SkyMall Monday: T-Rex Dinosaur Trophy Frieze

I don’t know much about hunting (and what I do know I learned from Zach Everson) but I’ve always wanted an animal trophy on my wall. However, I don’t want to kill something just for sport (unless it’s the most dangerous game) and finding an animal that I can track, kill and eat near the SkyMall Monday New York City headquarters is tough (the Parks Department frowns on the use of rifles in Central Park). So, what’s a man with a healthy bloodlust and empty wall space to do? Well, if SkyMall has anything to say about it, we’ll all decorate our walls with a suitable kill while also not removing a single creature from a delicate ecosystem. Rather than covering yourself in deer urine and spending your day in the trees, simply pick up our favorite catalog and order yourself the T-Rex Dinosaur Trophy Frieze.

Since dinosaurs have long been extinct (or living in the Land of the Lost), this T-Rex is clearly not real. However, it displays that you have the ability to take down a beast much greater than you, which will give your guests pause when they consider stealing something from your home or seducing your daughter. As such, it’s a handsome home decoration and an advertisement for your masculinity.

Think that you should only display trophies that you actually killed? Believe that showing off any kill – even fictitious ones – is crude? Well, while you select a puppy statue, we’ll be reading the product description:

Our…wall trophy celebrates one of history’s largest known land predators, the fabled T-Rex! This amazingly detailed sculpture releases nearly a foot-and-a-half from the wall to boast details cast in quality designer resin and hand-painted with realistic color and texture. Mount our prehistoric, treasured artifact on home or garden wall for Jurassic-sized impact in your own museum!

Now all you need is a garden, a garden wall (which is what, exactly?) and your own museum. Seems reasonable.

So leave your orange hunting vest and animal calls at home. There’s no need for bloodshed when you’re decorating your home (unless you’re reckless with the power drill). Sit back, relax and enjoy having an extinct animal follow you with its eyes.

Check out all of the previous “SkyMall Monday” posts HERE.

SkyMall Monday: Wild Lawn Ornaments

I keep myself safely secluded in the SkyMall Monday headquarters. It’s built inside a mountain, under several hundred feet of granite, in a secure and secret location. This protects me from the fearsome animals that I now assume rule the Earth. While I fear all wildlife and assume that they are out to get me (and/or my Lucky Charms), I do enjoy their decorative properties. But how can I take advantage of the aesthetic qualities of our furry, feathered and scaled friends without being bitten, constricted or dry humped? Taxidermy is expensive and requires first killing animals before they have a chance to kill me. That seems not only difficult but likely to involve unseemly people who peddle in taxidermy and will most certainly make me uncomfortable. That leaves only one viable option for harnessing the majestic beauty of creatures both real, imagined and extinct: lawn ornaments. Lawn ornaments tell everyone in your neighborhood that you’re classy and bored. But where can I satiate my appetite for animal lawn ornaments? Who would have such a buffet of faux-fauna? Who could possibly…oh, come on, you know the answer to these questions. It’s SkyMall’s time to shine! Leave your tranquilizer darts and nets at home. You won’t need them on this safari. Simply pack your imagination and obliviousness to your tacky sense of style. We’re hunting wild lawn ornaments.SkyMall product descriptions in italics followed by my thoughts on these fine works of “art.”

T-Rex Dinosaur Sculpture
Visitors will admire your creative garden style as T-Rex makes a Mesozoic statement! And you won’t understand their Cenozoic response. Nerd joke. Look it up.

Brown Bear Garden SculptureOur realistically sculpted, 3-1/2-foot-long mischievous Brown Bear is sculpted 360 degrees to be admired from all sides while lumbering through your garden. I like to admire bears from the backside. Yep, I like bear back.

Raccoon Garden Sculpture They can be a nuisance–but posed in this adorable pile-up of three, raccoons can also be among Mother Nature’s most endearing creatures. Who doesn’t want to cuddle with some raccoons. Why not create a realistic scene and scatter some garbage around them. And get a dozen or so shots in your stomach for the pretend rabies. Adorable!

Garden Deer Sculpture“The privilege of a visit from a majestic six-point buck isn’t confined to the tradition of grand European landscapes! The quintessential garden piece, our amazingly accurate investment in garden art stands four-feet-long and over a yard tall, complete with an enviable rack of antlers. A visit from a buck is a privilege not a right. You have to earn it by covering yourself in fake deer urine and sitting in a tree all day. Also, there is no lawn ornament more quintessential than a giant deer. And if you envy antlers, you can always get some of your own. But if you envy antlers, well, you have issues, man. Serious, serious issues.

The Regal PeacockAlmost a full yard of metallic gold and iridescent blue plumage shines in an expansive panorama in this classic English garden piece. Our artisans have hand-painted each feather of this highly textural work in the peacock’s royal palette. I have no joke here. Just high praise for the lofty prose used by one bold and highfalutin SkyMall employee. No plumage is as alluring as his wordsmithing.

Dragon of Falkenburg CastleYour neighbors will steer clear when they see this intricately sculpted, more than two-foot-long dragon stretched out in your flower bed. This lifelike sculpture is complete with scales, wings and a treacherous tail. Yeah, blame the dragon for keeping your neighbors away. That’s the ticket. Also, who knows what a lifelike dragon would look like? Who here has seen a dragon? Quick show of hands. Anyone? In the back there? No? OK, moving on.

Musical Raccoon MaestroGreet passing garden visitors with a rousing performance of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song,” and you’ll get a standing ovation every time. This cute conductor is wearing an appropriately formal black-tie-and-tails outfit and has a motion-activated sound chip for surprising and delighting his audiences. I’d prefer a casually dressed squirrel that plays Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride.”

See, you don’t need to venture to the wilds of Africa or Wal-Mart to have animal encounters. You can assemble your own menagerie that will show your neighbors that you are fashionable, sophisticated and not at all lonely. Be it raccoons, a deer or an extinct predator, you will be the undisputed beastmaster of your trailer park.

As for me, I’ll stay in my bunker. My mountain fortress has no lawn to ruin with ornaments.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

Photo of the Day (8.16.09)

With Summer comes the road trip. That inevitable urge to get out on the open road in search of adventure and fun. And let’s not forget, the chance you might come upon a quirky roadside attraction or sign? It’s this perfectly posed roadside T-Rex that got us looking at Flickr user Peter Rivera’s shot today. Peter captured this strange beast near Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Did you check out our roadside attractions day on Gadling? If not, make sure to take a look.

Have any of your own travel photos to share with the world? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick yours as our Photo of the Day.