Enter the Octopus

Mental Floss has blogged about a Victorian death rite that I had all but forgotten about: the practice of posing the recently deceased in life-like positions for a final photo before internment. The body would be rigged into position with wire and string, and fake pupils painted on their eye lids. Often, the living – brothers, sisters – would pose alongside the dead.  Photographs were a luxury, and not everyone could afford them. This was sometimes the last and only image of a dearly departed loved-one that a family would have. Although the Mental Floss column only briefly touches upon the subject matter you can read a lot more here and here.

Yeah. Exactly what you think it is. Video is SFW.

How do you think the Trekkers are going to react?

If you haven’t managed to get your hands on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game yet  - and it’s no surprise, the first printing sold out almost immediately – you might be able to slake your thirst temporarily with this video tour of the book from Paizo Publishing publisher Erik Mona.

I’m one of the fortunate few to have gotten my own copy, and I have to say that it’s probably going to become my go-to fantasy game for the foreseeable future. I’ve not been this excited about a version of D&D in a long while.

Via Undercover Black Man

Via Everything is Terrible

Fans of Robert Kirkman’s zombie epic “The Walking Dead” comic series have a lot to be happy about because an item just popped up on The Onion’s AV Club that cable station AMC has won a bidding war to bring it to the small screen.

I love “The Walking Dead”, and I’ve often considered it the one horror comic to give to people that don’t normally read that sort of thing. It’s the best exploration of the zombie subgenre that I’ve ever seen, and the amount of depth and sustained reader interest it brings to the story of a ragtag group of survivors is always amazing.

Video based on the short story by Charles Bukowski. Directed by Jonathan Hodgson.

A legion of official Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons miniatures recently arrived at my home, ready for adventure. Arcane, Martial and Primal powers at the ready, these pre-painted plastic miniatures proved to be a hit with my gaming group and durable enough to survive a face-down with a duo of wandering (and wondering) monsters: cats Grendel and Spider.  Grendel lived up to his name, cheerfully gnawing the hapless Elf warrior within moments of contact, but through a combination of a successful Save vs. Cat Spit and timely intervention from The Powers That Be (as opposed to the Meowers That Be that assaulted them), she walked away with a minimum of abrasion. She, along with her compatriots, later launched a retaliatory strike against the terrible tabby’s tail. Spider, the giant grey Maine Coon mix wisely chose to avoid mixing it up with this party of plastic adventurers. 

This important spiritual message brought to you by the letters W, T, F, and your special pal Erik. 

Quirk Books is following up the release of their surprise success “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” with another horror mash-up: “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”.  You can read an interview with Quirk editor Jason Rekulak here.

I can’t say that I’m personally that enthusiastic about the series, seeing this and “Zombies” as one-off jokes rather than anything that would hold my interest over the course of an entire book. For me, a joke like this is pretty much all but over once I’ve read the title. Anything further is just over-explanation. I did enjoy the trailer, though.