Thursday 30 July 2009

Peekaboo

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Hey look at this! Instead of scouring the internet, I scoured somebody's garage sale and took my own pictures!

I have to give her props because she had a real sense of humor about how crazy it ended up looking. She made it to look like her daughter, understandably. Her daughter wanted nothing to do with it, equally understandably. I got it for a dollar! That is like barely $0.05 per nightmare it will give me.

Wednesday 29 July 2009

Drinks be coastin'

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These are, apparently, handmade drink coasters. The description warns that they cannot be put in a dishwasher, as they are not waterproof. Which makes a lot of sense for drink coasters. Maybe the theme of their illustrations are "weather patterns that will melt these drink coasters".

Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not soak in water or expose to rain. Do not allow near high or low temperatures. Do not, under any circumstances, by all that's holy, rest drinks upon.

Drink coasters will soil most fabrics and/or pets if left unattended. No liability or responsibility attaches to drink, pet, or household fatalities involving drink coasters. Thanks for buying handmade!

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Blue means it used to be a boy

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Well, what do you do with your trophies from baby-hunting season? Leave them in the attic to gather dust?

Monday 27 July 2009

Seriously, Someone is Putting Me In Charge of Crafts?!

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So I've been chosen, inexplicably, to host the Humorbloggers Craft Day over at Humorbloggers.com. Strange, I know. They say I was short-listed, but I have to wonder.

Anyway, once I found out that I was in charge of teaching lots of humorbloggers how to, well, make stuff, I dug out my trusty go-to craft bible:

Which, naturally, helped me decide on which craft to highlight for today's tutorial, based on the known capability of the reading audience. Hence, I settled on the "Facecloth Buddy", a new home-made best friend for anyone who doesn't really have any. Friends, that is. Not facecloths. You need to have lots of facecloths.


Step 1: Have a facecloth.

Step 2: Have another face cloth.

Step 3: Draw a relatively face-like face on at least one of the facecloths, preferably out of old, half-dried-out, cheap markers. It all adds to your new friend's rustic charm.

Step 4: Sew the two facecloths together along the seams, with possibly more facecloths added as filling, with the face on the facecloth facing out facewards.

Step 5: Take with you everywhere in life. For serious.


I hope this in-depth tutorial was as helpful as it was elegant, everyone. Althought I tried to make this classic art project as fool-proof as possible, I'm not expecting much out of you lot. Frankly, I'll give you a passing grade if you even know what a facecloth is. Anything else is just a bonus, really.

Send in pictures if you want an actual grade given to your summer school project! Otherwise, just check in at humorbloggers.com daily for the next couple days to continue on our Summer Camp Carnival Super Gypsy Homeless Tour!

Now let's take a second to see what other "special" craft projects your favourite humorbloggers are up to:

http://www.unfinishedrambler.com/2009/07/humor-bloggers-summer-camp-day-1-crafts.html

http://boomergeekgirl.blogspot.com/2009/07/summer-camp-crafty-geek.html

http://thinkinfyou.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/summer-camp/

http://johnnyb-lateforthesky.blogspot.com/2009/07/which-craft.html

Dollface

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Judging from their terrified expressions I can only assume the secret doll dialogue goes something like this:

Doll 1 : AHHH HOLY CRAP WE'RE DOLLS
Doll 2: AGGGHHHHHHH
Doll 1: AHHH WE'RE ANATOMICALLY CORRECT NAKED DOLLS
Doll 2: AHHGHH
Doll1: WAIT, WHY WERE WE MADE ANATOMICALLY CORRECT?
Doll 2: AHHHHHHH

Sunday 26 July 2009

Super Excellent Special Saturday (Sunday)!

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Welcome back to Super Fucking Unbelieveably Awesome Freaking Saturdays (Sundays, really, at this point, let's call a spade a spade) everyone! This week's undeniably amazing and superhumanly talented individual is Peter Callesen, paper-sculpter extraordinaire.

The Short Distance Between Time And Shadow (2006)

Born in 1967 in Denmark (famous for Vikings, Legos, and bacons), Mr. Callesen (Or The Petester, as I refer to him) began his artistic career staring at a blank sheet of paper. And not a whole lot has changed since.

The Core of Everything (2006)

Each of the pieces that Petey-Boy creates are made from a single sheet of A-4 paper, obviously cut up to a certain extent, and then the removed bits reformed to create the 3-dimensional parts of the sculptures.

Traces in Snow (2005)

So, effectively, each one of these artworks that the Petemeister puts together is from the simplest, most ubiquitous and familiar medium possible: a solitary sheet of white paper.

