WTF Or Not? You Decide

Here comes the WTFckery!

1. Plagarism is the worst type of WTFckery. A writer by the name of Christine Phoenix, who was going to have her debut novel out with Siren Bookstrand , was caught plagarizing from J.L. Langley's With Love. Teddy Pig has all the information on his blog about this.

Since then Siren had taken down Phoenix's book and wouldn't you know it that Phoenix has taken down her blog and the excerpt from I Will Follow You.

Here's a small taste of what was found:

Christine Phoenix: I Will Follow You

"Sebastian looked around and took everything in, trying to decide who he would tear apart first. The clearing was surrounded by trees. It was roughly the size of half a football field. This must be where the pack met and shifted on full moons since it was far outside town. If a werewolf had the ability to shift, the pull of the full moon was too much for them, and they shifted. Sebastian didn’t have that problem. Lycans learned to control their shift at puberty. The location was good for him, no witnesses to their fight, and it was good to be close to the earth, surrounded by nature As a shape-shifter, his magic was defined by the elements, so he was stronger if surrounded by its source.

The fragile Omega went limp, nearly succeeding in making the two men holding him let go. It didn’t work, but it surprised them all enough to allow the little man to get a good kick in. He hit the third man, who was wrestling with his pants, right in the mouth. Blood flew as the man’s head jerked to the side. Blood splattered over the Alpha."

J.L. Langley's With Love

"Dev looked around and took everything in, trying to decide the best point of attack. The clearing was surrounded by trees. It was roughly the size of half a football field. This must be where the pack met before they hunted on a full moon.

The Omega went limp, nearly succeeding in making the two men holding him let go. It didn’t work, but it surprised them all enough to allow the redhead to get a good kick in. He hit the third man who was wrestling with his pants, right in the mouth. Blood flew as the man’s head jerked to the side. Crimson splatters splashed over the Alpha."

2. Is it just me, or when an author wins a very prestigous award, they start having diarrhea of the mouth? Jennifer Egan really has such disdain for Chick Lit? Who knew she was such as Lit-Fic snob? From The Frisky:

"A Visit from the Goon Squad, a novel about the ravages of time on characters working in the music industry (to distill it way, way down) got so much attention from publications like The New York Times Book Review this past year. The Wall Street Journal interview Egan about winning the Pulitzer Prize for the book.

"Smack dab in the middle of her verbal happy dance about winning the award, while discussing what she’d like to see from other female writers, Egan trashes the chick lit genre:

“My focus is less on the need for women to trumpet their own achievements than to shoot high and achieve a lot. What I want to see is young, ambitious writers. And there are tons of them. Look at The Tiger’s Wife. There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models?... My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower.”

"When she says “the Harvard student,” she’s referring to Kaavya Viswanathan, a very young novelist whose first young-adult work of fiction, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, plagiarized veteran chick lit authors Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Megan McCafferty. The book was pulled from the shelves by publisher Little Brown and Company, and Viswanathan’s contract for a second book was canceled. It was ugly.

But Egan’s disgust isn’t about the plagiarism — it’s that Viswanathan wanted to write chick lit. Judging by the quote, Egan thinks chick lit is “derivative,” “banal,” and not shooting “high.”

How sad Ms. Egan to show your snobbery. I hope it keeps you warm at night.

3. Raise your hand if you have a zarf. What's a zarf you may ask?

"Originally, a zarf was a metal chalice keep the heat from your coffee from burning your fingers. The name for the fancy cupholder has morphed into the modern-day cardboard sleeve that comes wrapped around your hot coffee."

A cozy sounds better than a zarf, doesn't it?

4. A peeps topiary? A whole lot of sugar high going on here. From Craftzine:

5. Perfect way to stop robbers from stealing your purse: From I Haz a Cheesburger:

6. I'm in love. Walls made out of books in a resturant! How WTF awesome is that? From the Gothamist:

"David Bouley's long-delayed Japanese restaurant Brushstroke, which puts 12,000 boring old (recycled) paperbacks to good use as the walls in the bar/lounge. Bouley is not in the kitchen for this venture, which was inspired 15 years ago by his Japanese friend Yoshiki Tsuji, who runs a culinary institute in that country.

A team of chefs from across Japan staff Brushstroke's kitchen, overseen by Chef Isao Yamada, who owned his own restaurant Hana-Eiraku (where he earned 3-star status from a top gourmet magazine). Brushstroke’s "vast" repertoire of dishes—we're told 10,000 have been developed—will be currently available 8-course ($85) and 10-course ($130) menus in the main dining room. It's not a sushi restaurant, but a separate á la carte menu, as well as a full selection of sushi, will be available in the bar and lounge. Both dining rooms will have a complete selection of wines and sakes."

7. For those who have a hot dog fetish. From Gizmodo:

"Nienke Klunder's rocking hot dog sculpture. Apparently eight were made from fiberglass, aluminium, leather, maple wood and chrome." Giddy Up!

8. Would you wear a dress made of Starburst wrappers to the prom or say, another fancy affair like a wedding? I wonder if someone can make me a M&M dress? From News Record:

"Grimsley High School senior Kelly Henriksen made her prom dress and accessories -- and her date, Max Spiewak’s, bow tie -- out of Starburst candy wrappers. Spiewak asked her to the prom by spelling out the invitation in Starburst candies. Henriksen, 18, made her dress from duct tape, masking tape and about 450 individual wrappers and 20 packages of Starburst candy.

“A couple of years ago, I made an iPod case from Starburst wrappers, and I saw a dress made out of newspapers and I thought 'I can do that,’” Henriksen said.

“I picked Starburst because the wrappers are made of wax-covered paper,” she said. “It’s more sturdy, and the candy doesn’t stick as much.”

The dress started out as a class project for her honors art and design class. her art teacher Kat Kraszeski said."

9. Bearded dude is a bored dude who has nothing else to do with his time but try and stick 3000 toothpicks in his old man time beard.



10. And your Regretsy WTFckery is a T-shirt that looks like it's covered in roadkill. Would you wear this work of T-shirt art?

And for those who are celebrating Easter today, I leave you with one of the most awesome WTFckery scenes in a movie. I give you the killer bunny scene from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail: