Does your Qwert Shmarble juice emus?

December 5, 2005 3:38 AM

The mystery of Qwert Shmarble--solved! If you've ever wondered how stunningly useful items like Qwert Shmarble end up on Amazon, here's the inside story, from the former Amazon temp who wrote the user manual to the NM-156 Reciprocating Emu Press.
posted by yankeefog (16 comments total)

Via Heaneyland, by the way.
posted by yankeefog at 3:45 AM on December 5, 2005

good stuff
posted by farishta at 5:31 AM on December 5, 2005

I haven't had any coffee in a while, can someone paraphrase all this, please?
posted by zardoz at 6:29 AM on December 5, 2005

Sorry Zardoz. About half way through the first paragraph, my eyes glazed like a donut, and I could read no more.

With new media like this about, old media looks like it will be in good shape for some time to come.

Can anyone figure out whether the author just wasn't familiar with Duchamp, or does he think that this sort of heavy-handed emulation is going to impress somebody who isn't familiar with the work of the single most important figure in the single most important strand of modernism?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:49 AM on December 5, 2005

zardoz: the qwert shmarble is some sort of very old test data put into the amazon database (or something, I'd know for sure if I'd click the link, I suppose).
posted by delmoi at 6:51 AM on December 5, 2005

For those who are impatient like PeterMcDermott and I, search for Amazon in the linked entry and read from there.
posted by VulcanMike at 6:57 AM on December 5, 2005

That emu press manual is a very good, ehrm, read. Not that I actually read it, but just glancing over it and seeing the illustrations made me almost spill my breakfast (granola, banana and yoghurt) onto my keyboard. You are forewarned.
posted by kika at 6:58 AM on December 5, 2005

Break this down to one sentence for me. Have it on my desk by noon.

Yours,
Busy Exec.
posted by Outlawyr at 7:31 AM on December 5, 2005

I got a Qwert Schmarble once. Fortunately, I've a quite good physician with access to top-notch antibiotics, and I got it cleared up in short order.
posted by stenseng at 7:39 AM on December 5, 2005

I get the feeling that Qwert Schmarble is a fake product, and so a ready attractor for jokes concerning hyper-capable do-all things. See: Spacom.
posted by JHarris at 7:49 AM on December 5, 2005

What the heck is a 'Qwert Schmarble'? Sorry the amazon link seem to have no description of product.

Is this related to this? or this?

I can't believe these were the top 2 hits for 'qwert' in google.
posted by countzen at 10:10 AM on December 5, 2005

Wow. Some people can't be bothered to read the linked material and/or have no sense of humor. Very funny stuff, yankeefog—thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 10:26 AM on December 5, 2005

Can anyone figure out whether the author just wasn't familiar with Duchamp, or does he think that this sort of heavy-handed emulation is going to impress somebody who isn't familiar with the work of the single most important figure in the single most important strand of modernism?

No. It's called "having fun." Look into it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:46 AM on December 5, 2005

Some people can't be bothered to read the linked material

Or glance over to the tags, for that matter. This is the funny!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:48 AM on December 5, 2005

I thought this was going to be about the Qbert !@#%%@$%@! utterance. (Shmarble could be a term for the exclamation, you never know.)

goddam it, I'll never find out.
posted by Busithoth at 11:44 AM on December 5, 2005

This makes me think of another product. The Bo-Ring. Its TOTALLY Bo-Ring. Search for it on Amazon!
posted by indiebass at 11:30 AM on December 6, 2005