|
A state of emergency has been declared after China’s president for life, Xi Jinping, was found this morning with a jar of “hunny” stuck on his head. The incident occurred at breakfast after Xi desperately attempted to retrieve the last drop of the sugary treat from the bottom of the pot and, failing to grasp it with his hands, plunged his entire noggin into the jar where it promptly became trapped.
“This is the greatest crisis our nation has faced,” said Shu Guozeng, one of President Xi’s advisors. “Worse than the famine of 1958 to ’62, the Taiping Rebellion and the Yellow River flood of 1938 combined. If protestors in Hong Kong get wind of this, it could spell the end of The Party and communist China!” After spending the past few years outlawing all images of Winnie the Pooh once activists began to compare President Xi to the lovable yellow bear, the president’s latest predicament could be used as fuel for the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong and create a major international embarrassment for the country that provides the world with everything. From within the honey jar, President Xi could be heard exclaiming “Oh bother” as his staff raced to contact a wise old owl who could provide insight into removing the stubborn pot. Inspired by a "real" listing that I came across on Indeed.
Web Content Writer (40+ Hours/Week) – TrashyBusiness Job details Job type Contract Number of hires for this role 5 to 6,743 Full Job Description We are looking for a [sic] experienced Web Content Develop Drive Writer to join our team at TrashyBusiness Media LLC. In this remote writing and research position, you will be in charge of creating reviews for our products across various sales platforms including Amazon to make our miracle pillows, vitamin supplements and other various wares of questionable safety look their best to guarantee sales before regulatory investigations shutter our completely legal operation located out of a motel in The Philippines. The ideal candidate will have at least 1+ year(s) experience mulling about in word processors and be proficient in the development of engaging language to assist our goals in selling snake oil to unsuspecting Americans. If you have a passion for writing about commercial sleep products, that dream you keep having (you know the one; the one with the ballet slippers), or camels, you will fit in very well. You will be required to write like a chameleon as you are constructing reviews for our products and manipulating SEO data, editorials that make our company glow like a rave, and site copy all in strict adherence to our internal style guide that has been renown for the last eight decades despite this business having only been created last month. Our writers enjoy digging and thrusting themselves into their assignments, conducting in-depth Wikipedia based research as they become experts on the sleep industry and camels. This is a contract position. Compensation is based on previously agreed amounts given to you in a poor hybrid of Esperanto and Korean, written on clay tablets using Assyrian cuneiform in the form of a low resolution .jpeg taken on a Nokia 7650 and delivered to you by email to make our arrangement as easy to understand as possible. QUALIFICATIONS
SALARY
To apply submit your application with the following items:
Job Type: Contract Pay: $0.00 per hour Work Location: Fully Remote Company's website: www.trashybusiness.ph - Just posted Halloween 2020, like everything else this year, is going to be very different. For example; trick-or-treating may be outright banned unless you have access to a candy chute to delivery goodies from 2 metres away, and wearing no mask at all is far more frightening than the bloodied clown guise you scare your children with when they don’t complete their chores on time. Another change is access to a good ol’ pumpkin to carve your jack-o-lanterns as many locations are not offering access to the patches, have closed due to revenue failures, or, if you live in an area like I do, are producing some really sad little pumpkins thanks to ongoing droughts brought about by a changing climate that is slowly killing us all.
But all of that is okay, because ten years ago I had written a guide to creating alternative jack-o-lanterns for people too lazy to actually go out and kneel before The Great Pumpkin and receive his offspring on which to carve your ghoulish face. I have consulted these plans, and am now presenting you with an updated set of instructions for your own non-pumpkin based Halloween icons! Faux Pumpkins You have probably seen these at your local home improvement stores. They are often stacked alongside those horrible inflatable decorations that besmirch every suburban landscape during Christmas and Halloween (though I have seen Easter themed inflatables in recent years). Often described as “no-mess,” these soft, vinyl squashes are an easy alternative to the real thing, are non-smashable (which is much better marketing than no-mess), and can be reused for many years to come. Light with an electric candle or flashlight and you are set to get your Freddy Kruger on! Just be sure to carve something that isn’t guaranteed to age poorly if you are planning on multiple uses, like Pepe the Frog or “All Lives Matter.” Paper Bag Ah, the original no-mess pumpkin alternative! I was first introduced to this concept in kindergarten and am now realizing that I had a bad childhood. This was a classroom project that served as nothing more than busywork where we would draw our spooky faces on an inverted lunch bag and “carve” them out with safety scissors before stuffing them full of crumpled-up newspapers. There would always be that one kid who couldn’t use those scissors properly and would ruin his “jack-o-lantern,” ask for another bag and cry as he botched it again, knowing that this would be the version displayed in the classroom before the school district banned Halloween for being “offensive.” We never illuminated these; they just sat on a table at the back of the class. I suppose if you wanted to try to make these scary, using a candle and watching it go up like an old Christmas tree in June would be pretty terrifying. Old Toolbox This one will require metal shears or some welding skills. Personally, I’d go with the latter as it would be much easier to design a scary face on a decaying metal box than the janky shapes a pair of shears would likely create. Toolboxes are great because some of them already look like they have a face; it’s only a matter of turning a mundane happy or sad expression into one of unmitigated terror. Maybe the old box is sentient, as Pixar has shown us in the form of toys, and that it has