Wednesday, November 23, 2011

MaryC's Holiday Gift Report: The Pleasure Chest Edition

 
Oh, God. A plush toy which sounds like it's singing through one of those electronic voice boxes, and sporting a mouth that looks like a Today Contraceptive Sponge.  So if you ever wondered what the Chipmunks would sound like it they all had throat cancer, well...Merry Christmas!

(I'm not taking the fall for this one.  You can blame thank Bill S.)

25 comments:

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Bil, Bill, Bill.

First of all, they look like used Today Contraceptive Sponges, as the protective center ("catcher's mitt") has been PLUMB WORN THROUGH!!!!!!

Secondly, oh holy fuck on a sugar cookie, I am SOOOOO glad to be FREE OF MIDI TOYS!!!!!! And if ONE MORE well-meaning, kind-hearted friend sends me ONE MORE fucking e-card with a fucking MIDI THEME SONG, BLOOD WILL *FLOW*!!!!!!

Preferably Darth Cheney's blood, but I doubt if Santa is gonna bring me THAT wish-list item this year, either!

(Yeah, I'm an obnoxious atheist, but who's gonna snub free prezzies?!?!? Considering the shitty xmases of my "childhood" and the shit that I've literally busted my ass to do since, THE FAT BOY OWES ME.)

Just please promise me that you were neither afflicted with said Mattel offal nor that you ever inflicted any unwitting ankle-biters with these same creepy-as-fuck, hand-job-in-a-mini-van-looking "toys.," kay Bill & Mary?

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

P.S. Extra points for the Pleasure Chest reference.

Nope, never been to L.A. or the P.C., but DID get a LOVERLY souvenir from there as a prezzie for house and dog-sitting one year...

*sigh*

Bill S said...

No, I discovered them just a few weeks ago. Our store has a display set of in one area selling toys and gift wrap, and there was a display stand, WAAAY off in one corner for them. I picked one up to see what it did.
What the ads don't tell you is that they only produce a SINGLE NOTE AT A TIME. You have to press its tummy over and over to get a sequence of notes. And hearing that single, creepy note really does make you cringe. They do sound demonic.

Connecticut Man1 said...

The best of it is that there is certain to be cartoon infotainment ad to follow in irregular episodic nightmares on a craptastic cable channel near you. Perhaps they could cover this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSykiBcRV14

pajzilla said...

In unison they sound like a demented air-raid warning. Perhaps DHS ought to pick them up for their Emergency Broadcast System test-tone.

Oh, and Antti, I am Keith but leave comments with this "handle" because I sign in through Google. And, as to your request from a previous column, I did speak to Betty B. Dr. "Pam" cut off her Ativan supply and so she's making do with sub-standard generic Klonapin tabs (0.5 mg) this holiday season. She was very agitated. I can certainly understand why.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Aw man, Keith, give Betty my best murmurings of commiseration. Klonapin instead of lorazepam?!?!?!? WHAT. THA. FUCK. ?!?!??!!? That's just inhuman and insanely cruel. Klonapin doesn't even help the E.R. nurses deal with the D.U.I. suspects @ 4A, how the fuck is it going to help BETTY FUCKIN' BOWERS?!?!?

I mean, yeah, I could sure as fuck use an Ativan/lorazepam myself, not a fan of these manufactured/hypocritical "holidays" or their marketing bullshit about "family," esp. since I no longer HAVE ONE, except for my nearest & dearest friends here & elsewhere --- but I've got enough valiums to get through the weekend.

Sounds like "Doctor" (HA!) Pam needs a knee-capping with a four-way tire tool for such cruelty and malfeasance. Everybody keeps telling these bullshit lies that the DEA & FBI & FDA are "limiting" how many pain meds/muscle relaxers/anxiety meds that they are "ALLOWED" to buy and then resell, it's even been on a recent Law & Order, I think, SOME pro-cop show...

Guess what, kids? IT'S CALLED C.I.A.-GENERATED FUCKING *LIES*!!!!!! Just like GHWBush is still on the board of Eli Lilly even as the CIA-induced chemical "Alzheimer's" is kicking-in (yup, just like Ronnie Ray-Gun; Clinton already got HIS dosage when he had the heart surgery, the whipped little BITCH), EVERY TIME THAT YOU HEAR ABOUT A "DRUG SHORTAGE," IT'S AS FLAMINGLY FUCKING *FAKE* AS EVERY MOTHERFUCKING *OIL* SO-CALLED "SHORTAGE" IN THE HISTORY OF THE INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE!!!!!!

