...
My parents went to Magaluf and all they got me was this lousy t-shirt.




Come to think of it, they've never been to Magaluf; so they didn't even get me one of those. Cheapskates.
( Enzyme is in ur [noun]z, [verb]in' ur [noun]z, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 10:37, Reply)

A momentary lapse of taste
My wife usually displays impeccable taste (she married me, didn't she?), which is why I find it so hard to understand how we came to have a pair of solar powered, light-up-at-night plastic flowers (with wavy fibre-optic things sticking out!) in our garden. And when I say "light-up-at-night" I don't mean in a useful "providing a decent amount of illumination to stop you walking into a flower-bed" kind of way -- no, these things have tiny little bulbs in them, that slowly change colour without actually lighting up their surroundings at all. By day, they sit there looking like the cheap, ugly garden ornaments that they are.

In fact, while they are most certainly tat, I don't know for sure that they were cheap. I don't even know where they came from, they just appeared one day. I think possibly my mum gave them to us, but that's just a guess based on my mum's own...um...proclivities. But my wife made it clear that she likes them, so they're staying.

There's light (haha) on the horizon though -- one of our friend's kids has taken against the things, and each time she visits she manages to inflict some further minor damage to them. I've already (grudgingly) had to fix them several times with duct tape, but their days are numbered...
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 10:29, Reply)

Some shit called Dignity
I once bought a Deacon Blue tape from Woollies in the sale bin (this being a brave new world of compact disc technology) for 50p. 3 years later I gave it to my brother's girlfriend for Christmas. To be fair she did have a car with a tape player in it. One side played backwards apparently - she even tried to take it back to the shop to exchange it although I had 'mysteriously' lost the receipt. Unsurprisingly they weren't having any of it.
I also bought my entire family zoids one year which they considered cheap tat - although it was actually quite expensive tat. Next year they all got whimsical fairies in a jar. It's nice to know that there is a bottom drawer in my relatives houses full of shite bought by me.
( Rondolpho Manbutter wants you to feel better than you do, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 10:23, 1 reply)

eBay - Online Tat at the Click of a Button
Trawl through the wholesale and job lots section of eBay, true wonderment as to who wouldnt need this stuff;
cgi.ebay.co.uk/500-books_W0QQitemZ220189758085QQihZ012QQcategoryZ26185QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
cgi.ebay.co.uk/60-mr-fluffy-desk-mirrors_W0QQitemZ160196930369QQihZ006QQcategoryZ90955QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
50 B-Movie horrors? a snip at £15!
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 10:14, Reply)

This Christmas
my present, from my parents of all people, was a wind up charger for a mobile phone.

Apparently winding this thing for 3 mins will produce enough power for an 8 min phone call.

It fits old models of phone from 4 manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Siemens, Samsung)....

I have a Sony Ericsson.


I can comfort myself in the knowledge that should for any reason there be a total loss of all mains, or even solar, power availability I can charge up someone elses phone.... so long as it's old enough to match the dated adaptors I have.
(golddust I'm going to Hull... I accept that now, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 9:57, Reply)

Holiday tat
Whilst on holiday in Blackpool my brother's ex (we'll call her Fiona for that was her name) decided she was going to get every one in my family a present - and it would be the tackiest thing she could find. My 'lovely' present consisted of a crappy plywood/chipboard box with a postcard of a Blackpool tram superglued onto it. There was a sign on the front with 'Telephone Savings Box' printed on it. I think it ended up being thrown on the bonfire.

Not to be outdone, my mother decided she was going to get her own back whilst on holiday in Austria. Whilst on a trip into Innsbruck, she came upon what must be the Austrian version of Superdrug which sold, like Superdrug, almost everything except food. It was whilst in this place that she came across an excellent present. Something no one (Austrian or an accordion loving hippy) could ever want. A CD of (in)famous folk songs for the bargain price of €3 (about £2). I think it ended up being used as a coaster.
(Prawn, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 9:50, 2 replies)

Another torch tale ...
I got given a solar powered torch. Worked a treat for about 6 weeks until the battery wouldn't take a charge anymore, so it became exactly what it said on the tin:
A solar powered torch. When the sun shone, the torch would light up. Sun goes behind cloud, torch goes out.
(Dionysian Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 9:44, Reply)

Question
Whats yellow and black and full of shit?



A Netto carrier bag.
(Alf N. Safety - refusing you planning permission on, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 9:07, Reply)

Another Birthday
Just remembered another birthday one.

Twas a friend's 17th Birthday, and as such, we wanted to do something special, and make him feel special too. In the worst sense of the word.

At the time, I lived above a cheap tat store, creatively named Cutprice. So myself and 3 friends went in there to pick presents, because we're cheap. Instead of presents, we decided to be bastards, in the way only good friends can. We put our pennies together, and bought our goodies, plotting our devious scheme.

The evil plan was unleashed the next day, at college, sneaking our goodies out of our bags, we got the one of the group to pin the poor guy to a chair, while two of us attacked him with MASSIVE pink pants. Once we'd wrestled these onto him, we made sure to duct tape him to the chair so he couldn't escape the undergarment nightmare. To top it off one of us brought forth a plastic tiara and fairy wand, made sure the wand was taped in hand, and tiara on head. That's how he spent the rest of that lesson, and our lecturer couldn't keep a straight face. Neither could he, which was great, he was always up for a laugh, so we abused that.

So there it is, making a tit out of someone in the middle of a classroom on their birthday, for the cost of 3 whole english pounds!

We did bake him a cake too, to make up for it, but we're not that nice, so it was iced with 'Happy Birthday you smelly cunt'. That's friendship folks.
( Does this taste like rohypnol to you?, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 8:06, Reply)

David Hasselhoff Christmas Songs.
Bought it for my wifey 3 years ago for christmas.
It gets passed on to someone else every year. By coincidence I have managed to see the smiles on everyones faces when it has passed on.
I love it:)


The sleeve I made for the inside
( Sir Pigeon Nipples http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40811627213, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 5:29, 3 replies)

Dollar Store Music
I was in a local Dollar Store over here a couple of months ago and was able to pick up a copy of some wanker from Slough singing "If You Dont Know Me By Now" absolute wankage.

I requested a refund. He's shit really. Rubbish.
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 3:36, 1 reply)

Chaconcy
You reminded me of my BEST EVER cheap tat purchase.

The local shitforshitall shop, in about 2002 had 50c tapes of Pop Will EAt Itself!!!!!

I bought 5, just coz no-one else in Wollongong, NSW knew who the Poppies were and I felt lonely for the tapes.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 2:49, 1 reply)

Me, and my unforetunate torch...
I got a brilliant, if rather unusual christmas present a couple of years back.. A rechargable torch.

It is geniunely handy in one way. It is rechargable, and you charge it by shaking it. So, good in a power cut.

Trouble is, you charge it by holding it at a 90 degree angle to your body, and shake it length ways. If anyone (as happened to me when I tried it) is looking at you but not really taking much notice, you tend to look like you are wanking.

The other problem is that to get more than 30 seconds of charge, you have to do this for almost 5 minutes.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Thu 10 Jan 2008, 0:22, 6 replies)