Dark Roasted Blend: The Surreal Office

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The Surreal Office

Weird Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer and Vernor Vinge

Here is some required reading for those who feel stuck in a daily grind, or on the contrary, are dreaming about becoming a symbiotic whole with a cubicle.

(art courtesy David Fuhrer)

This week over at SF.DRB site, Avi Abrams reviews some wonderfully intense works of fiction that give a total and surreal makeover to the "Office" and Dilbert territory - one that you likely will never forget... or look at your job in the same way again.

Click Here to Read the Rest

"The Situation", "Secret Lives", "The Cookie Monster"

(art courtesy David Fuhrer, click to enlarge)

Click Here to Read the Rest

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COMMENTS:

2 Comments:

ricardo jorge said...: Congratulations!

I vote DRB!

Saudações de Freamunde (Portugal); ___
Xem ảnh đẹp said...: Such a beautiful surreal art works, thanks you!!; ___

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SF ART & BOOK REVIEWS:
Don't miss: The Ultimate Guide to SF&F Writers!
Fiction Reviews: Alastair Reynolds "Chasm City"
Short Fiction Reviews: Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (with pics)
New Fiction Reviews: The Surreal Office

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MORE OF THE RECENT POSTS:

Sculptural Weirdness
One-in-a-Million Collisions
Walls of Death
Apocalyptic Experiments
Cosmic Motors
Train Wrecks!
Phantasmagorical Art
Abandoned Substations
Mysterious Mima Mounds
Strange Theme Parks
Architecture of the Third Reich
Three Dimensional Fractals
Medieval Armor
Crazy Covered Cars
Painted Castles
Chrome-Delicious Robot Art
Awesome Octopi
Weirdest Accidents, Part 5
Architectural Horrors (Series)
Huggable Primates
Most Powerful Supercomputers
Curious Ephemera, Part 2
You Used It For WHAT??
Steam-Powered Tractors
Abandoned Amusement Parks
New Horrors in Construction
What Kids Wish For
Weird "Walking" Frogfish

- many more in the Archives and in the Contents Index (left bar)

FULL ARCHIVES (with previews, fast loading):

May 2009 -- April 2009 -- March 2009 --
February 2009 -- January 2009 -- December 2008 --
November 2008 -- October 2008 -- September 2008
August 2008 -- July 2008 -- June 2008
May 2008 -- April 2008 -- March 2008
February 2008 -- January 2008 -- Dec, 2007
November 2007 -- October 2007 -- Sept, 2007
August 2007 -- July 2007 -- June 2007
May 2007 -- April 2007 -- March 2007
February 2007 -- January 2007 -- Dec, 2006
November 2006 -- October 2006 -- Link Lattes

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Guidelines

amaaaaazing! this is the greatest round-up ever.
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Sweet one DRB. I don't know how I came across your website, but it's awesome. Happy new year!
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Keep up the good work! :-)
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Truly spectacular. I'm loving these all over again.
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Those were some great posts. All the best to you in 2009!
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I absolutely love your website. Thank you and please keep it going!
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Thank you guys; can't wait to output more posts! Have a great year ahead.
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On propeller bikes, you should definitely watch "Kiki's Delivery Service" by Hayao Miyazaki (1989). Here is a screen-shot of the propeller-powered bicycle.
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Someone needs to define steampunk for you. These do not fit the bill.
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-Any reason you didn't mention that the Taylor Aerocar (1965) had a wing-kit & actually flew?
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Aerocars (that actually fly) will be featured in separate article. Stay tuned...
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A couple of those later pictures looked like they were from the old Supercar marionette kid show.
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Fantastic! I like the propeller-driven bicycle that was 'seen on the London streets'! I want one!! I do wonder through what would happen if someone trotted out one of these now. Are the days of inventing wonderfully crazy things like this (almost) over or relegated only to shows and special events?

Oh, and Anonymous 1 . . . it's interesting! That means it fits the bill as far as i am concerned!
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You have missed out the Brabham F1 car from the days of 'ground effect'
see http://8w.forix.com/fancar.html
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Wonderful!