It's just like the 4X-6X fake inflation of food prices over the past four years, the gas prices that make the '70s look EASY --- FUCK THE POOR PEOPLE FIRST!!! If Betty, you or I or anyone else here were wealthy and had the "good" doctors and "pharmacists" who can ALWAYS keep THE GOOD SHIT IN STOCK --- we'd never even HEAR about these fucking "shortages," and of course, if we were rich republicunts, we'd shrug and whine, "What are these filthy hippies bitching about NOW?"

Okay, so WE wouldn't, but THEY do. As I said, give Betty my best, and if I had the lorazepams, I'd send 'em Betty's way in a heartbeat!

Now Bill, Bill, Billllll... please, baby baby PLEASE tell me that you are fucking KIDDING ME about these "toys" being "NEW" and still on the market!!!!!!! Did Mattel pull these out of the test-market-failures warehouse in a desperate lunge at last-minute impulse-shopping idiots who cannot possibly conceive of what horrific aural INSTRUMENTS OF SADISTIC CHENEYESQUE ***TORTURE*** THAT THEY ARE?!?!?!?!?

These rejects from The Land Of Misfit Clusterfucks cannot POSSIBLY be "new" in ANY sense --- they had better sound chips than this in the FIRST MUSICAL GREETING CARDS IN 1993!!!!!!

(And yes, we ripped them apart and re-programmed the record buttons on the little bastards to make our own vile & vicious pranks @ that first radio station... heh heh heh...)

And yes, Keith, I knew what your online nic was, dood, I do READ these comments, y'know. Pfft.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

BTW, what is the fucking profit margin about digging-up Natalie Wood 30 fucking yeas later? If RJ did it, he's too old to go to prison, if the creepy "captain" did it, well, he's a broke nobody anyway, and if Walken did it --- oh holy fuck, who wants to IMAGINE that?!?!?!

The shriveled-up old shrew who claims to have heard Natalie "screaming" whilst drowning --- who the fuck is she and what's HER profit margin???

Horrible timing for last night's "NCIS" episode, for damned sure...

And FUCK NO, I am in NO shape to deal with THAT PESTILENCE that is still sitting atop my TV, holding-back all of the GOOD flicks on my Netflix queue!!! You'll get your "Pretty Prostie" hissy-fit when I can fucking DEAL with that stupidity. Trying as hard as I can.

Bill S said...

I have no idea how "new" they are, I'm just saying I never saw them before this year. Perhaps I was lucky enough to have missed them until now.
Do you remember a story back in the '80's about a line of talking dolls called "Baby Darling", that got pulled from the shelves because someone got a hold of a few of them and tampered with the voice boxes so they uttered the phrase "Kill Mommy"? There are some sick people in the world.
Which, btw, is the only explanation I can come up with for wanting to re-open the case of Natalie Wood's death.

Chris Vosburg said...

BTW, what is the fucking profit margin about digging-up Natalie Wood 30 fucking yeas later?

Annti, these revelations are the same revelations he's been trying to sell in a book he's been trying to get published for thirty years. They are recent only in the sense that somebody asked him the other day about it.

Natalie Wood got drunk and fell off a boat. It happens all the time, and you'll just have to trust me on this one, it happens more often than you'd think in the harbors offered by Catalina Island. Why, I remember one time where a marijuana exchange between one boat and another went awry and--

Uh, Look you, I used to live on Catalina, and I know the stuff.

Chris Vosburg said...

Okay, here's a wicked insight.

Backstory first: Natalie Wood died of drowning in Isthmus Cove, Catalina Island. She was, at the time, working on the film "Brainstorm" with Christopher Walken, who was also on the boat with Robert Wagner and his wife Natalie that night.

If you think I'm going to suggest some sort of Walkenesque skullduggery, you're outta luck.

What I am going to say is that the 2002 film "Suicide Kings" in which Walken plays a made man who is kidnapped and held for ransom, has a final scene in which Walken catches up with the perps in the Isthmus Cove of Catalina Island, so help me.

I wonder what Walken must have thought (actually I don't, he's a pro). I really wonder what the Director must have thought.

Keith said...

I listened again to the "Sing-a-ma-Jigs" and am left somewhat disturbed.

Why do they sound the way they are programmed? This requires a bit of analysis. It also requires a Tektronics oscilloscope, plus H-P vintage digital spectrum analyzer.

It didn't take much to get the H-P going. We didn't even have to connect the cables, because once the little plush figures got going the screen lit up like fireflies on a balmy summer evening. They sound like MIDI, but they emit more than just you average sound waves.

Infant children cry in the +/-1,500 khz range and that is why we wake up to care for them. It is an annoyance but one that has evolved through survival. Human hearing is most sensitive in this range of frequency.

