I've moved... ALREADY!

http://www.uglymailbox.com/

Sorry! Please come visit the blog at it's new home :)

Road Trip

I'm heading up to Ichetucknee Springs for a camping trip this weekend. I'll be bringing my camera along. Rural areas always seem to have real gems, so hopefully I'll find a giant home-made alligator mailbox and more for next week.

This morning I stopped by DD, grabbed an iced coffee to sip on while I prowled the streets in search of my latest victims. Here they are in the order they were captured:

It's original (I haven't seen it before anyway), fairly vandal proof, I'd bet. They painted it the same color as the house, which is an "A" frame home. Hey... I get it.

I'll just keep this one short. I'm sure the mail carrier isn't really happy about this. He'll be forwarding you his chiropractic bill.

What is this? Looks like it belongs on a wall rather than a post. They have to have a key to unlock that box every day when they get their mail. I know I'd lose the key. And don't tell me I could put the key on my keyring. I lose them all the time too. So I wouldn't be able to drive my car or get my mail.

What's the opposite of "keeping up with the Joneses"?

Because I stopped to take this picture and then barely got going again before I had to take the next one, three doors down. It's another Creative Solution!

Needs more duct tape!

Here Be Dragons

If you'd like one of these for your very own, you can get instructions here.

I'm not being mean! He says himself that he searched "high and low for one of those goofy rural mailboxes".

Personally, I love dragons, but I'd likely saw a finger off trying to make this.

If you make one, be sure to take a picture of it for us :)

Insert Mail Here <-------

I wish I had more sleep last night so I could come up with something delightful to write about this.

A picture is worth a thousand words right?















Submitted by Cynric :) Thanks.

For the Record...

This is my mailbox. I figured I should post it before my friends and family decided to out me as a hypocrit.

What's my mailbox say about me? It says I'm cheap, lazy and spend too much time in front of the computer and not enough time outside working on my landscape. Case in point, instead of getting out there and trying to scrub the mildew off it, I'm in here blogging about it.

So Artbot asked me what I thought was "successful mailbox design"? I wish I had some well thought out response to that. I actually thought about putting some time into answering it and then I realized that like Tim Morris wrote in his article Mailboxes,

"Hideous boxes fight the battle of decoration against function. When you come right down to it, a mailbox is as close to pure function as it gets. You want it to be a box, and you want to get mail in it. It doesn't strictly require anything more than that. A plain container will do. But there is something in the suburban mind that militates against unadorned function. We have too much of that anyway."

I've had the link to that story up on this blog since day one. I came across it when I was doing a little research for this. It's really a great read. Long, but insightful and echos my sentiments. A mailbox is a necessary evil and the best thing you can hope for is inconspicuousness.

In my opinion, if I drive by a mailbox and don't stop to take a picture of it, it's successful design. That's my thinking anyway but I'm just a cheap, lazy, gamer. My mailbox says so.

Sunday Delivery

A mailbox shouldn't hold fish, but a pelican.

What the Shell?

This morning's pun brought to you again by Cynric. They say a pun is the lowest form of wit. I suppose that says something about me. ;)

Anyway, if you're like me and you wondered where people get these mailboxes. I did a quick search and here you go. I think someone posted the link in a comment here already, but I figured since so many of these were getting submitted I'd give the company props.

If you live in a coastal area and want to showcase your love for marine life, or have a dairy farm, chicken ranch, own a zoo, really really love penguins, this would be one place to go to let the neighbors know.

If you live in my neighborhood and you buy that really large rooster, more power to ya. Just letting you know I'll probably come by, take a picture of it, post it and make snarky comments about it. I'll be really smug when I do it too.

TMNT

Donatello

Michelangelo

Leonardo

Raphael

Thanks Cynric!

Hide n Seek

You know what would be fun?

Head over to this guys place in the middle of the night and paint the mailbox green and yellow. Get it's camo on.

