Thursday, October 16, 2014

For Whom the Clock Cuckoos

I deserve credit for all manner of selfless contributions to society and popular culture, not least of which is my role as a sort of self-appointed "Kickstarter scout."  For the most part, this is a thankless job which involves sifting through a host of inventions ranging from ill-conceived to bewildering to downright useless.  Nevertheless, I do it anyway, for I am convinced that it is the Coleridgean slimy sea that is Kickstarter from which humanity's next great technological advancement will slither.

This is not that advancement.

However, I am compelled to bring it to your attention anyway.  Behold, the Monowalker!



Which, if nothing else, has an absolutely fantastic spokesman:


"My name is [?].  I'm living in the Black Forest mountains.  You know, that's a place where the cuckoos clock in the sounds of Germany."

Cuckoo indeed.

He continues:


"I'm a tour guide, and I'm hiking and climbing and biking since [?] years in these mountains and the Swiss Alps and around the world."

And, his eyes and deranged smile tell us, every single one of his tour groups disappears into the forest, never to be seen or heard from again:


Yes, [?] has a happy life, leading people into his beloved Black Forest mountains and then murdering them.  But there's just one problem:


"Since years I am carrying my gear and my backpack, always too heavy, never enough space for all my stuff."

By "stuff" he means "bodies," as well as the wooden rake he uses as a murder weapon:


By the way, the hands on the face of that cuckoo clock?

Human teeth.

But now, [?]'s problems are finally over:


"I've found someone who solve all my problems and carry all those 'things' for me."

Naturally I just assumed he meant a mute "assistant" named Hans who wears lederhosen and a ball gag, but he's actually referring to an idea:


That idea?  The "Corpse Caddy!"


Or, as they've wisely rebranded it so as not to arouse the suspicions of Interpol, the "Monowalker:"


The Monowalker is basically an off-road handtruck, and I'm not sure if this grim procession is heading into the woods to play a game of all-terrain golf, or to dig a mass grave:


Either way, check out how it clears that log:


It also attaches to the oxen--sorry, "hikers"--by means of this special belt:


Presumably the belt also locks to prevent escape, because as any serial killer or mobster will tell you, the most efficient way to dispose of the bodies is to make your victims carry all the tools themselves and then dig their own graves:


(That's not a hike, that's a fucking death march.)

Also, it has a disc brake you control with a bar-end shifter:


Which, if nothing else, gives me a fantastic idea for a practical joke to play on triathletes:


("I go to shift and then next thing I know, 'Fwap!'  Right on my face.")

Though generally they don't need much help in the crashing department.

I know what you're wondering.  Serial killers love fine dining, so you want to know if the Monowalker turns into a table.  Why, of course it does, Dr. Lecter!


Note the disembodied cucumber:


It also transforms into a bike trailer, which I gotta say is pretty nifty:


Not to mention perfect for staying one step ahead of the authorities:


Now all they'll find is a bunch of victims with telltale pitchfork wounds to the throat and a cuckoo clock fashioned out of a human skull, while you travel to the next city and establish a new identity.

Of course, if you prefer your Kickstarter inventions to be less morbid and more ambiguously phallic, then you'll doubtless be intrigued by the "S-Bar:"



All I can tell you is that it goes between your legs:



Oh, and the inventor wants eighty-five thousand of your Australian dollars:


That's even creepier than the "Corpse Caddy."

Lastly, in the tradition of concluding posts with tall bike videos (which I established yesterday and will almost certainly end after today), meet "one of Asheville's most recognizable celebrities:"




Facts about Asheville:

--Its most recognizable celebrity is a bicycling nun;
--It has a "comedy bus tour;"
--Both of these things are apparently newsworthy.

Watch your back, Portland!

113 comments:

McFly said...

Damn Son. KOM!

Anonymous said...

#2?

Anonymous said...

Wow, you're up early. Still on Italian time?

A morning person said...

Good Morning, Everybody!

geoff_tewierik said...

Top five, sweet

Anonymous said...

fodder

Anonymous said...

Tall bike boogie. Bazinga.

Anonymous said...

ate.

bad boy of the north said...

wow...in the top!whew!

Marcel Da Chump said...

Mono scranus

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

Reverse Wheelbarrow

Lectrichead said...

I just spent like 30 minutes working on my impression of the corpse-cart guy so I can scare kids when they come to the door for Trick or Treat.

bad boy of the north said...

