Category Archives: Weird

the spirits of the season

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and I’m not talking brandy and rum for once. In our continuing series of inclusive, multiculti holiday features here on the ol’ raincoaster blog, there is one group we have overlooked; a group, it could be said, that has more right to representation on Jesus’ birthday than any other. A group with which he has a great deal in common. Indeed, they are a group in which he always took an unhealthy interest. We are going to rectify that omission now. We are going to post this heartwarming commercial from South America featuring a group to warm the cockles of your…cockles.

The accursed. The shunned. The murderous. The insane. The undead.

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who has rolled away the stone?

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Ah, that would be telling! Like I said, Gawker, use a silver bullet next time.

saw this and thought of you: dried squid postcards

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Dried squid...what does it look like, eh?Say so much, without saying a word.

Living, as I do, in Chinatown, I have gotten used to cultural dissonance as my default mode of being. I’ve lived here for six years now and I still say to myself “Holy crapola, look at that dried squid! Craaaaazy shit! And those dried minnows…shiny!!!” Well to be fair, I don’t have cable; I’m starved for entertainment.

But for years I’ve walked past these piles, bins, and impromptu Cthalderesque mobiles of dried squid and thought I wonder if the post office would deliver one if I put a stamp and an address on it.

Now Pink Tentacle reports (via Japanprobe) a Japanese company has taken the guesswork out of the process; they are producing edible postcards made of dried squid.

 Residents of the coastal town of Susami in Wakayama prefecture love the sea and the post office so much that the town once installed a mailbox on the ocean floor for scuba divers. Now, further evidence of this powerful sea/mail love comes in the form of “Surumail” — edible postcards made from squid.

Produced by the Susami fishing cooperative, Surumail postcards consist of dried surume squid (Todarodes pacificus), the local seafood specialty. The squid jerky is flattened and vacuum-packed into the shape of a postcard, and an adhesive label is included for the postage, delivery address and a short message.

So, should you get an unspeakably oceanically-scented and fully-digestable Cthristmas Cthard from me this year, don’t be too surprised.

Surimail, y'all

OTHER pic o’ the day: Flying Spaghetti Monster holiday wallpaper

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the first noo-dle, the sous chef did say, was to go out to table four ri-ight away...

Click to enlarge. Rinse before serving. Ramen.

the HP Lovecraft drinking game

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It’s about time we had one of these, what with the party season wrapping us in its clammy and overly-accessorized embrace. Hug back with all ten tentacles and most of what’s left of your liver with this riotous party-for-one-eccentric-loner-friendly game from your good friends at Cthulhu Coffee, the go-to site for all your Cooking with Cthulhu recipe needs.

Whereas normally I’d excerpt it here, the site informs me (in a myriad whispered voices, with strangely musical pipings over a wide range, evoking visions of fantastic vistas…where was I?) that it’s never going to be updated again, so fuckit. I’m stealing this wholesale. What’s the worst that can happen? I get mysteriously offed by a swarthy and strangely misshapen sailor in an obscure foreign port?

Like we don’t all know that’s going to happen anyway.

Grab yourself a bottle of absinthe and pree-pare to par-tay!

Cthulhu himself recommends the girly drinks!

H.P. Lovecraft Drinking Game

 

Category

Drinking Rules
General Take a gulp any time that Lovecraft:

    …uses more than one adjective in a row, i.e.: “Molded by the dead brain of a hybrid nightmare, would not such a vaporous terror constitute in all loathsome truth the exquisitely, the shriekingly unnamable?” (“The Unnamable”)
    …uses a purposely vague description. (i.e. “unspeakable horror”)
    …refers to an other-worldy location. (i.e., Sarnath, Kadath in the Cold Waste, and the like. “The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath” will put you under the table easily.)
    …refers to an other-worldy entity by proper name. (Remember, Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep are proper names of single entities, but Mi-Go and shoggoth are not; they are types of entities.)
    …states anything racist, sexist, fascist, or generally non-PC. This rule makes “The Horror at Red Hook” particularly nasty to get through. Don’t debate too much about what is racist or sexist, though
    … When in doubt, drink.
    …uses the “British” spelling of any word, such as “colour” or “favour”.…any time a character winds up at a temple or church.…any time a “forbidden” book is mentioned in the story. This includes De Vermis Mysteris, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and, of course, The Necronomicon, among others.…to this we would add:any time a protagonist is shunned in townany time the following names pop up: Whateley, Marsh, Dunwich, Arkham, Miskatonic, Innsmouth, Kingsport (Kingsburyport).
Words Down your drink whenever the following words appear:

    Edrich
    Cyclopean
    Gibbering
    Squamous
    to this we would add: Rugose, Armigerous, Congeries.
Story Specific Finish your drink whenever the any of these situations occur:

    Six-foot-tall albino subterranean penguins waddle into the storyline. (“At the Mountains of Madness”)
    The protagonist discovers that he can’t blink. (“Shadow Over Innsmouth”)
    Cannibalism. (“Rats in the Walls” and “Picture in the House”)
    The storyline is repeated in brief. (“Herbert West — Re-animator”, which was released as a serial and thus had to remind readers of what happened in the previous issue.)
    Fat felines lounge about after some mean humans disappear. (“The Cats of Ulthar”)
Bonus After finishing a story, check to see if anyone in the room can still quote the opening lines to “The Call of Cthulhu” without peeking at the book. Everyone else must finish one drink for every sentence that the quoter can correctly quote.This is a good way to get your friends really, really pickled, so start memorizing… Though ideally, everyone should already be blotto enough by the end of a story to be unable to recite anything from memory.For reference, here is the opening paragraph:“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a dark new age.”If no one can quote any part of this, then check to see if anyone can quote the famous Necronomicon rhyme. Everyone else must finish one drink if somebody correctly murmurs from memory, “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”

 

 
Cthulhu party on, dudes!

 

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