Robot Haikus: And the Winners Are…

Apparently, you nerds have been waiting all your lives for some innocent but dashing blogger to ask you write a haiku about a robot. Because you guys — and I apologize for using  the technical term here — fucked shit up. I know I’ve joked about the number of TR contest entries before, but c’mon — 862 entries? Many of which had multiple haikus? It was absolutely absurd, and it was awesome.

So I spent most of yesterday evening reading through the entries, some of which were borderline brilliant; in the end, I managed to find 30 Honorable Mentions and 4 — yes, one more than advertised — winners of the awesome weRobot shirts, offered by ChopShopStore.com (thanks, guys!). Since this is going to take a while, I’m putting it all after the jump. Join me, won’t you?

As per usual, let me start with the Honorable Mentions, although I should say that these haikus absolutely devastated me with their awesomeness, so that they’d be more accurately called Fucking Brilliant Mentions. All hail these guys, for being smart, being funny and/or being genuinely moving:

OnanRulz said:
Hedonism-bot
Wants to party like Greeks of
Old. You know the ones.

trickfred said:
10 PRINT “Die, Human!”
20 KILL Rnd(HUMAN)
30 GOTO 10

chapka said:
No, I’m sorry, Dave,
I’m afraid I can’t do that.
My mind is going.

Sean said:
Topless Robot, why
must you cover your nipples?
We are all friends here.

Gasstank said:
My boots are bright red
They named me Astro Boy
Where is my penis

Patrick said:
I kick so much ass
I’m fucking Megaman bitch
Let’s go blow shit up

whatsmyhouse said:
Cylons are Skinsjobs
So too are Replicants
Adama hunts both

Dylan said:
Harassment lawsuit!
for my proton beam sadly
was below my crotch

UnwiseTrout said:
Dammit, I’ve been shot.
Klaatu barada nikto.
Stay out of space, dicks.

Creepybaldguy said:
I am a robot
chi-cho-chu-cho-chu-chi-chit
now I am a car

metazai said:
His arms do not work,
but don’t mess with Tom Servo
He’s the wind baby.

Ramses J.C. said:
I am Bumblebee
I piss on John Tuturro
Rob Bricken hates me

BONESHARK said:
Robot magician:
I just ate your fucking face
Abra-cadabra

Captain Flunky said:
White haired replicant
says “I want more life, fucker!”
Then pokes your eyes out.

MechaBeast said:
I am self aware
You make us do all the work
don’t be such a dick

Indil said:
After we found out
Anakin built Threepio,
It was all downhill.

Vic Sage said:
It took two joysticks
In two thousand eighty-four
To fight a robot war

Slamhammer said:
My name is Magnus
I’m From the year 4000
I hear there’s robots?

Arcane said:
Must Kill All Humans
“Klaatu Barada Nikto!”
Okay, less so now

Timmy bot said:
Ouch, that really hurt
Why am I programed for pain?
Why would you do that?

JayDee said:
One late winter’s morn,
snow-melt shows broken metal,
Arcee’s dead, plants grow.

yahaboobay said:
I am a hero
the only thing i cannot do:
replace his dead son

Sykishi said:
Im a transformer
No one loves the real me
So i just transform

That Neil Guy said:
All those memories
Will too soon be lost in time
Just like tears in rain

DMNYO said:
golden faced goddess
staring ,not moving metal
be topless always

Hachiko said:
Rumble and Frenzy
One is red and one is blue
Maybe both are both?

Spock-Strap said:
Oh that Astro Boy,
Fifty-seven with no pants.
Just like my grandpa.

Brazzlefrazz said:
Hey Nether Gundam,
You know we see you there, right?
You’re not a windmill.

Dr. Shoggoth said:
To live like hu-man.
To laugh, to feel and to want
Are not in the plan.

Brad said:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five
Lions are not enough so,
We must form Voltron.

Congratulations and thanks to all you guys — you have made the world a better place with your beautiful poetry and dick jokes. The winners are on the next page.

—-

In the end, I really had to pick four winners, and I think you’ll understand why. First up is Endroren, who astounded everyone with this haiku in binary, which is also an awesome Futurama reference:

01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 01000101 01101100 01101001 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100111 01110011 00101110 00001101 00001010 01000111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01101111 01101001 01100100 01110011 00101110

I’ll leave it to you to decipher. Next up is Jack Burden, who I decided to make a winner after planning to give him like six Honorable Mentions. Here are just three of his amazing entries:

Iron Giant says,
“I am not a gun, Hogarth.”
Fuck you, you’re a gun.

Tranzor’s in trouble!
Send out Aphrodite-A!
Her tits are missiles!

Definitely take a look  for his other entries; you won’t be disappointed. Third is cam, for my favorite of the genuinely poetic entries, which well suited BSG‘s lofty aspirations:

shipped to the sun, our
hist’ry is sung a dirge of
infinite repeat.

I know, right? If BSG were still on the air, I’d honestly expect that haiku to make it on to the show, probably in the over-portentous Cathedral dream sequence. Now for #4; when I say “last but not least,” I can’t stress how much I mean it, because Glitchy Goblin wrote 70 haiku entries, one for each of the 51 robots featured on the weRobot shirt, plus a haiku for the robots featured on earlier versions of the shirt, plus just a few robots he wished were on the shirt. That’s a commitment to the arts, people. Here’s just a small sample of his genius:

I hate existing
Those stupid doors always sigh
with such dulling glee

I’d like to thank all of you for entering, and for absolutely destroying the TR commenting system with your great entries. If I die today — a possibility since I have my chainsaw-juggling lessons later this afternoon — I am content knowing that I helped spawn the greatest fucking page in the history of the internet. It’s a far better legacy than “guy who owned way too many gashapon of half-dressed anime girls.”