Category Archives: Miscellaneous America

Do you want to know about America’s craziest patents? How about our worst reality TV shows? Are you curious about competitive beard growing? Do you wonder what that weird boil looking thing on your back is? We can tell you about all of those things (except the last one) and much much more in our Miscellaneous America section.

Five Strange Auction Items

“Worth it.  Totally worth it.”

~No, guy…it isn’t

marilyn monroe dress

Most Americans buy their goods in the typical fashion—on sale from a Wal-Mart while fending off ghosts summoned from the Indian Burial Ground the store was built on top of.  One-stop shopping.  Of course some people have copious amounts of money and the strange obsessive ticks that you only see in inbred European nobility and coke-addled money men who struck it big in the 80’s, and they prefer to buy their items from auctions.  Not useful items, like food, clothes, or cheap DVDs that trick you into thinking they’re blockbuster films, of course.  No, these intrepid individuals like to throw money at things like Bonnie and Clyde’s guns, or a Brazilian girl’s virginity (oh how we wish we were making that one up).

When you think about the fact that millionaires literally competed with each other to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these following items, you can rest comfortably in your futon knowing that you can never be happy without money.  Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

Five Strange Auction Items

elvis hair

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This Isn’t Poison: Food and Drinks With Skull Designs

“This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow.”

~Michael Bolton

michael bolton

Ever since first reading Treasure Island as a child or, more likely, seeing Hook, Americans spend their childhood surrounded by pirates.  While today piracy seems like an ignoble, cowardly profession, we still are drawn to the classic pirates of yore; the Blackbeards and Black Barts we heard wildly exaggerated stories about.  Hand-in-hand with this romanticized image of people who actually were often very brutal murderers is the Jolly Roger, or the skull-and-crossbones flag that they would fly to identify themselves as pirates.

Since that point, the skull-and-crossbones have become an iconic part of our history, and putting a skull on a product has become a widespread way to tell Americans that something is either badass, poisoned, or was purchased at a Hot Topic.

Today, we’re going to go into the products that Americans consume that have incorporated the skull into their packaging.  Because nothing tells you to put something inside your body better than a bleached human skull and the words “DEATH,” right?

This Isn’t Poison: Food and Drinks With Skull Designs

skull french fries

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The World’s 10 Most Expensive Yachts

“I have more money than you, and a much smaller penis.”

~The owners of the world’s most expensive yachts

streets of morocco yacht

It takes a certain kind of person to own a boat.  Unless you’re a mountain man with a hand-fashioned canoe, boat ownership tends to require a specific combination of “disposable income”, “access to a large water mass”, and “possessing a desire to spend your time bobbing on said water mass.”  That said, among those who meet these criteria, there are still a myriad of reasons that we buy boats.  Some like to go fishing, or just appreciate the calmness of the sea.  Still others like adventure, and use their boats to compete in thousand-league-long races, or travel the globe.  Every one of these individuals feels a deep seated passion for the sea (or their nearest lake) and a sense of oneness with these bodies of water that harkens the very spirit of those who sailed across the endless ocean to find America in the first place.  It’s an admirable hobby (or obsession, depending on the level of commitment).

And then, of course, there are the douchebags that buy floating mansions to flaunt their wealth.  These people like to spend a few million dollars to buy a boat that they can anchor within view of the nearest beach while surrounded with bikini-clad women who are 30 years younger than them.  It’s not exactly the best subset of American culture, but…well, yeah, on the scale of “positive examples of American culture” it’s right between “people who cook meth in 20-ounce plastic soda bottles” and “people who go to fancy restaurants and order a bottle of ‘ka-ber-net sah-vig-none’ unironically.”

trailer trash

Pictured above:  could be either group, actually

Thankfully, America tends to stay out of the “trying to prove that you’re totally not impotent by making the largest, most expensive yacht in the nation” race (with one exception) but some people (cough, Saudi princes and Russian billionaires) can’t seem to be satisfied with a measly ten million dollar yacht requiring a permanent crew.  So we decided to pool together a semi-definitive list of the most expensive boats to ever grace our oceans (God, we hope they’re at least going on the ocean.  A giant multi-million dollar taking up an entire lake seems like the ultimate “fuck you” to poor people).  It’s free to look, because you’ll never be able to afford a single one of them.