Snowballs (2005)

P-train's artwork touches on the use of negative space, effectively transforming it into visual interpretations of a between-the-lines kind of suggestion that would otherwise be unverified yet assumed within other mediums.

Snowballs detail (2005)

These scultpures that P-dubs creates, then, can manage to tell a story on three distinctly different levels: The obvious story that is shown in the image, the sub-linear suggestions of what is missing in the voids cut out, and the further meaning within the knowledge that it is all, at its essence, one uncompromised sheet of paper.

Looking Back (2006)

And look! It's a skeleton!

Impenetrable Castle (2005)

Some of the more architectural of the P-Love's works I find terribly interesting for the graphic layout of the individual pieces needed to create a specific castle, for example. I suppose it's a bit like taking the total surface area of a building and transforming it into a flat-pack design. IKEA on LSD, if you will.

Impenetrable Castle detail (2005)

It kind of makes me think of all the varied combinations of buildings and sculptures that would be possible with those specific pre-made pieces, which only stands to make it all the more amazing what P-to-the-E-to-the-T-E-R is able to construct out of them. I, personally, would end up with a crinkled white ball of mutilated impatient-ness, I know that much.

Heaven and Hell(2006)

Some of Peter-Peter-Pumpkin-Eater's latest works have included the use of paint, which adds another, more aesthetically distinct quality to the work, and allows him to take a few more liberties with the concepts he's aiming to convey.

White Hand (2007)

So there we are again, everyone, at the end of another Super Amazingly Freaking Unbelieveably Awesome Saturday (Sunday)! Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to go to PeterCallesen.com to see all of his works, as he also does many much larger installation pieces and floating castles and whatnot. See you lot tomorrow!

Friday 24 July 2009

Laced For His/Her/Its Pleasure

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I know it says "Fine Filet Lace Garment Yoke", but all I see is "School-Lunch Tray Training Bra".

And it can be yours, for the low, low price of $165! Perfect for your favourite lap-desk's coming-of-age party or batmitzvah. *Extra roses cross-stitched in for added modesty. **One size fits most lunch trays. *** Superior support when you're flat as a board.

Illuminati and Socialist

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The mainstream liberal media doesn't want to pursue thisinvestigative story further, but without seeing President Obama's birth certificate, how can we ever really be sure he is not a grinning three-eyed head, disembodied by his Illuminati masters, stuffed with catnip and swathed in a delicate textile skin?

I have always known he was a secret muslin.

Thursday 23 July 2009

I'd like a glass of the house white please.

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Because nothing says "classy and sophisticated home decor" like a dick joke.

Speaking of classy and sophisticated, here is a charming little number from the darkest recesses of Etsy:



I would make a joke here, but that would only serve to enhance any mental images you might already have, and you don't deserve that kind of treatment. (Just remember, etiquette demands that you keep your pinkie finger up. Up where, etiquette does not say.) Alright, so I made one joke.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

This will put you off cupcakes for a while, and also art.

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"Aww, a kid made his mom a birthday card", right? Nope, a grown woman bought herself a pile of overpriced "European high-quality art supplies" and tried to sell these cards to people for money.

It looks like a Slushie made out of real road slush.

It looks like a cupcake, if by cup you mean a picket fence and by cake you mean liquified fug.

It looks like Shrek's nipple.

It looks like somebody ate a maraschino cherry, a bunch of peas, and a muffin baking paper and then threw them up in reverse order.

I could go on like this. But I guess ultimately, more than anything else it just looks like about $100 wasted on fancy oil pastels.

You Don't Say

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Good golly how I've come to love CutOutAndKeep.net. Amongst all the tutorials on one-armed-wood-burning, underwater-lanyard-making, and drunken-doily-crocheting, there are gems like How To Make A Simple Journal:


which is, essentially, use normal paper.

So, thanks for that.


That's helpful.


*special thanks to Cat from cutoutandkeep.net for being such a good sport ;)

Tuesday 21 July 2009

Playgirl Centerfold of the Month

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Just when you finally get used to the idea that people sew their own reusable flannel maxi pads, and you finally say "Well, that's not so weird. Kind of makes sense, really, good for them," and you move on, someone comes along with something like this.



If you ever had sex dreams about the hunky guy from the Diet Coke commercials in which he ripped his shirt off, flexed his pecs, grinned charmingly while his skin glistened in the sunlight, and then you bled all over his neck and shoulders... well, your ship has finally come in.

Monday 20 July 2009

Sorry, I take all my romantic advice from aprons.