On the H-P, we observed a spectral signature well above and below the 1,500 khz register. In addition we observed "third-order harmonics" that are unusual with these devices, as they are not equipped with the amplification to saturate them in any significant case.

The Tek showed no unusual voltages until the belly buttons of the plush figures were pressed. We did not experience electrocution, but there was a slight tingling sensation. I still have a slight cramp in my hand.

Please do not consume these creatures for any reason. Your safety, and that of your loved ones, may be at risk.

Chris Vosburg said...

Keith, 1500 kHz is 1.5 million cycles per second, well outside the range of human hearing.

And incidentally, "MIDI" isn't a sound per se, it's merely a protocol for digital transmission of musical information (saying something sounds like "MIDI" is like saying that sheet music makes a sound).

You wanna try again?

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Bill, honey --- if you don't see the innate and down-to-the-DNA basic humor of programming baby dolls to say, "KILL MOMMY!" then I'm very very worried that we might be losing you to the "Eat, Pray, Love" and/or "Chicken Soup For The Lemming's Soul" Stepford Wives. That shit was BRILLIANT.

Vosburg, as someone who hasn't been able to indulge in teh herbal cigarettes, so to speak, since NINETEEN NINETY-EIGHT, I reeeeaalllyyyyy don't wanna hear you bragging about picking-up a few dozen bales, kay?

The bug-eyed old vulture who keeps saying that she "heard" screams for "help", etc. ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE FUCKING COVE --- I don't buy it. Who the fuck would HEAR that?!?!? One who is aspirating water into her lungs really doesn't have the projection power to ricochet a good holler all the way to the other side of the damned bay. And if she and RJ were having a knock-down, drag-out bitch fight over Walken, I seriously doubt that any of Natalie's dialogue was in the "help! save me!" line. Everything I've ever heard or read about her puts her in the Elizabeth Taylor category of bitch-fighters. Yeah, she'll stick with a guy who may not be the best in the world for her, but she'll still RAISE HELL ALL THE FUCKING WAY. She couldn't have clocked a 250-lb.+ man onto his ass in one swing like Big Mama Thornton, but she would not have gone quietly or meekly, if someone were TRYING to throw her off of the fucking boat, throttle her, or otherwise disappear her very valuable ass. And let's face it, she could probably kick Bob's ass.

Walken, though -- much as I adore that freak, I would NEVER put a murder past him. Hell, a multi-billion-dollar counterfeiting operation wouldn't be beyond Christopher Walken. But I don't see him as the sort to knock-off a woman, whether he lusted after her in his heart or not. At least not without a REALLY big incentive, in small, non-sequential bills.

(TRUNCATED)

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

(CONCLUDED)

Personally, I suspect that alcoholic-idiot "boat captain." He just strikes me as the creepy/nasty/ditch-weed kinda guy who'd HIT ON somebody like Natalie Wood, KNOWING that he'd be shot-down, with or without Bob in attendance, because he'd figure that his "nautical skills" would make him seem "sexy," or, failing that (as it obviously always did), he could motor the boat far enough away from land to attempt to assault her where she might not be able to escape.

Much-brighter people have done way dumber shit, after all.

Not that he would've gotten within a mile of landing Natalie in ANY circumstances, but he COULD have been in pursuit of such, frustrated, and become even more violent, leading to a knock on the head and a body in the water.

No idea what in the FUCK either might've been thinking for Walken to shoot a climactic scene for a flick in that cove, though it reminds me a LOT of the last "photo shoot" series of pix that Barry Cowsill took, the last time that he was in California before Katrina. Creepy. Especially since he couldn't fucking SWIM.

Keith, you almost had me suckered-in until Vosburg busted you on the frequency (which I read at exactly the same time that I accidentally busted a huge burn-bubble on my arm --- GROSS. Now it's gonna leave ANOTHER fucking SCAR! Despite multiple band-aids and copious amounts of neosporin, I am STILL screwed!), which I would've gotten to eventually, but Chris got here first. I was almost envious of whatever wicked basement-full-of-production-equipment that you or your friends might possess, but now I wonder if you've ever even had your hands on a microphone.

And we ALL know that stoopid shit about how women's ears are attuned to hear high-pitched squeals from infants, even in deep REM sleep, so that the species' progeny don't starve or get eaten by (most) dingoes. Thankfully, I've never been afflicted by that handicap.

C'mon, Keith, come up with something REAL on these Killer Clown-Cervical-Sponges From Outer Space, wouldja please?!?! And maybe start a class-action suit against Mattel for causing widespread pain, panic & eye-gouging migraines amongst those of us who've had to HEAR those things!!!

