Best Deal Stop

Netflix made quite the splash with their innovative strategy of "Upsetting Every Last Customer We Have" recently, and CEO/Co-Founder Reed Hastings took a lot of heat for his heartfelt, earnest email explaining that he would make everything better by splitting the company in two, enraging and baffling everyone even further. But while everyone is busy flipping out over a company having the gall to try and charge enough so that they can stay afloat, our CEO and resident pontificator Matt Rutledge took some of Hastings' email to heart after bashing it on Google+.

A self described "Elite" Netflix member (we looked and couldn't really find any evidence that such a thing exists) and no stranger to penning a letter from the desk of the CEO, Matt's always been an innovator, ready to enact a bold new strategy as soon as someone else does it first. That's why many Wooters woke up to find this email in their inbox this morning...

From: Matt Rutledge, Founder and CEO of Woot (NakedKegStandsAllDay_420@woot.com)
Date: Tue, Sept. 20, 2011 at 8:00 AM
Subject: An Explanation and Some Deep Thoughts, Man.
To: [redacted due to Matt accidentally entering every Woot user's email address]

Dear Wooters,

Dude, I f&*$ed up. I owe you guys an explanation.

I keep getting emails from you cretins about how we lack respect and humility, as if I give two craps. Let me be real clear: I'm running a business here. Our interactions are limited to the following: we put up stuff for sale, you buy it, and if you REALLY feel like it, we'll let you tell us how awesome we are.

Sorry, sorry. That came out wrong. Forget all that. Let me just explain to you brilliant, kind-hearted, fun, incredibly sexy people what we're doing here.

For the past seven years, my greatest fear at Woot has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in offloading overstock crap to success in offloading even MORE overstock crap. Most companies that are great at something - like Pets.com or govWorks - lose that greatness when people start wanting new things (in this case, new and greater quantities of crap). So we're going to copy what Netflix is doing, but first I should personally give you a full explanation of just what the hell it is Netflix is doing.

Okay, I honestly have no idea what Netflix is doing.

But here's the thing. You don't get to be a huge deal like Netflix unless you make the right decisions, right? Sometimes people on the outside don't get it, but everything they do HAS to be a great idea, otherwise mighty Netflix wouldn't do it, right? I mean, sure, you could just come out and explain to customers that it costs a TON of money to license and host streaming content for hundreds of thousands of people and therefore, you have to raise prices. But that's what the lame old Capitalism 1.0 dinosaur companies would do. Where they zig, Netflix zags. So instead they split the company in two.

And that's what I'm doing.

I've realized that Woot's daily deals and our Bag o' Crap are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures. The Woot sites offer the best deals on the Web on a broad range of electronics, housewares, male enhancements, and lethal magnetic toys. The Bag o' Crap offers a random hodgepodge of stuff you can't predict, like a lame Christmas present that you pay for with money instead of love. The benefits of knowing what the product is are really quite different from the benefits of a package that may have anything from a television to a broken High School Musical clock showing up at your door by mail.

Since these two things are different, they need to be marketed completely differently, because the guy from Netflix said so and he seems to know what he's doing except for the whole "Qwikster" thing. That's in the Top 1 Worst Names For A Business of all time. Seriously. You could call yourself "Stab Murders Inc." or "Amalgamated Vomitworks" and I'd have more interest in what you're selling than anything Qwikster has to offer.

Anyway, it's hard to write this after selling junk for so long with pride, but I think it's the wave of the future: in a few weeks, we'll start offering our trademark BOC through a spinoff company called "Crapster." I carefully crafted that name over the last ten minutes, to prove my point that the name "Qwikster" is so bad that only a name that refers to actual feces could possibly be worse. I think I succeeded.

Crapster will offer the same slow delivery, indifferent customer service, and worthless landfill-bound products everyone is used to. It's just a new name, a more convoluted process, and more annoying to everyone trying to use it. Instead of just visiting Woot and ordering a Bag o' Crap when one's for sale, you'll instead visit Crapster's website (URL TBD - turns out we named this thing without checking if some punk teenager owned the domain and Twitter handle) and order on there. You'll have to enter all of your shipping and payment info on both sites. Just like Netflix's DVD and Instant services, there will be no overlap between Woot and stuff on Crapster. We're not going to integrate them, because screw you. That's why.

If any of that makes sense to you, congratulations. You're on your way to winning the Reed Hastings way.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and also maybe come over and hold you for just a couple hours. On the couch, with the lights on, no funny stuff. Unless we hit it off, but then totally at your own pace and only as far as you're comfortable with. Don't be intimidated by the muscles. I know how to be gentle.

