Ends TODAY! (October 23) To help out with Ed’s medical bills (as mentioned here).
Friends of Ed Bryant eBay Auction
October 23rd, 2011A Nice, Spooky Haunted Building Story
October 22nd, 2011Humper Monkey’s Ghost Story has just about everything you could ask for in a haunted building story. Inexplicable occurrences, dead bodies, a Nazi past, and lots of general creepiness. Oh, and it’s theoretically true. It seems to have originally been posted on Something Awful.
Be forewarned that it’s really long; plan to set aside an hour or two if you want to read the whole thing, as it’s easily novella length.
And, if that weren’t enough, there seems to be more to the story here. It gets a bit less subtle.
I also hope Humper-Monkey gets a cut of this, and it’s not just somebody ripping him off.
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Trailer
October 22nd, 2011Although I was a tiny bit disappointed by Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (I didn’t think the “Versus A.I.” single-player maps were as interesting as those in Brood War, and I was pissed that not all of the units were available for those, even if you weren’t playing online; damn it, I want my medic!), I’ll still pick this up. Pretty much everything Blizzard does is first rate.
And yes, you can preorder it.
Also: What the Hell?
Sounds like a bonus-ish, heroes-and-tower-defense type thing. Hmmm. I could really see myself getting sucked into that. Or would, if there were a way to avoid getting pwned by 17-year old Koreans…
Halloween Scares: The Goatman
October 22nd, 2011So if scary bunnies aren’t your thing, how about Goatmen?
The story, which I have not been able to confirm, is that black goat farmer Oscar Washburn and his family near Denton, Texas were killed by the Klan in August of 1938. (Some set the date even earlier, which does suggest a certain lack of historical evidence.) From there you get the usual hauntings, abandoned cars, etc.
Here’s a mercifully brief video:
Of course, the Denton, Texas Goatman is not to be confused with the Maryland Goatman, who seems to be a Satyr-like half goat/half man creature carrying an axe.
“Hey, that sounds pretty unbelievable,” you say, “but is there a cheesy reality TV video with ominous music, various clip art, some BS theorizing, and random morons walking around in a forest at night to make the story more convincing?”
Why yes. Yes there is.
Halloween Gallary: Scary Bunnies
October 21st, 2011I know I should save this for Easter, but here are a few bunnyrific cases of nightmare fuel for the Halloween season.
First up, I think any roundup of scary bunnies would be incomplete without Donnie Darko‘ Frank:
Some classic Nightmare Fuel:
Oh, good show on this one, chaps:
(From this page on Bunny Man Bridge. (And here’s a different version of the story, evidently with some actual basis in fact.))
The homemade creation of one Carol C. of Andes, NY:
Since I’m doing this roundup, how could I possibly exclude Angry Alien’s classic The Exorcist: In 30 Seconds With Bunnies?
Finally, a classic PhotoShop that isn’t quite a bunny, but it’s in the neighborhood. A very, very scary neighborhood:
Pleasant dreams…
Cartoons for the Halloween Season: “Hittin’ The Trail For Hallelujah Land”
October 21st, 2011With Halloween almost upon us, and ten days before the annual Fark scary story thread, I thought it would be a good time to put up some posts for the season, no matter how vaguely related. First up is “Hittin’ The Trail For Hallelujah Land,” one of the earliest Merrie Melodies (AKA Looney Tunes) ever made, and the first of the infamous “Censored Eleven” cartoons, which, due to racial insensitivity and general political incorrectness, have never been released by Warner Brothers on DVD.
“Hittin’ The Trail For Hallelujah Land” is now in the public domain. What makes it seasonal is that there’s a graveyard and skeleton dance sequence in it.
More on Quantum Levitation
October 19th, 2011Here’s another video that goes into more detail about how the locking works.
Quantum Levitation
October 17th, 2011I don’t usually post videos that have already been on Fark, but this one was too cool not to:
I’d seen superconducting magnet demonstrations before, but never with the adjustable “locking” they demonstrate here.
Shoegazer Sunday: Midsummer’s “Where the Waves”
October 16th, 2011Back in the late 1990s, as I was looking around for some non-Slowdive Shoegazer music to listen to, I started looking through the late, lamented MP3.com. (It’s still around, but not nearly as good or important as it used to be.) One of the things I found was the EP Catch and Blur by an American Shoegazer band called Midsummer. After a long hiatus, Midsummer released a very strong album called Inside the Trees in 2008, which is well worth checking out on iTunes, etc. They fall somewhere on the “Shoegazer/Post-rock/Progressive Rock/Hey it’s music and I like it so stop trying to label it” continuum.
Here’s “Where the Waves,” which is on the poppy-side of Shoegazer, but is still I think a very good song.
Siri Says the Darnedest Things (With a side of George Alec Effinger)
October 16th, 2011This piece on the things Apple’s new voice assistant Siri says in response to various questions is pretty funny, as the Apple programmers have gone out of their way to offer some clever, amusing answers to a surprisingly wide variety of queries.
What the piece reminded me of was the snide, sentient, semi-malevolent electronic chess game in George Alec Effinger’s “My Old Man,” which (if you squint a little) could double as Siri’s Evil Twin. I provided the introduction to it in Live From Planet Earth, and I do think it’s a really swell (and underrated) story. (I still have one copy of Live From Planet Earth available through Lame Excuse Books, but you should be able to find it wherever better SF books are sold.)