Mankind has been grasping at the future for as long as I’ve been on this Earth, and surely longer. Some of those concepts make it into our realities. Others, well they become a blemish on the face of our self pride and dignity. Still, it doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate and laugh.

Obviously this photo has met Photoshop in a one on one battle, and it looks like Photoshop won. Even the old Star Trek cast wouldn’t have asked this costumed space age weirdo to the Prom. It’s like Mork and Mindy mated with an expiremental Euro Fashion Show from the 80’s and bore a child.

If somehow these ever made it to the modern market and became popular, I’d totally own a pair. It’s one thing to intentionally dress up for a party or holiday, but it’s totally another thing when you find yourself in a silly costume even though you’re being totally serious.

I introduce to you the Wonder Sauna Hot Pants…

In the midst of writing up segment 2 of the “Should I Get Into DIY” series, I realized it was going to take me longer to get the good stuff out. Here’s a little something to tide everyone over.

If you love Spiderman, and you’re not too fanboy to be able to laugh at this video, then I invite you to partake in Italian Spiderman. It’s hard to tell if this is a modern spoof so accurately done that you would swear it was dug up in an archive of old flops. Either way, it’s pretty terrible, and that’s what makes it good.

The costumes in Italian Spiderman inspire the mind to degrade back to mediocrity for the sake of humor. Although I couldn’t pull one of these off with such finesse, it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t try. Who would have thought that the Green Goblin was sufficiently acceptable to Italian cinema goers with simply a pair of green tights on.

Don’t dwell on the video too much, as it may induce unwarranted nausea.

I have a deep love for acronyms. Sometimes I make unacronymable things into acronyms. If I have to blog, but want to work on something else like traffic, I call it "Misplaced Priorities on the Job Syndrome" (MPOTJS). Sometimes I get all hungry for swashbuckling adventures, also known as "Pirate Awesomeness Induced Adventurousness" (PAIA). You get the point, right?

Well, it’s no wonder then that I decided to acronym a segment here at MyDisguises (and one of our more popular ones at that). CARSAUC is also known as "Coalition for the Appreciation of Random, Strange, Awful and Ugly Costumes". As time has gone on, I’ve realized that there are few who even understand this, and for that I am sorry.

Therefore, the time has come to assign a more clear name to a favorite segment at MyDisguises. CARSAUC will heretofore be known to the common blog reader as….

Things that make you go "woof"

Wait, no. That’s not good. How about this one:

Your MyDisguises Daily Do Diligence

Ugh, terrible. Okay, here it is.. I think this will be it… hmm. Well I don’t have any fresh ideas yet. But in the meantime, here is your submission for today’s ugly costume submission. Don’t be afraid to knock it. That’s what the segment is for.

Yeah, this is ugly. Funny, but ugly. There’s a certain kind of mom that does this for their kid. They’re usually funny types. They’re also usually the type to pick you up from the high school parking lot wearing a Don King wig and goofy thick bottle neck glasses so all your friends can see… I’m not bitter, Mom. I swear.

2007 is leaving us, or rather we are leaving it behind in the dust of a brighter future. Luckily we have no need to get too worked up over the things to come. There will be much to cheer and surely plenty for jeers. However, that’s all speculation.

We can, however, look back at all things worthy of all exclamations…

“glorious!”

“ugh…”

“what the!?”

“scrumtrilecent”

“no comment”

“…”

Here are our picks for the 2007 Winners and Losers are:

• Big Daddy - This year, Big Daddy wins. His battled inner self lends to so much love and yet so much distaste. Hey, all of us who experienced Bioshock know that the Big Daddy is easier to identify with than we thought at the beginning of the game, right? Status: WINNER
• Political Correctness - The world collectively sighed this past year when Santa Claus briefly lost a bit of cheer and started to chuckle with his “Ha, Ha, Ha”. Status:LOSER
• Cosplay - We probably covered more cosplay than anything else since the blog has begun. We have written cosplay articles over and over and over, again and again and again. Cosplay, being just another reason to get costumed, brought us some great homemade costumes, new entries to the excitement, and all around generally fresh entries to the fun. Look out for big cosplay events in ‘08. Status: WINNER
• Autobots and Deceptecons - This year, Michael Bay brought childish nostalgia and fanboyism faster than Timberlake brought sexy back. The Transformers movie was a tribute to all things awesome in the 80’s. What’s more is that it inspired the most fanatical of do-it-yourselfers to make some classy costumes. Status: WINNER
• Cosplay, again - Yeah, there were some not so good moments too. Status: LOSER
• Homebrewed goods - Likely a winner every year, we found some classics this year and can’t help but applaud the ceaseless creativity out in the community. Status: WINNER
• Elven Fantasies Come True - This has to be my favorite story of the year. I showed this to every person I know. The response from the community??? Some people actually would do it! Hey, I can’t make fun, it’s just not on my list of operations to get in my lifetime. Status: WINNER and LOSER, depending on how much humor matters over prudence and good sense.

