forget NaNoWriMo: NaDruWriNi is where it’s @

Dorothy Parker sometimes gets distracted

from Gawker comes word of NaDruWriNi, which isn’t officially called that but should be: ’tis the National Drinking and Writing Festival, ’tis, but even we Canuckistanis shall co-opt it, for lo, we are very co-opterative up here at the socialist roof of the world, and lo, we drink more than they do, so there.

Alas, the glorious day has passed, but as they point out on the site, the next Festival is a mere 51 lost weekends away. Think of it as physical training and carry a notebook small enough to fit in your pocket so it sticks with you when you lose your purse, as you surely will around word 2,800, if I can believe what my shockingly disreputable friends tell me.

The Round Table itselfNaturally, you’ll want to pay attention to your choice of booze. Feeling feline? Go with gin. Working on a piece about the high life? See if you can’t round up a crystal Champagne flute and magnum of Cristal, or at least a couple of straws and a jug of Cribari. Working on a murder tale? Well then, what’s their poison? Kimveer Gill had Jack Daniels for breakfast his last day on Earth; Christian Brando had three Negronis and then shot his sister’s lover; Robert Frisbee drank something like seven French 75’s and a bottle of wine before bludgeoning the poor, foolish little old lady who paid for his cocktails.

Yeah, just a little something to set the mood.

I would post excerpts, if only I could read the handwriting. Click and decipher for yourselves. This is what Gawker found, from last year, and it’s representative:

observation #5

i was going to write about
an old man i saw
but am now so drunk
that i cannot concentrate enough
do do so
or remember him
h9old on
giveme a sec.

Hemingway, obviously not the one who's buying

pic o’ the day: Borat on the cover of Vanity Fair

This one’s a real eye-ripper, straight from the folks at Fishbowl NY. Blame them, although I think the titles are straight outta CondeNasty.

Borat on VF. Is good, yes? What means, 'Aieeeee, my eyes, my eyes?'

site o’ the day: the call of plush Cthulhu, at the laundrybasket of madness

surrender yourself to the crawling chaos, or at least hand over the acorn, dammit

From time to time we here at the ol’ raincoaster blog like to get out for a stroll around strange and eldritch parts (no dirty jokes, Metro!) and see what we can discover. We have just returned from such a journey, one that has left us strangely shaken, ill at ease, suspecting that behind the homely reality that we have come to know as “the world” lie unutterable gulfs of madness, spiralling into the great abyss for eons beyond time…

So we thought we’d show you this. Prepare yourselves, mortals!

The Tale of Plush Cthulhu

“How odd it looks!” said Miss Kitty Fluffington. “Very non-Euclidian.”

“Yes,” said Brown Snuggly Bear, “but thank goodness it isn’t squamous.”

“Or gibbous,” said Mister Bright Eyes.

“It seems to be covering something,” said Miss Kitty Fluffington. “Let’s see!”

Events proceed predictably…

Yes, plush Cthulhu! The stars were right again and a band of innocent stuffed animals had released Him into the world by accident.

“Uh, oh,” said Baby Boy Fluffy Bunny.

Another soul-chilling tale of terror from the posthumous hand and cruelly unhinged mind of the master of horror.

Great Cthulhu meets the Keeper of the Pet Door

belated happy Halloween from Cthulhu

I swear to god I tried to post this days ago; musta been one of those times the computer blew up. I dunno why it likes to do that; I generally don’t work with more than fifteen or so IE windows open at a time, well, plus MSN Messenger and maybe some music downloading. Fussy machine!

Anyway, here are is the Halloween greeting from the divine and horrible Cthulhu, the very essence of all that is repulsive and unutterable, who waits, dreaming, in his great house in R’lyeh. Prepare yourselves, mortals!

everything has a fansite: Jean Teasdale edition

Jean Teasdale, and aren't you glad you're not herA word of warning: this site does, just as you’d expect, feature corny background music that comes up and irritatingly synths around the whole time the page is up, but as I say, what can you expect from Jean Fucking Teasdale, perhaps the most perfect example of the average internet addict that the world has ever seen? What could be more typical? Only the fact that this “fansite” is, in fact, her own creation. Do check out the fan fiction; it’s unmissable!

The Pew Institute earlier this year released an exhaustive study of internet use and demographics and they found, much to their surprise, that the mean internet user, who was in fact quite average and not a little mean, even though she doesn’t want you to think so and uses any number of animated teddy and kitten gifs in her chain emails to further her warm and cuddly image, wasn’t the 15-year-old antisocial boy the advertisers were looking for at all, but was, in fact, a 45-year-old, highly socialized woman.

Jean Teasdale is their leader. animated kitten. Anybody got a gun?

Resistance is futile: You will be assimilated. Have a happy!