…and it is:

JMixx

Congratulations! With your delightful combination of evil appliances, cultish dictators, and bleakness, how could you lose? A robot will be storming through your front door any minute now. Sorry about that.

Here’s the original contest photo, and the winning caption.

“All Hail Range! Range is our Leader, Father, and Protector!”

This was the common salutation in the “Home on the Range Collective,” which demonstrated all the characteristics of a cult. Initially brought together by the passionate, heated rhetoric of Range, the cult ended in tragedy after Range’s warped interpretations of passages from The Joy of Cooking led him to preach to his followers that the proliferation of fast food drive-thrus, Chinese take-aways, and delis were “plagues” signifying the “End Times.” Ultimately, he told followers that the only way to remain pure was to “unplug.” Although Blender’s insides were churning, and Fridge was cold with fear, all of the other kitchen appliances obediently dropped down through the trapdoor. Once they were in the basement, Range unplugged them all, including his own sons, Toaster and Waffle Iron.

As is typical of megalomaniacal cult leaders, Range himself did not commit suicide, but waited defiantly on his pedestal, warning that any who tried to get him to “turn on” to the new culture would “get burned.” Ultimately, however, he burned out, and the only reason the events are known at all was that Air Freshener was left behind, instructed to tell any who asked that he was “scent to tell the tale, that the truth would not be mist.”

Honorable mentions, which means nothing but bragging rights, sorry, in no particular order, to: Jan, Elisabeth, Toni,  Otepoti,  Amanda, and Evan.

My sincere thanks to everyone who entered, the fine people at Shelter Pop, and to iRobot. Mwah!

Two years! It’s been two years! Two years of this blog! Two years and I’m still househunting, which is just pathetic. But my pitiable situation is your win, and not just in an “epic win” sense, but as in someone will WIN!

What will they win, you ask?

A ROBOT.

A ROBOT THAT WILL CLEAN YOUR FLOORS.

A ROBOT THAT STOPS YOUR HOUSE FROM LOOKING LIKE A LOVELY LISTING ENTRY.

A ROBOT MADE BY A COMPANY THAT MAKES ROBOTS THAT DO UNDERWATER MILITARY SURVEILLANCE (note: that is not the model being given away).

No, not Yoyo — a Roomba! Want to win it? Please take the following easy steps.

1. Look at the photo below.

2. Head on over to Shelter Pop and explain what is happening in the photo. This is a contest of skill, not luck. Humor counts; factuality does not.

3. Check back on Tuesday and see if you won.

4. ROBOT ROBOT ROBOT.

I’m so excited about this it’s ridiculous, but come on, it’s a Roomba! The top of the line, take no prisoners Roomba! I’m not paid to endorse the robots; I really like them. I have a bare-bones Roomba and a Scooba that, sadly, doesn’t do underwater surveillance. This is a fancy new one with “anti-tassel technology,” plus it’ll clean up kitty litter. Maybe I should post an identifying photo to stop myself from stealing it and sending the winner my old one… here, behold the ANTI-TASSEL ROBOT, also known as the Roomba Pet Series 562:

Go! Go enter! Be amusing! Good luck!

Original listing found on For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no.

(Sorry, no comments on this post while the contest is going on. Enter on Shelter Pop, not here.)

Hmmm… there’s one thing missing from this shower. What could it be? Oh! I know:

Ah. Much better.

Found on the always excellent Facebook group “For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no.”

Loveliest comment, by Nana: My eyes!! OMG, my eyes!!! (2 acrossed)

Oh, look! This house comes with a.. a… a thing? In the basement? Or some other room? What on earth could it be? Hmmm. I’ll just open the lid and…

*SPROINGGGGGG*

AAAAHHHHH! IT’S A GIANT SNAKE NUT CAN! PERHAPS CONNECTED TO GIANT SNAKE NUT PIPES RUNNING UNDER THE STREETS OF WHATEVER NORWEGIAN TOWN THIS IS!

Please note: any confusion about what this is a photo of is not the fault of my Photoshop skills, which are excellent. This is just what snake nut cans look like.

Loveliest comment, by Goldilocks: I keep clicking the upper left corner for Porrige, but it always comes out too hot or too cold!

Found by: me

Ooh! I just found out how to include polls on here! It’s pretty tricky: I go over to the thingy over there and click “insert poll.” No, I don’t know why it took me this long to figure it out. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me that there’s some automatic way to underline text and I don’t need to do it with a mechanical pencil and a straightedge (no, no, the technical drawing kind of straightedge, not the “I’m a person just like you / But I’ve got better things to do” kind of Straight Edge).

Anyway: polls! Let’s do one. How about… let’s see…

[poll id="3"]

This poll provided as a service to real estate stagers everywhere.

Found by: me

Loveliest comment, by PapaSloth: My books are sorted by geological epoch. Most recently read are on the top near the bed. Least recently read are buried under a mound of clothing in the corner. True collectors will relish the authentic patina.

Included: washer, dryer, Hell mouth.

Found by: me

Loveliest comment, by K: It’s either a hellmouth, or we all just got goatse’d by a building.

Oh. Huh. It turns out that the Crayola-brand shower we were snickering at a post or two ago is, like, totally normal in Norway. That’s just how they are there. 100% of them. Every single shower in Norway looks like that. Here, I’ll go to a perfectly random listing in Norway… tum te tum… And look! There  it is. I think they’re required by zoning laws.

Via the Facebook group For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no which I just can’t tear myself away from

Loveliest comment, by SM: LOVE it! I’ll take one in every color, and build a house with 24 bathrooms!

On one hand, you get an AWESOME ORANGE SHOWER and sink and toilet. On the other hand, I’m pretty certain they’re made from orange crayons and will melt if you ever turn on the hot water.

Found by: the always awesome Facebook group For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no.

Late-breaking news: Eeek!

Loveliest comment, by Sarah: I think they’re made of that radioactive orange Fiestaware, like my grandma’s dishes.

…that I didn’t have to sleep in the guest bedroom,

…and that I didn’t have to make Thanksgiving dinner in an operating room,

…that I haven’t yet had to call an emergency plumber (pictured above) on the cloggiest day of the year.

And most of all: I’m thankful for my lovely readers with their excellent comments and amazing finds. Thank you! Mwa! Extra pie all around!

(Note to furriners: today is Thanksgiving, when Americans eat a lot of pie. There’s more to the story, but once you grow out of the handprint turkey stage and into “needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense” awareness it gets awkward.)

Found By: Mario P

Found by, and by: the Facebook group I just can’t stop stealing from, “For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no.”

Pensive lime:

Drawn-to-a-flame lime:

Cleansing lime:

Meal-planning limes:

Aspirational lime:

Lime roasting on an open fire:

Voyeur lime:

Not actually a lime:

Linkety linkety linkety linkety link link link

Found by Solvi, Sara, and members of the Facebook group “For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no” which means “Yes we know the URL has ‘Finn’ in it but we’re in Norway and you’ve already made that mistake a few times so knock it off.”

Loveliest comment, by gvh: The lime at the bottom of the stairs is belting out Julie Andrews Climb Ev’ry Mountain.