The World’s Most Expensive Yachts

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Heroes in Action Toys Presents: Presidential Monsters

“I want all of these.  No, I want MORE than all of these.”

~You

presidential monsters

Ingenuity often comes from the most obvious places.  People have liked meth, wolves, and oversized T-shirts for years, but it wasn’t until someone sat down and said, “Hey, let’s put three wolves on a KFC-stained T-shirt” that we collectively said, “Oh, of course” and bought a million shirts from The Mountain.  We didn’t know that chocolate could be put into peanut butter, and vice versa, without a combination of divine intervention and mercy killings.  So when we were told that Heroes in Action Toys made action figures of American presidents, we weren’t particularly impressed…until they clarified that the presidents were also monsters.

And we immediately wanted to buy all of them.

Yes, it seems so simple in retrospect, but it took a true genius to come up with monster versions of each American president, and it would be a disservice if we didn’t take you through each and every item on the catalog to show you how incredibly American this idea is.  You’re welcome.

Heroes in Action Toys Presents:  Presidential Monsters

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The Largest Bottles Of Alcohol In The World

“But, I can still drink it all at once, right?”

~Giant booze bottle owners

giant carlsburg

In America, there are two phrases we’re quite fond of.  “Bigger is better” and, “I’m so wasted right now.”  So it’s only natural that we should combine those two forces with alcohol containers that are so large they require a team of engineers to figure out an effective way to actually drink out of it.

While we’ve all had our lonely nights huddled in the dark corners of our studio apartments suckling on a handle of Jim Beam, only the truly great among us have thought, “What if I could sell three liters of booze at a time?  How about a full gallon?  What about a million boozes!?

Those people are mere rank amateurs compared to the following alcohol distributors.  Sit back and enjoy as we show you…

The Largest Bottles Of Alcohol In The World

giant bottle

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The History of American Indoor Football (AIF)

“Yeah, I play professional football.  No, not for the NFL.  No, not for the Arena Football League.  Yeah, no, you’re not going to guess it.”

~AIFL Starting Quarterback

aif

America loves football as much as they love concussions.  And they must love concussions, because they really love football.  Long the nation’s most popular sport, it is responsible for the majority of the nation’s millionaires who weigh in over 300 pounds.  However, when we think of football, we think of two types of players: The really good ones who get paid ridiculous amounts of money in exchange for taking years off their life like some sort of warped bizarro-Dorian-Gray (NFL) or the occasionally-great-but-normally-okay ones who put their body at risk for free but get in trouble if they accept a free tattoo (NCAA).  Now, some of you might say, “Hey, there’s also the Arena Football League!  You know, with guys not quite good enough to play in the NFL?” and to you we’d say, wow, someone’s been watching ESPN2 at 3 in the afternoon on a slow sports day.  But you are right, the Arena Football League does have a small hold in America, and since they’re based in major cities, they manage to stay relevant enough that upon hearing the words “I’m the quarterback of the Chicago Rush” you’d typically respond, “Oh, right, I think I’ve heard of them.”

But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the insufferably poor quality of NFL Thursday night games, it’s that America views football a lot like they view sex.  When it’s good, it’s really good.  And when it’s bad?  It’s still pretty good.  So even though not everyone who played as a backup quarterback for Oregon is going to make the big show, they can at least find a way to get paid sometimes literally thousands of dollars to play a season of professional football in some strange, haphazardly put together professional football league.

A league like the AIF.  American Indoor Football.

This is their story.

aifa ball

THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN INDOOR FOOTBALL (Previously Atlantic Indoor Football League/American Indoor Football League/American Indoor Football Association)

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America’s Most (Awesomely) Dangerous Toys

“Well, if I wanted to buy you goggles, I’d not be able to buy you these extra heavy BBs for the gun!  Now let’s go play William Tell again.  You get the apple.”

~The world’s best Step-dad! 

 gun kids

The Christmas season is upon us, a time when friends and families get together and prove their love and devotion to each other by going on amazon.com to buy them things that were specifically asked for.  Christmas is an especially magical time for American children, one where they are regaled with stories of fat omnipotent geriatrics who watch their every move before breaking into their houses and doling out the appropriate bribe to ensure their ongoing good behavior, where they get to watch Claymation specials that teach them that it’s alright for dentists to be homosexuals, and they get to learn what daddy is like when he gets holiday drunk.