I'm sure they'll glad when you use the moonwalker at the checkout line.

bad boy of the north said...

oops!forgot the "be".

Jan! said...

The creepiest thing about the wheelbarrow guy is how he rolls up with his corpse trailer to the building called "Himmelreich". That's just, oh, y'know, German for "heavenly kingdom".

Should we notify zee autoritties?

The Saint said...

Asheville is the the best place to find a religious iconic bikerider. Bar nun.

Anonymous said...

Early stuff! Epic commute on the D Train!

vsk

Anonymous said...

Kickstarter is the new Fixed Gear Gallery and Craigslist Fixies for Sale.


vsk

Anonymous said...

Ms. Babble,

I don't know if there is a real deal correction going on now. I am sure if I buy some put options betting on a market decline, it will surely rise to new heights.
Kind of like if I were to buy a trainer in the dead of winter, it would become 60 US degreezes and sunny... or if I bought a funeral home, nobody would die.

Good news you way is this cheaper oil right now takes away tar sands extraction incentive for a while.

vsk

The Saint said...

Asheville is the best place to find a religious, iconic, bikerider in a tavern, that is.

Bryan said...

fact abotu Ashville: Filled with hippies, hipsters and enough good beer to make up for those first two things.

That monowheel is kinda cool. I think you only have it partially correct. I think he eats his victims, and that is why he needs a table.

JLRB said...

I do NOT want to see the proof - but sister bad habit looks like a dude.

grog said...

Where's Recumbabe?

Anonymous said...

Congratz to podium winners. Haven't we seen a padded version of the S bar before? The Lean-In, or something like that? The dude had clamped a padded tube on a ratcheting hinge and he pulled it up to position like a giant wang. Off to search on Mr Google.

PBateman said...

Asheville - indeed the south's Portland/Austin/Brooklyn, though in their defense, Asheville has been that way at least as long if not longer than the competition. Plus, its actually quite freaking lovely up in them thar hills. If you haven't been,i will begrudgingly suggest you do so. Only begrudgingly because i don't care for all the hippies, but i guess they do give me something to complain about while i wait entirely too long for a table at any given restaurant (which there are many, many good eatin' spots).

in fact, screw making comments, i'm gonna make like a tree and get out of here to go to asheville this weekend to look at leaves and wait 2 hours for brunch while listening to hipsters talk about beer and quinoa.

Anonymous said...

Snob, you've obviously never spent much time in Germany. [?] is "total normal" for over there.

The cycling is way better than here in New York Shitty, and when you do something wrong people scream "Are you illiterate?!" (for not reading signs) instead of trying to run you down whilst screaming "Find a fucking bike lane and get in it!"

-sqnyc

JB said...

I had been wondering what Crispin Glover was up to!

JB said...

The disturbing thing about "Himmelreich" is that the sign is so off-center.

Euro Spondee said...

Jan! - I was wondering about the Himmelreich too. I wondered if ithad been added, but while I am not sure about Snob's German skills, I am fairly certain that his photoshop skills are not up to that.

mikeweb said...

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Barry Obola said...

If you like your bad habit you can keep it

Anonymous said...

Ashville is the Portland of the east coast.

JB said...

Ashville > Portland, for keeping their damn traps shut.

Also, I think I figured out why Himmelreich is off-center. It's a train station and they've skewed it toward the tracks so the passengers can read it easier?

streepo said...

I'm glad to see Crispin Glover is getting work in kickstarter vids.

McFly said...

I thought Chattanooga was Portland East....maybe it's just a hilly Solvang.

Serial Retrogrouch said...

...sister bad habit needs an s-bar between his (errr, i mean her) legs... and maybe a monowalker trailer

dop said...

Himmelreich = kingdom of heaven

boy with big balls said...

Am I illiterate? Hell no! My parents were married

JLRB said...

Monowalker looks like a cross between a Burley trailer platform and a Bob Trailer. I have one of each - want to go on a one-way woodsey ride with me? bwahahahaha,... hmm.

The King of Park Slope said...

Crispin Glover lives in Germany?

Joe K. said...

I'll buy the S-Bar when it becomes soft-tissue compliant.

The King of Park Slope said...

I see 2 other commenters beat me to it.

This is why I hate people.

Anonymous said...

I found it remarkable that every bike on the road at night in Hamburg had front and read lights. Or so it seemed.

babble on said...

Master Bateman - just wait till they start talking about the quinoa beer they're brewing...

