Bizarmin Strikes Again!!

you know, i can't believe how much of this blog has now been dedicated to charmin, but man if they aren't just so damned wacked out i have to post.  oddly enough, charmin is actually one of my least favorite types of toilet paper.

so, charmin is opening a public restroom in times square for the holidays.

it's actually kind of totally brilliant  people need bathrooms while they're shopping, charmin needs a larger than life sized advertisement in times square a la the m&m store.

unsurprisingly, the restrooms, like everything in times square, are aimed at tourists.

Traveling to the Big Apple this holiday season?  Visit the Charmin Restrooms.  Check out our new location at 142 West 42nd Street.  You'll find 15 clean comfortable restrooms to help you "Enjoy the Go" in the heart of NYC.  It's our holiday gift to you.

the restrooms in times square aren't just places to poo, they're an experience:

Sure, we've got restrooms. But that's not all. Shake your groove thing on our dance stage. Take a load off in one of our lounge chairs. Or grab a photo op with a Charmin Bear.

not just a funny drawing, the bathroom will -really- have a potty dance floor.

yeah, you read that right.  'take a load off' in their lounge chairs.   the webpage also invites us to "Browse our pics to tour the Charmin Restrooms in NYC."  now maybe they're keeping secrets until the restrooms launch, currently 13 hours and 20 minutes from now (there's a countdown clock on the site, to increase our excitement), but all of the aforementioned 'pics' are concept drawings of the space, and not actual photos.  

not sure what those translucent arrows are illustrating.  air flow?

how long will these restrooms stay clean and comfortable, anyway.  i'd guess by the end of thanksgiving day, that shit will be covered in shit.  at the very least i think it will be difficult to keep up with all the tourists urinating on the seats, because you -know- tourists love to urinate on toilet seats "squat".

i'm also expecting there'll be some kind of a charmin shop, maybe a small stand where you can buy annoyingly fluffy toilet paper embroidered with your name or charmin bear key chains with removable tp flakes attached to their butts.  maybe an 'Enjoy the Go' coffee mug?

oh, 'the Go' is charmin's apparently not quite trademarkable euphemism for 'shitting or peeing'.  you know charmin is -all about- confusing frank discussion with obtuse niceties, not saying 'poop' but painting crotch grabbing, pee-dancing, naked bears on the walls.  it twists my mind into knots.  as a footnote to this madness, just check out this charmin ad, a faux grassroots call to arms for finally enjoying our poos.  it is a mangled labyrinth of blunt poo-talk and euphemismo.

Poo Log

i once had a friend named shelby, one of the few people who internet stalking, unfortunately for me since she was rad, does not turn up. she liked to play 'what if some crazy shit' quite a lot.  and she was good at it.  two of the ones that have always stuck with me follow.  only the second has to do with bathrooms.  don't get confused! (feel free to answer in the comments though, if you wish.)

what if...

• 1.  ...you come home and your roommate is having sex, and you can hear them.  they don't know you're home.  then you realize that their sex partner is calling them by your name, and they are calling their sex partner by your love interest's name. they are roleplaying YOU.
  
  how would you feel?  what would you do?
  
  
• 2. ...your roommate is away, and you need a pencil or some other innocuous thing that you think you might be able to find in their desk without being intrusive.  what you find in their desk is a stack of notebooks, all titled [your name]'s Poops. they're logs of all of your trips to the bathroom: sounds you made, smells, whether you pooped, other details.  and the logs go back to when you first moved in together.
  
  what, if anything, would you do?
  

which brings me to the Poo Log (double entendre, i'm assuming, intended).

poo log.  a record keeper.

when you're psyched on your poo, you call your journal 'baby'

available from Herbivore, the Poo Log is more than just a journal with toilets on the cover.  it actually helps you keep track of your poops by providing a ratings scale, dubbed the PQI (Poo Quality Index).

but lest you think you the Poo Log will constrain the creative interpretation of your poop, or try to fit your square poop through a round hole, see that the facing page provides a bit more free form area to fill out, including space for a sketch*.

put your name at the top, so you can share the Log and compare your logs..

the main problem i see with the Poo Log, for me, is simply that it seems like a kind of while-you-poo activity.  once i'm done, i'm kinda done.  but if you like to talk about your poops, and people plug their ears and yell 'tmi', or if your listeners are saddened that you don't remember the details and don't have any sketches, this journal might be just the thing for you!

*do not sketch with poo.  your pages will stick together.  and that's gross.  though some down on it's luck medical laboratory might be able to sell a few of these with some kind of poop sample pack and a postage paid envelope for hard core poop geeks to get real feedback.  synergy!

bathroom buzz

asylum.com has an article outlining "urinals we most want to pee in", which includes several old and gigantic urinals (over 6 feet tall!) but also these single person bathrooms at Bar 89.  i haven't been there, but my friend frank was just telling me about them.  the doors are clear glass when it's unlocked, but once you log the door the 'fog over' so people can't see in.  i don't understand how that works.  maybe double panes of glass and the fog is inside?  maybe magic.  either way, as they say at bucketheadland, neato neato.