Tokoloshes, HP Lovecraft, Jedis and mutable beliefs

Jedis are one thing. Gods with tentacles hanging off their faces are another. But no. Someone had to 'reconstruct' the fictional Necronomicon, and the next step would predictably be development of a set of rituals and rites, complete with a bunch of wide-eyed people quite willing to believe.

Movie Night: Teddy's Nightmare

Put down the books for seven minutes of dark entertainment from Mateusz Staniszew. Teddy wakes in a nightmare. It's the sort of stuff that video stores put on shelves without watching, leaving parents with tweens who still want to share their parents' beds.

From the Innsmouth Observer, September 28

Innsmouth tourism initiative stirs controversy

An Innsmouth resident has launched a private tourism campaign to attract visitors: 'Interesting. Intense. Innsmouth.'

Said Philomena Jermyn of the newly established Innsmouth Tourism Company, "The town is rich in history, folklore and cryptozoology, and has been written about fondly by many authors. With this campaign we want to address the omission of this important part of America's heritage from guidebooks and travel maps."

Say hello to scary Mr Mouth

You are probably trying to do some intellectual dentistry with the goal of separating the teeth from the mouth. I thought about it as well. Without the context of a mouth to move them, teeth can be little more than components of a necklace for a surfer or a tourist, or a weapon for Harry Potter.

Hidden history

“Big trees from little acorns grow,” as Tolkein noted. But history doesn’t look too deep and, more often than not, a large and very significant part remains unconsidered, or is completely ignored. Tupperware, punks and ‘gangsta’ movies aren’t the sort of phenomena that make for great academic careers or even the briefest of footnotes.

Pure comedy, guy style...

The thing about guys is that we are all macho to a greater or lesser degree. And we all have this raging urge to get rid of our problems as quickly as possible. We look for the quickest solution possible and try not to spend too much time meditating on it or allowing it to eat away at our souls. 

Movie night: Red Balloon

A babysitter looks after a kid who slightly resembles Kubrick's Danny Torrance. The babysitter deserves everything she gets, and horror fans will know why. The stuffed rabbit makes it work. A film by Damien Mace and Alexis Wajsbro.

Five fives for the rhino...

Use of rhino horn to cure cancer is a clear sign of idiocy. It does not cure impotency either. In fact it just tells everyone that the user is impotent. Namibians, help out by downloading and displaying this poster which can be blown up to A3 size. Click here...

Swag... how much would you pay for a good-looking hammer?

Does that ownership of the graphics rendering machine make people who don't do graphics rendering any better than they already are at things like, for instance... word processing, basic spreadsheets, browsing and e-mail?

Meditations of a coffee hound

I am not choosy or a connoisseur in any way. I have stopped pretending that coffee tastes better with the addition of milk and or sugar. Milk happens rarely and sugar is only added if I need a little bit of extra energy, otherwise I drink it straight up. As long as it doesn’t taste of chicory.

The apple on the tree

The biblical apple tree has become an orchid. The serpents are retreating before the onslaught of callous feet. Never before has knowledge been so accessible, or held so much promise.

The hidden triumphs of 'ordinary' people

After a while, after a long, long while, the ordinary begins to seem like nirvana. You wake up in the morning, envious of people who go to work in ties and grey suits. You wonder wistfully what it would be like to have an orderly, predictable day, with no excitement and no surprises whatsoever.

Noun of the week

'Swag', in the sense of objects that make us swagger with pride, boost our egos and feel good about ourselves for having them.

Movie night: The Balance

Here's a thought provoking, Oscar-winning short from Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein. Sometimes something new can disturb the balance of things.

'Paperclips turn me on...' Approaches to passion.

Passion is a recipe for disaster and disappointment. In fact, the advice of ‘flat-earthers’ and other religious conservatives on the sense of excitement is probably right: if you experience a moment of passion, go and take a very cold shower.

Something revolting for International Roald Dahl Day

Here's a personal favourite from Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, 'Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf'. Enjoy.

Words that become barren

One of my favourite acrobatic words is ‘sophistication’. Think about what it means. In most uses, the word is associated with a compliment. People who are ‘sophisticated’ are generally seen, at least in the mind’s eye, to be intelligent, well-dressed, wealthy and aware of what is good and what is not.

Anne Rice's Claudia and the idea of immortality

Herein lies the paradox: with limited years, we try to live forever, courting every form of medicine and snake oil that looks even halfway credible, yet with unlimited years many of Anne Rice’s most credible characters choose oblivion.

When time slows down

The secret of time, the spell and the magic that the ‘Borderliners’ discovered was that unless you watch the clock and count the time as it passes, time can be as variable as you want it to be.

Movie night: In Chambers

Men come for people with numbers in this grim slum. Ten minutes of clever work from filmmakers Aleksander Nordaas & Bendik Heggen Strønstad, with a bonus surprise ending.

Who needs tame dragons?

Whatever the case, dragons should be bad because having a cuddle buddy that is capable of incinerating villages and devouring whole convents is a waste of a good antagonist. And putting all that firepower at the disposal of a hero seems to defeat the purpose of a hero in the first place.

From the Innsmouth Observer, September 6

Revolutionary, new wifi service for Innsmouth Library

The Innsmouth Library has introduced a new, free wifi service for avid readers and community members. According to the Chief Librarian, Venal Marsh, the new service not only gives access to the world wide web, but also represents a quantum advance on web latency.

Not my type at all

Surgery is as clever as all get out. Everyone knows that surgeons are highly trained folks, and they don't do their own home surgery in case they make a hash of it, scream and bleed all over the house.

Noun of the week

'Font'. I reckon I can write something about that.

The future has a sell-by-date

I come from a distant past in which push button phones were modern and 50 megabytes was unimaginably excessive. Cutting edge involved a couple of very two dimensional bats passing a square puck backwards and forwards on a screen.

Respect for my elders? I'll think about it.

Now consider the person who became manipulative, cynical, deceptive and / or acquisitive as a child. That sort of behaviour will almost certainly manifest itself in later life. No doubt after a lifetime of this behaviour, the patterns, reactions and reasoning will not mellow out but will instead become more habitual and pronounced.

Movie night: Conviction (A Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft)

Someone says she doesn't want to live forever. Oops! Is that a statuette of Cthulhu by her bedside? And is that Nine Inch Nails in the background? Take six minutes with this Fewdio production.