The Fat Electrician unleashes a profane rant of admiration on the brilliant business model of Spirit Halloween stores:
They make $1.1 billion in revenue per year despite being open only 6-8 weeks…
The Brilliant Business Model of Spirit Halloween
October 21st, 2025Library Additions: Two Signed Stephen Hunter Firsts
October 20th, 2025Stephen Hunter is a mystery/thriller writer I’ve heard good things about from people I trust, and I’ve picked up some first editions of their work, but haven’t actually read any yet. But I keep an eye out for cheap firsts of his work, and actually chanced across two signed firsts at a Half Price Books.
I should try to read a Hunter novel next year…
Halloween Horrors: Cat Ouija Board
October 18th, 2025UK online retailer Pets at Home was selling a cat Ouija board toy.
I say was because that page is now 404.
This is what it looked like:
Now, this is just a theory, but I’m going to guess they pulled this right after Mr. MummpyMittens summoned Morax one too many times…
Halloween Horrors: Rocko’s Basilisk
October 15th, 2025Rocko’s Basilisk is a thought experiment that would be terribly frightening if it weren’t so fundamentally stupid.
To quote Wikipedia, the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge: “Roko’s basilisk is a thought experiment which states that there could be an artificial superintelligence in the future that, while otherwise benevolent, would punish anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development, in order to incentivize that advancement.”
The really crazy part is that those who actually believe in the theory think Rocko’s Basilisk would become so all-powerful that it can retroactively punish those in the past, including subjecting them to eternal torment for failing to help the basilisk, while rewarding those who do. So instead of an interesting thought experiment, it’s just a funhouse inversion of Christian theology on salvation and damnation.
Someone has put up doznes of AI created videos on this theme. This one is, I think, the most amusing.
Shades of Philip K. Dick!
But surely no one is foolish enough to be fooled that this half-assed through experiment actually reflects reality, right? Wrong. “In the 2020s, the philosophy of the Zizians was heavily influenced by the Roko’s basilisk thought experiment. Ziz LaSota, the leader of the cult, believes the basilisk to be real and wrote on her* blog: “Eventually I came to believe that if I persisted in trying to save the world, I would be tortured until the end of the universe by a coalition of all unfriendly A.I.s.” If you haven’t heard of the Zizians, they’re a radical vegan transgender cult that’s also anti-AI. At least six people have died due to their actions…
* His. Born Jack LaSota.
Library Addition: Michael Swanwick’s Under A Harvest Moon
October 14th, 2025Another Dragonstairs chapbook:
Swanwick, Michael, with Marianne Porter. Under A Harvest Moon. Dragonstairs Press, 2025. First edition chapbook original, #5 of 80 copies signed by both Swanwick and Porter, a Fine copy. “A very short, dark and romantic story of love and death,” and an outgrowth of Swanwick’s online ‘fallen leaves” project. Bought from the publisher at the usual discount.
I will have copies of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog, probably out next month.
Library Addition: The Gentleman from Angell Street hardback (Lovecraft)
October 13th, 2025Here’s a Kickstarter I backed all the way back in March of 2024 that finally came in.
(Lovecraft, H.P.) Eddy, Muriel E. & C.M. The Gentleman from Angell Street. Helios House Press, 2025. Third edition, first hardback and first thus, a greatly expanded version of the Fenham Publishing trade paperback of 2001 (which I also have), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Biographical memoir of Lovecraft by two of his neighbors, now filled out with information gleaned from unearthed correspondence. Backed on Kickstarter for $65.
Halloween Horrors: Del Toro’s Frankenstein
October 10th, 2025Guillermo del Toro has directed his version of Frankenstein. Here’s the teaser trailer:
And here’s the second trailer:
It looks pretty good, and more faithful to the original novel. And sthe ubject matter plays right to del Toro’s thematic strengths.
It starts a theatrical run next Friday, and goes to Netflix a few weeks later.
Halloween Horrors: Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop”
October 9th, 2025For a Halloween Horror, how about a song from a band called Suicide actually blamed on causing real suicides? It’s Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop,” about a working stiff who can’t make it, so he kills his wife and kids and then himself, and ends the song screaming in Hell.
Just another feel good 1970s ditty.
(Hat tip: The Professor of Rock, who advises listeners not to listen to the song alone at night…)
Library Addition: Signed 1997 Ray Bradbury Christmas Greeting
October 8th, 2025Another signed Ray Bradbury Christmas broadsheet:
Bradbury, Ray. Christmas Greetings 1997. Self-Published, 1997. First edition broadsheet of the poem “Witness and Celebrate,” a Near Fine copy folded in the middle and with a name and phone number for Bradbury biographer Donn Albright on the back, inscribed “IRMA!” and signed by Bradbury. Bought as part of a small lot with an inscribed first of Driving Blind, which I already have an inscribed first of, so I’ll be offering that in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Library Additions: Niven and Resnick PBOs, One Signed
October 7th, 2025Two more purchases from that ongoing library sell-off on Facebook:
