pensive
posts from 2007.10
Happy Hallow’en! As you can see, my co-worker and I were festive enough to wear our costumes to work. If you can’t tell, I’m Samara from Ringu. Unfortunately, it seems that no one in the office besides us has seen Ringu, but apparently they still thought the costume was creepy. He’s a person who doesn’t respect tyrannical (or other) copyright law.
To celebrate Hallowe’en, I baked some Soul Cakes last night (my most ambitious baking project to date!). I think they came out rather well, though of course I’ve no basis for comparison.
I brought about half of them into work today, where they were quickly housed (meaning, I guess, that others liked them as well), hence the lack of pictures. In compensation, here’s a picture of the plaque I made to let everyone in the office know the history and ingredients.
As an aside, it’s not common practice to let everyone know what the ingredients are in the food you bring to work; as a person with food allergies, I find this both annoying and threatening. Hence, I hope to set a good example with my own work offerings to change this.
Back on topic, the other half of the Soul Cakes are coming with me to Syracuse tonight, for the big Nekropolis Hallowe’en party:
Speaking of parties, my annual shindig was this past weekend. People have yet again informed me that it was a grand success, but they always seem to say that. Either I throw a great party (well, there was absinthe!) or they don’t go to many parties, I think.
Via Neatorama, here’s a list of 10 strange things caught while fishing. I mostly found this noteworthy because:
Item #1, billed as a ‘two-headed fish’, is actually a two-bodied fish with a conjoined head.
Item #10, billed as an ‘alien fish’, is really just a Skate, which I’ve talked about before (albeit only in my moblog).
I’m not pedantic at all, really.
Also, it would be peachy-keen to have a blue lobster (Item #2) as a pet. They should selectively breed for that trait.
Do you like Edward Gorey?
Do you like Silent films?
Do you like Dracula?
If so, you will probably like this.
Via YesButNoButYes
This, particularly the last 45 seconds, reminds me quite a bit of a scene from Homeland (wherein Drizzt showed his amazing inherent agility by catching lots of coins).
I can’t imagine how someone goes about learning a skill like this, but I imagine having learned it they will have great opportunities in the fields of magician, carnie, or panhandler.
Via Mental Floss.
Via Neatorama, the strange tale of a boy allergic to nearly all foods.
Doctors found that he was allergic to nearly everything he ate, including wheat, gluten, dairy products, eggs and soy products.
…
They took him off all food, feeding him a liquid formula through a gastric tube inserted through his nose. They then introduced him to one food at a time, making sure he could tolerate it before adding another. Recently, tuna joined chicken as a protein source. [emphasis mine]
The list of foods he is allergic to is more than a little similar to the results of my own food allergist adventures; the difference being, of course, that my allergies are mostly only a inconvenience, and have not, to date, caused blood to spew forth from both ends.
For some weird reason, everyone around me is very excited about my birthday this year. Said event is still days away, and already I’ve gotten one birthday dinner and one birthday cake, with one more of the former and two more of the latter likely to come in the next few days.
The aforementioned birthday dinner was yesterday, but to make matters stranger they attempted to buy dinner for me again, today. I outright refused, forcing my monies on people, but that didn’t stop Peter from conniving with the staff at Kyushu, our local Hibachi/Sushi place.
I really don’t get what the big deal is. I think it’s because I told Peter I was masochistically hoping that people would forget so I would get a good chance to be knocked off my pedestal, and he’ll be damned if he lets that happen.
Oh well, people seem to be having a good time of it, anyway.
“I kick ass for the Lord!”
Actually, I think the funniest thing about this picture is the upside down cross pendant. Presumably it is upside down on account of momentum and not because of any sort of satanical leanings, but a girl can dream, can’t she?
I’m glad we live in an enlightened age where Nuns can flip out and kill kick people without being accused of doing the devil’s work and getting set on fire (the upside-down cross would have surely been damning evidence - clearly being either intentional on the part of the nun or symbolic of God’s displeasure!).
Via Neatorama.
Last night at scandinavian-themed Dinner with the Dead I tried blood pancakes, made with fresh pig’s blood, thus foregoing vegetarian principles for a bit of novelty and bragging rights.
Everyone else thought they didn’t taste anything like blood, but I disagree. I think they taste exactly like what I remember rare steak drippings tasting like after they’ve been soaked up in a bit of bread. Of course, that’s the taste of cooked blood, which makes sense as that’s what they were made out of. I think everyone else was expecting the metallic taste of raw blood, for some reason.
Anyway, I didn’t much like them, and thus, only ate half of one.
Previously, The Great Pumpkin cometh. Now, via ectomo, witness an even more maddeningly wonderful eldritch tale of childhood wholesome holiday specials gone horrific: The Great Old Pumpkin.
This quest led me into mouldering libraries, cramped basement antiquaries, far-flung correspondences, and, on one occasion, frightening and persistent telephone conversations with a lunatic in Boston. The last raised alarms in my family. I promised them I would turn away from my studies, all the while resolving to continue them in secret. I committed everything I knew to memory, burned all my papers, and embroidered my most unfathomable and precious secrets in near-invisible thread on my security blanket, which as you can see, I carry still.
My continued investigations led me to certain grim texts detailing eldritch and macabre sincerities—chants, autosacrifice, sinister configurations of pumpkins—which would bait the Great Old Pumpkin to my patch. On the Hallowmas Eve of two years ago, my investigations bore fruit, so to speak. I believe that I saw him—orange, flaming, and magnificent, hovering above me for an instant and then vanishing skyward into the constellations.
I can’t believe this has been around for years, and I’m just discovering it now.
You will almost certainly enjoy this more if you are cool enough to have previously read some Lovecraft, specifically, the Call of Cthulhu. Since it’s available for free online, why don’t you do that now?
I suppose that it’s equally important to have seen this at some point in the last decade. I suppose.