6 Ways the Cracked Book Makes Your Xmas Gifts Look Like Shit
With our book on shelves, and your closet full of gifts you'll never actually use, we are running down the Top Christmas Gifts of 2010 and explaining whether they're worth keeping. Seeing the success of Apple's Mac vs. PC straw man gambit, we decided to find the gift recommendation equivalent of John Hodgman's doofus PC. Somehow, the third Google result for "The Top 10 Christmas Gifts of 2010" was from a website called ILoveIndia.com, the "Indian guide on culture, facts, lifestyle, cars, bikes, art & entertainment." To be fair, we won't be touching on their top three -- "Gift Basket," "Scrap Book" and "A Personal Surprise" -- since A) you already know why those gifts suck, and B) they can't be returned for anything. To be unfair to them, we'll be making fun of their poorly translated English pretty relentlessly. Though, to ask us not to make fun of that would be unfair. So it all evens out, really.
Diversity doesn't mean we shouldn't mock each other.
"DVD Specials"
Let's assume that you got a DVD box set of a show or movie that you actually like, as opposed to the show that your mom mistook for the one you like because "I knew it took place in outer space, and I figured this must be the one because how many shows could afford to do that?"
So you've now got the complete set with hours and hours of extra material. Great, now what? You have to set aside some time to sit in front of your TV and watch a show that you've already seen, or the deleted scenes that -- surprise! -- were deleted for a reason. And don't forget the commentary track in which the director kisses the ass of whichever actor is currently in the room with him. Getting a DVD box set is like receiving a homework assignment that you're not going to get credit for.
All your favorite Bond movies! Right alongside all your least favorite Bond movies.
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
Imagine if DVD box sets contained new, never before seen episodes of the show that were just as good, or better than the best episodes that ever aired on TV. Imagine if, for a year, every time The Simpsons had an episode that was really great, they decided not to air it on TV, and instead saved it for the DVD box set. That would be the best gift ever, right? Well, that's what we actually did. We went through and selected 20 of the best articles we've ever written on the site in case you missed them. (Though even if you didn't, they're now accompanied by illustrations from Nedroid, Winston Rowntree and Dr. McNinja, to name just a few.) Then we pulled 18 of the best articles that were turned in over the course of the year from our online rotation, and put them in the book so you'd have something new to read.
We had the writers assassinated, to protect their precious secrets.
Unlike the fat cats in DVD land, we know you're busy, so we don't ask you to set aside a Sunday to read the parts of articles that we cut out. We understand that only a select few of you would care to hear us talk about the process of making the articles you read to distract yourself at work. We made this book because we know what our audience wants: to read us on the crapper.
And all we are asking in return is that you exchange that $170 Family Guy box set that your mom got you instead of the The Simpsons one you asked for, and purchase 22 copies of our book.
It has more than four times the laugh-to-joke ratio of Family Guy.
Digital Camera
According to ILoveIndia, "This Christmas, a digital camera is definitely the weapon of choice!" According to us, bullshit. See, every Christmas gift we have ever given or received has been weighed against two factors: street value, and how well it embodies the holiday spirit as depicted in our favorite Christmas movie, Die Hard.
It's only our third favorite Hanukkah movie.
Cameras once possessed impressive bludgeoning girth, but technology has robbed them of their most useful aspects when it comes to defending a skyscraper from vaguely European terrorists. Some even come with an assistant to stand on the side and hold the flash up for you -- a feature that would have come in handy for temporarily blinding machine gun wielding terrorists -- and then eventually absorb half a magazine worth of their ammo.
Technological progress has rendered modern digital cameras so insubstantial that we wouldn't even recommend strapping all your plastic explosives to one and throwing it down an elevator shaft, lest it just sort of hover there in mid-air.
We prefer to weigh our plastic explosives down with more plastic explosives.
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
Well, we can tell you one gift that passes the Die Hard test.
You Might Be a Zombie is the first time in years that the Cracked brand can be used as a murder weapon. By rolling it into a tight cylinder -- as seen in The Bourne Identity -- the book will make a handy throat jabbing implement.
This could be you! And that could be your lying gardener!
Return a high-end digital camera and you will be able to purchase enough copies of the 320-page book to coat your vital organs 640 pages deep.
How Mythbusters recommends you bulletproof your car.
Also, you'll be able to spend your downtime reading Seanbaby's "5 Fight Moves That Only Work in Movies." It beats the hell out of having a walkie-talkie fest with a depressed cop, and when you eventually fight Karl to the death, you'll know that Seanbaby thinks flying jump kicks are, "really elaborate ways to look like a cheerleader immediately before getting your ass kicked."
You Might Be a Zombie doesn't just beat your new digital camera in the Die Hard gift test -- it rides it down a staircase like a sleigh, makes fun of its shoe size, dresses its corpse up like Santa Claus and writes a taunting message on its chest.
Anyone else really craving eggnog and latka right now?
Nintendo Wii
ILoveIndia.com informs us that the main reason to buy someone this $200 gaming system is that "it's cool to have one!" This won't be the last sentence that makes us suspect that ILoveIndia.com is actually an elaborate satire of American consumerism. Cutting to the chase, the author points out that, "The great thing about Wii is that you can play it within the house in front of the television and with your family, but still enjoy real outdoor fun."
Yes, as in Indian cinema, the chase is a confusing mess.
