WNW: Special Halloween Edition

Before attending a Halloween event tonight, you might want to bone up on your Supernatural Survival Strategies.

Just in case.

Anti-Vampire ammunition, mk.2

So it seems that Friday's post has stirred up more interest and discussion than I expected, and some excellent suggestions were made by Lurking Readers. Having digested these, I now present the Anti-Vampire shell, Mark 2 (it deserves a proper name, but I'm not quite sure what to call it. I could go with the Latin Excruciato but then people will assume I'm ripping off Harry Potter.)

• 12 gauge shotgun shell, of course
• First layer (and first out the barrel): double-ought buckshot, but made from iron instead of lead. The harder metal will have increased penetration (but also less spread at range, so you'll need to be a slightly better shooter -- unless you intend to saw it off) for shattering undead ribcages, and the properties of cold iron might prove useful against other beasties like fae, demons, etc.
  
• Second Layer: a blessed communion wafer.
  
• Third layer: Rosary beads made from a variety of woods reputed to be effective against the supernatural: rowan, white oak, ash, hawthorn, etc. Since most rosary beads tend to average 7mm in diameter, this quite nicely equates to #2 buckshot.
  

And there you go. The only potential drawback I can see to this assembly is that in order to accommodate such an unusual payload, the casing may need to be longer than is usual, which could potentially jam a magazine-fed shotgun. You'll have to kick it old-school style with a break-action and manually load the shells. Of course, this means that you can also use the amazingly dangerous Dragon's Breath rounds, so that's always a plus.

Or you could just use this beast:That's the Manville 27mm rotary launcher, originally a police riot gun manufactured in nineteen hundred and thirty-fucking-six.


PS: If you intend to fight werewolves, I suggest using Hatton cartridges, substituting silver powder for the lead or zinc.


----------------
Now playing: Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Happiness Is A Warm Gun [live]
via FoxyTunes

I have been eaten by a Grue

Well, not really eaten by a Grue, but perhaps the next best thing: I've been playing X-COM:UFO Defense (thanks a ton, Shamus!) and I really have no idea where Monday went. Did Monday even happen this week? It must have, because in between alien raids I watched Chuck and Heroes.

Good times.

Hang on, I think I hear an alien that needs blasting....

Mining the slop closet

So, Vi from Violent Acres is having a catchphrase contest. I have decided to enter because, in all blatant honesty, I would kill to have a tenth of her readership. When it comes to getting more readers, I am a whore. I freely admit it. In fact, if you'll let me pour a glass of red wine and slip into something more comfortable, I will exult in it.

Anyway, here's what I've got:

1. Let me explain why I hate you.
   
2. Kill the stupid before it breeds.
   
3. Even if I am an overweight man from Georgia, I'm still more woman than you'll ever have.
   

... yeah, I know, not my best work. Still, it only took me about 10 minutes of effort, so if she links to me at all -- even to mock my pitiful effort -- I've safely come out on top of the work-reward ratio.

Toothpicks

Idle thought for the day: in order for a wooden stake to properly immobilize a vampire, must the wood actually touch the vampire? Or can you get away with lacquering the hell out of it to preserve its strength & sharpness, and to give it that rib-splitting slickness?

Because if it's the latter, then I had an awesome thought.

1. Take a chunk of Rowan (a wood renowned for its anti-supernatural properties) and have it cut into toothpicks. Yes, regular toothpicks, but make sure they're the rounded kind.

2. Lacquer the hell out of said toothpicks. I'm not an expert on what kind to use, but definitely go with whatever increases tensile strength of wood.

3. Have your toothpicks loaded into custom shotgun shells. (Having never loaded a shotgun shell before, I may be grossly overestimating their usable payload length; if this is the case, then the toothpicks in step #1 will need to be cut to size before lacquer is applied in step #2.) This isn't as crazy as it initially sounds; flechette rounds for shotguns already exist.

4. Go vampire hunting. If my theory holds true, one good shot to the chest should send at least several dozen wooden fragments deep into the vampire's heart. Assuming you're using a 12-gauge -- and if you're not, you're crazy -- you should have a nice-tight shot group about 6 inches in diameter at a distance of 18 feet; in other words, the size of a saucer from across the room. Odds should be exceptionally good that at least ONE of the toothpick flechettes will slip between the ribs and bury itself in undead cardiac tissue.

