Welcome to round three of the Ugly Lamp Contest! I’m glad you’re still here. It takes a measure of mental stamina to endure what you’ve endured so far. I salute you.
If you’ve missed round one or round two be sure to go back and give them a thorough look-through. This is mostly for your own benefit. You need your nerves steeled for what you’re about to see today. Yes, only those who have been sufficiently prepared should proceed.
But first, a quick recap of yesterday’s round, where She-Friend dominated with over 50% of the vote. Driftwhat maintained a respectable second place and will be moving on to the final round. Clowny McMurders was no match for Lava Clown, and sunk to second to last place. And garnering the lowest score of all was the Hopeless Hobos with a scant 2% of the vote. But don’t feel too bad for them. Apparently they are not down-on-their-luck hobos after all, but happy-go-lucky-hillbillies! So, I think they were just happy to be invited.
And now, here they come. The final six.
Let’s do this.
We shall begin with a poem:
Do your ears hang low? Is your belly made of dough?
Is that a glass eye – are you gonna steal my soul?
Those bags under your eyes, are a little oversized.
Do your ears hang low?
Why do you exist? I would rather have a cyst.
If I gave you as a gift, the recipient would be pissed.
You’re genuinely feared and your beard is super weird.
Why do you exist?
From Tiffany S.
I’ll say it now, so you don’t have to say it in the comments. “You know, the Satan lamp isn’t all that bad. I could see it working in like, a Satan-themed bedroom.”
From Christy
Sometimes you just need a tiny staircase. And you need to attach it to a lamp. And you need to contact the president because it’s going to save us from the meteors. And you’re crazy.
From Kenney
Ummmmmm, yeahhhh. I’m not even going to touch this one. I’ll just be over here snickering behind my hands like a twelve-year-old. (If you don’t get it, it’s … uh … too hard to explain). *more snickering*
WARNING: I don’t want to oversell this next one, but you are NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME.
Proceed with caution.
Turn on the lights..
Hide yo kids.
Call your priest.
Are you ready?
Like, really ready?
You think you’re ready.
HA!
You will never be ready.
From Irene
Breathe! Breathe! Stay with me! Let’s talk it out! It’s just all of your nightmares and deepest fears come to life, that’s all!
This is for sale. FOR MONEY. In case you can’t read the tags, they say “DO NOT PICK UP BY HEAD” and “Ask for assistance: breakable, custom made.” Just let that sink in for a minute.
What those tags should really say is “Burn this with fire at your soonest available opportunity. Then burn whatever your burned it in. Then burn the hole it left behind.”
I couldn’t leave you on that terrifying note, so here is one last ugly lamp. It probably looks like the Mona freaking Lisa compared to the visual plague we just saw …
From Rebekah
If the Mona Lisa had also been hastily slip-slopped together out of feathers and packing tape, that is.
Vote now!
(Sorry to those of you reading from mobile devices, I’ve been giving you the wrong link all week! If you can’t see the poll, click here.)
Please stop in and leave your thoughts in the comments! They’re so fun to read. Do you have any predictions for this round?
39 Comments
Beth
August 26, 2015 at 4:36 AMWhy? Why?!! Why do these lamps exist? Why did someone think they would be a good idea? Why do we all keep coming back to look at them? Some of the lamps this year have looked home made just for this contest. I don’t imagine that’s against the rules, but I find it so much more delicious when you stumble upon something that the creator made without knowing how terrible it was. Anyone can make something ugly intentionally, but these ‘beauties’ take a special kind of something to create.
Lil
August 26, 2015 at 5:06 AMWhoa! They just keep getting worse!!
Rosie S
August 26, 2015 at 5:38 AMThankfully, I have not eaten breakfast yet…..
Rosie S
August 26, 2015 at 5:39 AMP.S. Great descriptions as usual, Lindsey! LOLOLOLOL
Victoria
August 26, 2015 at 5:46 AMFor some bizarre reason, I kind of like the stairs to nowhere.
Cindy in Oklahoma
August 26, 2015 at 5:56 AMThat last one looks like my youngest son after he’d done something he shouldn’t…. … the only thing that would have made it funnier would have been a piece of one of those feathers hanging precariously from the ‘innocent’ tiger’s mouth.