Taste Like Chicken

"Ok Bob, roll a 20 sided die to deliver the mail, you'll need at least 12"

"Ya ok, but, I get plus 2 on the roll due to my Mailman skill"

"Sure dude, go ahead and roll"
"Oh ouch, a 2"
"Make a save versus ChickenDragonThing Breath"
"Ha a 10, sorry you fail at delivering the mail today"


This crazy arse thing is another one submitted by Cynric :) Thanks

Stoned

Someone must have been anyway.

Dude...let's put some rocks on the mailbox.

Sweet.

Dude...let's tie it shut too so we don't get any bills.

Sweet.

One Man's Junk is another man's Mailbox

Jim G. capture this in front of a junk yard in Haverhill, MA, USA.

Every time I think "nobody will top THAT" I get something like this.

Thank goodness we all don't live in gated McMansion developments with strict codes, governed by bored homeowner association members.

We'd all have the same mailboxes that some old woman with a doily obession picked for us. (see below *shudder*)

Worse, I'd have no material.

The Ugly Mailbox State

After this submission, I'm starting to wonder if Florida should change it's name from The Sunshine State to The Ugly Mailbox State. I guess it's a good thing I live here because I'll never run out of material.

Hi!
I just found your very cool blog and I've got some photos for you! These were taken on our '05 Florida holiday, some are really awful. Pictures are both from the east and west coast. Due to its filesize (18MB) I put an archive containing the photos on rapidshare. [Edited] Also I just noticed, that I forgot to add one picture to the archive. You find it attached to the email. This was a WHOLE suburb (may have been a holiday village too) with all identical ugly mailboxes!

Greetings from Germany,
Cynric

Actually, I was getting a little concerned about not having enough pictures. Then I drove to a friends house and was cursing to myself the whole fifteen minutes there because I forgot my camera. I missed at least five mailboxes.

Regardless, I need not fear. Cynric has sent me at least two weeks worth! You'll be seeing them soon. Be afraid.

Holy mackeral!

I'm hooked on fish puns. So it makes me super grouper happy that Tim R. sent me this picture taken in Ketchikan, Alaska. It's reel tacky.

But, if your sole reason for living is fishing, if it's your true porpoise in life, then you gotta catch yourself one of these.

Crappy Concrete Cast in Key West

Thanks, Kellan K for the picture and today's title, because it's absolutely the best way to describe this.

I'm not a big fan of large concrete animal mailboxes in general. However, in the right setting and if they're well made and maintained, it doesn't make me cringe... much.

This one is in the right place, it's just all wrong.

Sir, rebel ships are coming into our sector.

Craig S. Made this X-Wing Fighter mailbox 2 years ago out of wood with PVC pipe engine, gun and cockpit details . It's 5 feet long with a 5 foot wingspan!

I was afraid to post it lest a certain Star War's fan get any ideas. I think the X Wing is pretty darn cool, but I'm not sure I want a Millenium Falcon mailbox in front of my house ;)

Briefkästen von unten darunter

Patrick, from Germany sent me these pictures from Australia along with a note:

"Hey Linda,
I just stumbled across your site and some pictures i took on a journey along Australias south coast immediately popped into my mind. I can't remember where exactly it was but it must have been somewhat north of a city called "Eden" next to the highway. I drove past that pile of mailboxes in the first place, but when I realized this would be a nice thing to have a picture of, I did a U-turn ;-) I was in middle of the countryside at a shared driveway that supposedly belonged to a farmers neighbourhood. I especially like the one that they made using an old microwave :) Hope you have a use for those pictures!

Greetings from Germany,

Paddy"

This could be like one of those "Hidden Pictures" challenges. See if you can find the rooster, cooler, filing cabinet, microwave or oil drum in this picture!

Aha! I found the microwave.

Patrick shared his blog with me as well. However, it's completely in German. Sadly I filled my language reqs with Spanish. The only German I know is "Du. Du hast. Du hast mich. Du has mich gefragt" But hey, it looks like you had a great time and more importantly you took pictures of mailboxes for me while you were there!

