The Horror! The Horror!

I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and dissolution; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world – or no longer of this world – yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.
HP Lovecraft, The Outsider

So, today I was shopping for a bathing suit and…

Quiz: how scary are you?

See, I didn’t cheat at all on this one and STILL got a perfectly accurate result.


You Are Scary


You even scare scary people sometimes!

The Earth Moved for MissRFTC

So, today on Twitter:

Twitter Vagina?

Twitter Vagina?

Okay, now someone please explain to me why, in the absence of specific Twitted information to that effect, everyone in the world, from Gawker to Valleywag to (briefly) the HuffPo, has concluded that she was having a pelvic exam.

All she actually said was, the doctor was in her vagina.

I’m thinking those people know much less about nooners and doctors than I do, and I say it’s 50/50 if you know what I mean.

Elvis is the Emperor!

I should explain.

I should explain, specifically, about the fangirl gene. I got the fangirl gene (I think The Sister escaped that particular fate, and much time and cash it has saved her, too, even though the first concert I went to was a Shawn Cassidy concert because my mother was damned if SHE was taking my sister to a Shawn Cassidy concert, but somebody had to; oh yes, and then there was the Starsky and Hutch phase she went through, and the Donny Osmond come to think of it but hey, Osmond could sing and there was precious little in the way of entertainment value in Wiarton, let me tell you OH and did I mention I asked Wiarton Willie to friend me on Facebook? We go back aways) from my mother.

My mother was the original Elvis fan.

It’s family legend, and probably truthful at that (rare in Irish families, it must be said, and it must be said, in fact, by none other than me) that when she worked at Eatons she told her boss she needed Tuesday off, because that was the day Elvis was coming to Ottawa and her boss said she couldn’t have Tuesday off, so she threatened to quit.

This is where I learned my work ethic as well, by the way.

She nearly divorced my father any number of times, the most serious of which was when they went down South for a trip and he did NOT take her to see Elvis, who was playing 20 minutes from where they were staying.

So, that’s where I get it. Apologies to (um, lessee…) Viggo Mortensen, Steve Jobs, Kenneth Branagh, Tony Blair, Bono, Kurt Cobain, Prince Caspian (circa Voyage of the Dawn Treader only), Mark and Jason from Battle of the Planets, Mister Spock, and the boys in The Wolves of Willoughby Chaseand The Little White Horse.

But I’m over that now.

No, really. Despite my occasionally slightly-more-enthusiastic-than-can-quite-pass-for-objective comments on Valleywag Steve Jobs posts. So over that.

In any case and anyway, here is something my mother would treasure: actual physical evidence that stars, or at least Elvis, transcend(s) time and space, manifesting here in a 2nd Century AD Roman bust:

Elvis isn't the King, he's the Emperor!

Beakerven’s Ode to Meep

I know, I’ve been heavy on the YouTubes lately (and even have a couple of Atenes up my sleeve) but I cannot NOT post this: my second-favorite Sesame Street character performing my third-favorite piece of music:

Everybody meep along!