This has the following benefits:

1. You can carry a whole bandolier full of "stakes" at a fraction of the weight and mass.
   
2. Ranged application vs traditional melee method.
   
3. If you fail to connect... chamber a new round and try again.
   
4. Wood buried deeply in the heart ensures the incapacitation of vampires for large amounts of time. Instead of yanking out a single stake, a "rescuer" would need to go in with surgical apparatus (or at least a melon baller).
5. Flechette rounds useful against other soft targets, too.
   
6. You aren't as likely to be sent away to the loony bin for possessing "experimental ammunition" than you are for using anti-vampire wooden stakes.

This is what I think about when I'm bored.

A shoutout to Seph Hexen

A big thank you to the best damn Dark Melee/Dark Armor scrapper in City of Heroes for helping me put up a bookmark icon for my blog.

Actual, real blog post to follow.

Unseelie

I have a recurring dream/fantasy/what-have-you where I am a DJ for a small, low-budget radio station -- perhaps it's college radio, perhaps it's fiercely indie -- but it's of the "painted cinderblock walls and reel-to-reel tape machines" aesthetic.

In this dream, I host a program from 3 to 5 am called Hour of the Wolf. Adopting a soft German accent, I spin selections of goth, techno, trance, EBM, and synthpop music for an audience of about a dozen listeners. As the music plays, I dance alone in the studio, convulsing to the music as the moisture from my breath clings to the walls.

There's something strangely hypnotic about the deep of night, a dark room, a disembodied voice, and that kind of music. When I would dance at my goth club in Washington DC, I recall experiencing a form of ecstatic disassociation where my mind would feel like it was on the sidelines, watching my body from a distance of several feet away as it thrashed about.

In that moment, I understood what it is to be fae: a darkling spirit, all thoughts banished and all impulses indulged, consequences be damned. It is the complete annihilation of the superego as the id comes out to play. It is complete, ritualistic abandon. It is the zen no-mind paired with cathartic exertion. It is the cool, damp cloth of Not Giving a Shit laid across the fevered brow of I Am Me And I Am In This Moment.

It is the utter abandon of pure infancy.

The darkness is your mother's womb, the rhythm her heartbeat, the voice HER voice. These are the sounds of your universe for the first nine months of your life; no wonder they trigger such a primal reaction in us. That I am consistently thinking about being the DJ in this analogy means I am in all likelihood trying to reconcile an increasingly strong urge for motherhood with the equally strong belief that I would be a horrid mother.

What makes faeries horrifying is that they combine magical power with all the impulse control of a five-year-old. As long as they like you, all well and good; but the moment you irritate them (or worse, they decide it would be amusing to torture you) -- I'm thinking that an eternity of middle school gym would pale in comparison.

Babies are like that, and their magical power is that you must care for them. Because the whole world loves babies, right? And if you don't, you're some kind of monster, never mind that children may essentially be nothing more than a massive stroke of ego: "What this world needs is MORE of me!"

Apparently my reproductive organs and I are having a disagreement. How else to explain the mutually exclusive desires of wanting to have children, yet not wanting to go through the trouble of actually raising them? The implication that I am, psychologically speaking, a cuckoo is profoundly disturbing to me.

If children are unseelie fae, then I must be the freaking Queen of Air and Darkness.

----------------
Now playing: Christopher - You're So Sexual
via FoxyTunes

WNW: This is for Troy

Since Troy loves "To Catch a Predator" so very very much, I decided to post this just for him.

Consider yourselves on notice

Attention slacking bloggers!

I have a policy here at Lurking Rhythmically: If you don't update your blog in a month's time, I remove you from my blogroll. (Harsh, I know, but that's just how I roll.) Now normally, I leave some sort of comment on your blogs telling you that it's been nearly a month since you last updated, as a subtle hint to get you back on track, but this time there are simply too damn many of you. So instead, I'm calling you out, in public, because I'm lazy and because it gives ME a blog post without any real effort.

So, if your name is listed here, you have until the end of October to get act together or I will stop visiting your blogs and cease linking to them:

• Apostate Apotheosis
• Near-Mint Heroes
• Selective Continuity
• Notes from the Sonic Stapler (okay, technically Salem has updated this month, but it's a crap post and I know he can do better than that, so I refuse to cut him slack)

I implore you, if you lack motivation to update your blogs, please join my Chore Wars group which I specifically created for just this sort of thing.

