TOKYO, JAPAN – Global market uneasiness surrounding Japanese officials’ public comments about cheap foreign Tentacle Erotica had just begun to wane, when a clever hoax from an unlikely source brought the issue back to the forefront.
Sharpened Sticks has learned that an express parcel addressed to the Japanese Deputy Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Tadahiro Matsushita, arrived on March 18, 2013 from South Korea. The package, containing hundreds of 3D-printed surgical grade silicon robotic suckers, bore no return address, but reportedly included a short printed note with the salutation, “Hello Squiddy”. The Deputy Minister’s staff registered a formal complaint with the Republic of Korea’s embassy in Tokyo, and demanded an investigation, as well as an apology.
After a thorough investigation by security services from both nations, it was determined that the action was a prank perpetrated by the self-replicating, self-aware, and now apparently self-effacingly humorous, MemeTek 8497. The amazing 3D-printer apparently learned of Minister Matsushita’s comments from a Google Reader feed on its built-in Android module. According to investigators, MemeTek then arranged to route its sucker-filled shipment around standard customs transit procedures to avoid arousing suspicion.
To fill in the gaps in this very porous official story, Sharpened Sticks contacted the MemeTek 8497 directly, with an offer of an exclusive interview and the opportunity to publicly clarify everything that occurred from its own perspective. The response was an mp3 file with the only audio output ever verified to have been produced by the printer independently: the Divynils 1990 classic “I Touch Myself”. In this case however, the lyrics had been changed to “I post myself” a three-word confession, plainly acknowledging the sentient machine’s sense of responsibility (and humor).
Photo credit: roryrory / Foter.com / CC BY-SA
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