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"Love is like a box of chocolates, you never know..." You never know... what?! What do you never know? "You never know what time it is?" "You never know what those things on the ends of shoelaces are called"? "You never know a better source to plagiarize than Forrest Gump"?

The muse-drunk scribe who created this skirt must have retreated into a deep hermitage at its completion, content with their literary output. Like a grad student camped at the gates of Salinger's estate, I patiently await the pants-shaped sequel where, one hopes, the secrets of the chocolate box (this is a metaphor for life) will finally be revealed.

Sunday 19 July 2009

It puts the soap in the basket.

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Anyone else do the Psycho-inspired check behind the shower curtain before starting up the shower? And then the slasher-film-inspired check behind the open bathroom door before closing it? And then the urban-legend-inspired check in the mirror for any ringus, hauntings or apparitions (check mirror, open it to look at medicine cabinet, close it and look downward, then look QUICKLY UP to catch any glowering ringus that may be behind me)? And then, finally, the schizophrenic-episode-inspired check into the pile of folded towels for any CIA spy-cams?

I swear, it takes me three hours just to get ready to take a shower. And now thanks to some chucklehead on Etsy I can't even trust my soap! Do you think killers in my soap warrants a call to 911, or should I just use the non-emergency police number?

Friday 17 July 2009

This Is What Bat-Shit Crazy Looks Like, The Wearable Version

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The most amazing t-shirt ever. As in, ever:
Yes, It's my line, but Mom from 1lifeexaggerated had the gumption to actually turn it into a fake t-shirt! Which is almost as good as a real t-shirt. Except for the fact that you can't really wear it. You can only look at it and wish you were cool enough to wear it. So thanks Mom! Lovesit!

I'm Not Quite Sure What Happened Here, To Be Honest

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As if I had to tell you, these were indeed made by an adult. A mentally capable adult. Who apparently owns a glue gun and a very singular sense of accomplishment.

Wednesday 15 July 2009

The Perfect Accessory For Your Crocheted, Glittery Handcuffs

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This, my friends, appears to be a knit gimp mask. Do with it what you will.
Just keep it legal.

And multicoloured.


And before I start getting emails about it, yes, I assume this was a knit hat made in too large a gauge. I know already. But c'mon, it's hilarious.

Tuesday 14 July 2009

The Safeword is 'Al Gore'.

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A soda can tab corset dress and soda can tab wrist cuffs, from two different crapfters.

I sense this could kick off a whole new sexualized subculture among affluent white-guilt-hobbyists; it combines the subtle aestheticism of leather bondage cuffs and the bold ideology of environmentalism. Call it green black and blue? Eco-UNfriendly?

"Punish me, mistress, I forgot to separate my aluminum cans from my non-corrugated cardboard! I've been a very, very naughty citizen of the world!"

The only downside is the potential methane emissions from drinking all that soda.

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

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I just.... I just don't even know anymore. I mean, what the hell is this? It looks like a freaking Snork in blackface, for fuck's sake (remember the Snorks, though? Man, they were great). Seriously, what this crocheted mess is supposed to represent is so far beyond me I don't even know where to start. And yet, and yet, someone was so impressed with their handiwork they put it up on craftster in the hopes that this would attract world-wide ardor and prestige. Well I, for one, sir, am not impressed. Nay, I am wholly unimpressed with this bizarre crap. And I've had it up to here with these shenanigans. I swear to god, I'll turn this car right around.

And there you have it. If your crocheted object looks like a racist statement involving a beloved childhood cartoon, you're most certainly doing it wrong.

Saturday 11 July 2009

Ohhh, Is That How It's Done...

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I LOVE the fact that somebody over at cutoutandkeep.net felt the need to 1) make a pair of not-at-all heinous earrings out of old simcards, and 2) turn it into a 5-step tutorial. Yes, that's right, a 5-step tutorial. Because clearly, I wouldn't have been able to figure out on my own how on earth this stunningly creative genius ever found a way to affix such labyrinthine and rare components together to ensure such a gorgeous result. It just looks so, so, complicated. In fact, I'm dumbfounded that she was even able to figure it out herself! Thank god she spelled the whole process out for me; otherwise I might have just thought that all I needed to do was attach an earring hook to a sim card, and not have even realized that I needed to make a hole in the simcard first, and use a pair of pliers to open the jump-ring! What an unholy catastrophic mess I just narrowly avoided, thanks to the not-at-all-unnecessarily-thorough 5-step tutorial. Thanks CutOutAndKeep.net!

**Ed. note: today's Super Awesome Saturdays is gonna get moved to tomorrow just this week, unless I pull my thumb out and get it finished in the next couple hours. Which is doubtful. I'm lazy.