Of course, the main thing that children love about Christmas is the presents, because holy shit it’s a Furby!  Yes, this is a wonderful time to be a child, or a large multinational toy retailer, but it also is a season fraught with hidden dangers.  But, for every Tomagotchi, there’s a toy that’s basically the playtime equivalent of a rusty nail with an extra helping of tetanus.  And we love those toys.  Seriously, if you get through childhood without a few permanent scars (mental or physical are acceptable) then you’re doing it wrong.  That’s why we’re here to tell you about…

America’s Most (Awesomely) Dangerous Toys

motorbike kid

“Helmets are for pussies!”

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The Mountain’s 2013 T-Shirt Series

“There are new shirts from The Mountain?  Oh my God, I’m so excited right now.  So so excited.”

~AFFotD  Editor-In-Chief Johnny Roosevelt after a Mountain Dew and Purple Drank binge

There are a few landmark cultural events that are forever burned into our memories.  They were momentous occasions that defined a nation and shaped every single one of us in the best ways possible.  The appeal of prohibition.  Neil Armstrong’s moon walk.  The first bottle of American Honey hitting store shelves.  All of these pale in comparison to The Mountain designing and pressing the Three Wolves T-Shirt.  Finally, a shirt that could only be enhanced by the addition of potato chip grease stains, a shirt that ranged in size from “no you’re going to want something larger than large” all the way to “XXX-Large.”  It combined all the raw American predatory energy of wolves with howling and the moon to create a piece of tailored fabric that apparently causes American super powers.

But Americans are never content to do one thing great, and the creative minds at The Mountain were no different.  When they introduced their Big Face Animal series, we were right there sifting through the Funyuns and weed smoke to show you biking pigs and space gorillas.  And then, earlier this year, we got up from our La-Z-Boys, put some ointment on our bed sores, and shared with you our thoughts of the second batch of shirts designed by these cowboy hat wearing geniuses.

Recently, as we were going through their site looking for Christmas presents for our friends, families, and the one guy on our mailing list that won’t stop messaging us with cryptic demands that we write about the Solar System more, we could hardly contain our excitement when we saw that the 2013 Big Face Animal collection was out and available for purchase.  Because apparently if you’re going to be releasing T-shirts of giant kitten faces, you have to release them a year in advance.  You know, like a Kia.

But look at us, babbling on when we could be showing you pictures of giant bee faces.  Behold, the 2013 Mountain T-Shirt collection! Continue reading

America’s Most Terrifying Patents (Submitted By Psychopaths)

“What is this I don’t even… is that a dead body?”

~American Patent Office Worker

We here at AFFotD have often paused to step back and applaud the lunacy of those inventive Americans who come up with products no one needs and submits them for patents.  And while many of these products never will see the light of day, at their best they show America’s intrepid creativity, and at their worst remind us that Jigsaw probably took the time to submit most of his torture devices for official patents.

Today we’re going to focus on that latter group.

While patents tend to range from “useful” to “absurd” there is a subset that falls into the “terrifying” category.  Primarily because these devices were clearly invented by serial killers who had to really stretch to find a non-murder use for their products.  But their illustrations speak for themselves, unlike their poor victims who are currently fruitlessly shouting at the soundproofed walls of these inventor’s kill rooms.

Hold onto your hats, America, shit’s about to get dark.

America’s Most Terrifying Patents (Submitted By Psychopaths)

 

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Answers To American Questions Posed By Google Auto-complete

“Wow, do yourself a favor and don’t try to Google anything that starts with ‘tranv.’  Don’t ask how I know this, just do it.”

~AFFotD Staffers

Contrary to popular belief, if you Google the word “Google” your computer will not catch fire and release all the captured souls that are used to boost processing speeds (we’re pretty sure that’s how computers work).  However, if you Google Google, you won’t find their Wikipedia entry in the first page of results.  True story.  Google as a search engine was founded in 1998, and since then it has spawned into a multi-billion dollar enterprise that is responsible for your email, search needs, and that one social media platform you forgot you once signed up for.

Of course, one of the ways that Google helps keep the pulse of this fine nation is that they tend to track what terms are most often searched, so that if you start typing a question or a search topic, it will give you some helpful suggestions as to what you think you might be looking for.

But you don’t need Google to answer your questions.  We got you, America, we got you.  With that, we introduce to your our latest segment…

Answers To American Questions Posed By Google Auto-complete

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