Anyway, so as not to end on a completely bummer note, let me welcome the following blogs to my list:

• Weblog Licentiae Moeticae, an In Nomine-themed blog run by an old friend of mine;
• Facedown in the Gutters
• Violent Acres
  
• and making its triumphant RETURN to my blogroll is A Blog Called T. I removed Dante from my list back in September because he wasn't updating, but now it looks like he's got his act together again, so I'm giving him another chance.
  

RAC: Holy Frak!

Remember this post?

Thanks to a cunningly exploited loophole, I can now show you what I was working on:


Yes, I wrote that. Pretty spiffy, wouldn't you say?

Alas, I can't tell you what project it's for... but if you go to the QMx website and nose around in the BSG section, I'm sure you can find some kind of product where a baseball-card picture and biography would be appropriate....

I'm just saying, is all.

I will now take this opportunity to answer a few questions from the audience. Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the entirety of Season Three.


You completely left out Kara's marriage to Anders/ abusive childhood/ stint as CAG/ months of psychological torture by Leoben on New Caprica.

Unfortunately, I had to. I was given a limit of approximately 175 words. It's impossible to squeeze three years of character development into that short a space without leaving out key details. To get around this, and in an attempt to further reduce wordiness, I tried to write her bio in the style of a military personnel report. Which leads me to my next question...


What do you mean, presumed dead? We saw her at the end of the season finale!

Wrong.

First, you saw someone who, as part of a cliffhanger, claimed to be Starbuck. Until it's verified within the show, for now that's all it is: a claim. Hell, I don't care if you have a signed and notarized statement from Ron D. Moore saying that it's so; ideas come and go, plots are revised, scripts change and actors leave series all the time. Even if she is really alive by the end of Crossroads Part II, we have zero -- zero -- guarantee that the idea will remain unchanged by the time He That Believeth In Me goes to air.

Second, she shows up in the middle of a potential battle. Since, as I said earlier, I am writing this in the style of personnel report, there's no way said report would be updated while the Galactica was set to Condition One.


But isn't she a Cylon?

Man, I have no frakking idea. If I put "Starbuck might be one of the Final Five," and it turns out she isn't, I'll look like an idiot and that card will be wrong. Hell, we don't even know who the Final Five really are or what it means to be one. We suspect that Tyrol, Anders, Tigh and Foster are members, but don't know, and that's what gives the finale punch.

I wrote what I knew to be correct. You're welcome to hate me for it, but I refuse to speculate when writing professionally.


When we buy these widgets -- whatever they are -- will you sign them for me if we mail them to you?

Yes.

----------------
Now playing: Richard Gibbs - Starbuck Buck Buck
via FoxyTunes

Thirteen Will Get You Twenty

By Troy Hickman


Yes, I love NBC's Dateline: To Catch a Predator. There, I've said it. I'll say it again: I love the damned thing. I watched it every chance I could. I watch the reruns of it on MSNBC. I watch the "Raw" version of it. I've compiled a bunch of clips of it and made a long-running playlist on YouTube. I listen to it while I do other stuff on the computer (like writing this piece). I sometimes fall asleep listening to it, and wake up during the night to the clarion call of "have a seat over there, please." My name is Troy Hickman, and I am a Pred-ophile.

For those of you not caught up in the drama that is TCAP, let me try to explain why I dig it:

(1) Justice, baby! There's such a feeling of satisfaction seeing these a-holes get what's coming to them. We're talking about men, ages generally from 25 to 70, making a "date" to have sex with a 12-14 year old girl or boy, and then showing up in a stranger's kitchen (often bringing with them booze, pot, condoms, dildos, penis pumps, and occasionally M&Ms...). And the chat logs! It's hard to believe the kind of stuff these scumbags say to underaged kids, and even harder to believe how many of them send pics or video of their...uh...equipment ( or at least someone's equipment; an awful lot of them seem to "borrow" pics to hide their limitations). But when I hear see the looks on their sociopathic faces as they realize they're about to go down hard (and not the way they were hoping for), it really buoys my hopes that sometimes right does triumph over wrong.



I am amazed, though, by how many folks I've heard say this is entrapment. For those people, get a dictionary or a lawbook, would ya? It's not entrapment in any sense of the term, any more than police stings on drug dealing, car theft, or hiring hitmen are. I'm even more aghast at the people who say "Oh, well, it's just natural for men to want to have sex with a 12 year-old girl." Who the hell are you people, and how do I keep from moving into your neighborhood, you sick, twisted Allen Ginsberg wannabes?