Your Help Is Kindly Requested. For Once.

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Just so you know, I'm totally taking submissions for "Super Fucking Extreme Awesome Saturdays", so if you happen to have a favourite artist in mind, email me at mizzdrake@hotmail.com, or homemadehilarity@hotmail.co.uk. But bear in mind, they have to be seriously, totally, extremely awesome. For real. I really don't want any links to crappy-ass, jenky-toed, cheesy-smelling assfuckery. But, if you have the goods, bring it. And there it is.

<3,
JuliaD

Friday 10 July 2009

Poopsy Daisy

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A well-stocked and vividly elucidating vocabulary used to its utmost capacity is fecal matter. Oh, whoops, meant to say, "Choose words is poo."

I think all of these would be much funnier and much more insightful with the words switched. Poo is homophobia. Poo is ageism. Poo is war, man, think about it. I hope you guys do a lot of soul-searching before your next trip to the bathroom, I know I will.

Thursday 9 July 2009

Some Intern Got Paid Waaaay Too Much For These

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So I've been trying to get the Homemade Hilarity facebook fanpage up and running lately, which, given the fact that I have the internets skillz of your 85-year-old grandpa, hasn't been easy. The high point of the experience, though, was when I went to make some HH flair buttons, and was affronted instead by these on the main page:

WTF.

Seriously, WTF.

As in, SRSLY. WTF.

I realize that these 'advertisement' flair buttons were made by Dawn (you know, the liquid soap company) in some awkward attempt to bring social awareness to the uh, plight of the, uh.. well... I have no freaking idea. I have no clue what the hell it is, exactly, that Dawn wants me so desperately to show some flair-ed compassion for and SAVE. Which is a bit, well, counterproductive, one would think, especially as the first one looks suspiciously like a dead penguin and the second one resembles the physical manifestation of batshit-crazy. So, way to go there Dawn. Opening the eyes of the world to the growing and devastating lack of dead penguins and metaphysical conceptions of tomfuckery, one useless facebook application at a time. Go ahead and give yourself a high-five.

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Choose your own snarkventure

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1. Halloween has officially run out of "Sexy ____" costumes when we are forced to witness "Sexy Bodybuilding Hair Stylist".

OR

2. If you had to pick one thing to purchase in this picture--one thing only now, none of this wishing-for-three-more-wishes business--would it be... the romantic attentions of a beautiful model? A pair of super cute red heels? A fully-stocked set of free weights with matching bench? Fashionable and eye-catching neon legwarmers? A big saggy chain covered in used plastic hair-rollers? Now let's all form a circle, put our thinking caps on, and brainstorm about which of those things this picture was supposed to sell.

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Rock on

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You know how DIY projects sort of wax and wane in their trendiness? Knitting is really hip for a while, and then baking cupcakes is totally in, and then it's canning your own vegetables, and so on? Well, I happen to be a trend-spotter for various magazines and publications that are so bleeding edge trendy that they don't even have names... you just have to know which one I'm talking about by my inflection. Maybe a wink and and handkerchief semaphore. And my trend-forecast for this time next year--pay close attention now, because you'll be able to say you heard it here first--is People Going to Public Parks and Stealing Stuff Off the Ground, Painting Awkward Hearts on It, And Re-Selling It on Ebay. The great thing about this activity is it's eco-friendly, since you are using natural materials, and also because you are making nature less boring-and-nature-colored and more beautiful and puffy-paint-colored. What is more friendly to the eco than that? This works with rocks, fallen leaves, flat sticks, chunks of turf, docile woodland animals, neighborhood children, and those creepy single shoes that are always lying in the road near public parks.

Redefining Cuteness and Socks

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This is described as a "cute knitted puppet".

I will stipulate to "knitted". But I object -- strenuously -- to both "cute" and "puppet".

A vaguely obloid shape into which you can insert your hand does not a "puppet" define, even with that oh-so-convincing cheeky grin and the thousand-yard green-baize stare. My oven-mitt makes a more convincing puppet, and it doesn't have a face. And I don't even own an oven-mitt.

Our second dactylo-craft puzzles the shit out of me:


This is the "Living Dead Sock Glove" (which would match so well with my "Zombie Trouser Hat" and "Vampire Sweater Shoes").

Leaving aside my prejudice against BUTTONS for EYES (even for depictions of the undead), this is, bottom line, a glove made from a sock and transformed into a puppet.

So is it a glove puppet or a sock puppet? There would be a fascinating symantic and philosophical discussion to be had there, I'm sure, if it were not for the unavoidable fact that it is in any case useless as a puppet.