Both the Crapster and Woot teams will work hard to regain your trust, which we can all admit was pretty low to begin with, although certainly never as low as your trust in Netflix at this point. We know it won't be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words are much, much cheaper.

I love you,

Matt Rutledge, Founder and CEO, Woot

PS. I don't have a video to go along with it, but check this one out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxhqVrbixZc Hilarious!

Recently we made a big splash in the news- Well, not US, per se, but our namesake. See, the Oxford English Dictionary, the "premier" dictionary of the English language, decided to include the term "woot" in their hallowed pages of definitions, alongside such esteemed company as "noob," "retweet," and "mankini." Now we know we're not the top dogs or anything, but we've been at this internet stuff long enough to know when you toot your own horn and when you affect a properly-unenthused tone lest everyone tear you apart for enjoying something. Plus, it's not like they got the definition right: "a statement of elation?" Psh. Everyone knows it should read "coolest website on earth." So we were content to let the news die down.

Except that people kept pointing it out. First came the tweets, then the emails. Then came the phone calls from our dear aunts, uncles, and grandparents who still don't really know what we do or how we make money at it, but know that they just saw the company name in a news article and that's a pretty big deal. Which isn't to hate on our loved ones for thinking of us; we appreciate their enthusiasm! We just got enough feedback on the whole thing that we figured we should address it.

And we found a dirty little secret about the Oxford English Dictionary...

It turns out that anyone who creates or owns a word that officially enters the dictionary gets to add 10 more words of their choosing. The folks at Oxford University Press would probably say it's something about "keeping abreast of our rapidly evolving language" or whatever, but we get text messages so we know the drill: English is dead and we're on a downward spiral to communicating via a series of emoticons and single letters, and the OED just wants to stay relevant and keep making money. But we're all for contributing to the decline of Western civilization, so look for these new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary soon, courtesy of your pals at Woot:

• Biblionaut (n) a person who will buy pretty much any e-book as long as it's a dollar or less.
• Turnstabled (adj) the condition of being unable to tell someone their favorite new song is terrible because you don't want to hurt their feelings.
• Gallifraud (n) a person who claims to "LOOOOOVE" Dr. Who, but who only started watching with the 10th Doctor.
• Friendophobia (n) the apprehension felt when you receive a friend request from a stranger and have no idea who they are or why they want to follow you.
• Byespace (n) the condition that arises when one adopts the latest social networking technology, but is unable to convince any friends to join them.
• Crawling the Waffle (adj) to engage in repetitive and/or useless corporate action with the full realization that your efforts will not be appreciated, recognized, or even utilized despite management specifically requesting said action; to acknowledge the futility of working for vacuous mid-manager types and their bizarre dedication to corporate entities.
• Groenag (n) the deep irritation or anxiety one feels when they suspect there is one episode of The Simpsons they somehow have not yet seen.
• Sample Shock (n) the embarrassing realization one has when hearing a loop one had previously considered original in another song.
• Deja Who (n) the awkward situation in which two people introduce themselves, only to realize they've done so at least once before.
• Bumpossible (adj) describing a person who cannot be determined to be homeless or a hipster.
• Ostrichcize (v) to exclude someone from a group by tying them to an ostrich and sending it running in another direction.
   

Well, that's our take on what the next round of dictionaries should include. But what about you, dear reader? Let us know the definitions you'd add in the comments!

After announcing yesterday that it was discontinuing its TouchPad tablet and exploring "strategic alternatives" to its PC manufacturing business, electronics giant HP has gone into hiding to "sort of get my head together", it said in a statement released through a publicist today.

"First, much love to my fans, and don't worry about me," the multinational corporation said in the brief but rambling announcement. "I'm not crazy. I'm not on drugs. I just needed a little time to step away from the insanity, be alone with my thoughts for a little while, and figure out who I am again."

Rumors about the HP's fragile emotional state had begun flying when the company failed to make a scheduled nightclub appearance in Atlantic City last night. By morning, Twitter was ablaze with so-called "#HPsightings", including reports from South Africa, Paris, and the Greek island of Naxos.

The statement expressed amusement at the #HPsightings phenomenon, but added "You haven't found me yet, and I promise you, you won't. Please stop trying. I'll be back in a little while. And you'll be seeing more of me once I get my mind straight again.

"But probably not that much more."

