Here’s a Halloween treat from JibJab based on one of their eCards.
Author Archives: Editor
Mystery Contest for Halloween 2009
If you want to enter the mystery contest, just finish the mystery we’ve started below by entering your part of the story into a comment. We do not need any personal information about you. You can just enter your name or your online nickname. We don’t need an email address or anything else. The contest is open to all writers of any age and skill level. Have fun and take the story in any direction you like. There’s no real prize other than getting some attention for your writing on this site.
We’ll post the winner in our blog sometime right near Halloween.
Good luck.
Horror Movie: The Road to Moloch
Here’s a horror movie about some U.S. soldiers in Iraq who face an ancient evil in a cave.
This is very mature subject matter with extreme violence and mature language. Not for young viewers.
This is not a very good film. That’s why I posted it. The filmmaking interests me because of its complete lack of vision. It tries to replicate to perfection other films that the director has seen. The director wants to be a professional and get hired somewhere. It shows in his work. Sorry, sir, but you put it out there and I’m calling it like I see it. The problem here is that the film is not frightening. It’s slick and well-shot, like television or feature films, but it spends all its energy that way. You don’t scare people by being professional. You don’t scare them by being violent. You scare them by showing them that you – director – are a little bit off.
That’s how you scare an audience. Not with professionalism. Try again and make it real this time.
International Space Station May Be Dumped Into the Ocean by U.S. Congress
The International Space Station which has taken 11 years and $44 billion to finally bring to a state of completion may be scuttled when its funding runs out in 2015. How about that? One of the greatest achievements in human history – greater than the building of the pyramids – may be dumped into the ocean before it can perform its intended mission which is scientific research and experimentation outside of the Earth’s gravity.
So we elect a man to the presidency twice over who is on the intellectual level of a monkey and give him $80 billion every few months so that he can arbitrarily slaughter the boys and girls of the people who elected him by sending them into a needless Iraqi hell on earth without adequate protection. But we can’t keep the greatest machine ever built by a human hand orbiting the planet? Someone simply must be kidding. I refuse to accept this as a possibility. There’s death money and there’s life money. Iraq war money is death money and sets human civilization back. The space station money is life money and it moves civilization forward. This is a simple equation that almost anyone can figure out. Except of course the drooling moron retired in Texas.
Horror Movie: The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
The Brain that Wouldn’t Die was directed by Joseph Green in 1959. It’s the creepy tale of a brilliant surgeon who perfects a method for keeping human body parts alive. When his girlfriend is decapitated in a car-wreck, he manages to keep her lovely head alive and talking in a tray. Unbelievable! She talks and everything! I love the tray! In fact, we used the tray idea in our Frankenstein – The Creature Must Die! game.
Horror Movie: The Curse of Frankenstein
In keeping with our horrific new game, Frankenstein – The Creature Must Die!, here’s a 1957 Hammer Film called The Curse of Frankenstein. It stars Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the monster.
This version of the Frankenstein story caused critical outrage when it was released. It was ground-breaking in its level of gore and violence and it kicked off a long series of popular horror flicks from Britain’s Hammer Film Productions.
Message to Pittsburgh Police: We’re All With The Press
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania police have arrested a 41-year-old man for using Twitter to post messages about police movements during the recent protests surrounding the G20 Summit. Also, FBI agents entered the man’s home in New York City and confiscated computer equipment. The man is charged with directing others to avoid apprehension. The police declared the entire protest in Pittsburgh illegal, giving themselves the apparent freedom to charge anyone who helps the protesters. But anyone could have read the Twitter postings anywhere in the world. It was a public announcement about what the police were doing in plain sight. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has stated that if this were happening in Iran or China, it would be condemned as a human rights violation. It most certainly is.
Police movements are public knowledge. Posting to Twitter about the whereabouts of police during a protest is simply the publication of public information. There is absolutely nothing illegal about it. If I stand on a street corner with my cell phone and Twitter about the movements of police cars, I’d be doing exactly what this man was arrested for. If those cars happened to be on their way to intercept a criminal, could the police come and arrest me for aiding that criminal?
The problem of police brutality and illegal actions against protesters is wildly out of control all over the nation. In Los Angeles you have the police violently attacking a peaceful gathering of immigration protesters in MacArthur Park. The riot police beat up television journalists and smashed their cameras. Later, the department had to pay over fourteen million dollars to private citizens and has even more to pay to the journalists they attacked. In Minneapolis the police burst into a home containing the organizers of a peaceful group planning protests for the Republican National Convention. The police held the organizers at gunpoint, tied-up on the floor for hours, just to keep them away from the convention. These were young highly-educated people with attorneys present on scene being held at gunpoint by a police force with no other intention than to prevent the exercise of their right to free speech and public assembly.