Dead ant, dead ant...

From Kelly B:

"My grandmother lives out in the country, and a couple of her mailboxes were the victims of bashings (there's not much for teenage boys to do out in the country, you know). A good Samaritan (who turned out to be a serious kook, but that's another story) saw the damage to her mailbox, knocked on her door, said "I'm here to help you!", and offered to fix it for her -- not only that, but he promised to make it un-bashable, to boot. My grandmother reluctantly agreed, and this monstrosity (posts and heavy duty cage, PLUS a paint job) was the result.

Sadly, it really is un-bashable. No one has been able to knock loose one bit of it. And who knew the Pink Panther and Leon Trotsky were separated at birth??"

The guy was a kook you say? No! Really? I guess this is why they came up with Good Samaritan laws.

And where does one get a roll cage for their mailbox?

Every Time the Mailman Brings... An Angel Gets Her Wings

Joseph R. e-mailed me this lovely angel he photographed. If you click on the pic you can find out more information about it ;)

To me, it looks like she's picking her nose. You might think that's funny but it's .... (wait for it)





snot!

Wooooo I couldn't resist, sorry.

\m/etal Sculpture Rocks!

Is it in bad blog form to have emoticons in the title? Do I care? Andy Wibbles is probably uploading a video right now. "Mistake #308 that noob bloggers makes is using emoticons" It's ok, I've already made Mistake #1, so why stop now?

As usual, I digress.

This falls under "unusual" not ugly in my book. Just clarifying before I get flamed anymore. ( "but the Manatee is CUTE" )

Joel Hass writes,

"I don't know if I view my mailboxes as ugly --- I certainly don't like making boring mailboxes. I live in a dragon shaped house, with gold dragonfly shutters, dragon shaped hand rails and so I made a dragon shaped mailbox of scrap metal. Note, he speaks with forked tongue."

Noted!









Visit the Joel Haas Studio to view more of his mailboxes and art. Very creative and fun.

And if you're ever in his neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina visit his Sculpture Walk. How cool is that?

Flames vs bunnies

Morgan sent in a picture that he originally posted on his blog.





After the cow pictures, I'm convinced that these things come to me in pairs (the mermaid one had a pair for sure!), because shortly after I received a picture from Brian W. He says, "What really sells it in my mind is the wonderful fake greenery they wrapped around the post."









Indeed, hot rod flames and garland go together like... well, hot rod flames and mailboxes.







The mailboxes sumbissions today remind me of my favorite Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends clip. (please don't sue me Cartoon Network, I'm but a little fish in a very big pond)

/moo

Katie from Ottawa, Canada.

"... this pretty little moo-cow lives and collects mail in St. Albert, Ontario. He lives down the road from the very popular St. Albert Cheese Factory. (http://www.fromage-st-albert.com/). We were
on our way to visit the Cheese Curd festival when we happened upon him and had to take a picture!"


Cheese Curd Festival huh? I gotta check this out http://www.curdfestival.com ... Giants playing bingo and bingo for children! Who needs adoption agencies? "B-19", "BINGO!!! I want the red-headed little girl"

Back to the mailbox, thanks Katie for sending this pic in, it's definitely a fun one :)

Here's another moo moo from Sam M. in Michigan:


It's a little disturbing because it's been decapitated! That would make mailbox baseball really interesting, if you had heads to bunt around, eh?

( . ) ( . )

From Gareth S.

"Here's a picture of my dad's mailbox setup, it was made up to look like an anatomically correct mermaid until the post office complained and he had to remove certain parts.
enjoy!"

The note says, "Recent decoration additions are offensive, please remove."

Makes me wonder if neighbors complained or he had a prudish mail carrier?

If Janet Jackson can't get away with it, neither can Pops!

It's not just me!

I've received a few e-mails with some great mailboxes and I'll get them posted soon, promise.

For now, I wanted to share a link to David Morrison's mailbox photos. He's captured some really interesting mailboxes and captured them well.