(oh, and…..I hehawed at your “This is for sale. FOR MONEY.” Thank you!)
Jaime
August 26, 2015 at 6:01 AMEvery time I close my eyes, I see the lampacalypse. I can’t unsee it.
Jami
August 26, 2015 at 6:22 AMWow! I can’t decide whether to laugh or be scared! Either way, there were a lot of very good (if that’s even the right word) entries this year. It was hard to decide which one was truly the ugliest.
Stephanie
August 26, 2015 at 6:26 AMI wanted to vote for the golfer purely due to the clever song lyrics but had to go with that monstrous “custom made” creation!
Belblue
August 26, 2015 at 7:03 AMThe uh inappropriate ones look like those goofy things that people put on either end of their mantles.I get weird looks for my dog’s nylabones…I’d hate to see the reaction to those (and honestly, those are the only things I would ever consider putting in my house since I am an avid glass collector (though I do like the evil cat for outside to freak the neighbors)).
Gail
August 26, 2015 at 8:52 AMWhen I saw the staircase to nowhere I started to sing Staircase to Heaven by Led Zepplin!
But in the end that horrible travesty of a lamp won me over…Lampocalypse.
Sandy
August 26, 2015 at 9:00 AMYou win the internets today for that poem with Glass Eye Golfer! Seriously good!
Satisfactory Satan, you say? Poo Satan, I say.
Stairs to Huh? This is another case of, “Why?! Just why?!”
Double the pleasure…*snicker*snicker* inappropriate but not ugly.
Lampocalypse has forever changed my perspective of “custom made”. Yikes! Winner!
Feathered Friend, I wouldn’t exactly consider this an ugly lamp just because someone taped feathers to the lampshade but hey, that’s just me. Of course, after lampocalypse it looks like the freakin’ Mona Lisa so…
Barb
August 26, 2015 at 9:21 AMSo.Hard.To.Choose. The lamps that appear to be mass-produced, like the golfer, are so great because of the possibility that more exist just like them! And the fact that no one involved in the production phase was able to talk the designer out of his/her terrible idea.
Just Justin
August 26, 2015 at 9:34 AMLampocalypse… This lamp will save you from the zombies. It is the Unholy Grail. Goth kids everywhere mourned its loss, but now…it has been found.
Jessica H
August 26, 2015 at 9:57 AMI almost voted for Lampacalypse, but voted for the satisfactory satan instead. I figure that one was actually manufactured as a lamp that someone at some company designed and decided, “yeah, that’s good. People will like that,” and sold it. In a store. And obviously someone bought it and used if for some time before giving it to a thrift store. There were a lot of bad decisions involved in that one.
Laura C
August 26, 2015 at 11:23 AMHands down, it’s Lampacalypse. But that being said, did the person who sent in the golfer lamp buy the cute green ceramic owl next to it? Because it is a winner.
Deb-IL
August 26, 2015 at 11:39 AMHow on earth do you come up with this stuff?
***Why do you exist? I would rather have a cyst.***
What is going on in that head of yours? You should sell tours – you’d be rich! This contest is something I look forward to every year and you never disappoint.
Donna
August 26, 2015 at 12:13 PMI am the submitter of the Hopeless Hobos/Happy Hillbillies. After round 1 I was surprised they even made the cut. There are some seriously scary illumination issues out there. I have to confess how exicted I was to see my fellas in round 2. It is right up there with a stranger repinning one of my pins on Pinterest. Thanks for all the fun!
Marcee ... ILLINOIS
August 26, 2015 at 1:17 PMOMG!!??!! ALL are bad, bad bad. Can’t even think who could come up with such horribleness. Shockingly, I did pick the most ugly. Ohgosh. Just imagine having them all in your homes at once. Dreadful.
Bonnie
August 26, 2015 at 1:21 PMI almost changed my vote when I read your caption for #16, but we’re not voting for funniest caption, we’re voting for ugliest lamp.
Nancy
August 26, 2015 at 1:32 PMI love your ‘blog’ and have had it on my favorite blog list on my blog … Today, I’m promoting your ugly lamp shade contest!
