The Style Invitational Week 863: It's post time

By The Empress

Saturday, April 3, 2010; C02

Tiny Woods x Pleasant Prince = Tiger's Cub Scout

Dublin x Odysseus = Bloomsday

Alcindor x Bravo Whiskey = Abdul-TheBar

One of our oldest and most ridiculously popular contests: Below is a list of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races. This week: "Breed" any two of them and name the "foal," as in the examples above. Your personal stable of entries cannot exceed 25. As in real life, the names cannot be longer than 18 characters, including spaces and symbols.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place gets a pretty little build-your-own Stonehenge kit that produces a monument way smaller than Spinal Tap size. If you have a large hand, you could set it up in your palm. Donated by Russell Beland as a sacrifice to the Gods of The Style Invitational.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Loser Magnets. First Offenders get a smelly tree-shaped air "freshener" (Fir Stink for their First Ink). One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, April 12. Put "Week 863" in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results to be published Derby Day, May 1. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's results is by Tom Witte; this week's honorable-mentions subhead is by Kevin Dopart. The list of horses is taken from the full one at BloodHorse.com.

A Little Warm

Ace of Aces

Alcindor

Ashore

Aspire

Awesome Act

Backtalk

Beethoven

Biloxi

Black Snowflake

Blind Luck

Boisterous

Bravo Whiskey

Bulls and Bears

Call Shot

Canthavehim

Catch Twenty Two

Chief Counsel

Clear Alternative

Close to the Edge

Colonel Mustard

Conveyance

Crisp

D' Funnybone

Deep Darkness

Delong Road

Discreetly Mine

Down With Dixie

Drive Home

Dryfly

Dublin

Enclosure

Endorsement

Excessive Passion

Extraextraordinary

Fenway Faithful

First Dude

Get a Grip

Guys Reward

Hear Ye Hear Ye

Homeboykris

Ice Box

In the Paint

Interactif

Johore

Kollege

Launch N Relaunch

Leaving New York

Lethal Combination

Liquidity Event

Lookin at Lucky

Make History

Make Music for Me

Marble Arch

Marching Tune

Moojab

Mr. Saturdaynight

Nacho Friend

Nextdoorneighbor

No Shenanigans

Noah's Dream

Odysseus

One Nation

Overcommunication

Party at My Place

Pleasant Prince

Preamble

Privilaged

Prizefighting

Psychic Income

Radiohead

Raging Wit

Rule

Saw Perfection

Scuba Diver

She Be Wild

Shrimp Dancer

Silenced

So Elite

Spangled Star

Spicer

Stay Put

Super Saver

Switch

The Director

The Program

Thousand Excuses

Tiny Woods

Toboggan Slide

Trackman

Twirling Candy

Utopian

Walking the Beach

Who's Up

Winaholic

Winslow Homer

Worldly

Worth a Buck

Wow Wow Wow

Ziggy's Stardust

Report from Week 859, in which we asked you to tell us jokes in any of four given forms: "If they can ___, why can't they ___?"; "You can ___, but you can't ___"; "It's not the ___, it's the ___"; or "If you ___, they will ___."

The winner of the Inker

If they can train puppies to use the newspaper, why can't they train yuppies to use the newspaper? (Beverley Sharp, Washington)

2. the winner of the Loser key chain custom-made in Thailand: You can rest in a courtroom, but you can't court in a restroom. -- L. Craig (John Glenn, Tyler, Tex.)

3. You can love your fellow man in Virginia, but you can't send out invitations. (Larry Yungk, Arlington)

4.If they can create a thin, pocket-size, touch-screen-enabled e-mailer/Internet browser/game machine/organizer/cellphone, why can't they create a cancel button in an elevator? (Ari Unikoski, Tel Aviv)

But they couldn't: Honorable mentions

IF THEY CAN put a man on the moon, WHY CAN'T THEY put a man on the moon? (Bruce Alter, on vacation in Port St. Lucie, Fla.)

If they can make a microwave oven, why can't they make a microwave chiller? (I want a cold one NOW!) (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)

If they can reenact Civil War battles, why can't they reenact witch dunkings? Oh, and the witches should wear flimsy T-shirts. (Peter Metrinko, Gainesville)

If they can create plastics that won't break down in a landfill for centuries, why can't they use them to make a garden hose that lasts more than two summers? (Russell Beland, Fairfax)

If they can have Winter Olympics curling, why can't they have Summer Olympics shuffleboard? (Jeff Contompasis)

If they can tell me I didn't need to dial 1 for a call to a different area code, why can't they just ignore the freaking 1 and put through the freaking call? (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they put a man on "The View"? (Barry Koch, Catlett, Va.)

If they can make a phone that lets you look up movie times and buy tickets, why can't they automatically silence the phone during the movie? (Joe Neff, Warrington, Pa.)

If they can call the theory of evolution a fallacy by finding a single unexplained fact, why can't they do the same for religion? (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

YOU CAN turn words like "calendar" and "friend" into verbs, BUT YOU CAN'T illiterate me into doing it. (Russell Beland)

You can put your best foot forward, but you can't get anywhere unless you also put your worst foot forward. (Mae Scanlan, Washington)

You can win the Nobel Peace Prize without doing anything, but you can't win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes without entering. (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)

You can live by the Bible, but you can't die by the Bible, unless it's maybe it's one of those big Gutenberg Bibles with the metal clasps. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

You can pet your mate, but you can't mate your pet. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)

You can call it a tea party, but you can't drink anything but Kool-Aid. (Larry Yungk)

You can avoid contradictions, but you can't avoid contradictions. (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)

You can take my committee chair, videotape me smoking a crack pipe, give me a field sobriety test after a traffic stop and censure me for awarding a city contract to my girlfriend, but you can't take my dignity. -- M.B., Washington (Stephen Dudzik, Olney)

IT'S NOT the subtle feeling of rejection, IT'S the mace. (Barry Koch)

It's not the heat, it's the high water content in the atmosphere that elevates the vapor pressure to the extent that evaporative cooling is ineffective. Also, you should take your hand out of the toaster oven. (Tim Livengood, Columbia, whose only previous ink was another geeky entry in 2003)

It's not the view of Russia from Alaska, it's the . . . well, everything else. (Rick Haynes, Potomac)

IF YOU leave me now, and take away the biggest part of me, THEY WILL probably ask you what you're going to do with my butt. (Randy Lee, Burke)

If you walk out of a bathroom with Nutella all over your fingers, they will not get the joke. Even when you lick it off. Trust me on this. (Kevin Dopart)

If you text your entry while trying to drive, th (Kevin Dopart)

And Last: It's not the number of entries you submit to the Empress, it's the submission to the Empress in your entries. (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo., who includes an embarrassingly bad suck-up poem to the Empress with his entries every freaking week)

Next Week: Ten, anyone? or The X Games