To be fair, I live in a state where you can go to the gun show Saturday morning and walk out with a concealed weapons permit later that afternoon. So composition isn't my main concern, out running Bubba is ;)

Everybody down, this is a stickup!

When my four year old asked me if he could decorate my mailbox, I told him no.

Remember the Alamo!

I guess this is one way to deter those pesky kids from scoring points with your mailbox during their next friendly game of mailbox baseball. Spoil sports.

By the way before you get any ideas U.S. Code Title 18, Section 1705 prohibits the willful destruction of a mailbox, or mail within it, and allows for a fine and up to three years of imprisonment for persons who do so.

Just in case you've never been to the Alamo, unlike Ozzy, or you've been and forgotten what it looks like, like Ozzy, but for completely different reasons...maybe. Here's what it looks like:

What not to do with your leftover bathroom tile.

Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You're not being the ball Danny.

Now I'm in the mood for Caddyshack quotes.

Sandy: I want you to kill every gophers on the golf course!
Carl: Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key...
Sandy: Not golfers, you great fool! Gophers! The *little* *brown*, *furry* *rodents* !
Carl: We can do that; we don't even have to have a reason. All right, let's do the same thing, but with gophers !

Al: Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity.

Al: Hey, doll. Could you scare up another round for our table over here? And tell the cook this is low grade dog food. I've had better food at the ballgame, you know? This steak still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it.

Carl: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Flower Power

9 for originality.

7 for craftsmanship.

10 for tackiness.

Are you flocking kidding me?

Alternate headlines:

Another mailbox that ruffled my feathers.

This one's for the birds.

Bird-brained idea for a mailbox.

And here's a joke, because I can't come up with anything else!

The Foo Bird

"A man went to Africa to do some game hunting.
While there, he hired a young native to accompany him as his guide.
Soon, a large flock of birds flew overhead and the hunter took aim.

The guide grabbed his arm and said "Oh,no! These are foo birds and to shoot one means terrible things will happen to you! The man figured that was only a superstition of the natives and shot one down. Then the rest of the flock returned and pooped all over him.

He hollered at the boy, "I must have some water right away to wash this mess off. The boy said "Oh no! To wash the crap of the foo bird off means sudden death immediately! Again the hunter ignored his advice, found water and got cleaned off.

Sure enough he dropped dead then and there.
The moral of this story is "If the foo shits, wear it.""

What's this Halibut?

Oh my cod! I'll try not to carp on this, but I can't kelp it.

I've haddock up to here with these homemade spray-painted, plywood mailboxes, it just pollacks finesse.

I sea your dilemma, a mailbox just isn't an attractive thing. But I'm urchin you, no matter what your neighbor does, just let it be what it is, you know what I marine?

I just don't like Brett Favre...

and Green Bay sucks. By default, this mailbox sucks.

My suggestion would be that you paint the post orange. Then paint the helmet black. Place a white circle, with a grey border in the center. Then place a yellow diamond within that circle at noon, a red diamond at 3 o'clock and a blue diamond at 6 o'clock.

When done it should look something like this.

If I'm being honest, this is actually as tastefully done as one can get when doing a football helmet mailbox. I've seen much worse.

Hey like this one:

Save the Manatees!

No wonder these gentle sea cows are endagered species. The illegal traffic in them feed America's lucrative black market for postal receptacles.

Somebody notify Greenpeace.

(thanks to Hannah for the "i haz a mailbox" caption idea. I wish I would have thought of that! )








In case, it wasn't painfully obvious by the 4 foot tall manatee curbside, these people really like manatees:

Bozo's Box!

O rly?

To be fair, this person lives around a bend. Their mailbox has probably been taken out a few nights by someone pulling a Lindsy.

I didn't know they made reflective tape in so many shapes and sizes. I'm thinking of some interesting uses for that now....

Oh wait, back on topic. So yes, I should be able to see this at night when I'm coming around the corner. It'll make a good target.