Not only you could run over pedestrians...you could also torn them to pieces!
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Fantastic as usual. JF Bouzanquet is a friend of mine. I hope to ride the Leycat... If I do so, I'll send you some pics

Regards,
Ian Alexander
blenheimgang.com
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Sounds great... BleinheimGang site rocks, one of my favorites.
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Excellent blog that you obtained with a gratuitous platform.
I congratulate to you.
Greetings from Argentina
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I wonder if the Helicron wasn't the inspiration for Ian Fleming's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"?
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These could say the big three car manufacturers
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I just realized I want a car with a propeller on it. Epiphany. First it was the pro-atheist Catholic priest, now it's the propeller car. Stumble is so much better with like minds.
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The elevator "up for going up, down for going down" sign kinda makes sense. I've seen a lot of people pressing the "up" button thinking it means "elevator, come up" (when they are in, e.g., in the 4th floor, the elevator is in the 1st but they want go to 1st.)
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About the last one on "Engrish".. ..
it is a list which vendors should NOT say to customers.
The first three Chinese characters mean "prohibited sentences".
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The Russian movie posters. Top left is Freaky Friday w/ Lindsay Lowhan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Bottom right is Shallow Hal w/ Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black.
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Anyone else notice that the sign for where Valley View Rd crosses Valley View Rd also points to a winery? Mystery solved!
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The "prayer phone booth" photos are of an art project in the NYC parks by Kansas City artist Dylan Mortimer. You can find the images on his site.

http://www.dylanmortimer.com/public.html
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These are brilliant! Thanks for the laugh (and the photo cred of course)!

nr
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The Russian poster with the vegetables, actually says that the girl provides HERSELF with vegetables for the entire year.
So there's nothing to feel bad about there :)
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For the sign of the trunk of the car; it looks like the trunk is shooting arrows at you, and you have to run away.
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AHAHAHA! A sign from Singapore's MRT(Mass Rapid Transport) ie our subway system. No durians.
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the miner water ad, that with vegetation growing on the poster, is an advertisment of ACQUA CAPANNELLE, a famous italian mineral water, that poster was in Rome, some years ago! I've seen it live!
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The trunk sign is actually labelling the pull-grip of an internal latch release, so that someone who has been locked in the trunk can open the trunk and escape.
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The sign about pushing the button twice to save water:

I know Turkish and have seen that sign in person last summer and the translation is no mistake. It really does say to flush twice to save water.

Whether it is a mistake on the signmaker's end or something to do with the plumbing at the airport (where this sign is found), I don't know.
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@Tolga K:

I took this picture 2 1/2 years ago (indeed at the Istanbul Int'l Airport) and it's been a mystery to me ever since, UNTIL the photo was posted on this blog!

I've been informed on the photo's page what's really going on:

There isn't anything wrong with the sign. Pressing the button once flushes, pressing again stops the flushing prematurely if less than the maximum amount of water is needed.

Neat huh?!
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@Tolga K.
First you push to flush, than you can push a second time if you want to interupt the flush cycle (if its clean enough). not that hard.
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@K!P

That's what I expected to happen when I flushed the second time, only it didn't happen. I'm guessing I used a faulty one.
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Great stuff! That church (god's milk carton) is actually down the street from my house and they are very clever with their sign. I'll have to keep an eye out for some to send you.
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Hey cool to see that busted stock reading machine in wellington posted I picked myself a pic of that aswell now any wellington folks seen that "poon fah assn nz" sign?
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i don't think i've ever been in the mood for "cowfish".
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I saw that last sign in Beijing when I was there. It's not a list of what people might say to the vendors but rather a list of things the vendors should not say to the shoppers.
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http://sonny123.deviantart.com/art/daleky-xmas-107238121
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This post has been removed by the author.
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http://images.google.com/images?q=proteus%20rutan

The first image in "Eve" SpaceShipTwo is Proteus, not "Eve".
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lamberto has a tracker cookie thing that redirects to gambling websites - just take note of the address search for cookie that has same name and remove cookie from where your cookies are.
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thanks anonymous. I deleted the comment because I refreshed several times the DRB page to check, but nothing happened.
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does anyone have any info on the tombstone family tree?
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The Legendary Umbrella website infected my system with 3 Trojans. My SysAdmin is not pleased.
Be Warned!
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the ice ribbons pictures might have been more enjoyable had the owner's name not been so prominent--very distracting.
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I'm not sure, so don't hold me to this, but I think the weird family tree thing is all the Royal Families of Europe, I see Queen Beatrix and Elizabeth II on there, but if I'm wrong, then please, somebody correct me.
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More about the hubcap tree of Baltimore, and the whole glorious over-the-top street lighting extravaganza the Baltimoreans call the Miracle on 34th Street, from Emily Haile writing for Intelligent Travel:
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/2007/12/baltimores-miracle-on-34th-str.html
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The three-dimensional snow impressions are originally from: http://2pie.blogspot.com/2008/12/snow-prints.html

Merry Christmas (and holidays &c.)!
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Thank you for that link to "Black Light - a new source of energy".
It was possibly the most amusing piece of nonsense that I've read all year.
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Ya, Black Light is a known scam that's been around for a while.
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The Black Light people say their energy-producing material was tested by academic researchers. Sounds good, eh?
I found these two facts:

[1] The material gives off energy only for a short while, then it can't be used again.

[2] Before the test, the Black Light people take the material and do something to it - but they won't say what.

Now, that's funny!
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