Go Team Go!

Before I begin ranting about today's items, I want to give a big shout-out to Jenny over at Yard Sale Bloodbath. Jenny shares my passion for other people's used nonsense and she's always been a big supporter of NeighborGoodies. In fact, she was our first major plug a while back (check it out here.) Well, last week, Jenny did it again, this time alerting the media to the Most Alarming NeighborGoodie Ever. A reporter from Seattle's own The Stranger picked up the story for the Slog, causing a million billion people from the Seattle area to pop over to our little corner of the internet.

So... hello to our new Pacific Northwest friends, and thanks Jenny! And thanks also to Blog Will Eat Itself, a new "occasional blog blogging obscure blogs," which featured NeighborGoodies last week as well:

Of course, they also chose to prominently feature that terrifying Baby Gl*ry H*le in all its... well, "gl*ry." But we love the love, so thanks!

These exciting developments prove that with Teamwork, we can Achieve the Extraordinary! Or, at least, that's what this lovely out-of-date calendar would have you believe:

This 2009 planner was, for some reason, given to someone in the building by their dentist. Because nothing says Teamwork quite like a fluoride treatment. Remember: It Takes Two to Rinse™.

This is one of those things that winds up on the Table for no good reason. Who the hell wants a planner that's a year old? The person who had this has a trash can in their apartment: Use it. Do they think someone, somewhere in the building is just camping out in the laundry room thinking, "Why spend money on a planner? One will turn up. The year doesn't matter; the months all have the same number of days in them! It's not a leap year, so fuck it!"

It's about as likely as someone thinking, "I need a dentist. If only one's name and number would appear on some trash in the Laundry Room, I could finally get this root canal and stop living my life in blinding pain! OH LOOK! IT'S MY LUCKY DAY!! Optimum Dentistry, Here I Come!"

No. None of this is happening. Throw. It. Away. IN THE TRASH. Before I knock the rest of your teeth out, idiot.

Go Team!

...

Oh... sorry. Didn't mean to lash out there. Anyway, the Teamwork planner was on the Table inside of this bag...


...along with what the 99-cent store refers to as "Art."

"Framed Art," to be exact.

Some of the Framed Art is generic enough...


...and some of it is, well...this:


... and the rest of it? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because the rest of it is truly Life Enhancing.

I don't know about you, but I very often find myself looking toward the Marvel Universe in order to find ways to achieve greatness within my own life.

For example, I had a fear of commitment until I saw this:


It reads "Commitment: To fight when others fold, pursue while others retreat, conquer while others quit, and make right when all else is wrong." Thanks, Fantastic Four, for making me not fear commitment any longer. Especially you, Chris Evans. Especially you.

Ahem. Anyway, if the Fantastic Four aren't quite your style, Spidey has the same message for you:


So if webbing doesn't frighten you, this Framed Art would be perfect for your home or office.

The good folks at Marvel noted that were armed with a vast library of characters and an unending stream of cheesy sayings, s0 the Possibilities of more Motivational Posters were endless:


See?

But as Spidey was told in his first movie... With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, so you don't want to saturate the market, or else these things might wind up in dollar stores across the nation...

...before being thrown out in a passive-aggressive way.

All of these things have inspired me to create my own motivational art... for you:


Well... I'm sure as hell motivated. Aren't you?

Gurl, Put Your Records On...The Table.

Today, a gigantic pile of records--over fifty of them--are hanging out on the Big, Blue Table.


I, for one, love a good vinyl; It's kind of like listening to your MP3s in black and white. Of course, I don't have a record player anymore, mainly because it's 2010 and mine broke sometime before NBC became the never-ending tire-fire of network television.

But enough about that, let's talk about these gay records.

No, I'm not quoting an eighth grader; I mean these records are actually gay...


...Like, super-gay.

If they could, these records would go to a rave, dance with their shirts off and then go and pose for the No H8 Campaign:

Note: Please click on the above record for maximum hilarity.

It's as if whoever owned these records went to the Gay Store, asked for the Gay Store's "Stereotypical Stereophonic" section and fully cleaned the Gay Store out of their Gay Stock of lavish Broadway musical soundtracks...

...and any other gay icons he could get his hands on. He no doubt began with the Village People...

...LOTS of Village People, in fact...

...before moving on to even gayer icons such as Judy Garland...

...Barbra Streisand...
...and Burl Ives:
Oh, you may think Burl Ives isn't a gay icon, but you'd be wrong. First of all, you know those hats on that album cover are fabulous. And secondly, here's photographic proof of Gay Icon Rock Hudson...

Image found over at Queer Music Heritage

...with a Burl Ives record on his floor.