Keith said...

Well, err, had some extra wine for Thanksgiving. Should have been 1500 Hz. I'm terribly sorry. Thanks for your comment.

Scott said...

Aw, hell. And here I was all ready for a mud-wrestling catfight, except between audio engineers, and what do I get instead? The self-correcting blogosphere.

Okay, forget it -- all bet's are off.

Bill S said...

I'm only saying it isn't funny to pull shit like that on a 5 year old.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Depends on the 5-year-old, Bill. Some of 'em hit "evil" REEEEALLLLL EARLY, like satanic savants.

And Scott, honey, by the time that I got to Keith's bragging about audio equipment that I haven't seen collected by anybody since "The Lone Gunmen,, Vosburg had already burst the bubble, so the opportunity for pudding rasslin' was long gone. I was never an engineer, anyway, just a radio geek who could pull a few neat stunts in an air studio and some truly wicked shit in the first digital production room in all of Louisiana. Our poor (actually, REALLY well-compensated to be on-call!) beleaguered engineers only showed-up when our 1968 mixing board (in the ORIGINAL production room, mind you) or other similarly-Jurassic-era equipment threw a bitch-fit. They *were* enviously patient human beings, though they did grow to not like ME so much, as I was the only one IN the production room @ 2A, doing 65 fucking dubs until the 1970 IRS reel-to-reel pitched a bitch. They were kind and usually quiet-spoken, but they did NOT like those phone calls at that time of the morning. Hey, if the shit wasn't working for ME, what in the FUCK were they gonna do when it was time for the STERN FEED to come down from 'XRK @ 4A???

Shit a houseful of bricks and try to hide behind the 72-volume behemoth known as the Stern-syndication contract, should the C&D orders start screaming-in like kamikaze pilots. If ya don't do it right, and I mean, JUST fucking RIGHT, ya can't DO IT. Period. Yeah, he lovvves Sirius or XM or whatever the fuck satellite he's on now, and I'm sure that he is shickled-titless to never have to do ANOTHER fucking redeye-flight fucking APPEARANCE when his agents got him into another medium-to-large market, but he wouldn't be the billionaire that he is today if it weren't for us real radio geeks.

And Jackie fucking Martling still owes me a gawdlessdamned t-shirt AND a fucking coffee mug, the tightwad motherfucker! I not only STUMPED "The Joke Man," I made him fall off of his in-studio barstool. Granted, he started drinking ON THE PLANE *TO* New Orleans, approx. NINE A.M., and he was on-air before the "stand-up comedy gig" (REALLY depends on how you define "comedy" AND "gig"!!!) at around THREE P.M., loaded and giggling like his bitchy-hausfrau wife-manager SHOULD have been giggling, if she'd looked into a mirror to see what her fake tits REALLY looked like.

(TRUNCATED)

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

(CONTINUED)

Annnnyyyywaaaayyyyyy... Mebbe Keith really DOES have a basement fulla cool toys, who the fuck knows. Vosburg, I got no idea either. He coulda googled, he could just be another vast repository of mostly-useless trivia like myself. But most of all, Bill, sweetheart, my friend, my brutha-in-snark, that shit with the killer baby dolls was FUNNY AS ALL FUCK. Any 5-year-old who cried and claimed PTSD over that was just an attention-seeking Kelly Ripa type with a hungry lawyer. Now, if you're talking about your evil busted-Today-Contraceptive-Sponge MIDI-sounding blowjob dolls, NOBODY, short of Darth Cheney and that idiotic twunt Michelle O'Bachmann should *EVER* have to hear THAT "extraordinary rendition" shit!!!!!!

Maybe you'da have to have grown up in MY house to see why I find the killer babydolls so fucking funny, Bill. I wanted a science/chemistry/geology set, I got fucking babydolls. I wanted Tonka trucks, I got to learn how to make grilled cheese & hot tea for teh Fallen Uterus as her HANDMAIDEN, ON A GAS RANGE, at 5 years old. I wanted piano lessons (her COUSIN had one that she NEVER fucking used!!), I wanted braces for my knock knees and crooked teeth, and I got YARD-SALE TOY-KITCHEN APPLIANCES. See where I'm going with this? It's not unfamiliar territory, is it. She plays a good "aging rapidly and suddenly SO fucking "helpless" little old widow" bit, but she still makes Joan Crawford look like a RANK FUCKING AMATEUR.

Wanna trade Mommies?

Chris Vosburg said...

Scott writes: And here I was all ready for a mud-wrestling catfight, except between audio engineers

Theremins at Dawn!

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Doooood, I would SO dig a fucking Theremin!!!

It would also be a fine source of aural revenge on the drunkards next door... heh heh heh... the bedroom walls are uninsulated and connected, and I could keep it in the corner closest to that wall, on the other side of the bed, just to drive those assholes into GOING DRY!!!

Plus, it'd make a really neat toy to have. If you'd seen the antique radios that I used to have, ohhhhh, how it makes my heart ache to remember... *sigh*

But, um, as dueling instruments, don'tcha think that Theremins would take a while on the warm-up? What about megaphones? Better yet, dueling MAARTIs!!! You don't have a pacemaker, do ya?

Chris Vosburg said...

Annti, you're in luck, sort of, because although I can't give you a theremin of your very own to torture your neighbors and ruin the score of mid-fifties sci-fi movies with (I'm looking at you, Forbidden Planet), I can give you a link to one of many downloadable "theremin simulators" available on the web, which allow you to drive your computer's sound chip as a simple oscillator pair-- with HOT MOUSE ACTION!

Great graphic display, and especially impressive if output into a serious sound system, you'll find with a little experimentation that you have full control over frequency range among other things, so you can rattle the fucking foundations or make dogs' eyes bleed-- it's up to you.

You seem like a girl that can handle a soldering iron, so you might also be interested in the many links to theremin kits and schematics there as well.

Anyway, here ya go. Just Download, Run, Hit the Start button, and start running the mouse around the scale (with left button pressed). Take that, neighbors!

Chris Vosburg said...

Incidentally, I can't help but note that I've grown to hate Annti's neighbors nearly as much as she does [laughing], and I can't stop laughing, imagining a young Annti on a Department Store Santa's lap, being asked, "ho, ho ho! And how would you like a nice Easy Bake Oven for Christmas, little girl," and rattling Santa's cage with "No! I want a theremin, dammit, you useless fucking old troll!"

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Sorry to puncture yer balloon, honey, but I never got to sit on Santa's lap, but I *did* have an Easy-Bake oven... into which the action figures from "EMERGENCY!", which *I* had wanted with the fire truck and the EMT truck, but guess who DID get 'em... I still feel bad about what happened to Roy and that desk, but it was VERY cathartic... Just couldn't make myself put Johnny/Randolph Mantooth into the Easy-Bake, though, I already had a crush on him back then.

Dunno why I'm the only one of four ill-gotten spawn to never have met a pissy old drunk in a fun-fur suit and a fleece beard, but that's the way that the 1-day AA chip crumbles, I guess. I don't recall having abused any store personnel or any elves or such, so I don't think that the STORE banned me. One hopes. And I didn't know what a theremin was back then, sad to say, though I remember wondering, having seen the inside of that tiny local radio station (my grandfather's sermons were taped & played every Sunday morning there), I really could NOT figure out how in the HELL they got the ENTIRE AUDIENCE *and* all of those PERFORMERS into that tiny station when The Grand Ole Opry came on, every Saturday night!!! The physics just didn't line-up for me back around age 6...

Back to toys/theremins... I did, however, break into the Fallen Uterus & Her Dick's record collection around age 5, and had a BLAST listening to that one Bill Cosby album so many times that you can't even PLAY the 14-minute piece about Seattle anymore... Bobo the Gorilla, in the Seattle Zoo... Heh. The only other comedy album was Brother Dave Gardner, but she had a SWEET collection of Motown/rock & roll singles, if the LPs left a bit to be desired (Ricky Nelson, that little redheaded midget "Rockin' Around The Xmas Tree," and Joey Dee @ The Peppermint Lounge, re-making "The Twist"!)... I dunno WHY I felt the urge to get a crayon and give Elvis a black eye on the cover of "G.I. Blues," but it's still there. and hell, the record still plays! Though anything after the army got ahold of him, dyed his hair black and made him wear white-buck shoes & belt... kinda all downhill from there... bordering on Pat Boone territory! -- Such a waste!! Tsk, tsk, tsk... taking The Original Hell-Raising Rebel and turning him into "FAMILY-FRIENDLY," like he was a fucking OSMOND or some DISNEY-SPAWN like Frankie & Annette!!! --- that's just an unforgivable sin and a shame!!

"Ray Charles Plays Contemporary Country & Western Hits," though, is ALWAYS an interesting listen!

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

BTW, did anybody look at their Walgreen's Sunday circular this weekend? Oh, how I wish that I could scan & post pictures into these comments!! These hideous fucking things were a SPECIAL SALE ITEM!!!!!! I shit y'all not...

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