Here are some of the instructions that caused my confusion:

1. Cut the toe and leg part off a sock but leave some of the elastic part from the leg part.

2. Now cut a piece of the heel side for your thumb. Don't worry if it's too big. You can sew it up after. In fact you'll more than likely have to take in the sock from that side to better fit the contours of your hand anyway.

3. Now on the toe end sew the sock together in three spots to create four holes for your fingers.

Right. Alternatively - and here's the thing - just use a freaking GLOVE in the FIRST place.


G. Henry

Sunday 5 July 2009

Facebook Ahoy

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This is just a quick update to let you all know that I'm finally getting Homemade Hilarity into the 21st century by getting it on facebook! I've just set up a fan page, at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Homemade-Hilarity/103937932524?ref=ts , so come on over and join in on the fun! The plan, ultimately, is to put up new crapft pics on the fan page that maybe I haven't had time to post on here (as well as most of the ones that I have), and I'll be posting the links that people email to me, as well. So there will be lots of added little bonuses if you want to be an official fan! You will also be able to post your own funny photos and comments, so I hope to keep it pretty interactive.

Hope to see you there!

<3,
JuliaD

Happy Super Freaking Amazing Saturday!

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Happy Super Freaking Amazing Saturdays everyone! It's that time of the week again, when I take off my snarky hat of self-possessed and deep-rooted ridicule of all crafts hideous and put on my technicolour bonnet of unending envy of all artists talented. And boy, do I have a talented artist for you all today to openly adore and secretly resent. Her name is Liza Lou, and she covers things in beads. Don't underestimate what I mean, though: homegirl seriously covers things in beads. Millions of beads. Pallets of beads. Like, lots and lots of beads.

For example, one of her earliest works was an installation piece she called Kitchen (1995), which is really quite a shrewd description of, well, a kitchen. An entirely bead-coated kitchen. And here it is:
I implore you - dare you, even - to contemplate the fact that every single inch of this kitchen is entirely covered in beads. And if your head starts to implode just trying to understand the magnitude of what this implies, don't worry: that is the correct response.

Let's take a closer look, shall we? Here is the fridge:
And here is the broom and dust bin:
In fact, Liza Lou used so many beads in the construction of this 168 square-foot kitchen she won the Guinness World Record for the Largest Bead Art, by incorporating at least 40 million glass beads, which, if strung together, would reach from L.A. to San Francisco.
Indeed, just completing this piece left Liza undernourished and with acute tendonitis in her hands. Which I could have told her beforehand, let's be honest, if she had let me know that she planned on covering an entire kitchen in 40 million glass beads individually using only glue and a pair of tweezers.


After completing Kitchen, Liza Lou began work on, and subsequently finished, a piece called, imaginatively, Backyard (1999). And, as with Kitchen, it doesn't make any false promises. It truly is a 525-square-foot backyard covered entirely in beads:
With a beaded lawnmower:And beaded sandwiches with beaded bites beaded out of them:
And beaded Budweisers laying amidst a beaded full-size suburban lawn composed of 250,000 individually beaded blades of grass.
You get the point.
While you and I might deign to call this extraordinary level of craftsmanship "rather thorough", "manically obsessive" even, Lou evidently resents the implication and explains, "What's far more frightening for people is to consider the possibility that I'm completely aware of what I'm doing." And she has a point. That really is far more frightening. But, and rightly so, she added at a later date, “It’s summing up someone’s lifework as a mental oddity,” which is clearly something I would never aim to do.
< /sarcasm >


The last piece of hers that I would like to highlight is a piece called Security Fence I, which, in a way, I actually admire more than some of her more vibrant pieces, as the sheer cathartic monotony within the production of this installation is a bit staggering.
As with the other pieces, this item is entirely coated in millions of silver beads, glued on individually, effectively transforming this imposing symbol of imprisonment and restraint into a shimmering, surreal symbol of luxurious excesses and unrestrained indulgences. And look! It's shiny!
Her work, described as "Pop suffused shrine," began in 1989 as a nod to Andy Warhol, but she also notes that part of her motivation is an interest in "rescuing things in some way". And naturally, by "rescuing" she means "covering in fuckloads of beads", and by "things" she means "massive chain-link structures and/or rooms in the house".
And that's about it, everyone! If you're interested in seeing more of Liza Lou's work, such as her beaded portraits of all the presidents, or her beaded trailer, or any of her smaller beaded sculptures, I suggest using this newfangled internet tool called "google.com". It's wicked.
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