Now, I'm not saying the records left on the Big, Blue Table were Rock Hudson's...


...but I'm not saying they weren't, either.

So why would someone get rid of what may or may not be Sexy Star Rock Hudson's Big Gay Record Collection?

One word: HomoShame.

I have it. And clearly a Neighbor of mine does as well. Finally, something in common with these rubes.

For Blowing NOSES Only

Yesterday, NeighborGoodies celebrated its second year in existence. And, as if to commemorate this milestone, the following item was left on the Big, Blue Table:

This seemingly innocent-looking cardboard box features a wacky font announcing its contents:

"Ahh," I thought, "Create your own tissue box! A craft project! How exciting!"

I've got friends who knit things that will cover your tissues and toilet paper rolls, but I've never seen an actual "kit" to create my own. Curious, I reached inside to see what might be included in such a kit.

We will forever refer to that moment as "Mistake #1 of 2010."

. . .

Let me be clear about this: In the two years that I've been doing this little project--not to mention the nearly-eight years I've been Living in Luxury in these Hollywood Hills--a NeighborGoodie has never made me actually scream out loud before. Until this.

Don't get me wrong, there have most certainly been some frightening things left on this table, but none--no matter how dirty--have made me have such a visceral reaction as the item I pulled from this box.

Are you ready to see your "Create Your Own Tissue Box" kit?

Because this is what I found:


Every time I look at this photo, my mind just wants to shut down. It is terror in its absolute purest form.

I pulled this accursed object out of the box, screamed as I threw it down on to the Big Blue Table and quickly snapped a photo of it before running away. I briefly considered alerting the authorities, but then I realized I hadn't wiped my fingerprints from it.

I thought, "Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe it's not as offensive as I think it is." A few hours later, I received a call from the NeighborGoodies Ally--the one guy in the building who knows about this project. He was calling to tell me to get downstairs immediately to snap some photos of this, and I'm quoting now, "baby gl*ry h*le."

Perhaps I wasn't overreacting after all. That incredibly apt description, along with the baby's alarmingly wet chin, is just about pushing the limits as to what I can and cannot handle in this Luxurious Life.

The price tag on the item describes it as such:

"Tissue Cover Oval Mouth." Gross.

To be fair, the other items depicted on the box aren't as offensive--but they're just as creepy.

For example: Tissue Cover Clown Nose and Nerd Glasses...


...Tissue Cover Terrifying Clown Mouth...


...and, America's Favorite, Tissue Cover Possessed Pig Nose:


Not surprisingly, I had a lot of trouble finding information on this should-be-outlawed item, other than a website that sells it along with other "hilarious" items to "tickle your funny bone." Items ranging from classic fake vomit all the way up to the pun-derful "Gin & Titonic" (an ice cube tray that forms frozen water into shapes of icebergs and ships.) But none of the items had the soul-crushing terror level of these hideous products.

I did find a similar product in Japan, but somehow, it wasn't nearly as alarming:

This is the first time in history a mustache has made something less rapey.

I need to go take a shower and poke my eyes out now. Good day.

The Breast Things in Life Are Free

Welcome to 2010! Twenty-ten. 2kX.

Ahem.

Anyway, 2010 is only five days old, but it is shaping up to be the biggest year yet for NeighborGoodies! The table is bluer than ever and new neighbors are coming in and out of the building, leaving all sorts of interesting things for us to discuss. But the biggest news of all?

The Official NeighborGoodies Book Deal!™

All we need now is a publisher! And also, obviously, a book deal.

But clearly, this will be happening any moment. How could it not? NeighborGoodies has charm, wit and intrigue--all things that these so-called "actually published" books do not:

Take The Art of Sugarcraft - Pastillage & Sugar Moulding. Yeah, that's a real page turner. Can't wait to see how this one ends.

Advancements in Reading Technology will also prevent the temporarily-non-existent-NeighborGoodies book from eventually looking like this edition of The New Basics Cookbook:


You see, a coffee table book like NeighborGoodies will need to be engineered using state-of-the-art bookbinding methods in order to withstand the high level of vigorous page-turning we expect. In fact, we anticipate that the nearly-forthcoming NeighborGoodies books (volumes 1 through 8--possibly more depending on sales--but let's not get ahead of ourselves) will be named as Most-Thumbed-Through-Of-2011. This is, as I'm sure you know, the literary equivalent of an Album of the Year Grammy or a Best Screenplay Oscar.

And why would the NeighborGoodies book be given an honor as coveted as the Pubbly? Because it wouldn't slow you down with dumb things like "Plot" or "Story," like "novels" do. I'm sure you've heard of "novels"--they're the books made up almost entirely of words... not a photograph among them! Books such as...


