Weird Tales of the Weird

As the title indicates, tonight's short post centers on the magazine Weird Tales.

Founded in 1923, Weird Tales has featured the work of those artists and writers whose focus lies in the area of the abnormal, often terrifying world of "weird fiction". Sci-fi, horror, mystery, etc. Weird Tales has published stories in genres across the spectrum for nearly a century. Though dismantled from 1954-1970s/80s, the magazine has been revived numerous times, and seems to be rising in popularity and commercial success moreso as of late.

I recently discovered the Weird Tales official website, which led me to discover that it was still in publication. I have admired the magazine for quite a while because of its publishing of some of my favourite authors, namely H.P. Lovecraft.

I suggest anyone who calls themself a fan of weird fiction, sci-fi, horror, or even just Lovecraft fans, check out the site AND possibly buy themselves a subscription (this trial pack is a pretty good deal for those not sure they want to subscribe).

I will be looking into submitting some of my fiction work to the magazine, as I have been exploring different outlets for publication this summer. Above all, I am happy to see that such a monumental magazine has survived to this day.

Signspottings

Today's post is going to be a semi-short one, because I have to go to the store and buy hamburger meat before I go to work.

Today I would like to introduce you to the world of Signspotting.
This was something I was introduced to by my younger brother, who has a fondness for humourous books and such. It's a series of books filled with pictures of funny, strange, or just plain wrong signs from around the world.

Many of these signs feature ridiculous translations from their native language to English, though not always because the people of the region cannot translate. English is a pretty wacky language in itself.

The books can be found at Barnes and Noble and other bookstores, and, for those of you who don't ever leave your couch, can also be purchased online (Amazon, eBay, whatever you want).
And for those of you who are really cheap and don't want to buy their own copy (like me), you can go to the website and look at some signs there.

Now, I'm off to buy some cow.

I Can See Russia From My House

I have rediscovered an old love from way back in 2008. Think back to November of that year, and the months preceeding it. That election that everyone is still talking about. Everyone in America that is; I can tell you that there are a few billion Chinese people who probably couldn't care less. There are probably even some Norwegian mountain-men that have no idea who Barack Obama is.

Regardless of my political views, I have a very open mind and was delighted to find numerous websites springing up around election time that, while initially aimed at bashing Obama/McCain/Ronald McDonald, served to provide me with endless hours of amusement.

My favourite of these, and the topic of tonight's bloggposssttt, was Obama Eats Babies.

Yes, my friends, that is Sarah Palin holding up a wee lil' bee-baby to the left of that Obama-head with the creepy look.

The web-game is simple: click on Palin to throw a baby into the giant disembodied Obama head's mouth. When you throw it, Sarah pipes up with "eskimos" "Russia" "you betcha" or another word/phrase in that Palinesque accent we've all grown to love (or hate).

I managed to get a huge combo of "Russia"s, which was funny in itself, but augmented by the fact that I was also watching a video of Soviet soldiers dancing. Sarah knows what you do when you're online, folks.

There are other little details you might notice as you're tossing babies to the disembodied Obamahead, which prompts you with "MORE!" and "BABIES!" as you throw the little ones to their doom. Did you notice the baby with Hilary Clinton's face? How about the McCain baby?

I bring this to you not so you can judge it or me for favouring it. I am not promoting an "anti-Obama" stance by sharing this with you. I don't think that the creators of the game even wanted to promote that type of idea. It's supposed to be funny, and if you can't take a joke, then I feel sorry for you.

(By the way, what type of accent does Palin have anyways?)

Postrant: Store Reward Cards

See, whoever told you that I'd be sticking to a schedule of blog-posting (me) was wrong.
Today I rant about stores who try to persuade you to sign up for their "INSERT STORE NAME HERE"
BONUS CARD! Why? Because they bug me.

Yes, I'm sure that if you have done any sort of shopping that is not via the internet, you have probably encountered these situations too. However, I've had enough of it. I don't even want to go in stores anymore because I'm so tired of it. Let me illustrate my reasoning.

There, I illustrated.

Almost every time I go to a store, be it a clothing store, shoe store, gadget store, pet store, whatever, I am first greeted by four or five people asking me if they can be of any assistance. While this does make me a bit uncomfortable, it's tolerable, and I usually politely tell each person that no, I'm fine, I'm just looking, as I gradually make my way through the store. Then, as I reach my destination, I am often greeted by another employee (who knew tiny little stores could employ so many people in these tough times?) asking me if I want a basket to hold my things or if they can start a fitting room for me. I usually decline, on the grounds that 1. There's no way in hell I will EVER buy enough of something from a specialty store to need a basket, and 2. I hate trying on clothes. By the time I finally get what I want/need and make my way up to the checkout queue (yes, I say queue, get over it) I am so thouroughly irritated with the store that I just want to pay for my items and run away screaming as fast as I can. Then comes the tip of the iceberg. As I place my items in front of the register, the employee ringing them up starts with, "And did you find everything alright? Good. Now, do you have a "INSERT STORE NAME HERE" Bonus Rewards Card? You don't? Well do you want to sign up for one?"