(2) Chris Hanson. Man, this guy rocks (if you can get through his annoying Southern California accent and loafers). You can keep your Eastwood/Schwarzenegger/Stallone one-liners; nobody drops the bomb on the bad guys like Chris Hanson. He floats like a butterfly, and stings like...well, like a guy who's about to ruin your entire future, you child-molesting sack of pucks.

(3) The "characters." Never have pervs been so fascinating. There are the guys who show up in the kitchen NAKED; the ones who get caught, and then get caught again the very next day (!!!); the old man who uses as his excuse the fact that he can't get an erection anyway; the guy who shows up with enough guns and ammo in his car to equip a third world nation; the rabbi there to get it on with a 13 year-old boy; the Stanley Tucci-lookalike physician who calls himself "Talldreamy_doc" on the internet (then has to call his wife to come and bring his bail); the perv who wants to do it with not only the young girl, but her CAT; the sad case of the guy who literally brings his toddler son with him to the "date" (this guy needs to be beaten to death with a knotted rope); the guy who brings a pizza with him, then actually offers to give Chris Hanson the pizza if they'll just let him go (!!!); the guy who asks Chris for a ride home from the scene of the attempted molestation; and so many more.



Yes, To Catch a Predator is just good TV, appealing to my sense of justice, my innate voyeurism, and my fascination with the sometimes-very-sick human psyche. Go, Chris Hanson, go!

Write Club

The first rule of Write Club is: We do not talk about how this is a hackneyed and overused ripoff of Fight Club.

The second rule of Write Club is: Seriously, I mean it.

The third rule of Write Club: Join my Chore Wars party at http://www.chorewars.com/invite.php?id=972bea847870.

Fourth rule: This is only for bloggers who have trouble keeping to a daily schedule.

Fifth rule: Chris Sims need not apply. We love him, but he already has a good work ethic and he'd only make us look bad.

Sixth rule: Every time you write a blog post, or do creative writing, you get to claim XP, which leads to bragging rights and social status among the other slackers in Write Club.

Seventh rule: Thou shalt not claim XP for phoning it in. 100 words, minimum.

Eighth and final rule: If this is your first night at Write Club... you HAVE to write.

Stick a hose in my ear and I'll do your drapes

Science tells us that 99% of all matter is empty space. While this fact may boggle and bewilder some folk, I find it quite easy to grasp this concept, for nowhere is this vacuum more evident than within my own brain.

I've been having a lot of "empty brain" moments lately, mostly when I try to write. It's kind of a literary version of the "then a miracle occurs" cartoon: I am at a starting point, usually a blank screen, and while I know what I want to say, the procedure of how I intend to say it utterly escapes me. I'm certain this happens to everyone, but what is mildly frustrating to the average person is A CRISIS OF INFINITE PROPORTIONS, A DISASTER BIBLICAL IN SCOPE, DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER WHILE THE UNIVERSE EXPLODES OUT YOUR RECTUM AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT for someone who intends to make a living out of talking pretty and speechifying.

Calliope can be a fickle bitch. In my life, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been infused with the Holy Fire of Creation that impels me to WRITE NOW NOW NOW lest my brain explode and my fingers immolate from the Sheer Awesomeness (tm) of the idea they contain. In lieu of these "muse moments", my writing reduces to two main categories: talent and skill.

Talent is that cool, showing-off writing that I do when I have a neat idea and I let myself run with it, consequences be damned. This is my best writing, and I think it's because I don't set limits upon myself; when I sit down to write them I don't have any goal other than "Here's a neat idea! Either I'm going to develop this to its natural conclusion, or I'm going to run it into the ground in a disaster of fire and smoke. Let's see what happens!" The best examples of this kind of writing are Dentata, Hints from Hell-oise and Chuck Palahniuk's Batman. Oddly, there are no poor examples of this (not in my opinion, anyway) because if a talent-inspired story fails to have that certain je ne sais quois then it becomes a skill piece.