(I think you are so creative – how you write and describe things. You are a delight!!)
Here is today’s post: http://www.shilohpup-nwc.com/2015/08/pergolas-zurts-and-ugly-lamp-contest.html
Deb Neerman
August 26, 2015 at 1:35 PMHold me, Mommy, I so askeerd …
Mumzy
August 26, 2015 at 1:46 PMAfter looking closer (don’t ask me why), I realized that Lampacalypse is standing on one leg!!! Must have been junior high art class, made by an angry child, after surgery, on pain meds. That’s all I can think!!!!
Amy
August 26, 2015 at 2:04 PMStill laughing after Day 1 and Day 2. Day 3 even better. You are hysterically creative in your descriptions – more fun than the lamp themselves. Lampacalypse is most definitely the ugliest of all. Would love (or not!) to know the story behind it if it actually was created intentionally to be placed in a home somewhere – in a home I hope NEVER have the opportunity to visit….
suej
August 26, 2015 at 2:39 PMThose erection lamps….I would have liked to see them lighted up! The Lampocalypse that’s the ONE, wow, I would have really had to ask for assistance…. to be helped out of the store, after setting my eyes on that!
Elaine Wagg
August 26, 2015 at 3:15 PMDid anyone else immediately think of rodents when they saw the staircase lamp? I don’t want to make it any easier for them to infiltrate my home.
But seriously – people brought GAME to this contest. I am going to keep my eyes open all year for ugly lamps so I can possibly enter one next year. I just started looking this year when you announced the contest but I didn’t see anything remotely bad.
christine
August 26, 2015 at 3:45 PMWHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING?????????
Bets
August 26, 2015 at 4:16 PMOde on a Devil Child Lamp #17
O Legged lamp! Half octopus! with blood
of lamp-eating devil child oozing,
With crystal chimes and filigree;
Thou, silent illuminator, dost fill our nights
With terror dreams: Damned Lamp!
And wears it’s jeweled crown atop,
A head of horns and mold
Then shine, pure evil devil lamp, and say,
“Ugly is this lamp, lamp ugly, — that is all
We know on earth, and all we need to know.”
[with apologies to John Keats)
Maribeth
August 26, 2015 at 4:49 PMThe names you’ve given these lamp are brilliant, Lindsey! (Stairway to Huh? being my current favorite.)
I thought for sure #13 was a replica of Burt Reynolds.
lisa
August 26, 2015 at 4:54 PMpoor Donna! I can’t believe she owns the hillbilly twins.
LeeAnn
August 26, 2015 at 7:43 PMI don’t know whether to laugh or crawl under the covers and hide.
Rebecca
August 26, 2015 at 8:39 PMSuper fun and awful at the same terrible moment when these treasures are spotted…husband shopping with me will never understand. Thanks for such a fun contest,’Driftwhat’ is straight out of Beatlejuice. I saw it at a thrift store on Kauai and RAN OUT TO MY CAR to get my phone. Lampocalypse though…no words
Thank you Lindsey!!
JJ
August 26, 2015 at 10:42 PMI really can’t stop laughing at those green tubes(?). I just keep trying to imagine the product line and finished space that sported that look.
Leslie
August 26, 2015 at 10:47 PM“Double the pleasure” man you are witty. Thanks for always making me laugh out loud
Deb
August 27, 2015 at 2:46 AMThe green ones are Art Deco. There’s lots of things like that in Art Deco, which could account for its popularity.
US thrift shops are far more forgiving than the ones here! Or more hopeful.
Amy U
August 27, 2015 at 6:36 AMPacking tape is the creative’s best friend! I had to vote for the feather lampshade because it was so stupid and with so little effort.
jessica cramer
August 27, 2015 at 8:54 AMHilarious! I had to vote for the melted dolls head, seriously? Who would do such a thing??? I love this contest, best thing on the web!
Kammy's Korner
August 27, 2015 at 8:42 PMI can’t take it. Can’t take it.
WOW!!!! 🙂
Not Important |
September 7, 2015 at 10:54 AM[…] know you’re on the edge of your seat to see the ugliness of this lamp I found, so click here and scroll down to entry number 18.  Don’t forget to read the commentary on all these lamps. […]