No, I do not. Generally, with any store that is not Target, Publix, or another chain-megastore, I do not shop there enough to get any real reward from using one of these cards that racks up "points" for each thing you buy there. Places such as American Eagle Outfitters, ULTA, etc, I usually only visit a couple of times a year, and only buy things ONCE a year if that; why would I need a card for a store I don't shop at? However, when I tell the employee this, as politely as possible mind you, they usually counter with, "Oh well you could always use the rewards from the card whenever you DO come in, they don't expire."


Yes, that would be nice if I had a computer and a printer glued to my ass, so that when I do spontaneously decide I need a new cardigan/eyeliner sharpener/other I can log onto my email and print out that AWSUM coupon I got from the rewards program. I get to save 10% on an already-overpriced item, yay!

I'll use this to glue the computer and printer to my ass.

Then there are the "sign up for our credit card and get a free t-shirt/ten dollar giftcard/tub of Parkay" stores, but I won't even get into that. They generally leave you alone after you say "no" the first time, unlike the rewards card people who just keep GOING.

I'm not trying to bust your balls, specialty stores. I have to do the same sort of "suggestive selling" in my job EVERY DAY. But the difference is that I work at a resturaunt, and we sell food. Food benefits you NOW, not three months from now when you finally get your coupons printed out and bring them in to the store. I offer cookies with your meal so that you can buy them and give them to your kids that are running around the dining room. But I understand that, if you are an employee of said establishment that pushes their "service" on you every time you walk in the door, it is only your job to do so. Yes, I know you really don't want to be annoying, but that doesn't change the fact that you are.


Maybe one of the CEOs of AE or ULTA (or Icing. Please let it be Icing! I miss shopping there.) will read this and realize that they are LOSING cutomers because of their service policies, and they will change them. Then I'll shop there again. Until then, I'll stick with online shopping or Target. I love you, Target.

IT'S 95 FUCKING DEGREES

Yes it's that time of year again. The time when I complain about the heat every waking moment of the day, all the while laying on my couch and refusing to turn ther air down out of sheer laziness.

It is also the time of the year when I get a lot more time on my hands, and thus decide to do something extremely time consuming (and usually stupid). So, for the remainder of the summer, I have decided that every other day I will post a different blog centering on something that interests me. Be it a book, a person, an art style, a movie, a fictional army colonel, a pair of socks, a bee, etc, etc, the theme possibilities are infinite.

Today begins the first of the posts, and the theme is Lovecraft, because I'm reading Lovecraft and because I feel like typing words about him.






Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer of the early 20th century whose stories, "The Call of Cthulhu", "At The Mountains of Madness", "The Colour Out Of Space", etc, have held a massive cult following since the 1940's. Though generally thought of as a horror/science fiction writer, Lovecraft's gothic tales often feature a keen, psychological horror, rather than an intrepid, obvious threat. That being said, his themes often center around what may be instead of what is. There are also beasties. Wonderful, grotesque beasties such as Cthulhu, the Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep (probably misspelled that), freakish fish-people etc.


Needless to say, Lovecraft has a massive cult following (and probably an actual cult somewhere up in Rhode Island...) and there have been numerous adaptations of his works; movies, comics, socks, etc, not to mention works directly influenced by dear ol' Lovecrafty (including ELDRITCH!, the comic I was pimping out for nearly a month).

Did you know that Lovecraft was also a Scrabble master?

Though there have been criticisms of his work on all levels of the critic-sphere, I for one haven't found a single piece of literature by H.P. Lovecraft that I dislike. My own comic and writing style has been profoundly influenced by my personal favourites, namely "The Colour Out Of Space", "At The Mountains Of Madness". This is one of the reasons why, when I happened upon THIS I was absolutely thrilled. "Die Farbe" (German for "The Colour") is a 2010 film based on "The Colour Out Of Space", and though it is only one of many movie adaptations of Lovecraft's works, it is the newest adaptation that I have found, so it should be interesting to see what the World of 2010 does with it.

For those interested in the realms of H.P. Lovecraft, I suggest:

-ECTOPLASMOSIS! A site dedicated to strange ephemera, particularly that oftentimes related to Lovecraft or Lovecraftean art.

-The H.P. Lovecraft Archive Exactly what it sounds like. Site for everything Lovecraft; info, books, movies, etc, etc.

-Cthulhu Lives! Also known as the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Information, merchandise, etc. Buy me a sticker!

Post a comment if you want more links. I'm tired. I have to get up at 4am.

In other news, there's oil on our shores! Does this mean all the tourists will go home? Not that I go to the beaches anyways, but it would be nice to be able to drive through them again.

Stay tuned for more posts; I guarantee they will be better than this one. I just can't go that far into the Lovecraft-ness without writing a full-blown research/autobiographical paper, and seeing as I just finished doing five of those, I'm not exactly interested in doing so right now. Tomorrow's theme will be: MUSIC?