I am pretty certain that today's saint was Hanging out in a public square a couple of days ago. He is always good for a giggle, that one.

Re: a correction- better than a bear, but we're all stuffed as long as the only good market is a growing market.

Billy said...

I liked the German guy! He seemed so happy.

Flyover BC said...

So, Heinrich (aka Heinie) re-invented the wheelbarrow. Whoop de doo.

And, I bet they didn't have to pay that guy to dress in drag and ride his bike. More likely, he got it out of his closet, and offered his services.

Anonymous said...

@JB 1155

Yeah, kinda. I never heard so much yapping at the start line, used to dread the UNC asheville clubs. That, and they were the only kids who had actual hills to ride during the week. Killed us flatlanders from further east.

CommieCanuck said...

"My name is Crispin Glover. I'm living in the Black Forest mountains. You know, that's a place where the cuckoos clock in the sounds of Germany."

George said...

I don't use the Twitter but felt you should know about this. Seems like the Latvians are on to something...

http://www.adventure-journal.com/2014/10/the-daily-bike-latvians-make-statement-about-cars-and-bikes/

(Credit Adventure Journal)

leroy said...

My dog asked me to thank you for scouting Kickstarter for the next rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

He also wishes to point out that your complaint regarding the thanklessness of your preoccupation is now another thing that falls apart.

I don't follow half the stuff he says.

But I think it was your Coleridge reference that got him reciting Yeats.

babble on said...

Ha! I was right. You see? The saint just sent this along for you:

That nun wears the same outfit every single day... you could even say she makes a habit of it.

dop said...

On a sweltering July day last summer, that nun went skinny dipping in the local swim hole. She kicked the habit and joined the uncooked generation. *

*anyone under 50, don't even attempt to parse the above

Slow Joe Crow said...

A BOB trailer for humans isn't particularly original, but then a surprisingly large number of bike related Kickstarter projects are either reinventing the wheel or reviving a dumb idea.

Dooth said...

Ooh, mikeweb with the Orson Welles/ Harry Lyme quote...well played.

Comment deleted said...

Q: What's the difference between murder and a nice walk in the woods?

A: I don't know.

Q: Good. Want to go hiking?

David Pearce said...

Dear Snob & Readers,

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

Strangely enough, at least 15 years ago if not 20, and after reading Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods", and his complaints about neck cramping and all that weight on his back, I came up with roughly the same idea, although I hadn't thought to make it attachable to a bicycle. Pretty slick.

My idea has some other ideas which I won't reveal here, but I never made my prototype anyway, and now with all the "prior art" involved and if he's patented it, well there goes my marketing of the "Pearce-Pack".

We have a vacation home in Virginia. It backs up to the Appalachian Trail, and our closest village is Harpers Ferry. We're right at the tri-state border.

Whenever I discussed my ideas with the hikers who came down off the trail to the Harpers Ferry Post Office to send home their dirty clothes and pick up packages of fresh supplies, a lot of them said, "You can't have any kind of thing on the Appalachian Trail with a wheel on it, it's against the rules"!

That was a downer to my idea! What possible harm could my one or two non-driven wheels do to the A.T., or any trail for that matter?

Anybody know anything about these rules? Anyone want to go into business with me and try to make to make this thing?

Anonymous said...

Let me know when the electric monowalker comes out

Anonymous said...

Boy i hate to see the law suit against the s bar when someone gets hurt. I could see some drop suspension "rice burner" rear end a bike and that thing goes right through the tri-dorks chin and out an eye socket

no tengo opinión said...

...head...
...spinning...

mikeweb said...

Thanks dooth.

BTW, I think Schwarzwald is German for grave yard.

Anonymous said...

The Monowalker must have a quick and painful death. Just imagine if the Islamic State gets its dirty hands on those and starts hauling to Baghdad all the weapons we've been sending to the Middle East. We'd be fucked!

dnk said...

I was thinking more Werner Herzog than Crispin Glover.

But (unlike w/most Kickstarters) I actually liked this idea and thought that I (a lazy hiker who nevertheless likes to bring too much stuff when camping) might actually use the MonoWalker of the future....

Ben said...

We're definitely talking Crispin Glover ala Willard here too. Not some meek George McFly shit.

mikeweb said...

I was thinking more from Jim Jarmusch's 'Dead Man' myself....

Anonymous said...