According to a recent report on NPR, two New York-area pizza places are duking it out for the title "oldest pizza place." Papa's Tomato Pies of Trenton, NJ is arguing that, because Lombardi's (long considered to be the oldest) was closed for a decade, that voids their claim. The article made me wonder about other such heated restau-rivalries. After doing some research, I've uncovered three that I think are worth sharing:

In the lively bar district of Rock Island, Illinois, two bratwurst carts each claim to be the original. Tom Shepard, owner/operator of Dawgs2Go, tried to end the argument by pointing out that his competitor - Chris Melvins, proprietor of Best Wursts - closes his stand nightly. Since his stand remained open at all times, Shepard argued, there was no question that he should be officially be crowned the "longest continuously open mobile bratwurst establishment" in the Quad Cities. Melvins countered by pointing out that, while Dawgs2Go did technically remain "open" 24 hours per day, Shepard set aside certain times of day as "no dawg zones" and often operated his cart in remote locations, such as inside his locked garage.

In Reading, Pennslyvania, a rivalry between the two oldest frozen yogurt shops in town took an odd turn when a health inspector uncovered what he called "an unidentified, partially-built machine" in the basement of Daisy's Dairy. Daisy Galls claimed it to be "just a silly project" but an unnamed source leaked to the media that the device was, in fact, a failed time machine, with which Galls had planned to erase all traces of its crosstown enemy, Micky Moo's, from history.

In Alma, Michigan, the dispute between the town's two longest-standing vegan donut shops continues to escalate, each constantly claiming an earlier open date than the other. As it currently stands, Rounders has released a statement in which the proprietor, Richie Albins, says he has reason to believe that "the single-celled organisms" that evolved into his ancestors made "the single-celled organism equivalent of vegan donuts." Yolinda Hynes, of GlazeHaze, responded with hard evidence - namely what appears to be a simple pinkish rock that she believes a series of scientific tests will reveal to be a petrified GlazeHaze raspberry frosted donut made in prehistoric times.

Photo by Flickr user tribbles1971. Used under a Creative Commons License.

In ancient times, there were normal shops with awnings, and cash-register abacuses, and lists hanging up of people who had passed bad checks. And then there were also guys who travelled around with carts and backpacks full of stuff so that you could buy goods and services that came from other places. That guy is the first known instance of what we now call the Internet. Eventually he evolved into the paper version of the Internet, known as catalogues, and then the digital form of the Internet, known as the Internet. Shops, meanwhile, are still around and have stayed exactly the same throughout history, except now they have more light bulbs in them.

When you’re starting your own small business, the biggest decisions you need to make is whether to base it in reality or on the Internet, and once you make this decision, there’s no going back in time to change it (unless you’re opening a time machine shop). Luckily, today’s course here at the Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership will help you make this very decision. Here are some things to think about...

Decide what you’re selling: If you’re selling digital stuff like music files, you’ll probably want to put your store on the Internet because you can’t put digital files on real shelves (yet!). Meanwhile, other businesses lend themselves to structures. For example, a cabin in the middle of nowhere might be your ideal location if you’re going into the homemade bombs business.

Weigh the pros and cons for your business: Let’s say you’re selling scented candles. If you put your store on the Internet you’re less likely to burn it down during a seemingly innocent candle demonstration. On the other hand, people can’t smell stuff through the Internet (yet!), so you’ll have to rely on describing smells using pictures.

Be realistic about how clean you are: When I first started SAUMBDL, I wanted to hold classes in my studio apartment, but then I realized that if I did that, I’d have to clean up my apartment, which meant taking out the trash, which meant going outside, which would’ve increase the chances that I’d see my landlord and she’d start talking to me all about how she “really needs June and July’s rent.” So instead, I started it here on the Internet where nobody has to clean anything!

Evaluate your relationship: This one might not seem so clearly related, but think about it: if your spouse or significant other kicks you out –for any reason, even if it’s stupid and tiny reason, like all you did was forget to turn off the iron and also you iron all your clothes on the ”antique” love seat – you can’t sleep on the Internet (yet!).

These are the main things to consider when deciding to make a real business like a shop or an invisible business like an Internet store, but there a bunch of other factors that might come into play with your own specific business ideas, so feel free to ask me questions in the comments.

Remedial Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership students are directed to Lesson one and Lesson two.

We've waited long enough for this! Thanks to the recently trending hashtag #imthetypeofperson, the people of Twitter finally have an opportunity to tell us a little bit about themselves! And not a moment too soon; they were way too shy and reserved until now. Lets learn about what types there are out there...

