My rainy day craft box

The Woman In Black turned out to be a pretty fun little scary movie. I wouldn't nominate it for Best Picture or anything, but that' s not because it's bad. It knows exactly what it is supposed to be (a jump scare horror movie,) tries to do it very well, and succeeds. Daniel Radcliffe proves once and for all that he's more than just a one-trick pony, especially during the many long scenes of him by himself, no dialogue, just reacting to the bizarre happenings around him.

The movie also has some gorgeous scenery porn. It's worth seeing for the haunted house sets alone. Best of all, it's a Hammer Film and it succeeds in updating the great qualities of the early Hammer movies for a new century. Hopefully this means they are back and will keep delivering good, interesting horror movies.

Of interest to probably no one besides me, (as if anything else I say is - Ha!) I have repeatedly mistakenly referred to the film as "The Lady In Black" due to the title's similarity to Queensryche's amazing early song, "The Lady Wore Black." Since the lyrics and atmosphere of said song are actually kind of appropriate for The Woman In Black here it is, complete with pretty graphics some kid with editing software compiled into a Youtube video.

Subject line has nothing to do with either calling in sick on a Monday or a certain song by New Order, brilliantly covered in the late 90's by flash-in-the-pan industrial goth act Orgy. No, I call it Blue Monday because the color of the outdoors today was about two shades off from that blue filter ubiquitous to horror movies these days. Naturally I loved it. I planned to go for a walk in my new neighborhood but of course it started raining and hasn't stopped since: the kind of fat, gloppy, poisonous drops that are a hallmark of autumn days in the Midwest.

The lack of a walk was disappointing but not defeating. One thing I have not been today was bored. I have done a ton of laundry, started running our boxes of dishes through the dishwasher, and finally started cleaning the kitchen shelves to place said dishes upon. It is starting to feel like we actually live here. I had wanted to get started on the painting we are required to do but I can get away with putting it off a few more days.

About three years ago I bought myself a stack of Playstation 2 games for Christmas and never played any of them. I've made it a goal to start digging through the stack. Today I started on Kuon which is an interesting little survival horror game you've probably never heard of. If you've played Fatal Frame it has a similar premise: young woman with psychic powers goes to investigate a haunted mansion where someone close to her has disappeared and must defeat ghosts in unconventional ways. I think it even uses FF's graphic engine. Difference is that it's set in feudal Japan instead of the modern era and instead of a camera you use exorcism strips, which if you're not familiar with as a Westerner, watch anime for a couple of hours and you will be.

I really like this game. It's got an intricate plot that's as good as anything in the genre, plenty of jump scares, beautifully rendered graphics, and unlike Silent Hill the controls don't actively fight you. Although since your protagonists (you switch characters during the game,) are frail teenaged girls who've never had to hurt anyone before they're still only marginally more effective in hand-to-hand combat than the shambling, mindless undead they run up against. I'm sorry I waited so long to play it but I can't wait to see where it goes.

After gaming it was time for bass practice. Finger style is getting easier finally although I'm still a long way from mastering the gallop. I want to practice the six string more but this gallop business has me obsessed.

So now I've finished job hunting for the night and I suppose finished the day as well. Thankfully it did not go the way blue filtered horror movies usually do.

So I have been on a serious, serious H.P. Lovecraft kick lately. Just really gotten obsessed with his stories all of a sudden. And I've got to be honest. It's frustrating. Why? Because he published 70 stories during his lifetime and the Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, etc. (a.k.a., the stuff you immediately think of when you think of Lovecraft,) only appear in like, TEN of them. The other 60 stories aren't bad, you can clearly see in them where he's trying to find his own voice distinctive from that of his idols like Poe and Machen. But they're not what you're really paying to see.

It's like how you go to see a Transformers movie for the sole purpose of watching robots fight and spout pithy one-liners at each other. Yet Bay and Spielberg insist on forcing a pair of untalented twentysomethings pretending to be teenagers (who have inexplicably been spray-painted orange,) onto center screen for 75% of the movie.

It's like how you expect pussy but all you get is tits with the bra on. And though pulsing, green, insidiously tentacled pussy it might be, it is still the pussy you want. And lo though the tits may be Elder tits from beyond the Cosmos whose sanity-warping visage is obscured only barely and not for eternity by the meagerest of bras that we misguidedly call "reality," it is still tits with the bra on.

Why, Howard? Why did you die so young and leave us with so little? Why must I now sit here in frustration, dreaming of the robot fights and braless tits that might have been?

Ah, Ronald McDonald: gentle corporate mascot, beloved of obese children everywhere. His compassionate smile and outstretched arms beckon gently as if to say "just eat a Happy Meal and everything will be alright." And you know what? It's true. When I am very sad or stressed out I often get a powerful craving for McDonald's and eating it really does make me feel better.

But however you view Ronald McDonald, whether as beloved childhood icon or as the very avatar of poor nutrition we, as a culture have forgotten one very important thing. He is, first and foremost, a clown. And the best that anyone can ever hope for from any clown is to be fucked to death while slowly being eviscerated while having your eyes, nose, and teeth removed in the most painful manner possible. All over a period of several hours, if not days.

The Japanese have not forgotten. WARNING: MAY BE TRIGGERING. No, I am not joking.



I can't find any information on it, but this would appear to be an actual McDonald's commercial. Which means someone said "Hey, let's depict the corporate mascot as the horrific rape clown he really is!" and some McDonald's executive at the Japan branch said "Okay, sure." Perhaps Ronald is merely following in the footsteps of so many American executives before him, using Asia as a playground to feed his insatiable appetite for mayhem and rape. Who knows?

And if it's not an actual McDonald's commercial? Don't worry, there are plenty of links on the Youtube page to real McDonald's commercials that are just as bad. Sleep well! Eat some vegetables!

Dracula and the Great Old Ones are rare examples of literary characters who are still having new stories written about them 70 or more years after their creators' deaths. Also, they belong to an exclusive fraternity of fictional characters who are so pervasive in popular culture that even if you've never read a book or seen a movie with them in it, you still have a pretty good idea who they are and what they do.

My question is, has there ever been a story where Dracula and the Great Old Ones encounter one another? No, I don't intend to write one. I'm just genuinely curious. I mean, it seems so obvious but I've never heard of it being done.