Skill is the uphill writing. The essay, the book report, the talent piece that took a tragic turn; they're all skill, because I spend 80% of my time muttering "Fuck me, I have no idea how to make this work. Is there something wrong with my keyboard? Because I keep banging on these little letters and nothing I consider intelligent is coming out." This is a constant state of flux, as words are written, moved about, edited, deleted, un-deleted, re-deleted, and so forth until either A) something I am vaguely happy with finally begins to emerge, at which point I'm on the downhill side of things and get my writing banged into place and polished, or B) I delete the whole fucking thing and start over. Again.

The other 20%, you see, is me screaming at the top of my lungs. I've found it's the best method to reboot the Voices In My Head and get them to shut up, if they can't be bothered to help out. (Incidentally, Talent is what occurs when all the VIMH are singing in glorious harmony. I'm reasonably sure that it's what it would feel like if an angel took a dump in my skull.)

Some skill pieces are quite good. I'm very fond of Aquaman, written so that he does not suck, and The Sisters Weirde took nearly a week to develop but the result was worth the effort. Others, however, range from the rather weak to the "My god, why did I post that?". The worst offenders, of course, never see print, because I have way too much pride (warranted or not) to post what I feel is utter rubbish.

I bring this up because I'm currently in the grip of a Skill problem. My current QMx assignment is proving more troublesome than it's worth, and my Witch Children story (it's coming soon, I promise!) is threatening to spiral out of control into incomprehensible rock & roll occultism.

Blog posts, incidentally, don't fall under the Talent/Skill dichotomy unless I label them as creative writing or I'm trying to make a specific point. Rambling like this doesn't qualify as writing, in my opinion; it's more like a journal entry.

Honestly? Most of the time, I don't know why you people read this shit in the first place... anyway, demons having been dispelled, it's now time for me to return to my Serious Writing.

Let the screaming commence.

WNW: Fembots

You know what the new Bionic Woman TV show needs?

MORE FEMBOTS.

My Seminal Work

I have made a decision.

Starting now, instead of using the word "germ" to describe something small and seedlike, my metaphor of choice is now "sperm".

See what I did there?

They both mean "seed". They even sound alike. In fact, from a linguistic point of view, unless you are talking in strictly biological terms, the two words are interchangeable. But it's sneaking a word perceived as naughty or inappropriate into casual conversation.

I expect to get several "who huh wha?" looks when I do this. Especially if I mumble it slightly.

Surely... surely she didn't say what I thought she said, they'll think. She must have said "germ". Yes. That's the only reasonable explanation.

Sperm. Sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm. It's fun to say. Would you look askance at a girl who, by chance, happens to say "sperm"?

I thought not.

Erin Palette: Breaking people's brains with proper terminology since 1987.

I live!

No, seriously.

Going through a bit of a rough patch right now, though. The middle of the month is traditionally bad for me, and between that and the weather and my allergies & sinuses, I simply haven't felt like doing more than slouching about the house in my house and feeling yucky.

The good news is that I finished my project for QMx, and my editor likes it, so that's always good. As soon as I get the go-ahead I'll post something about it.

Take care, Lurkers, and keep reading. I'll snap out of this any day now... I hope...

Jurassic Dork

by Troy Hickman


Every day I see more evidence that there's a rift in fandom. There's very definitely a generational divide between what we'll call the "nouveau geek" and the older fans or, as I like to call them, the Original Geeks (OGs). How do you know which you are, pinkboy? That's easy. As someone who's terribly, horribly, painfully old, let me give you some questions that will establish if you're an Original Geek:

If you think Capt. Kirk having a green woman in every spaceport made him Da Man rather than a "sexist womanizer," you might be an OG.

If you've ever spent an entire weekend in your basement
cataloging every character ever to appear in a Legion of Superheroes comic...and LOVING IT...you might be an OG.

If you can hum the theme song to "Manimal," you might be an OG.

If your exposure to anime is limited to Gigantor and Prince Planet, you might be an OG.

If you think the word "pocky" is merely a description of the average nerd's complexion, you might be an OG.

If you believe in bathing...once a month whether you need it or not...you might be an OG.

If you've uttered the name "Ray Harryhausen" more than three times in your life, you might be an OG.

If you think "MMORPG" is the sound you make when you get caught in your zipper, you might be an OG.

If you're sure the answer to the Jessica Alba vs. Jessica Biel argument is "Julie Newmar," you might be an OG.


If you've never kissed anything besides your pillow or your forearm, you might be an OG.

If your weekly comic buying ever took you to the same store where your mom purchased cauliflower, you might be an OG.