I'm not sure which is more impressive: your politeness or your precision microwave control.

Oh! Okay! No music-video-resembling public displays of affection! Check! Just curious, what if my PDA resembles something from... umm... another kind of video? Like, say, a fast-food training video? Or an America's Funniest Home Video?

So we're all clear: passive-aggressive posts on an everyone-can-see-it, open-to-the-public social media site don't count as "not nice things to say." That's the new normal, people.

Doesn't matter what the topic is - someone always tries to steer it toward the old "is obesity genetic or a choice?" debate.

"I'm happy. I'm happy. Still happy. Happy it is. Pretty happy but not as happy as at first. Mouth is getting kind of dry from all this telling you my feelings. Feeling kind of annoyed at the mouth-getting-dry thing. Not feeling that happy at all anymore. Still annoyed. Really annoyed."

He then went on to tweet at five different people, reprimanding each of them for being hypocrites...

What types of person are you seeing on Twitter? #imthetypeofperson who wants you to post about it in the forums.

For the last three or four months DC (Detective Comics, home of Superman, Batman, etc., in case you're not a regular at your local Android's Dungeon) has teased that in September they'll be relaunching the entire universe, with 52 titles getting brand new "Number One" issues. For DC, it's a chance to reinvigorate the brand and attract new readers who might be turned off or confused by the extensive continuity. Additionally, they're going to introduce "a more modern, diverse DC Universe" with "character variations in appearance, origin, and age," which is a press-release-way of saying "We're going to make Batman Mexican. Deal with it."

Comic book fans, notoriously easy to anger, have taken the news with the expected gamut of emotions: nerd rage, worried contemplation as to the effects on their favorite characters/storylines, pessimism at a blatant cash grab, and naive optimism that THIS will be the change that sticks. I guess I'm in favor of anything that might introduce a new audience to comics and thus keep them in business. In general, I'm in favor of a comic universe sticking to its own continuity: dead people should stay dead, and "HUGE, EPIC CROSSOVER" events should have lasting effects on the world if they're that important. But nitpicking continuity issues is for basement-dwellers with too much anger to contain. It seems like in making this move DC has been taking to heart the angry letters they undoubtedly get from people counting the compartments on Batman's belt.

But this isn't really about DC; they're just the inspiration. See, if the people behind cultural icons like The Flash and Wonder Woman can just cast it all to the winds and try to reboot everything, what's stopping everybody else? Here are some comics we feel are in dire need of a universal reboot:
 

Peanuts
Forget everything you ever thought you knew about Charlie Brown and co. A brand new creative team lead by Rob Liefeld takes everyone's favorite lovable loser into the present. Charlie Brown is now Cordero Cruz, son of Puerto Rican immigrants looking to make his mark on his new hometown, which just happens to be a multicultural urban center. He's only bald because he shaves his head to look cool, and everywhere Charlie Brown zigged, Cordero zags. Look for the little guy to finally start WINNING. Oh, and pouches. There's going to be a LOT of pouches. 

Garfield
If any franchise is in need of trimming the fat from its continuity, it's this one. Between Odie, Nermal, Jon Arbuckle, Jon's family, Lyman, Irma, Binky the Clown, Pooky, Arlene, Dr. Liz Wilson, and the multitude of women Jon attempts to date it's gotten extremely cluttered. Tom DeFalco cuts through the crap and takes everyone's favorite fat cat back to his roots. Except look for Garfield to drop the lasagna in favor of some soul food. Oh, and he may or may not be a clone of himself.

Ziggy
After more than 40 years it's impossible to remember just which locations and in front of which people Ziggy has suffered his trademark ignominy. How many times have you read his daily little circle and thought, "Wait. Is this the same waiter from last week? Why would he go back to that restaurant? And why does the guy look exactly like the person at the Returns counter from the department store? Do department stores still have Returns counters?" No more. Frank Miller strips Ziggy down to his core and readers will be taken along for the ride as we see just where it all begins. The new strip will be titled "Ziggy: Diary of My Descent," and our titular hero is recast as a schizophrenic shut-in who relives the perceived slights he endures from society with such cutting brutality it only further propagates his madness.

Marmaduke
J.T. Krul brings the Great Dane out of the '50s and into modern times! Marmaduke's now an old soul, heavy with guilt at his past indiscretions and the damage they've caused. His insecurity manifests as a neediness almost everyone around him finds insufferable, causing him to feel alienated. Expect a lot of "will they or won't they?" teasing with Marmaduke and Dottie's relationship.

