“saw this and thought of you”

My friends send me the sweetest little notes. The packages they’re attached to, however…

Presenting the Mad Scientist Laughing Contest, from Helsinki, Finland, proud home to one of the highest rates of Seasonal Affective Disorder in the world. Here, we can see the tragic consequences.

Walken to dial down the weird

Walken plays pool just like you, and when he's done he makes gold records!It’ll be a blow to his longtime fans, but cinematic icon and soul-blackened master of the bizarre Christopher Walken is to take on the most challenging role of his career.

In a complete reversal of his normal role-seeking priorities, Walken has chosen a character who, despite an outward appearance of berserk, orgiastic hedonism, actually possesses the soul of a retired bee-keeper in the Cotswolds.

Christopher Walken is to play Ozzy Ozbourne. Defamer has the rest:

Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil told ABC News Radio in an exclusive interview that the 63-year-old Oscar-winning actor will make a cameo appearance as Osbourne in “The Dirt,” a movie based on the band’s controversial 2001 autobiography…

…other stars are going to appear in the film as rock stars, including Val Kilmer as David Lee Roth.

Both of those men are going to have to dial the weird RIGHT DOWN in order to play these rock gods. And, I imagine, they’ll be blowing off a lot of pent-up steam with the extras later.

Play safe, boys! Rough play with airborne blood particles must only take place in a properly tarped zone…

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