Posted in Dreams, Food, Weirdness on October 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I had another heavy meal too late in the evening last night, and thus the acid-trip dreams returned.
In this episode, I find myself on a science fiction battlefield in a firefight (specifically in the Warhammer 40,000 universe), when I and a soldier I’m about to do battle with both discover we’re out of ammunition…
So naturally, the enemy soldier (who turned out to be my friend Jeff from Canada) and I start discussing the wonders of… Alton Brown.
With a battle still raging all around us.
Okay…
Posted in animals, Humor on October 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Here’s a funny video for the run-up to Halloween: tigers, leopards, and other great cats playing like house cats with leftover pumpkins…
How cute. One almost forgets they could do the same thing to us. 🙂
The charity is Big Cat Rescue, in Florida.
Posted in animals, Food, Weirdness, tagged crabs, Japan, vending machines on October 22, 2010| 2 Comments »
Posted in Books, RPGs, Science Fiction, tagged Clark Ashton Smith, pulp fantasies, science fantasy, Science Fiction on October 21, 2010| 2 Comments »
I changed the “What I’m reading” widget in the sidebar; I was distracted from Howard’s “Conan” by the arrival of a collection of the best stories of Clark Ashton Smith, “The Return of the Sorcerer.”
I’m enjoying it, but not as much as I had expected. While the stories are entertaining and the imagery vivid, Smith’s florid, purple prose doesn’t wear well with me. I regularly find myself thinking “Oh, get on with it, will you?”
And that’s odd, because I love the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, who also employed pretentious, magniloquent prose and greatly admired Smith. But, thinking about it, Lovecraft was my introduction to this genre of Pulp weird fiction in my teen years, so he’s always held a special place for me in my “literary heart.” Smith, on the other, hand, I’ve only just started seriously reading, so I have less patience with his endless exploration of his thesaurus.
Still, as my friend James Maliszewski has often remarked, Smith was also a source of wonderful ideas for roleplaying games. This much is undoubtedly true, based on what I’ve read so far. Should I ever run a game again, Smith may be a large influence.
Posted in Dreams, Food, Weirdness, tagged ice cream, velveeta, weird dreams on October 18, 2010| 1 Comment »
I have the strangest dreams when I eat a heavy meal late in the evening. While I only remember the tail end of last night’s, that part was weird enough:
I’m boarding a bus in a dream version of west Los Angeles (in other words, I know it’s LA, but the streets don’t look right) and, while riding east along a curvy Wilshire Blvd., we pass the Federal Building where a large anti-AIDS sit-in is taking place. I note to myself that all the protesters are wearing diapers and then continue eating my bowl of coffee ice-cream mixed with… cheese scooped into balls with an ice-cream scoop. I think it may have been Velveeta.
Blech!
Freud and Jung would have a field day with this one, I’m sure. 😛
Posted in Movies, Science Fiction, tagged Cthulhu, H. P. Lovecraft, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, horror movies, Mi-Go, The Whisperer in Darkness on October 12, 2010| 2 Comments »
Here’s another trailer for the forthcoming The Whisperer in Darkness movie from the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society:
I’m really looking forward to this. Their silent-movie rendering of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” was brilliant, and I fully expect this to be just as good.
Popcorn, Dr. Pepper, and Cthulhu. It just doesn’t get better than this. 😀
RELATED: The previous trailer.
(via Moe Lane)
Posted in travel, Weirdness, tagged death ray, hotels, Las Vegas, Vdara on October 3, 2010| 2 Comments »
I wonder if the hotel’s architect was named “Goldfinger?”
Hotel Accidentally Makes Solar “Death Ray”, Burns Lawyer
Bill Pintas was vacationing in Las Vegas when he decided to stay at the swank new Vdara hotel, a curvy 57-story tower owned by MGM Resorts. He was sitting at the pool when he encountered something alarming. He recalls, “I’m sitting there in the chair and all of the sudden my hair and the top of my head are burning. I’m rubbing my head and it felt like a chemical burn. I couldn’t imagine what it could be.”
Like an ant under a magnifying glass, he remembers running to an umbrella, but being unable to escape the hot light. He recalls, “I used to live in Miami and I’ve sat in the sun in Las Vegas 100 times. I know what a hot sun feels like and this was not it. My first inclination was thinking: Jesus we’ve destroyed the ozone layer because I am burning.”
Speaking with employees, he was alarmed to find out that the hotel staff was aware of the situation. He recalls, “They’re kind of giggling and say: ‘Yeah, we know. We call it the death ray.”
They knew?? As a lawyer friend of mine said on hearing this story, “3, 2, 1… SUE!!”
Posted in People, Weirdness, tagged communications towers, nuts, vertigo, weird jobs on October 3, 2010| 1 Comment »
Watching this training video on climbing communications towers gave it to me, and so you must experience it, too. Click the image to watch:
You don't have to be crazy, but it helps.
Please tell me this isn’t a minimum-wage job.
Posted in Movies, Science Fiction, tagged silent movies, Star Wars on October 2, 2010| 1 Comment »
This has been making the rounds of the Internet lately; I think it’s very amusing and oddly appropriate. Not surprising, since silent movies were often melodramatic, and Star Wars is modern melodrama. Enjoy!
A Seat By The Fire 