finally realized that its long-time owner died decades ago, and that it is now a forgotten chunk of steel left to rot away in the back of an antique store never to be used again. Never to be remembered. A Hollow Log If you live near the woods and can safely hike through without getting mauled by a bear or cougar, there’s a good chance that you can find yourself a decent sized log that has already been partially carved by termites or carpenter ants. Take that soggy old wood home and add it your meagre 2020 Halloween décor! Depending on its condition, it may need some work to bring out a truly spooky face. After all, you can’t let the insects hoard all the credit here. Taking a file or chisel, carefully exaggerate the rotten features into a hellish grin. Leave the creepy crawlies alone so that it looks as though your wooden jack-o-lantern is coughing up termites! Alternatively, if you happen to possess some sweet chainsaw skills (read: a proper Canadian) you could always apply that and carve yourself some green wood in full view of the neighbours. If they have any gripes, well, you know what to do with that saw! Your House Now this one will require some work but, damn it all, it’s Halloween! In 2020 no less! You deserve the reward for a job like this one! You will first have to gut that pumpkin but throwing away all of your things, tearing out all but the load bearing walls and support beams, and disposing of that junk. This will totally be worth it, trust me! Next, paint an outline of your design on the front wall of your home, and carefully carve it out with reciprocating saws, sledgehammers, and other tools of destruction. Careful not to hit any electrical or water systems. Better yet, cut the main power to your home and turn off the water main. You may want to remove the copper wiring from the walls too. For later use. If you have gone and cut the power before you have finished the carving, you’ll probably need to get a generator or, if you’re smart, just run an extension cord from your neighbour’s house. They won’t mind at all once you tell them it’s for Halloween! Finally, to make sure your jack-o-lantern is properly illuminated, you’ll want to light a couple bonfires inside. This is where gutting all that useless shit comes in handy for kindling and to allow room for the flames grow and let that house-pumpkin shine! Don’t worry about anything else; that’s what homeowner’s insurance was made for! We need a new word here in the year of our Lord 2020, and I have it right here: Coronammercial This is the term that I am using to describe the ceaseless adverts about COVID-19, being together, or otherwise reminding you of the absolute despair that grips humanity at this moment. They go a little like this:
Hi there. We’re working from home, just like you, to bring you this important message. We here at Major Business want to remind you about the ongoing coronavirus crisis even if you were just tuning into a nonsensical game show to take your mind off of that very crisis. Didn’t mean to make you upset. We’re upset too. You aren’t able to purchase useless little USB gadgets from us while trapped inside, and with a diminutive disposable income. This makes us sad, so we made this advert filled with sombre piano chords and some uplifting vocalizations from last year’s Christmas campaigns to make you feel better, or more hopeless depending on how much news you’ve been watching as of late. We’re here for you. We’re in this together. The other day, I put on Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel after a storm of notifications from the BBC News app reminded me that death was lurking around every corner of this new reality that I occupy. There were ten ads in the first break and bloody nine of them were about COVID-19, the "new normal," or how we're all in this together and how you should totally buy something anyway. I can't even tune in to Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network (because I am a giant child) without existential dread pouring forth from my television like a Lovecraftian nightmare. The tendrils of ancient, unholy beasts are always there. Death is just outside the door. What sort of horrible trauma are these children going to develop after having been subjected to this for months on end? My elderly parents have a decent sized yard with a gazebo and a pool, and they're afraid to go out in that yard for fear that the virus is lurking in the grass or in the trees, and that a little breeze will spread it like a demonic cough right into their faces. The constant news cycle didn't implant these fears by itself, these incessant coronammercials are just as bad, if not worse, than never turning off the cable news channel of your choice. Big companies and the like, I have some advice: Shut up. If you want to make an impact in "these unprecedented times," stop wasting your money on television ads and put it towards virologic research and development, or at least encourage people to cover their faces with a proper mask so that this thing can be properly contained and the dread will peter out a little bit. If you are that desperate for a return to normality, at least encourage or participate in behaviours that will work towards that goal instead of reminding us that you are still there with the same products you had before the viral outbreak, and at the same price. Until then, seal your mouths and realize that nobody wants your shitty car, phone, or Barbie's Quarantine Dream House when there are overwhelmed hospitals, mass graves in New York City, and scarce necessities. Also, nobody has a job anymore so we do not have the extra money to waste on crap when we need food. Update September 2020: I have decided that the term "COVadvertisement is equally valid. Following up on their decades’ long tradition of tracking Santa Claus every Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has updated their website to include an all new Horsemen of the Apocalypse Tracker so that you and your children can follow the harbingers of Armageddon as they make their way around the Earth bringing the punishments of God!
Look: the Horseman of Pestilence has just wrapped up his conquest of North America so you’d better run inside and hope you don’t catch the coronavirus! And just as we’re all busy dealing with that, it looks like War is heading over to the Middle-East again. Oh Iran, America just hates you so much! Whether you are busy building a fallout shelter in your basement, stocking up on toilet paper, or just hanging out until the Day of Judgment, let the NORAD Horsemen of the Apocalypse Tracker help you decide when is a good time to take cover and beg for mercy! |
RSS Feed