If your idea of a goth chick is Morticia Addams, you might be an OG.

If your only option to seeing a monster movie on TV was to STAY HOME WHILE IT'S ON, you might be an OG.

If you ever spent two hours sitting on the john, transfixed by the new issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, you might be an OG.

If you ever watched an episode of Lost in Space and masturbated...to June Lockhart...you might be an OG.

If you know that Marvel Triple Action doesn't involve a threesome with Quesada and Bendis, you might be an OG.

If you think emo is a big Australian bird...well, then you're just a doofus.

WNW: There is a secret meaning to me posting this

.. but I ain't gonna tell you what it is.



Yeah, this probably won't make much sense to you if you don't watch Battlestar Galactica. I assure you, however, it is frakking funny to those of us who do.

(A better quality version can be found at www.wewerecenturions.com

BULLET POINTS!

• Only three episodes into Heroes, and already I can't stand Maya. "Oh noes, my brother is more than three feet away from me! Now I'll freak out and my powers will totally go out of control and KILL EVERYONE by making them leak black gunk from their eyes! Only my brother, who I love but in a totally non-incestuous way, can clean up my messes! Because he's a big strong man and I'm just a silly psychotic girl! Teehee!"
• Actually, I started hating her last episode, so make that two episodes in.
  
• I don't know if I have any Canadian readers left, but if so, Happy Thanksgiving!
• My project for QMx is coming along nicely, but it's keeping me busy, hence this "phoning it in" blog post.
  
• I now own about 25% of Jeff Stolarcyk's soul. Just FYI.
  
• Call me Dentata was narrated by a vampire.
  
• Pies are better than cakes, but a good cobbler beats the pants off both of those.
  

A Host of Horrors

If you're a relic like me, you probably grew up with a horror host. You know the drill: a guy in cheesy makeup, stalking around a set full of styrofoam props and phony spiderwebs, delivering wilting puns while showing a gamut of the best/worst horror films an independent TV station can afford. On the west coast you had the likes of Seymour, John Stanley, and Elvira. The folks in the east enjoyed Zacherly and Count Gore. Here in the midwest, a fertile ground for the horror hosts, we sat up on weekend nights and watched Ghoulardi, Sir Graves Ghastly, Svengoolie, and even the Son of Svengoolie (Rich Koz, one of the most talented guys in Chicago television; I'll have to devote a full column to him at some point).

Sadly, the horror host has largely gone the way of the drive-in movie (another future column), and these days you'll mainly find such programs on the internet (hardly the same) or on hard-to-find cable access stations. Thank goodness there are still folks keeping that faith, though, as the horror host is a very special breed, and for many of us takes up a very special place in our nostalgic hearts. These days, the torch has been passed to the likes of Dr. Zombie, A. Ghastlee Ghoul, and The Bone Jangler. If you're interested in the subject, there are a number of websites out there, including The Horror Host Underground, TV Horror Hosts, and E-gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts.

For me, the greatest of the horror hosts was Indiana's own Sammy Terry. In 1961, disk jockey Bob Carter moved to Bloomington, Indiana, and began filling a number of positions at WTTV-TV, including hosting a three-hour morning talkfest entitled "Coffee with Carter." When Universal Studios began offering a package of its old horror films, however, a number of independent stations created horror host programs to facilitate the showing of these classics. WTTV was no exception, and launched Shock Theater, with Carter doing voice-overs as they showed still photos during commercials. These intros and extros proved so popular, though, that the station pressed Carter to create an on-camera character, and Sammy Terry was born. The name of the show was changed to Nightmare Theater, and boy, that's sure what it was for me.


How do I describe Sammy? Well, he was a cloaked, hooded creature straight from the bowels of Gehenna...with a rubber spider named "George" on a very-visible string to keep him company. Sammy would do host segments to break up the movie, usually humorous stuff in typical horror host fashion, but there was always something damned deadly serious about him, too. Bob Carter had this wonderful voice, this cadence that could've made him the rival of most Shakespearean actors, and when he'd do a monologue, it would be a thing of beauty. The most unforgettable thing about Sammy, though, was his laugh. Oh, god, that laugh. On Friday nights, I'd huddle under the covers, and when the show began, and I'd hear that coffin lid creak, I'd pull the blanket up over my head and wait for THE LAUGH.

