Friday, October 14, 2005

handing out awards today

My neighbor officially wins the 2005 Worst Freakin' Car Alarm Award.

eff_you

(Kudos to Ry for the Photoshop update on the trophy.)

Anyway, congrats, Jerk. So what set you over the top? Well, for one thing, it's the fact that your car alarm was the loudest I've ever heard. I mean, it's like they actually think some one two states over will hear it and think "Holy Crap! Those poor folks in California! Someone's stealing their car! I'd better get over there fast!"

Add on top of that the actual tone of the alarm. Now, most alarms are just a monophonic "HONK! HONK!" or "WHOOP! WHOOP!" Whatever. This jerk's car is breaking new ground with a polyphonic alarm. Two pitches playing together in harmony alerting the world that someone nearby slammed a door too hard.

Now, harmony is new for car alarms. What are you going to do with a polyphonic car alarm? What interval do you use? Good question. Whoever invented this car alarm, however, apparently decided to go with one of the most obnoxious intervals of all time: The Tritone!

For those who don't know, the tritone - or diminished 5th (or augmented 4th) - is a very dissonant interval. It tends to grate on the nerves and was even known in the Middle Ages as "the devil's interval" because they hated the sound of it so much.

So, with a volume firmly set at 11 and the siren's call of "TRITOOONE!!! TRITOOOONE!!! TRITOOOOONE!!!", you - Neighbor Jerk - are this year's winner of the Worst Freakin' Car Alarm Award.

Congratulations.

3 comments:

Bug said...

It wasn't.

Oh wait, are you saying "It could have been worse. It could have been a minor second."? Yeah, I thought about that. I know. That's why I said it was "one of the most annoying intervals" or whatever it was I actually wrote.

I'm just glad it wasn't some sort of microtonal awfulness that wasn't a unision, but not quite a minor second.

And now, thanks to that (Thanks, me), I have that stupid "Not a Girl" song by Britney Spears stuck in my head.

Zunumal Zeefinx to you too.

EmoRiot said...

I supply you with a nicer trophy and you don't update the page?! Somewhere there's an adobe software engineer weeping... and a Microsoft Paint engineer rubbing his hands in maniacal scheming.

Bug said...

Whoa ... hold it there, cowboy. I just didn't get the opportunity to earlier.

It's all updated.