The sad fact is that less experience wears off eventually.

Tags: helpful advice

Have fun playing the De-Animator, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s collection Herbert West: Reanimator (which you can read online; also made into a great pulp movie). If you like playing House of the Dead (one of the few video games I don’t completely suck at), you’ll love shooting the living dead.

Over at defective yeti, you can find links to 22 classic spooky tales you can read online, including selections from M.R. James, E.A. Poe, W.W. Jacobs, and R.L. Stevenson.

A classic “Even Stevphen” from 2000, as Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert debate trick-or-treating.

Tags: De-Animator, Re-Animator, Bum Lee, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Even Stevphen, The Daily Show

The Tall Poppy
For example, I was talking to an Australian guy about how sports figures are treated down there and he introduced me to the concept of the tall poppy. It sounds like the equivalent of the Japanese expression Deru kugi wa utareru (The nail that sticks out gets hammered down). In Australian culture, you don’t aggrandize yourself and take too much (or any) pride in your accomplishment. If you compete really hard and lose, that’s okay. If you win, but you downplay your victory and act humble, maybe that’s okay. But if you win, you don’t do what athletes in America do all the time. You don’t brag or trash talk or do dances.

For example, from Psychology Today:

Many Australians turned against Steve Irwin’s showmanship when he dangled his son in front of a crocodile. After Irwin died, he was enshrined in the hearts of Aussies everywhere when his father refused a state funeral for him—a sure sign of proper Australian humility.

Pronto Pups v. Corn Dogs
I learned about the rabid Pronto Pup versus Corn Dog controversy that rages at the Minnesota State Fair (held in late August).

Batter-dipped hot dogs on a stick seem to go back to the Twenties, but became popular at fairs in the early Forties. Corn dogs (with cornmeal) seem to come from the South, with Pronto Pups (with wheat) appearing in Oregon and then migrating to Chicago and Minnesota.

But what’s really important is that people practically come to blows arguing about the relative merits of the two food products at the Minnesota State Fair. I’d love to try the two side-by-side and decide for myself.

Swearing Québécois Stylee
But the pièce de résistance was learning about how Quebec French profanity. In Quebec, they have the usual scatological terms that you find in the U.S., but in Canada, those words are mild. When you’re really pissed off, you go for sacre.

As it was explained to me, this goes back to the early 19th century, when the Catholic Church was a huge influence in Quebec. Since the Sixties, the influence of the Church and religion in general has declined, but the swearing goes on.

For example, a big curse phrase is “Host of the Tabernacle,” which might be uttered as Tabernaque! I mean, seriously, that’s the kind of thing you’d yell when you’re mad. Sacrament or sac is also a big one. But then, since that’s such strong language, you can soften it. So a mother might say taberwhee. I’m probably not spelling that right — it might be tabarouette — but that’s how it sounded.

That’s hilarious to me. “Tabernacle” is such an outrageous word that we have to tone it down for the kids.

Christ and the Virgin Mary are in there, but so is “host,” “chalice” and “ciborium,” the receptacle in which the host is stored (respectively rendered as ostie, câlice and ciboire). It sounds like a 16th Century monk swearing when he breaks his quill. Here’s a video on the subject.

Tags: Easter, decorations

And a golden oldie from last year, A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa. Worth repeating, because it was recommended to me by Higgins.

Tags: A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Kwanzaa

You know, if you decorate your home for Christmas, nobody looks at you funny. You can put up the gaudiest, tackiest conglomeration of lights and blow-up snowmen and animated reindeer, and people might think it’s a little much, but that’s it.

But you decorate your house for Easter and people drive past and think: freak.

(Click on the images to appreciate the details. Notice the “Easter trees” in each.)

Tags: Easter, decorations

See the trailer for MO: III here.

Tags: movie trailer mash-ups, MO: III, Philip Seymour Hoffman

On December 4, 1999, I happened to be in Los Angeles, on the back end of a business trip. My friend John was also in town and we arranged to go see the Vandals play at the Hollywood Palace.

So we’re there, enjoying the old school punk show, when I suddenly become aware that we’re surrounded by Santas. But these are kind of grungy-looking Santas. Slovenly, drunk, licentious Santas.

They’re men and women, dressed up as Santa Claus, wandering around and getting out of hand. There must be a hundred. They were moshing and crowd surfing; at one point, they formed a conga line. One vivid moment was when they all started chanting at the stage: “HO! HO! HO! HO!”

It was a really surreal moment.

Much later, we found out the background to our experience. It had been part of a Santa Rampage, staged by the L.A. chapter of the Cacophony Society. You can find a description of the day’s festivities here and here.

But this was not an isolated incident. The Santacons have been taking place since 1994 and are a global phenomenon today. May you be so lucky as to someday have your own moment of surreal Santa-osity.

UPDATE: The Wikipedia listing is also a good background source.

If you come a-caroling to my house, you’re going to get yanked inside, strapped to a bed of pine trees, and force-fed a gallon of hot wassail while I recite the screenplay to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. We’ll laugh and laugh and scream and you’ll be so bursting with Christmas cheer you’ll beg me to scamper off and find a linoleum knife. “You’ve got to help me share all this Christmas cheer with the rest of the world!” you’ll gurgle. Then I’m going to cut you open and make entrail angels all over the floor!