Look at this video from the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. Pay special attention during the arrest and assault on some protesters at the 5 minute and 12 second mark. What do you see? It’s a press photographer clearly wearing some sort of credential on his chest. He saunters through the melee without concern. He’s carrying a camera. The cops ignore him because he’s got that press credential. Then at the 6 minute and 15 second mark you hear a cop arresting someone and he says: ‘You’re with the press? Who are you with?’ Presumably, he’s going to let a member of the press go instead of arresting him.
I think this video is fascinating because it shows who the free press really is. Look at what the protesters are doing. They are using cameras against the police. Everywhere you look someone is trying to point a camera at the police. The press is the people with all the cameras pointed at the cops. The credentialed press photographer is walking around with his credential. He’s filming nothing at a moment when protesters are being abused, beaten with sticks, and pepper sprayed. The press is the other people. The ones with the cameras who are being chased and beaten. That’s the press. We are the press. We film bovine imbeciles with sticks and helmets and we upload our movies to YouTube. There’s always something to film when a cop’s got a stick in his hand. Everywhere you turn someone with a camera is catching some jackass cop murdering or beating someone. It’s a war. Cameras against cops. And the big one hasn’t hit yet. It’s coming. Something will snap and when it does it will be covered by the free press on the ground live in the struggle right up close in a cop’s face.
The fact of the matter is that most of these G20 protesters are highly educated literate people. They are vastly more intelligent than the cops. The cops actually know that. It irritates them and they are itching to beat people up. It’s universal to all police forces. When you get a crowd of these people in body armor with sticks and guns you have an extremely volatile situation on your hands. The masks confine the cops’ breathing and vision, increasing anxiety and tension. These cops don’t think well and they are far more dangerous than the crowds they are trying to control. I’m all for sticking cameras in their faces. And Twittering about their movements. It’s legal. It’s free speech and it’s protected.
And yessir, Mr. Pittsburgh cop, we’re with the press.
We’re All With The Press.
Browser Game: Frankenstein – The Creature Must Die!
If you wonder what it might have been like to be Victor Frankenstein working in his laboratory to bring life to the stitched together parts of dead people… wonder no more! You can be the brilliant doctor as he fights off a mob of angry villagers and tries to harness the power of lightning to animate his dead creature.
Enjoy splattering blood, flying brains, bats carrying explosives, and unlimited firepower in this action-packed horror spectacle.
WARNING: This is a frightening and violent horror game. May not be suitable for young children. Parents must use their judgment.
Our little game is based upon the wonderful work of totally original horror and philosophy by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. It was published in 1818, when Shelley was 19.
If you are going to read one great horror novel, this is it. Here’s a book scan of the novel at the Internet Archive. Here’s a download text version.
Here’s an excellent blog devoted to Frankenstein.
Online Science Fiction Serial: The Mercury Men
A science fiction web serial! The Mercury Men. This is amazing. I love stuff like this. A group of filmmakers are producing a series of cliffhanger shorts just for the web. The trailer looks very interesting, well-shot, exciting, and perfect for web viewing. These people seem to really know what they’re doing.
The director is Chris Preksta who made the Captain Blasto series. The producer is Kati Lightholder. Mark Tierno, who acted in George Romero’s Day of the Dead and will appear in the upcoming feature, The Road, plays the lead role.
I know it’s going to sound silly, but the Mercury Men Pictures logo with the light bulb is one of the best movie production logos I’ve ever seen. I also love the way the trailer clip uses light and shadow to maximum effect. And the alien is really creepy and looks amazing.
They even have this wonderful poster.
When people do this kind of work on the web they do it with limited means that require them to use real creativity in order to bring their vision to fruition. It lends a sense of adventure and excitement to the endeavor which translates directly to the viewer. This is something that is mostly lacking when you turn to a television. Science fiction is going to have a fantastic golden age because of the web. Keep watching.
An Awesome Book
Dallas Clayton is an author who has written and illustrated An Awesome Book. It’s about making sure your dreams are enormous. Petty little dreams are so out. Big huge ones with rockets on their backs are ultra-in.
I like the looks of this book and I really like big dreams whenever they come around. I like the way the author draws too.
You can purchase Mr. Clayton’s book here.
But you can also read the whole entire thing for free right here.
I think you should read it online and then buy one or two to give away.
Animation: Dead All Along
Here’s a nice music video made by Giles Timms at the Animation Workshop at UCLA’s Department of Theater, Film and Television. It features the music of Ceri Frost and looks like cutout animation. It’s a nice little film to warm up for Halloween.
