Of Memes and Dinosaurs

I appreciate a good pun, especially when it's a play on internet slang. Also I appreciate jokes about large animals eating everything indiscriminately.

Over at Big Mouth Inc they create tons of hilarious novelty gifts. They have an entire section just for gnomes too. This hungry tyrant is one of them. There are tons of outlets online that sell it, including Amazon. It runs for around $20.00.

The Quiet One

In 1970, shortly after the Beatles broke up, George Harrison released his first solo record All Things Must Pass. It has become a classic. However, the most important part was the cover, obviously.

Yes, those are garden gnomes! How did this blog last this long without including George Harrison in Friar Park? The photographs were taken by Barry Feinstein. The gnomes were said to represent the members of Harrison's former band, who had just infamously broke up. There was a rumor that the cover image pissed off John Lennon, but he was probably just  jealously angry over Harrison's remarkable music made without him. 

I think we all know musical talent had nothing to do with it. This record did so well because of the gnomes on the cover.

Gnome Napping Game Changer

Someone in Devonshire has just raised the bar on gnome related hijinx. This woman woke up to find 107 gnome figurines in her garden. They appeared overnight, no clues as to who left them or why, and no businesses in the area sold any gnomes in high volume, and there has not been a rash of reports of stolen gnomes. This almost looks like an Ottmar Hoerl art display.

The Surprise Gnome-Man's Land Baffles Homeowner in Devonshire headline from the Guardian proves that sometimes real life headlines can be funnier than the Onion.  In fact this whole article reads like a satire news story. Aside from the clever pun in the headline, a Devonshire policeman is quoted as saying, "someone is playing a Game of Gnomes". Obviously British cops have a far better sense of humor than the American police force.

I have so many questions. Like, where did these pranksters get all these gnomes? How expensive was this prank? Why did the police feel the need to confiscate all 107 gnomes? Do they enjoy cataloging all that evidence? And seriously, how much fun must it have been to write this article?

When Gnomes Attack?

I found this today... it's actually three years old.

The video is produced by the Australian film company Screen Invaders and was supposed to be a teaser trailer for an as yet unmade film.

Pretty sure this film wont be made, as it is three years later, and multiple google searches have revealed no progress.

Their website is here in case anyone is interested.  It seems to be an internet dead end.  Too bad, though, this little video shows so much potential for a classic B-movie monster flick.

Tactical Gnomes

MTV hasn't been a good network since probably the 1980s. Once they jumped on original programming that wasn't music related, and then essentially jump-started the modern reality television craze with The Real World, the television network went irredeemably downhill. 

In 2003, MTV produced a prank show that combined staged pranks with horror/suspense themes. Even with celebrity hosts Shannon Doherty, Stephen Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan, the show was canceled after 5 seasons. It had it's best moment during the last season, in episode 11, Gnome Sweet Gnome. 

The Gnome Sweet Gnome prank is set up to scare the new babysitter. Not only are little people with axes scary, but so are kids with crazy imaginations. This prank combines both. Although this part of the episode is brief, and the payoff is pretty lame, the themes are pretty creepy. It would not be far fetched to see it stretched into a full length feature, much like Brian Pulido's comic. 

Busty, The Jesus Gnome

There is this crazy inborn ability humans have to recognize patterns, and faces, and patterns of faces. There are tons of examples, like the Man in the Mountain or the face on Mars. Sometimes this recognition ability gets coupled with religious fervor, and you get stories like people who find Jesus in their food.

Anyway, the other day, this woman in Tennessee found Jesus again, hiding out in a ceramic garden gnome. Quick, call the Vatican! but, it's not just Jesus inside a garden gnome... it's the head of Jesus, on a woman's body inside a garden gnome. This little transgendered wrinkle will probably nix it from being considered a miracle by the Holy See.

This story appeared on ABC News, in local papers, and on the Huffington Post, among others, I'm sure.

It is a pretty cool coincidence. I find pareidolia to be a cool human instinct and survival mechanism. But, in order to find this thing, the poor garden gnome had to lose his face! What a tragedy. Some pictures are below...

Gnomes are Fables

I enjoy action roleplaying games, especially the open world adventure questing kind. Some embrace the "choose your own adventure" theme, where actions and decisions made in-game have consequences within the game and outcomes may vary. The Fable franchise by Lionhead Studios was one of the pioneers in morality game play.

There have been other action roleplay based games since that have done what Fable did and were better at it, like The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher, but I enjoyed Fable, especially Fable III. One of the best parts in Fable III was a quest chain involving Brian from Brightwall who has a vast collection of gnomes.

Brian with Jonathan, Lionel, et al

The quest starts as a simple delivery. Your character has to find a lost package and return it to Brian. It's a gargoyle statue. But the gargoyle makes all the gnomes come alive and they run away.

The second part of the quest is a scavenger hunt. Throughout the Fable universe are 50 gnomes hidden. They can be found by listening to their mean spirited insults. Collect them all!