Week 553: Picture This
This week's contest: Tell us what's going on in one or more of these cartoons. First-prize winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational Trophy. First runner-up wins a lovingly used copy -- donated by John O'Byrne of Dublin -- of "Ben Wicks' Book of Losers," a Canadian collection of amusingly unfortunate events, like the one in which a man standing frozen in his role as a live mannequin was stabbed in the back by some guy trying to prove to his wife that he was real.
Other runners-up win the coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt. Honorable mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Magnets. One prize per entrant per week.
Send your entries via fax to 202-334-4312 or by e-mail to losers@washpost.com. Snail-mail entries are not accepted. Deadline is Monday, April 19. Put the week number in the subject line of your e-mail, or you risk being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published May 9. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's contest is by Tom Witte of Montgomery Village.
Report from Week 549, in which we asked for novel units of measure:
{diam}Fourth runner-up:
The pico-deliter: A measure of sibling rivalry.
(Dudley Thompson, Raleigh, N.C.)
{diam}Third runner-up:
The serling-rod: The distance between light and shadow, between science and superstition, between a man's fears and his knowledge -- which turns out to be 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)
{diam}Second runner-up:
The slug: A measure of the disgustingness of something stepped on in bare feet. 4 slugs = 1 used Trojan. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
{diam}First runner-up, the winner of the Fruit Flavored Beef Jerky from San Francisco's Chinatown:
The dubyabushel: The amount of fertilizer needed to manufacture one weapon of mass destruction. (Judy and Donna Sherman, Burtonsville)
{diam}And the winner of The Inker: The godiva: Just a hair over nothing.
(Joseph Anthony, Winnipeg, Manitoba)
{diam}Honorable Mentions:
The overpeso: The excess amount you spend on vacation purchases because you don't understand the currency.
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)
Knot-furlong:The amount of time Gary Hart's candidacy lasted after that trip to
Bimini on the Monkey Business. (Chris Doyle)
The armstrong: One small step. (Martin Christopher, Springside, Saskatchewan)
The holy mole: 1. The number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin. 2. The weight of an object created by God that even He cannot lift. (Chris Doyle)
The kant-fathom: A philosophical depth just over one's head. (Dudley Thompson)
The doh: A measure of the career-endingness of an action, such as sticking a doughnut into a nuclear reactor. 1 kilodoh = 1 stewart. (Niels Hoven, Berkeley, Calif.)
[After a two-year absence following 64 printed entries, Niels wins the talking toilet for showing his pixels again.]
The millow: Standard hotel bedding unit, equal to one-thousandth of an actual pillow. Motel 6 = 10 millows; the Four Seasons = 2,400 millows. (Brendan Beary)
Flemming: The amount your nose runs while skating. "Ooh, Mom, Daddy did a 50-flemming right after he put his mittens on!" (Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls)
Sheer-to-Waste: The ratio of clean, unsnagged pantyhose in your drawer to those that are basically unsalvageable but you put them back anyway.
(Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck, Chicago)
The deci-gore: The 1-to-10 scale of Democratic electability. 10.0001 DGs are needed to win an election. (Russell Beland)
The googleplex: A measure of narcissism, calculated by the number of Internet searches on your own name. (Chris Doyle)
The connery: A measure of suave, irresistible masculinity. 1 connery = 10 moores, 20 brosnans, 100 daltons, 1,000 lazenbys and 1 million romms.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)
The dynapere: A measure of failure in stand-up comedy. (Dudley Thompson)
Mass-destruction: The amount of weaponry needed to kill one camel.
(Seth Brown, North Adams, Mass.)
The hemi-holmes: The average guy.
(Gordon Labow, Glenelg)
The ohman: The amount of resistance a husband produces when asked to do just one more little thing. (Jon Reiser, Hilton, N.Y.)
The pia: A measure of unwarranted fame:
1 pia = 3.5 charos = 9.2 torii. (Russell Beland)
The nanasecond: The amount of time it takes to scan and mark 15 bingo cards.
(John Conti, Norfolk, Mass.)
The chas'm: The amount of time Prince Charles will have to wait to ascend the throne.
(Brendan O'Byrne, Regina, Saskatchewan)
The pushel: The amount of zucchini your neighbors try to give you after they planted 14 hills. (Jon Reiser)
The teradactyl: A REALLY long line of poetry, with 10{+1}{+2} accented beats.
(Dean Alterman, Portland, Ore.)
The nasa: The amount of metal that can be thrown up into space at one time; not to be confused with the wasa, the amount of metal that can be thrown up into a sink at one time. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)
The family joule: The minimum sperm energy needed to produce a child.
(Chris Doyle; Dudley Thompson)
The beltsize: A measure of time spent at an all-you-can-eat buffet. 2 hours = 1 beltsize. (Dan Mannion, Manassas)
The Metrek: Measure of a nerdy passion for something. Wearing Spock ears around the house = 100 metreks.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
The Style Week (SW): The unit of time around which all life is organized, equal to approximately 9.7 days. Each SW begins on a Saturday morning (when early editions of the Sunday paper become available), continues through the entire next week and ends at midnight on the following Monday. Four SWs form a Revised Style Cycle (RSC), which is divided into five phases: Think, Send, Pray, Read, Pout.
(The Ultimate Metrek, Springfield)