Category: The Unknown

The Ballad Of Dust

April 29, 2019

At first I didn’t notice,
Or pretended to ignore.
Yet the more I used the camera,
The more I saw.

A blemish on the image,
A ghostly disc appeared.
What should never happen.
What we all feared.

Something on the lens
Left a shadow signature.
I cleaned and wiped and wiped and cleaned
But still it was in the picture!

The Internet to the rescue:
Force will remove it!
I shook the phone like a maniac
But all I did was move it!

I gave not up and set to work
Shaking like a fiend.
I shook so much I near passed out
My hand incarnadined.

And then when I came to
An image I did capture…

The photo was clear!
The dust was gone!

And in this home…
Was rapture.

Review: Aquaman

December 31, 2018

I went and saw Aquaman yesterday, at an impressively early 9:30 am screening. I momentarily baulked at the ticket price…

But then remembered that the film was going to be awesome and couldn’t throw my cash at the attendant fast enough!

The cinema was crazy big. I dutifully sat in my assigned seat (N-16) and when the projector started I was the only person in there! But then I noticed the first half hour or so were just adverts (including many social engineering PSA’s: exercise more, don’t stay in the sun, start a savings account, etc.) and sure enough the locals knowledgeable about such things shuffled in just before the main show.

Aquaman is about a fish-powered dude that fights a lot and seems to wish he was actually a professional wrestler. I’m not going to spoil the overall plot here but I’ll say it starts off strong and within minutes I was intrigued:

Aquaman’s powers are a cross between Superman and Yoda and are frankly absurd (why is he bulletproof?!?) but you won’t question them because after the crazy start the film quickly evolves into madness and then ascends into bonkers territory.

This was my face during the political scene between the aryan riding the zeuglodon and the Viking riding the dragon:

And then when they introduced a pretty redhead fish girl and the film briefly stopped being about fish and became Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park I was slackjawed.

This was my face when the murlocs (from World of Warcraft) turned up:

But it wasn’t even close to done! When a futuristic city sequence that makes Blade Runner look like the scribblings of a child was followed by a space battle that featured not one, not 1000, not 1000000, but every fish I was just roaring at the screen with joy:

There’s much to love about the film. Its visuals and design are astonishing, its script unfettered by tradition, its actors unconstrained by expectation and it’s easily got the best depiction of cetacean armies fighting a billion crabs that have ever been printed to celluloid.

It makes you feel every emotion, from love to hate to glee and yes, to terror. It’s unfettered fun, and easily gets my highest recommendation. Best fish war film ever by a mile.

Immediately afterwards I languidly strolled over to the Game Center and found a coin-pusher machine:

I was so full of DC comics appreciation I had to win a card, and quickly targeted this Batman that was right at the edge:

As you can see it was about to drop! So close in fact that a shift of only one atom would have caused it to fall…

…

…it only cost me $25 to ‘win’ it 🙂

The Tsuchinoko

June 21, 2017

It’s time for another cryptid post, or in today’s case a ‘UMA’, since that’s what cryptids are called in Japan (it stands for Unidentifed Mystery Animal).

Ladies and gentleman, the Tsuchinoko!

First reported in the 7th century, the tsuchinoko is a snake-like creature about 60 cm in length. Rarely sighted, this creature is said to be native to mainland Japan (Honshu) and is either just an animal or a supernatural creature depending on who you ask.

Tsuchinoko are said to be able to jump, can apparently move very quickly and may even have a poisonous bite. The more unusual attributes of the creature include rolling along with its tail in its mouth, teleportation (in a literal flash of light) and even intelligence! Some say the creature can speak and is very deceptive, often telling lies to obtain its favourite drink: alcohol.

There seems to have been a surge in interest and sightings of these beasts in the last decade or so, elevating it from myth into a full-blown cryptid. Some notable sightings in western Japan lead to well-publicized (but fruitless) searches and in one case even a skeleton (that was a simple snake). In 2008 one district in Japan – possibly as a tourism stunt – offered a $1 million reward for anyone who found one!

As with the flatwoods monster (which I blogged about a few years back), tsuchinoko are quite popular in video games, either appearing by name or as an influence in games including Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, Pokémon and numerous RPGs.

So what is this thing? Do they really exist? What could have inspired it?

Take a look at this photo of a skink, which I present in its original form and with the legs edited out:

Looks a bit like our tsuchinoko doesn’t it? It seems likely therefore that the origin of the beast first drawn and described in the Kojiki in the 7th century was just… a skink!

That said, this hardly explains what an old woman in Okayama saw in 2000. The tsuchinoko, she said, had a human-like face and paralyzed her with its sight!

Maybe there’s two creatures here: the skink relative and an evil demon snake. What do you think?

Robot Claw