This one comes via Craig’s recently employed girlfriend, Christy. The Advertising Slogan Generator plugs in your word of choice to create an all new tagline. Although Christy says, “DON’T CHEAT, KEEP THE FIRST ONE THEY GIVE YOU,” I got a little giddy and kept hitting that Sloganize button a dozen times. So, I’m not sure if this is the first result or the twenty-first, but who cares? At long last, TurkeyMonkey has a slogan:

Give the dog a TurkeyMonkey.

And, while we’re at it, let’s put the Bad Joke Generator to work, too:

What’s TurkeyMonkey’s favorite film?
Twelve TurkeyMonkeys

Or a randomly generated product idea:

TurkeyMonkey is a laser-printer! It fits into the boot of a car!

Worst of all — worse even than the avian flu — the disease known as …

TurkeyMonkeyosis.

Cause: lack of noodles in diet

Symptoms: electric shocks, vague moodiness, mild pyromania, seeing dead people

Cure: don’t do it again

Wait, that entry title sounds really bad, doesn’t it? Just to clarify, this is no endorsement of homemade, basement-variety, videotaped amateur pornos (not that there’s anything wrong with them).

What I’m talkin’ ’bout instead is Make Magazine, one of the newest entries in the ever-expanding category of self-improvement mags like Real Simple and Every Day with Rachel Ray. Until a couple days ago, I had no idea that there was a publication devoted to remodeling old, outdated electronic equipment into cat toys. What’s more, my friend Mike Garrett pointed out one article about how to turn an aging VCR into an automated catfood dispenser. Now, I’m not sure if Mike was aware of my excruciating, two-year ordeal searching for an automated cat feeder, but this article just about the greatest piece of literature I’ve encountered since A Treasure’s Trove. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mike.

Mike pointed me to this Newsweek story that further addresses the rise of Make Mag and other DIY pubs:

All this is evidence of a growing movement of people eager to tinker with high-tech gadgets and Dumpster detritus—and, I suspect, an even bigger population harboring fantasies about modding their espresso machines, building their own printed circuit boards and engaging in the brave new world of kite aerial photography. We’ve already seen the popularity of house porn (shelter magazines and “Extreme Home Makeover”), car porn (auto mags and “Pimp My Ride”) and food porn (“Iron Chef”). Now we’ve got geek DIY (do it yourself) porn. Just as would-be Emerils pore over lushly illustrated cookbooks with recipes involving hard-to-find morels and complicated instructions for roux, Tom Swift wanna-bes are devouring Make and reading books like William Gurstelle’s “Backyard Ballistics,” which has sold more than 160,000 copies.

If I haven’t already lost you at this point, may I point you to one more recent Make feature, about how to turn a computer mouse into a robot mouse for your kitty to chase? Behold, a PDF on how to create Mousey the Junkbot.

Yes, you can learn how to make other gizmos, ones that aren’t solely designed to feed and entertain cats. But that would just be cruel, wouldn’t it?

The day has finally arrived! Urban Dictionary finally added “turkeymonkey” to its virtual compendium, complete with multiple definitions and different uses. Who needs the OED, Dictionary.com, and Websters? I’d rather have a listing between the words “turkeyfuckin” and “turkeyneck” any day of the week.

1. turkeyfuckin
To light ones cigarette off of the cigarette of another person.
Dude,my lighters beat. Let me get a turkeyfuck off ya
by keith Aug 9, 2003

1. turkeyneck
The shaft of an old, wrinkled penis
That cunt refused to suck my turkeyneck, which was as purple as an iris
by The Phantom Aug 4, 2003

I got my first piece of bona fide hate mail at InTown late last week. While I can’t really imagine these semi-incoherent ramblings getting onto the magazine’s letters page, I wanted to share them with all you TurkeyMonkey lovers (and haters) out there. I know it sounds odd to be happy about getting an angry email, but in the writing biz, whenever someone who reads your work is moved enough to write in, it’s really touching. Sort of like Sally Field’s Academy Awards speech: You read me, you really read me!

I’ll paste the letter below, sans author. If you’re wondering what story is being referred to, it’s my article on Scarsdale real estate flippers, which you can see here.

The only thing more coarse and vulgar than the subject of Scarsdale Magazine’s February article “Risky Business” is the coarseness and vulgarity contained in Ted Mann’s writing.

Thank goodness some measure of refinement still exists in various quiet, lower profile quarters of our town. It certainly doesn’t exist in this article – or in its author. I’m sure he’d say “I’m writing ABOUT those kinds of guys, I’m not ONE of them.”

But indeed, his writing reveals him to be a bit of a coarse scruff as well.

The unfortunate thing, Ms. Mitcham, is that scruffs don’t necessarily KNOW that they’re scruffs – no matter how well-educated, well-dressed or otherwise successful they might be. And, since Ted Mann is on your editorial staff, for all we know you’re all birds of a scruffy feather. Heaven help us, as you’ll be doing the non-scruffs in our community no favors.

Ugh.