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!