For those of you new to the Drivel Starved Nation (DSN), and this totally awesome and worthless blog, this is the time of year when we award our highly coveted Sh!t Bunny Award. Last year’s winner was Fred West; his prize is pictured below.
How do you win this fresh stuffed wonder? By submitting pics of a project that you wish you never would have built in the first place. It takes guts, but this prize is so freakin’ valuable, you should have no problem finding something that makes the world wonder about your nascent design skills.
(Here is the part where I must get serious. Our woodworking culture, fueled primarily by magazines, videos, TV shows, and the internet, is almost exclusively focused on the “how” of woodworking and almost nothing on the “what”. It is likely never going to change (for lots of reasons), but “design” is such a squishy subject that nobody dares talk about it. That said, we can broach the subject from the backside by recognizing work that we all know is BAD!. This is an inroad to the thought processes that are required to make good work. You know, like KNOWING what your piece is going to look like before you begin… Besides, looking back at our mistakes and laughing is healthy.)
While sifting through the 16,211.5 Sh!t Bunny Award applications (rubber gloves are required) it occurred to us to contact Fred West to see if he followed-up on his promise to get rid of his Entertainment Center (all Sh!t Bunny Award projects become proper nouns). The following discussion may be of interest to you…
“Fred, Economaki here, did you get rid of your Entertainment Center as promised?” Long awkward pause of silence…
“Fred?”
“Well, I hauled it out to the curb last August knowing that any number of my neighbors would take it in the night. But…”
“But what?”
“Within an hour, the Pennsylvania HazMat Team showed up, in full gear mind you, and spent ten minutes looking at it–then their leader threw a rock with a note attached through my living room window!”
“YOU’RE KIDDING? What did the note say?”
“You need to get this piece of $%#@ off the curb by sundown or we are going to burn your house down with you in it!”
“What did you do?”
“I hauled it back inside and that is that.”
“WHY?”
“I bought so many woodworking tools last year I had to cancel my fire insurance.”
(Rest of conversation truncated for brevity…)
Like you, we are so thoroughly disgusted with Fred that we were going to award him a Sh!t Bunny Award again–but the Bunny By-Laws stipulate one can only win this award once.
So…what to do…CREATE A NEW AWARD!
Fred, on behalf of the DSN, we are pleased to announce that by continuing to live with your Entertainment Center you have won the 2011 Bridge City E.Coli Award!
This wonderful E. Coli Award is approx. 24″ tall and will be arriving on your doorstep within the next couple of weeks. Congratulations Fred.
Oh, and you won something else too–give Natasha a call, you are $100 better off than you were yesterday.
–John
PS: Want your own E. Coli, or other super stuffed micro organism, say something fun like Syphilis? Visit the fine folks at GiantMicrobes, this site is a hoot!
John,
Not so fast; seems to me we are only encouraging Fred’s bad behavior. I think that the rules should be such that in order to collect the $100 prize, the award winner must prove the destruction of the offending piece! Even then, he really should use the money to reimburse the DSN for all the Pepto they bought after looking at the pictures of the “Entertainment Center!”
Congratulations? Fred.
-Rutager
Congratulations, Fred! Two years in a row! That’s truly impressive. Maybe next year you can go for the Cholera award, or something.
Love the award, John. I actually gave the guy who makes those some of my pictures for making a plush Noctiluca dinoflagellate. He said he’d be happy to do whatever microbe I wanted. I have a couple in my office – gifts from admiring students. Or something.
I’ll look back through my collection to see if I have made something Sh!t Bunny worthy. It’ll depend a lot on the competition, I’m guessing. If anything like Fred’s Entertainment Center is entered, there’s no way I’ll win!
– Peter
Here’s how I look at it; people have been paying upwards of $250 a ticket to hear Charlie Sheen talk about hookers–you be the judge of the value proposition of that deal, but in comparison, and what may be the biggest twist of logic I have ever witnessed, Fred’s Entertainment Center, has indeed been immensely… entertaining. Winning the $100 bucks was a no-brainer for me. All of the DSN should just send Fred some cash.
Spending $48 dollars on a stuffed E. Coli doll and lambasting Charlie Sheen in the same post? Now that makes me a big ol’ hypocrite if not downright looney.
–John
Congratulations, Fred! That E. Coli award is just the touch of refinement that your entertainment center calls for.
I believe that Fred’s Entertainment Center may be repurposed. It’s to become his “Extraordinarily Expensive Plane Display Case”. Presumably the presence of one-of-a-kind hand-made planes will elevate the Entertainment Center from crap to sublime.
Or, with luck, it’ll break under the weight.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be called the “Entertainment Center” so much as the “Entertaining Center.”
But speaking of this year’s entries, there were a few pieces in recent issues of a popular magazine on woodworking that I feel are worthy of the award. But maybe we don’t want to go biting the hand that feeds us…
– Peter
P.S. Laurie! Great to see you here!
I think Fred should end his streak by parking the new Hammers in the living room until all the wood in the entertainment center is re-purposed. That way, the rest of us will have a chance next year…
Gentlemen, Ladies, Peter & Rutager,
I bow to you in thanks for my wonderful award. 😮 😮
In case you are wondering why John is not mentioned it is because he is in the “Gentlemen” unlike some of the named individuals… But I digress, I am truly honored to be this year’s recipient and the E.Coli award will find an honored place next to my beautiful Sh!t Bunny award.
John, thank you for my $100 award as well which will find a nice home buying more of your tools. 😮
As Peter has mentioned, I am seriously thinking the only way to truly show off the beauty of my entertainment center is to place all of my Bridge City Planes, Tools and knobs and perhaps some other high end planes throughout the center. People have mistakenly said that my center is ugly but that is due to the radiance. So, by placing the Bridge City Tools, planes and knobs as well as other high end planes, people will finally be able to see the beauty–those tools placed on the center will mute the radiance and viola, cello, violin or whatever that french word is. 😮 😮
Fred
John,
Clarification please: After reading your post, it appears that Fred won a supplemental award, and NOT another Sh!t Bunny, but I think word on the street is that he won this years “bunny” too, and that might have people believing that they shouldn’t enter something. So could you please clear up any misconceptions, the straight poop if you will, and tell us where to send our embarassing photos? (not the ones from the beach, the poor furniture design ones!)
Thanks, Rutager
Bunny Bylaws prohibit multiple awards. Fred broke new ground and thus forced us to invent the E. Coli award. He earned it.
All Sh!t Bunny apps need to be sent to me–john@brigdgecitytools.com
–John