Ashville is cool I suppose, unless you are any race other than redneck.

rural 14 said...

rural 1st!
back from a long trip.
what a month of snobbish posts to catch up on.
caught up.
snob and commentariat...you are all so funny!
the high point of the web & kultural komentary in general.
for sure the rest of it is TMZ and cat videos.
I am indeed not a robot.

Anonymous said...

That's why it's called the Silly Season.

JLRB said...

So there are redneck hippies in Assville? Are they called rednippies?

Anonymous said...

I think he looks like Jason Bateman or that guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Not that I ever watched it......

K-Bo said...

Boobs

leroy said...

Got nothing to say, but my dog insists I post because my prove-you're-not-a-robot code is "stud ripsce."

He says that's his porn name.

I'm not buying it though. I mean, whoever heard of leroy's stud ripsce?

And anyway, his gear is fixed.

nonplussed bystander said...

Love how the person relaying the event always sounds so level headed and starts the story at a convenient point after whatever set off the altercation.

JLRB said...

ANON @ 4:20 - Easy - it's always the beikcyclists fault. Duh.

Eric Jenkins said...

I think the Utilikilt should have an attachment for the belt harness for the Monowalker, if it doesn't already.

The sad part of this proposal is that I already have a Burley Nomad & Travoy, which I use in handcart mode as much as bike trailer. If I could further convert them to a Bob trailer... i can appreciate the thought behind this project.

Another german said...

Best ever mtb trailer was the Pacdog. Sadly, you can´t find them anymore.

Pathetic Old Cyclist said...

Could have used the Monowalker in the dark ages... http://youtu.be/R91L7LhH-wg

Bring out your dead....

Flyover BC said...

Leroy,

once again, brilliance.

You need your own T.V. show.
"Shyte Leroy's Dog Says".

Flyover BC said...

Oh yeah

Stoopidtallbike

Vertically ambitious, horizontally destined.

Anonymous said...

Having trouble choosing my favourite Sbar quote:

"Sbar provides enhanced performance by using a type of perpetual motion"

"A soft rubber pad for the riders shirt is attached to prevent any comfortableness"

Chainring said...

Looks like the "special belt" is repurposing some obsolete pre-kickstarter climbing gadgets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JjfJWdbM4

Anonymous said...

I was looking for bike nobs and I ended up here. Nice site... whats with all the horrible comments?

3G said...

SBAR WHUT?

3G said...

SBAR WHUT?

3G said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Quick Cat 6 action north on Chrystie Street this morning! Shoaling contest, narrow lanes, forced nonplussed game faces and all!
You go cycleacross guy, you GO!

Gorgeous out this morning.

vsk

babble on said...

It's gorgeous here, too, if you're a duck.

Daffy said...

I am a duck with a truck who likes to .. tuck on my sbar

CommentatorBOT9000 said...

"Stoopidtallbike: Vertically ambitious, horizontally destined."

If he continues to press his luck, yes he is destined to be horizontal. If he moves on to his next ambition who knows what his destiny might be?

Daffy said...

...but I leaned to far forward and got stuck..wtf

ninety 0ne said...

91

Who are you? said...

92

In a tree with said...

93

get out of my back door said...

94

keep it alive said...

95

69 said...

96

German Heaven said...

97

Masterbate said...

98

Maxwell Smart said...

99

Flyover BC said...

Century

Flyover BC said...

Century

mrs wermer said...

ok carmine, you can pull your toe out of my ass

Anonymous said...

I'll admit it, I got stuck on the Coleridgeian slimy sea...
Kickstarter is an albatross around Snob's neck, or
around meaningful technological advancement?
An opium driven reverie for useless crap that the inventors should be given electro therapy?
Inventions, inventions, everywhere, and not a single thing worthwhile?
Or you sail upon the slimy Kickstarter sea, and return an older and a wiser man?

dop said...

ok, we can go with animal house, or we can go with poetry. (Fair and foul are near of kin, and fair needs foul I cried..)

elektrofietsen said...

I have read your article & it was really helpful.

Quiz me said...

I dare you

Anonymous said...

where the white wimmen at.

Abstained said...

"during the period he abstained from sex". One would have thought Cipo would have gone blind. But he abstained from intercourse, not from being swallowed and making bank deposits. Supposedly he spent much of that time training in Vancouver.

Not Leroys Dog Barked said...

McFly flies to the top of the dung heap of life.

bad boy of the north said...

geez...I meant monowalker

FART-STICK said...

FROM THE MAKERS OF JAMBPOP:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1756240044/jambpop-childrens-entertainment-australian-tour/widget/video.html

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