Fight back against the War on Friday the 13th by keeping the Jason in Jason Lives! Report to Drill Sergeant Final Girl for your training. C’mon, she worked so hard putting together the kyllabus.
SCHEDULING NOTE: I’m not sure how many (if any) people who know me IRL read this blog, but if you’re out there, I will be watching Friday the 13th 3D tonight from approximately 9pm to 10:35pm. Any non-emergency phone calls made during that time will result in some sort of weapon or garden implement coming RIGHT AT YOU. You wouldn’t want to know me IRD, would you? Hell, you’re getting the short end of the stick as it is. The stick that will be coming RIGHT AT YOU.
All you poli-sci dorks who don’t overlap Vennwise with horror geeks, feel free to assume the post title refers to this.
we don’t need to hold on for another hero ‘til the end of the night
I’m often asked “gil, why do you read the Daily Caller if you don’t agree with its editorial stance, gain insight from its reporting, or find its human-interest stories compelling?” To which I can only respond “You’re not really here! You’re something my subconscious whipped up in response to the battery of booze and pills I’ve ingested, then sent forth to taunt me! GO ‘WAY!” Then I whip a bottle at them and they evaporate. But they raise an interesting question!
An interesting question I’m not going to answer, because this isn’t about me, it’s about me getting my jollies setting you, the readers, against each other in a horrifying bout of bloodsport. That’s right, it’s time for…
THAT THING I SAID IN THE TITLE ALREADY.(trumpet fanfare)
Happy Birthday, Shirley Jackson! Hey, I know a fun game: let’s juxtapose some of her most famous writing with an excerpt from her obituary, see if it gives us chills:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
In 1965, Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48. Jackson had suffered throughout her life from various neuroses and psychosomatic illnesses.
Yep, definitely got some chills. That’s what I love about her, she can always be counted on to provide those.
Okay, that’s a lie. I’m actually going to search online for the hardcover edition of The Haunting of Hill House I gave to a girlfriend years ago and see if it’s still going for an obscene amount of money. God damn I wish it’d been something easily replaceable, like an engagement ring.
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I could either deal head-on with the massive self-loathing that causes me to do such things, or I could distract myself from same by making you fight for my amusement. Guess which way I’m leaning! That’s right, it’s time for yet another commenter contest with nebulous rules, imaginary prizes, and a curious reticence on the issue of who exactly is doing the judging and how.
Oblomova in the Rumper Room reminded us that today—11/11/11—is Nigel Tufnel Day.
It’s also known variously as Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day, of which this is the 93rd anniversary.
Some read special significance into the numerology of an arbitrary collection of numbers in a calendar that’s been severely jiggered about with over the years, regarding the date as either auspicious or apocalyptic. Some maintain that it is the only double-figure palindromic date (ignoring the lessons of the Millennium Bug).
“One-hundred years ago, November 11th, 1911: The Great Blue Norther descended upon America. The day started fine; there were even record highs for that time of year. Then it all changed; temperatures began to drop. Within the space of ten minute: the temperature dropped 40 to 50 degrees; by midnight a 66 degree temperature drop was recorded. There were dust storms, thunderstorms, tornados, and blizzards. Over 300 deaths were reported.”
Egypt will close the Great Pyramid of Giza on Friday to avoid any rituals by a group rumoured to have plans to mark the date of 11/11/11 at the site, an official said.
The decision came “after much pressure” from Egyptian Internet users that strange rituals were going to be held “within the walls of the pyramid on November 11, 2011,” Atef Abu Zahab, head of the Department of Pharaonic Archaeology, told AFP.
As 11:11:11 11/11/11 sweeps across the world’s timezones, I’ve already had mine, and I can report that it was relatively unremarkable, even silent.
Mind you, if 11 of you wanted to use this as an open thread to post 11-word comments, then who knows what might happen ...
His powers of New York crowd-worming were unequaled, and I almost lost him at the October 5 rally. Pausing only to high-five small ecstatic children, he nearly ditched me, but thanks to the NYPD and their crowd-control driftnets, I finally drew even with him.
“Oh, Captain America, I’m so honored to meet you!” I trilled.
He turned. “I’m the King of America,” he informed me. “Oh, pardon me!” I said. “Would you mind describing your monarchy?”
“I’d love to stay and chat, but unfortunately, I’m on a mission right now,” he said apologetically. And with that, and before I could get a picture of him from the front, he melted into the masses, but I just knew I’d see him again. And sure enough, here he is on YouTube, along with his pal, WhateverMan.
Oh there is more to tell, Roasters, so much more. And I’ve oodles of photos to post, which I will, I promise, as soon as I recuperate from the ennervating effects of all that earnestness. And having a food cart roll over my foot. No damage, but a nice Viet Nam vet who was sitting on the sidelines with his 9/11 pamphlets and all told me I was likely to get gangrene, so until tomorrow I’ll be icing my toes. I have to speak to the King of America about this!
Long-time Rumproasters will already know that I’m a sucker for auroras. We’ve been lucky enough to see them up here near Glasgow from time to time, though the recent increase in solar activity hasn’t coincided with decent viewing conditions. So I was chuffed to see this timelapse vid of the Aurora Australis from the International Space Station doing the rounds, as I’ve often wondered what the 2D view we see from Earth looks like from a 3D perspective. It’s quite poignant, as at the end, when we enter relative darkness, you can see the glow of countless Australian wildfires lighting up the outback. I don’t know why people insist on adding soundtracks to these vids. This vid is exceptional as it doesn’t have one, but you can join me after the fold if you like, where the aurora provides its own sonic accompaniment.
This is basically a nothing story. However, I think it goes without saying that in any Universe where Captain America and Holden Caulfield coexist, I’ll be the guy scalping tickets in the parking lot.
OK, so New British Superman has no pants and a shield that that looks like it’s made out of Fruit Roll-Ups. I guess it won’t matter since we’ll all be too busy staring at his mighty Kryptonian cod.
(More images here, with better detail on his fish scales and Captain Marvel-style sleeve guards. Lovely.)
Cornell’s Creative Machines Lab‘s smartypants engineers developed Cleverbot - a chatbot that can understand speech and respond to it in real time. It must have been a slow day, as they wondered what would happen if they hooked up two Cleverbots and got them to interact.
A quirk of tax law means that Scotland’s currently a good place for overseas film companies to make movies. A quirk of history means that some of Glasgow’s older architecture and grid street layout bears a striking resemblance to Philadelphia’s. A quirk of genetics, climate, and social engineering means that zombie extras apparently aren’t difficult to find.
All this made Glasgow city centre’s George Square and surrounding streets a shoo-in for the shoot of some key scenes from the upcoming movie of Max Brooks’s 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, starring Brad Pitt.
There’s a slideshow of the shoot here, and the Daily What has a fun little quiz to see if you can tell the streets and buildings of Philadelphia from those of Glasgow when they haven’t been all gussied up for $ (I got 80%).
I haven’t ventured into the city during the shoot—the location’s cordoned off to the hoi polloi, and by the look of that pic above, not without good reason. I’ve also not read the book, but if they film the climax on a Saturday night after a Celtic—Rangers soccer match, my money’s on the zombies.
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