OVERALL WINNER - This year it goes to Bioshock and the Big Daddy. Nothing captivated our attention and brought such a positive, yet eerie, light on the costuming scene. We expect to hear more from 2K games on this title and would be absolutely tickled to find more amazing Bioshock cosplay for the pages of MyDisguises.

“Uhh, I’d like to thank Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine for artificially creating me. I’d like to thank my fellow Big Daddies. I’d like to thank my mom and dad for teaching me to be nice to my friends and always look out for them… oh man I’m embarrassed… this is all so new to me…”

We can’t list them all, but there are surely more. Put your picks for 2007’s winners and losers in the comments section and let us know what we missed.

Who’s really responsible for these? I mean, isn’t it fairly universally understood that these things are pure ugly?

(click on the thumbnails for larger versions of the pictures)

Some of us shriek while other’s don the holiday eyesores in jest. But we can’t be fooled by those who wear these with purpose. Holiday Christmas party is coming up, someone gives you a bit too much eggnog… before you know it your bust will be a canvas for an embroidered mess of holiday puke. It doesn’t matter if you’re a third grade teacher, an office secretary, or a middle manager at a local paper company, it’s just too painful for the rest of us.

So for our periodic CARSAUC (Coalition for the Appreciation of Random, Strange, Awful, or Ugly Costumes) we  thought we’d pay tribute to the beautifully nasty Christmas sweater… may it pollute our closets again for another year.

Other Members of The Family Of Christmas Sweater Grossness

Christmas Socks - Can be cool, if executed properly. Most often executed terribly. Take caution.

Christmas Hat - Also has coolness potential, but take care to never couple with the sweater. Never mistakenly wear a Santa hat unless… a) you are Santa himself, b) you’re at a party and it you acquired it there, c) your boss at work is making everyone wear one for the festivities.

 Cousin to the Ugly Christmas Sweater, The Sweater Vest - Unless you are Chandler from Friends, you should proabably be over this. Mate the ugliness of the Sweater Vest with the Sweater, and you have become the mad doctor of ugliness.

If you wear an ugly Christmas Sweater this year, take care to make sure everyone knows you’re joking. Me? I’ll be finding one today and sporting it for the holidays without a doubt!

Sometimes, in the most silently brilliant moments of a persons life, they come up with an unbelievable costume idea that is ripe for the world to witness. This weeks CARSAUC submission isn’t a normal costume idea, but it was so genius I had to send it to everyone I knew.

Personally, my favorite part of the turkey are the breasts.

I grew up with He-Man. At the time, there was just about nothing cooler I could have been doing with my 3-year-old time than making He-Man action figures kamikaze jump from my bunk bed. As I got older, I definitely graduated to the world of Ninja Turtles, but I always remembered He-Man fondly.

That is, until that wretched Masters of the Universe movie came out. It was like a putrid whirlwind of stink that crushed all that was cool about He-Man inside my head. Now, to be fair, live action adaptations of super heroes and the likes have come a long way with the graces of awesome special effects. However, I’m not sure there’s much redemption for the old cartoon after it was desecrated by bad movie disease.

So, what’s worse than the terrible He-Man film that we all changed the channel to watch Tremors in spite of? Well, He-Man costumes. I’d actually insert this beastly concoction into the category of ugly and awful all in one. Do I need to break it down. The equation of the late 70’s hairdo reminiscent of the stuff you’d see on Different Strokes, plus the armor made up of basically a few leather straps and a Speedo, all multiplied by the grossness of the fur that makes up the Speedo… /sigh. It’s a mess all together.

At least he has a cool sword and fierce pet tiger/lion/panther/something-from-the-same-species-as-cat friend. So tonight, the Coalition for the Appreciation of Random, Strange, Awful, or Ugly Costumes tips their hat to this stinking woofness that is a costume.

Hey, maybe someone could pull it off in a cool modern movie remake? Hmm, nope. Wait, robot He-Man? Yes! YES!

Much more acceptable — I’d buy this for one of my kids maybe?

If there was some kind of coalition for the appreciation of random, strange, awful, or ugly costumes, I would join it. Not that I can’t appreciate a bit of creativity from time to time. I caught wind of a post at the Best Week Ever blog that would make a great topic at a coalition meeting though, so I thought I’d start such a group. Well, maybe not a group, but a segment.

Hit this link and take a look at the Top Ten Humiliating Pet Costumes (Judging by the Expressions of the Pet Models). Really, it’s a testament to all things great and worth of a short read on the Internet.

Ultimately I have to say that I’m not one to dress up animals. I, however, do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. But, when your pet clearly expresses that it is a bad thing, it should be time to appease the poor thing and spare the embarrassment. If only pets could talk. They’d be saying, “wait ’til I dress you up in a giant Care Bear outfit for your work party, you jerk”.

I got money that says this dog knows he’s gonna get circumcised.