistic About Achieving Pop in the Near Future.
Heimatschuzes(tm) Potato Chips
With Ridges, For . . . I Forget What.
Ari Fleischedig
When You Know Something's Not Kosher.
I liked theCondoleez Rice Krispies, in particular. For some reason, all I can come up with on my own behalf is Richard Milhouse Nixon Wax Lips.