Family Ties

family ties, originally uploaded by Cleveland Desolation.

Next week I am starting a new game with the group, using the d6 Adventure rules. It might lead to something, but it's too early to talk about that right now.

The flyer is still tentative but it hits some of the themes that I want for the game. It isn't finalized though.

House of Hammer rises from the dead

Unholy lusts, depraved, thrilling passions and unspeakable acts of violence and terror - all in glorious, gothic Technicolor. When the legendary Hammer House of Horror group set out to scare the wits out of people in the 50s, 60s and 70s, it did it in style, leaving one British censor musing: 'The curse of this thing is the Technicolor blood: why need vampires be messier eaters than anyone else?'

For three decades, Hammer Film Productions has lain dormant, with fans having to rely on special late night showings at cinemas or the occasional reissue of one of the more popular classics from its prodigious 295-item back catalogue on DVD.

But now the brand that defined the great British film alongside Ealing comedies and James Bond is back in business and plans to make more movies to terrify a new generation of fans.

Responsible for the classic horror series of Dracula, Frankenstein and Quatermass, alongside such gems as Blood from the Mummy's Tomb and the Sweet Scent of Death, the company will repackage some of these old favourites but also plans new productions, inspired by such modern horror movies as the just released 28 Weeks Later.

Solve the Brooke Shields mystery

They haven't shown us what the alphabet is yet but graffiti around London is hinting at it's existence.

'Alphabet of Brooke Shields' – what does it mean?

This small bit of grafitti has been popping up all over London for the past few weeks, and is puzzling the living daylights out of everyone who spots it. From Tower Bridge to Wembley Park, it's everywhere. There are even reports of it appearing as far away as Hamburg and the Netherlands.

A Google search reveals nothing but bemused blogs speculating as to what's so special about the actess, model, former Mrs Andre Agassi and sparring partner of Tom Cruise. Does she have her own private alphabet? What?

What is the Alphabet of Brooke Shields, and how does it relate to the world? Hopefully we will find out.

Here's a Flickr pool documenting the graffiti. And here is a Google map showing the locations where graffiti has been found.

Share your thoughts.

Man wants electoral voice for "living dead"

Of course the living dead need their voice to be heard in the political world. Brains without representation, or something like that...

Man wants electoral voice for "living dead"

A villager is campaigning in northern India for the rights of people declared legally dead by cheating relatives seeking to steal their assets.

Lal Bihari, a lower caste villager who lost his father's inheritance due to an unscrupulous uncle, formed the 'Union of the Dead' in 1980 to fight for the rights of thousands he says have fallen victim to scams by relatives.

He is contesting as an independent in a month-long election in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, which ends on Tuesday.

In 1976, an uncle allegedly connived with corrupt local officials to fudge village records and declare Bihari dead. The uncle then won the inheritance of Bihari's father.

'It was only as late as in 1994 that I succeeded in proving myself alive,' Bihari, 52, said.

Man 'cuts off own head with chainsaw'

A self-inflicted chainsaw wound? Even I have a hard time buying that one.

Man 'cuts off own head with chainsaw'

A man in the German city of Cologne fatally stabbed his elderly father before cutting off his own head with an electric chainsaw, police said yesterday.

The headless body of the 24-year-old offender was found when police raced to an the apartment yesterday after an emergency call, apparently from the dying father, had been broken off in mid-sentence, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

Alf Willwacher, a senior prosecutor, said an electric chainsaw was next to the son's body.

'We do not believe any third party was involved,' he said.

Neighbours said the father and son had been reclusive since the death of the mother, allegedly by suicide, several years ago.

Student tries to make roadkill pretty

The important thing to remember is to always wear gloves when handling road kill. Road kill is pretty.

Student tries to make roadkill pretty

For the past several weeks, drivers near Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville have been noticing odd things about some of the roadkill on the sides of the area's highways.

Some of the dead possums and raccoons have been dressed in pet or human baby clothes and have had their claws painted with nail polish. The carcass of a deer has been adorned with gold paint.

The culprit is SIU-Edwardsville graduate art student Jessica May, 24, of West Lafayette, Ind.

In an interview with the Belleville News-Democrat, May said she is not an animal rights activist; she is just interested in seeing if people would give more thought to the animals if they were somehow given human attributes.

'I think this is my way of slowing down and paying homage to these animals,' she explained. 'I don't particularly find it offensive, but I understand why some people who don't understand what I'm doing could find it that way.'

May, a 2006 graduate of Purdue University, said she takes precautions in dealing with the carcasses.

'I wear gloves,' she said. 'I don't know that I could touch it with my bare hands, because by the time I find them, they're pretty far gone.'

Diplomats of the Abenaki Indigenous Nation

News of the weird, indeed.

Diplomats of the Abenaki Indigenous Nation

Two months ago, police in Trenton, N.J., arrested four men in separate incidents who fancy themselves 'diplomats' from the Abenaki Indigenous Nation and claim immunity from the laws of the 'so-called planet Earth' (and, by the way, of Mars and Venus, too). One allegedly possessed an unidentified 'controlled substance,' while the others drove cars with made-up 'diplomat' tags. The four showed no ostensible ties to the Abenaki Indigenous Nation, a tribe in North America since the 17 th century and still in the northeastern United States.

Ancient Vatican library to close

It sounds like someone found something in the library that they don't want outsiders to know about. With digital copies it makes it much easier for librarians at the Vatican to cleanse the books for public consumption.

What truth was accidentally discovered in the Vatican's Library?

Ancient Vatican library to close

One of the world's oldest libraries, at the Vatican, is to close for three years for rebuilding, in an unexpected blow to scholars around the world.

The decision to shut the library was made without warning.

After the library closes for its summer break in mid-July, it will not reopen until September 2010, the Vatican says.

The reason is that some buildings constructed only a quarter of a century ago are now considered unsuitable for the safe storage of ancient books.

Alumni get nasty surprise as UW opens time capsule

Also included, an unopened letter to Linda Ronstadt and a magazine with a picture of Ted Nugent on the cover.

Just keeping the world a bit stranger.

Alumni get nasty surprise as UW opens time capsule

As they cracked the capsule Thursday afternoon, University of Washington research team members expected to find a prim and proper package from the nifty 1950s.

What they got was a faceful of pornography, circa 1978, and dirty underwear.

The older, tamer items -- snapshots of men with crew cuts, reel-to-reel recordings of School of Communications alumni cracking wise -- still lay in the steel box, as they had since the capsule was sealed into the wall of the then-new Communications Building in 1957.

But they had company. Erotic, irreverent company.

Sometime in the early 1980s, the pranksters -- unknown as yet -- laid a pornographic centerfold atop the pile, and added other odd and obscene mementos to the mix. That was the image that greeted researchers, when they opened the capsule in preparation for a dinner Thursday evening with alumni who packed the original.

Duran Duran - Careless Memories Anime

Wow. I'm speechless. Thanks, Jonny.