itd be nice if it somehow symbolized throwing away... the arrow isnt quite it.

Posted by: gmangw at January 25, 2006 12:20 AM

It is an environmental extremist message.

Humans are destroying the earth, and the animals. The humans should throw themselves away, thats the message I see in the napkin.

Or at least destroy their houses to leave homes for the animals.

Posted by: Josephc4 at January 25, 2006 12:54 AM

the arrow is trying to point out that there is a trash can. it doesn't matter if trash goes in it, as long as you know it's there.

Posted by: Nathan at January 25, 2006 08:25 AM

At a glance, it looks like the napkin says, "broken, broken, broken." Upon closer inspection, even looking at it with a mirror and/or upside down, I don't know what those letters are supposed to be.

Posted by: Another Bob at January 25, 2006 09:11 AM

I think it's Hebrew - from right to left, starting with the bold: aleph, lamed, aleph, vav, shin.

Posted by: Anonymouse Coweird at January 25, 2006 09:27 AM

to me, it looks like a didgeridoo player is pointing the didgeridoo at a trash bin

Posted by: john russell at January 25, 2006 09:34 AM

John just likes writing 'didgeridoo'.

Posted by: Vito at January 25, 2006 11:15 AM

Hotea, where'd you get that sandwich? Looks like Hebrew to me too.

Posted by: Alex B at January 25, 2006 02:32 PM

Are you sure it isn't a Jedi Knight?

Posted by: Steve at January 25, 2006 06:05 PM

but which side of the force is he? (The napkin does appear to be saying broken. Heh, the thisisbroken.com offical napkin!)

Posted by: Gamer at January 25, 2006 10:29 PM

Agreed. This is Hebrew. From where did you get this napkin?

Posted by: Rica at January 26, 2006 04:28 PM

The last letter is the Hebrew letter Pe, not Shin.

It says El-Op. The electro-optics sub company of Elbit Systems. The font is the one they use for their logo, as is the difference between the first two letters (making the El part) and the last three (Making the Op part)

If this was indeed taken from a Deli, rather than a company cafeteria, this is very strange... Though what's broken would be their inability to keep track of their, err, stock of napkins.

Posted by: Yaron at January 29, 2006 01:19 PM

No, One-Armed Priests, One-Armed Hatless Dervishes, One-Armed Neo inpersonators and certain one-armed Knights may also dispose of your sandwich wrappings for you. That's Standard State Health Code.

The Real Mistake is that if you look closer, it's actually an armless man with a steel pipe jabbed into the back of his neck.

"Help me," he seems to say, "Is this where I bleed, as indicated by teh giant blue goldfish?"

Posted by: Octarine Lightsaber at February 2, 2006 10:38 AM

i sent this to u over a year ago i wonder how long it takes for ur email to get through

Posted by: hotea horowitz at February 4, 2006 12:19 PM

i read the comments after i posted the message before and i think its hebrew i live in israel and i got the napkin in rehovot

Posted by: hotea horowitz at February 4, 2006 12:22 PM

El-op do have their offices in Rehovot. So it could have came from there.

Still doesn't explain how it reached a local deli, though.

As for the image, not really broken. Just something that would have been better had it not been monochromatic. Two legs, cast to one colour with no border. And the bit at the back is the shoulder of the left arm, when looking at the person from an angle from behind. Imagine an outline of a rough human figure, and it fits.

So, alright, maybe the choice to have this in filled single colour is broken, but that's that.

Posted by: Yaron at February 5, 2006 03:04 PM

Why does the person look like the grim reaper?

Posted by: joey at April 22, 2006 05:54 PM

This is soooo obvious, it’s Neo from the Matrix

Posted by: Darth Ninja at May 2, 2006 05:12 PM