After spending 15 minutes trying to figure out what that sentence means, we've come to the conclusion that "outdoor fun" is what their online translator came up with for "exercise." Staying active while gaming is at least a legitimate reason to own a Wii, but being too sedentary is a pretty embarrassing reason to receive a gift.
If you are already a fairly social and active person, your Wii gifter's motives are most likely selfish. Thanks to multiplayer party games, the Wii is the gift that keeps on giving back to the gift giver. They are essentially saying, "You know what your house could use? Something to interact with that's not you."
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
Return your Wii and pocket the $200. Head over to Amazon's website and order 26 copies of You Might Be a Zombie. We know what you're thinking, "But Cracked, I only have $200! Surely you meant 2.6 copies!" As crazy as this might seem, the first ever Cracked book can be purchased for $7.95 right now.
You can also buy it in E-book form, to read while scuba diving or driving.
For the price of one Wii, you can purchase enough copies to feed a famine stricken African village with the ultimate food: laughter.
Just be sure to keep one for yourself. Each copy of YMBaZ is chock full of fascinating information that is guaranteed to solve the sorts of problems you are clearly suffering from. If you've been given the Wii by a relative concerned about your sedentary lifestyle, the article "4 Things Your Mom Said Are Good for You (Can Kill You)" will help you explain to them that exercise can be deadly, and that the real problem is the governmental conspiracy to make your ass fatter. And your dinner guests are going to have a difficult time being bored as you explain why painting the Golden Gate Bridge a different color would save thousands of lives.
Or how the LSD you dosed their champagne with will make them better baseball players and scientists.
New Apple iPods
With the iPhone becoming available on Verizon Networks in February of 2011, millions of people will be rewarded for patiently waiting out the AT&T stalemate. But not you. How could you justify purchasing one now that you have a digital camera and an iPod. You're a calculator and some masking tape away from having just enough to not be able to justify purchasing one.
2011: The iPhone comes to a carrier that isn't pure terrible.
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
The iPhone will not come preloaded with Cracked.com's new book, You Might Be a Zombie.
Favorite Accessories
ILoveIndia.com informs us that "This is especially for people who spend a lot of time with different things." As a for-example, they suggest that if your friend spends a lot of time on his laptop, "buy him something for his laptop and see his face light up. If he plays guitar, get him something related to that, even if it means buying that exotic pick! After all, this was something which he always wished for, isn't it?"
Pick, not tick. Although Lyme disease IS the gift that keeps on giving.
This line of reasoning perfectly encapsulates the No. 1 cause of terrible gift giving. See, we all fool ourselves into believing that other people, particularly our loved ones, give us a great deal of thought. "Hey, they knew I was graduating, they must have been paying attention to my scholastic career!"
Getting a "favorite accessory" for Christmas brings into sharp focus the fact that when you're not around, you are "Jim's kid who went to school back in the 80s, and therefore probably needs a protractor," or "Jane's kid with the feet, who probably needs shoelaces," or "the one who was into sharks as a kid and probably wants a copy of Jaws 4 on VHS even though he's 32 now."
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
Nothing, unfortunately.
Gift Certificate
Every gift card has the same subtext: "Here's some money that you can only spend in one place that you might like to shop. Maybe not. Can I go now?"
"You mean less to me than time, but slightly more than nothing."
Once "ILoveIndia.com" claimed that this is the most "personalized option" in the opening sentence of their entry, we couldn't shake the feeling that this entire section is meant to be read sarcastically. And really, it's the only way their advice at the end to "just go and grab them before they run out of it!" makes any sense. Gift certificates don't run out. They are the gift that you give someone when the store is out of literally everything else. The giver of a gift certificate either hates you, or they are Christmas shopping in post-Katrina New Orleans and the looters have already made off with anything that could possibly be mistaken as useful. They exchanged money for something less useful than money so that they could cross you off their list on a gift-giving technicality. They're hoping this counts as a gift because the word gift is in the name.
"I love you! Probably!"
At least your great aunt who bought you a telescope because you're going for your Ph.D. in molecular biology took a whack at it. The gift card giver is so vaguely aware of you, that they were only willing to guess at what genre of person you are. If they tried to describe you to a police sketch artist, they'd be arrested for wasting his time.
The recipients of gift cards are so thrilled with their gifts that at least 10 percent are never even used. That comes out to $8 billion donated to retailers so that assholes can get out of their duties as a member of society. Gift certificates are to actual gifts what bad hand jobs are to sex: You can insist that it counts all you want, but when it comes down to it, 99 percent of the people in the world would rather have the cash instead.
You can't buy drugs with a gift card. Unless you live in California.
What Can I Get For This Piece of Shit?
Wait, we just thought of something. Open your wallet. Did you get a gift card from any one of the nation's leading book sellers? Holy shit! It's a Christmas miracle! Just as on this year 2,010 years ago, a little baby was born in a manger who would come to lead us all to salvation or get almost as famous as Elvis (depending on your belief system). Sometimes great things can come out of bad circumstances. With the $8 billion that is squandered by underwhelmed gift card receivers, we could buy enough You Might Be a Zombie books to build a scale replica of the entire African continent over the continent of Africa. And isn't that what Christmas is all about in the end?
Go buy 365 copies of , and give the gift of everlasting joy to the people who deserve it the most: The Editors of Cracked.com.