American standards

"You expect me to live like this?" demanded the toilet. "I'll give you 'looks like someone tried to remodel it, and stopped.' Bah!"

And with that it stormed out the door to go to Norway, where plumbing fixtures are appreciated.

A little something soul-sapping to begin your week

My God. It's Monday.

Don't jump!

No, Chair, don't do it! Bailey found you just in time. Just calm down... we can put you in touch with friends.

Norwegian sink contest!

I'm in the mood for a contest. So here you go: three photos showing sinks. Strange sinks. Norwegian sinks.

(From these listings.)

Q: What is the purpose of the open-fronted sinks?

Leave your answer in a comment. The author of my favorite answer will receive a copy of either Kyoichi Tsuzuki's Tokyo: A Certain Style or James Lileks's Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s (winner's choice).

Notes:

1. Although I am curious about the real use of these sinks, I suspect that my favorite answer will not necessarily be the most truthful one.
2. If I can't decide which one is best, I'm going to let some random person in my family decide.
3. You've got... oh... let's say... a week. So only comments made before late afternoon (Pacific time) of Saturday, December 13th count.
4. I have to hand-approve all comments on this blog because of idiot SEO spammers, so don't worry if your thoughtful entry doesn't show up right away.
5. If the winner lives somewhere that make it very expensive for me to ship a book to them... um... they might just win the satisfaction of a job well done.
6. This is being done by me, just me, and not any advertisers or companies or rogue states intent on (cue: patriotic music) taking over our beloved democracy through blogs.
7. Make sure you leave some way for me to contact you if you win. If you're posting with your Blogger or Google username, that's enough; otherwise you should leave your e-mail address (feel free to munge it).

Whee!

Update: the contest is closed! And the winner -- picked by a random family member, because I couldn't make up my mind -- is... Garrett Albright! Congratulations, Garrett Albright! Come on down!

Honesty in real estate listings

Is this picture crooked? Maybe not: the house "has a cracked foundation after a earthquake in the kitchen floor title cracks getting bigger look at pictures also cracks in block wall on the left side of house if standing in front of house" and on and on

Is he here yet? Is he here yet?

These chairs that Karen found, on the other hand, are not having eeevil meetings. They're eagerly trying to look out the window and spot the school bus as they wait for their big brother (a La-Z-Boy) to come home and play with them.

Chair Power! Chair Power!

Man, I hate that chairist furniture, never letting other furniture come to its meetings. And who does it benefit? Nobody!

Can't we all just get along?