...Ralph's Party which, for the record, is about a bunch of people living in an apartment building, many of them up to shenanigans of one sort or another.

Sound familiar? Well, don't get too excited. As I perused the reviews online, it became clear that none of the best qualities of NeighborGoodies were represented in Lisa Jewell's work. For example, there don't seem to be any murders. And life in an apartment building without murder is a lot like enjoying your job: Sure, it happens sometimes. But what are the odds? No wonder these books have been discarded onto the Big Blue Table with such haste!

Another plot-driven book available on the NeighborGoodies Table:

Ann Hood's Ruby. Ruby is about a manipulative bratty girl who is all broody and annoying. Everyone thinks she's pregnant, but based on my own opinion of this book I have not read, I think Ruby is probably just fat. Or wait... maybe I'm thinking of the Other Ruby. Whatever the case, NeighborGoodies' own tales of Teen Angst are probably much more accurate than this book's stories of unwanted teen pregnancies, widows, and, for some reason, hats.

Of course, some writers rely solely on smut to get their books published:

I, for one, would NEVER do that.


This... booby book (for lack of a better term) is simply offensive:


And that's one thing that NeighborGoodies NEVER is.

So get those book deals in today! America--NO! The World!--will thank you.

Merry Xmas from NeighborGoodies!

Like it says below... hoping all of your dreams come true this holiday season.


And no, these cards won't be on the NeighborGoodies Table. Cuz they're that good.

(Thanks to NeighborGoodies' logo designer Sean from itsnotart.com for designing these cards as well!)

An Early Christmas NeighborGoodies Prayer

Dear Baby Jesus,

Please....PLEASE... let this just be a nose hair trimmer:

...because if it's not, I don't even want to think about where it's been. Come to think of it, even if it's just a nose-hair trimmer, I don't even want to think about where it's been.

Amen.

PS: Why did you make the NeighborGoodies Table the nexus to hell?

Sleep Your Way to Wackiness

When you're a kid, there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting to pick out your own set of bedsheets. I have vague memories of soldiers and horses decorating my sheets when I was a tiny, tiny child--apparently at four, my parents were hoping I'd evolve into some sort of Civil War buff. Imagine their disappointment when I was finally old enough to pick my own bedding... and I opted for sheets featuring Lifesavers Candies. Sure, my cooler friends were busy sleeping on Star Wars or Spiderman sheets... but I was proud of my stark white sheets featuring giant versions of the orange, red, yellow and green candies.

The very idea that a parent would allow their child to sleep on cavity-inducing sweets seems pretty unbelievable by today's standards; but it was the 80's so all was fair.

What's unfair is the idea that someone, somewhere might have actually purchased these bed sheets for their children:


Wacky Races was a cartoon that premiered in 1968 and ran for two years. Of course, the 30 or so episodes were rerun pretty much up until Saturday Morning Cartoons vanished from the television landscape altogether. (Which, by the way, is the reason television networks are in trouble, as far as I'm concerned.)

As I watched the reruns as a small child, I realized one thing about Wacky Races: It was a terrible, terrible show, even by my standards--and I would watch pretty much anything on television. See for yourself:



The story was simple: Hanna Barbera characters that no one really cared about would race each other in their hilarious vehicles, as illustrated here on the pillowcases:


The characters would, of course, need to overcome obstacles (usually provided by the show's resident villains, Dastardly and his emphysema-ridden dog, Muttley) amid state-of-the-art sound effects such as...

and...


...both of which are, obviously, replicated quite faithfully here on these sheets. The show was pretty much a poor man's animated and painfully narrated version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Only with no real end-goal other than to get to an ever-shifting finish line.

The fact that these sheets were pretty much sealed in their packaging up until I tore them apart for the photo session should tell you something: No one wants bedsheets celebrating a forty year old shitty television program. Why not make bedsheets out of another terrible show from 1969, such as prime-time flop "Turn-On." Kids want Tim Conway on their bed at least as much as they crave Professor Pat Pending or Penelope Pitstop. Or Lifesavers.

Oh well... at least my five-flavored sleep-insanity was self-inflicted. Whoever bought their kids "Wacky Races" sheets was clearly engaging in some sort of dastardly abuse... also probably indicated by various bangs and whooshes.


****

Oh Hey.... you're still here. Well, while you're up, why not vote for us to be nominated as Best Humor Blog in the 2009 Weblog Awards? All you have to do is Go Here, then click on the little green plus-sign next to the NeighborGoodies url! It's easy! And If I Win, You'll Win!™