Prince Valiant
Finally! It seems like the strip has been bouncing around the Middle Ages forever! No longer, as Brad Meltzer's update introduces us to Valiant, the Mercenary: a gun for hire. Gone are all the messy, confusing blends of history and mythology. Valiant's singing sword is replaced with his trusty WTS .50 BMG Pistol, which he still calls "Flamberge" in a nod to the series' roots. Meltzer's take on the strip gives fans what they've craved for almost 75 years now: nonstop gruesome action and killing. As a merc not bound to any conventional ideals of warfare, Valiant will kill, torture, and pillage his way across war zones in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

You've heard our pitch, now give us yours: what comic universe would you like to see start over from scratch with a brand new update?



Flickr photos (in order)
Charlie Brown & Snoopy by ginnerobot
Just leave me alone by Ed Yourdon
used under a Creative Commons License

People often wonder what it's like in the Woot Writers' Room. They like to ask about how cool it is, how we get any work done when we're constantly tweeting and posting about neat crap we find on the internet, and if they can get a job here. But the truth is we spend most of our day in a chat room collaborating on ideas and having some serious discussions that we sometimes scrub lightly for profanity and post here.

Like today, when I found this amazing video on Reddit that shows baboons kidnapping puppies and raising them as pets and posted it in the writers' chat room: (Editor's note: skip the first minute if you don't want to see a baboon treating a puppy rougher than most people like to see puppies treated)

Randall: WTF baboons abduct puppies and raise them as guard dogs?!

Scott: Today I learned that Randy might be a pathological liar.

Scott: A liar with a video budget.

Randall: Skip like the first minute of that, unless you want to see a baboon forcibly abduct a puppy.

Jason: All of my natural sympathy for fellow primates goes out the window when it comes to baboons. Kill them with fire.

Randall: Racist.

Gatzby: Jason was spanked as a child and ever since he's feared a large, red ass.

Pilot: Some of us find it sexy.

Scott: That's amazing.

Randall: Maybe it's the more canine-looking face, or the huge engorged genitals, but there's something off-putting about them.

Scott: That's some dawn of man s$%&.

Randall: Right? Makes you wonder how it took us so long to domesticate dogs ourselves.

Scott: Maybe we're just the pets to some four-dimensional parasite.

Randall: Wasn't that a plot line in The Authority?

Scott: That's very possible.

Randall: They land in the "real earth" dimension, and figure out that there are no superheroes here because a giant invisible jellyfish is leeching all the life energy from everyone.

Jason: Baboons are just #%$holes, is all. The physical grotesquerie just makes them that much more loathsome.

Scott: Well that clears up a lot.

Gatzby: They do seem to flaunt their ability to use tools more than any other creature. They're kind of like the security guards of the animal kingdom.

Randall: I think if you met just about any primate on the street, odds are you would walk away thinking it was an #%$hole. Humans included.

Gatzby: I don't know, capuchins are kinda cute. And anything that will dance to an organ beat is okay by me.

Randall: So are chimps, but they will rip your %&$damn arms off if given half a chance.

Gatzby: Which is why I carry ketamine wherever I go.

Randall: Also, I'm not 100% capuchins are primates.

Gatzby: I guess they could be aliens.

Randall: Are monkeys still primates? Or am I just confusing that with apes?

Jason: Monkeys, apes, and lemurs. All primates.

(Jason then posted a link to this story about gangs of baboons terrorizing Capetown, South Africa.)

Randall: HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT BABOON CALLS HIMSELF FRED? That is the FAR more interesting angle to that story.

Gatzby: Haha, I love that the google suggestions for capuchin are "capuchin monkey" "capuchin monkey for sale" "capuchin monkey for sale washington."

Randall: If I see a roving gang of 30 baboons moving down my street pillaging %&$^, I think I'm just going to hang myself in the shower.

Jason: Ha.

Gatzby: THEY DID IT.

Randall: Game over, man.

Gatzby: THEY REALLY DID IT.

Gatzby: YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!

Scott: haha

Gatzby: But yeah, seriously. I'm finding a rifle and taking out as many as I can and saving one round for myself.

Randall: Unless you could hire that gang from last week's This American Life that comes to your town and defends you against other gangs.

Scott: I'm picturing Randy in Planet of the Apes the first time a baboon comes up riding a horse.

Gatzby: My last tweet is going to be a picture of the horde with "Sorry about complaining about all those other things."

Scott: Just shaking his head and going, "I should have known. My life was building to this."

