Of Bird Legs and Nacho Hair

"She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you seen in Florida -- the pink ones, not the white ones -- except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't."

The woman referred to above is not to be confused with the blonde with hair "like cheese sauce on a bed of nachos," though both are the subjects of winning entries in this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest, honoring the worst opening sentences to imaginary novels, as submitted by contestants from around the world. (Hey, that's a pretty amazing sentence I just wrote.) Judging from this year's winners, Raymond Chandler may inspire more awful openings than any other prominent writer, but Hawthorne, Donne, Sophocles, Tolkien and even Yoda take their lumps as well.

And the Grand Prize winner? Well, matey, readin' it will cause you to hear the howlin' of the wind and feel the sting of the saltwater against yer face. It, and the complete list of winners, runners-up, and "dishonorable mentions" can found here.