Sammy was a mainstay of Hoosier television from the early 1960s all the way into the 1980s. For many of us, his show was our first exposure to the classic Universal monster movies, and to countless other horror classics (and not-so-classics) as well. Heck, I remember once in the early 70s when Sammy was doing a live stage show at various Hoosier venues, and when he came to my town, you can bet I nagged my folks until they dropped me off at the Mars Theater in downtown Lafayette to see Sammy do his combination comedy/magic act schtik. I don't remember all of it now, but I do recall a guillotine was prominently featured. Afterwards, Sammy graciously talked to folks in the lobby and signed posters. I tell ya, at the time it was the highpoint of my life.

Bob semi-retired Nightmare Theater in the late 80s, but every few years since then, WTTV has brought him back for Halloween specials, during which he's shown films like the original Night of the Living Dead and, inexplicably, Batman Returns??? He also makes regular appearances at various "haunted houses" around the state in October (which lead to an interesting incident a few years ago in which some scoundrel was going around MASQUERADING as the real Sammy Terry and making some dough for these public appearances).

Sammy Terry and Bob Carter have played a bigger part in my life than they'll ever know. If not for them, I'm not sure I'd be the massive uber-nerd/comic writer I am today. I think about that pretty much every day, when I see the pic of Sammy I have affixed to the front of my refrigerator (I just wish it'd scare me away from the food).

Here's to you, Sammy Terry, and to all the horror hosts who have made our lives a bit more filled with wonder. Pleasant nightmares!

Call me Dentata

(fiction)

I am become death, the destroyer of... oh fuck the pretense, I'm just hungry.

I'm ghosting the Caligula, affecting that slightly bored, slightly vacant look all the poseurs seem to be wearing these days because "Like, it's SO cool to be pretentiously self-aware! It's all post-modern, and stuff!"

I often fantasize about drowning them in an inch of water. Does that make me a bad person? Deliberate shallowness brings out the beast in me.

I digress.

Shallow often equals pretty, though, and there are so many pretty, pretty people here, writhing sensuously to a rhythm so blatantly erotic that the backbeat alone gets a double-X rating, moving and dancing and squirming and sweating...

Sweat, the salty marinade of flesh. Salty, sticky sweat, running down their hot thighs like it'd been squirted there by a baster, pooling in secret places and getting hot, so very hot, like a pot roast straight from the oven...

I seem to have bitten my tongue. Does this count as masturbation?

There are so many ways to approach this situation, but my patience is thin and in no mood for games. Sometimes, the direct approach works best.

I find my pretty little morsel in the middle of the dance floor. All eyes were upon him... but the crowd parts for me, minnows scattering in the wake of the great white in their midst. The women know I'm a predator, pretty toy boy, why don't you?

His eyes answer: he knows. He knows, and he loves it.

I invade his space, getting so close that he can smell the conditioner in my hair. I strike "the pose": hip cocked, eyebrow arched, eyelids heavy and mouth turned into smiling snarl.

"I want to suck you," I murmur, eyes burning with desire. He returns the gaze.

He's my McDonald's Stupid Meal.

Fun fact: the penis contains not one, but two arteries.

Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear,
And she shows them pearly white

----------------
Now playing: E Nomine - Vater Unser (Video Edit)
via FoxyTunes

WNW: WTF?

I swear by Eris and all I hold moldy that I did not Photoshop this:

RAC: Recruitment

This just in!

You will not hear of this anywhere else! This is an exclusive scoop!

Quantum Mechanix, whom I have completely infiltrated with my Radion Accelerator Corps, has apparently decided the best way to shut me up.... is to hire me!

Yes, you read that correctly! I am now working on a writing assignment for QMx!

Not a dream! Not a hoax! This is real!

More details, of course, as I am allowed to release them. (I can't [yet] talk about what I'm working on.)

Of course, nothing is stopping me from talking about things I am not working on, and now that I, the leader of the RAC, am firmly ensconced within their power structure...

... no secrets shall be hidden from me!

*cue ominous thunder*

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


...


That is all.

Executive Summary Monday

Chuck: Still funny.

Heroes: Much better now that Peter is back.

Journeyman: Beginning to grow on me.

Witch Children Story: Much longer than expected.

Will be done: When it's done.

Palette: adopting Rikti speech pattern.

Sign of: brains going soft.

Will be back: tomorrow.

Stay: tuned.