Randall: I would just start ripping as much of my skin off as I could so as to bleed to death quickly.

Randall: Ha @ Gatz

Gatzby: "I'd like to apologize to @kcmetrobus for all the complaints. I've never been sexually assaulted by 30 baboons on the 8.

Randall: "The Seattle Metropolitan Transit System, in retrospect, should not have been the focus of my negativity."

Scott: Haha

Randall: Beat me to it, Gatz! Although don't assume that couldn't happen on the 8 in the future.

Gatzby: I assume it would happen on the 2, but I rule nothing out.

Randall: @kcmetrobus: traffic is pretty backed up thru downtown, and also a pack of rapist baboons has taken over the 2.

Jason: hahaha

Jason: @kcmetrobus, it's called a troop.

But what do you think, dear reader? Are baboons the scourge of the primate world? Isn't it neat that they have dogs as pets? And would you join the resistance or opt for a quiet, dignified death when they rise up?

When I first started the Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership, everyone was always saying, "Sean, that's a great idea, on paper." Then they'd say a bunch of other stuff about how it couldn't work in practice. Naturally, my reaction was to buy a lot of paper. But it's not as easy as just walking into a paper store blindfolded and grabbing something. (Because stores that sell paper also sell scissors, and you could hurt yourself like I did when I was blindfolded in a paper store.)

When buying anything, you're going to have to make decisions. With buying a car, it's do I want a big one or a small one? There are pros and cons of each, like a small one is more efficient but a big one is easier to see from far away and has a larger area to write on. Surprisingly, it's the exactly the same with paper: there's big paper (also known as "sheets") and little paper (also known as "notecards")...

Because of their efficiency, you'll want to use notecards rather than sheets when you're planning and starting your small business. Now, I know that with all of this new information I've introduced, you've probably got some questions. Luckily, here at the SAUBMDL, we've got answers. Please read and review these frequently asked notecard-related questions:

I ran out of space on one of my notecards but I'm not saying what I need to say. Can I tape another one to it so that I can keep writing?

No, this goes against the whole point of notecards. You want to write the same amount of stuff in fewer words or way smaller words. That's why it's efficient.

Are notecards baby sheets of paper? And if I had two pieces of card stock that loved each other very much, could I make my own notecards for free?

No and no. Notecards are not baby sheets of paper. They're more like those dogs that you think are puppies because they're small, but then you find out they just have degenerative diseases.

I'd like a diagram of a notecard with all of its different parts labeled. Could you provide one please?

Yes. Here:

Seriously, I have more stuff to write, I'm out of space, and I’ve got another notecard and a piece of tape right here. Just give me the word and I'll make it happen. Can I please?

No. And stop asking.

According to the box, these notecards are three inches by five inches, but I don’t measure things in inches; I measure things in drawings of half-moons. How many half-moons by half-moons are these cards?

Three half-moons by five half-moons, as long as you make sure each half-moon is an inch long.

I’ve got to give a speech about notecards to executives of a notecard company. Can I write notes about notecards on notecards, or will that tear a hole in the very fabric of the very thing we know as reality????

You should be fine as long as everything you say about notecards is nice and polite. But if you start to say some mean stuff, well then, no one can protect you.

There, I taped them together and solved everything. Now is that so bad?

I HATE YOU!

(Have a question that's not answered here? The professor will hold his open office hours in the comments section.)

We here at Woot are no strangers to the joys of cleaning and displaying various animal pieces in your home, so we can appreciate the enthusiasm some people have for taxidermy. After all, it's an art, and it's a way to commemorate and memorialize your triumphant kill, a favorite pet, or maybe just that thing you thought was a Chupacabra in your yard. Of course in every profession there is an upper echelon, but Terrible Taxidermy focuses on one of those lower echelons. Way lower...

Hey, we get it. Taxidermy's hard. It's an art form, and it takes a lot of practice. For all we know every taxidermist has a shed full of these "learning experiences." But we have to wonder how many of these were the equivalent of a living room tattoo: "Hey, I got a buddy that can probably do that for you, and CHEAP." 

Did people pay for these? Did they receive the finished work and do anything other than scream and hurl it out the nearest window? Or was it more like when you open your Christmas presents to discover some @$%hole bought you socks again, when you have to fake a smile and say something about how nice it is and how much you appreciate the thought? We may never know. 

Take a trip down the worst attempts to capture the majesty of nature, but before you feel bad for the horribly defaced animals contained therein, just know that it could be worse: we could be looking at Pathetic Plastic Surgery.