Philadelphia Thinks Photographers are Terrorists
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania thinks people who take photos of its SEPTA trains might be terrorists. CBS3 in Philadelphia prints what I can only interpret as a serious article about a cashier at a train station who reported two men taking pictures near the train lines as ‘suspicious.’ This cashier actually questioned one of the photographers about his activities while waiting for police to arrive. The photographer understandably left the scene before the officers could arrive. I would have too.
How do you take a suspicious photograph? I’ve always harbored ambitions of taking some suspicious photos but I’ve never quite been able to figure out how. Do you hold the camera behind your back and then flip it out real quick while pointing the other way and yelling, ‘Hey, look at that! What is that over there?’ Do you take photos through holes cut out of your pants?
Or do you take photos while sporting a beard? Or dark skin? Do you have to be male? What makes a suspicious photographer?
Nothing does.
Look at this: National Terror Alert posts about it in all seriousness.
I’ve never seen a photograph explode. I’ve never seen a camera explode. I suppose one could. But most terrorists I’ve ever heard of use other things – like shoes.
Photographers actually make people safer. Wherever you see people taking pictures you have more safety for obvious reasons. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence agencies have made it very clear that there is no evidence that a terrorist has ever used photography as a means to prepare for an attack. I want photographers in my train stations. At my bank too. In the department store… wait, there are cameras in those places. They’re hidden in the ceilings I think. Suspicious. Everywhere we go we are photographed for security reasons. But as soon as one of us regular old folk take a camera out in a train station we are regarded as ‘suspicious.’
I declare the weekend of September 26 and 27 ‘Photograph a Philadelphia Train Station Weekend.’ Everyone should feel free to descend upon a SEPTA station and take some flattering photos of the helpful cashiers.
Here’s a blog written by a photographer who was arrested in Miami, Florida in 2007 for taking photos of police which is a totally legal act in all parts of the U.S.
The problem is that police across the United States are totally out of control when it comes to people utilizing their constitutional right to free speech. After all, the taking of photographs is nothing more than the exercise of free speech which is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. What’s really going on is that all these cameras everywhere, built into cell phones and hidden in sunglasses, are driving police crazy because they get caught doing illegal things. Cops don’t like cameras.
When I lived in New York City I once pulled out my video camera and filmed a group of perhaps twenty cops who pulled up in front of a brownstone apartment building and ran inside. One cop ran across the street toward me and screamed, ‘What are you filming?’
I said, ‘You!’
He said, ‘Well, anyone taking pictures when police come on a call is suspicious because sometimes people call us just to film us.’
I said, ‘Yeah, well you never know do you?’
He turned and went back to his job. And I’ve still got that video.
Suspicious, isn’t it?
Lest We Forget is a Short Film with a Long Memory
Lest We Forget is a short civil war film directed by Brandon McCormick and produced by Whitestone Motion Pictures. It’s the kind of short film I don’t see much of anymore. Very simple and well-produced. I really like its fearless punch and its call to the audience to not forget. Because we do forget. We forget everything. We want to forget. In fact, we’ve been seeing a lot of wonderful old-fashioned folk come out of the woodwork around this country to put on a country fair display of their rancid all-American racism. This film is for that guy at the town hall meeting on health care reform who decided to tear up the poster of Rosa Parks. Boy did he forget! That guy should watch this film and think about it a lot. Then put himself out with the garbage. Because I really don’t care whether a guy like that remembers or not. He’s really just a hole in the road that needs to be paved over.
But the one great thing about all this raging racism coming out, much of which is directed at President Obama, is that it does in fact come out. We see the bigots. Yes, indeed… we know who you are.
Science Fiction Story Anthology from Starship Sofa
The wonderful science fiction podcasting site, Starship Sofa, in celebration of its 100th episode, has published its first collection of stories as a book. Not just an ordinary book. It’s a book filled with fantastic illustrations and gorgeous layout that hearkens back to the pulp publications of the 1930s through 1950s. It even has vintage advertisements!
The best part is that you can either buy the book or read it as a free ebook in an excellent ebook viewer.
Some of the authors featured are Michael Moorcock, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Scholes, Ruth Nestvold, Elizabeth Bear, and more.
UFO Sighting Sci-Fi From India
All UFO sightings and reports of them are works of science fiction and should be judged on their artistic merits. Some are simply genius. The whole Area 51 alien ship landing story in the U.S. is terrific science fiction and fascinates me every time I read about it. This little video from India is extremely good science fiction. It has a cheerfulness sorely lacking in most sci-fi produced in the U.S. Our sci-fi has become big, self-important, thumping, overbearing and deadly dull. This video shows a tiny glimpse of the future of science fiction as I see it. The best science fiction will be made on a cell phone. Trust me, if it’s got Will Smith, it ain’t science fiction.
Via weeimage