Man compares breasts to carburetors

[giza]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A man who compared a woman's anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language.

Dan McKay, a computer analyst at Microsoft Great Plains in Fargo, North Dakota, bested thousands of entrants from North Pole, Alaska to Manchester, England to triumph Wednesday in San Jose State University's annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire," he wrote, comparing a woman's breasts to "small knurled caps of the oil dampeners."

The competition highlights literary achievements of the most dubious sort -- terrifyingly bad sentences that take their inspiration from minor writer Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" began, "It was a dark and stormy night."

"We want writers with a little talent, but no taste," San Jose State English Professor Scott Rice said. "And Dan's entry was just ludicrous."

Read the rest of this article.

Those people in San Francisco sure are strange. Maybe it's something in the water. tgeller?

I wonder if The Eye of Argon is this bad...

Comments

[redrob.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Eye of Argon is MUCH worse.

Here's the MST3K version of it if you want to check it out yourself.

Alex

[triggur.livejournal.com]

*wince*

[triggur.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for truly awful fiction, I heartily recommend Atlanta Nights.

It was written DELIBERATELY bad by a group of accomplished sci-fi/fantasy authors to see if Publish America (the CEO of which disses sci-fi/fantasy as being puerile) would publish it. And they did.

And you can buy it online. It's a great read to giggle at.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the B-L contest. I actually own a volume of Bulwer-Lytton's so called writing that contains the original use of "It was a dark and stormy night."

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't blame us: It was a guy from NORTH DAKOTA who won. :)

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

But you *CAN* blame us for this.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! That is WAY cool! *passes the URL around*


You know I like Zombie movies, right? :-)

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

I do now!

(Homer to Ned, through the mail slot): "Brains... brains... you can use your brains to think of a way out of this! Your delicious brains..."

[/simpsons]

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

A report.

They apparently invaded the Apple Store and were offered a demo of Tiger.

P.S.

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

More photos. I'm sure there are WAY more floating about the inet.

[thraxarious.livejournal.com]

It was actually San Jose State, which is only an hour from SF...


And it being a microsoft employee who won the 'bad writing' challenge... well, you can draw your own chuckles from that.