Tuesday, October 21, 2008 Halloween Countdown: The Shadow People

While looking for scary old-time radio programs to share with my goddaughter earlier this year, I came across several recommendations for the Hall of Fantasy tale, "The Shadow People". What piqued my interest was that the play borrowed its occult investigator character from a literary source. Peter Cushing's Van Helsing was one of my heroes growing up, and I still have a soft spot for monster hunters of all stripes, so I had to listen to the episode. It's a fairly creepy tale about malevolent creatures of darkness that stalk a young woman and her family.

After listening to the play, I couldn't recall where the character of Dr. Hesselius originated. While Googling for the info, I discovered that some folks believe that the shadow people are real! I came across this Wikipedia entry during my search:

Shadow people (also known as shadow men, shadow folk, or shadow beings) are supernatural shadow-like creatures of both modern folklore and traditional native American beliefs. According to folklore, they appear as dark forms in the peripheries of people's vision and disintegrate, or move between walls, when noticed.^[1][2]

Reports of shadow people occupy a similar position in the popular consciousness to ghost sightings, but differ in that shadow people are not reported as having human features, wearing modern/period clothing, or attempting to communicate. Witnesses also do not report the same feelings of being in the presence of something that 'was once human'. Some individuals have described being menaced, chased, or in some rare instances, attacked by shadow people. There have also been reports of shadow people appearing in front of witnesses, of which they stay there or lingering for several seconds before disappearing. Witnesses report that encounters are typically accompanied by a feeling of dread.^[1][3]

I've since come across several websites devoted to the phenomenon. Whether or not I actually believe in it, this kind of stuff always creeps me out. And 'tis the season to be frightened! You can listen to "The Shadow People" using the embedded mp3 below, or right-click and save this link to download the file to your hard drive. Then check out the links below the player for some spooky seasonal reading!

Monstropedia entry on shadow people

The Hatman Project

Hall of Fantasy Episode Guide


By the way, Dr. Hesselius came from a series of stories by Sheridan Le Fanu, most famously Carmilla.

Thursday, October 16, 2008 Things I Found Looking For Something Else #2

Like a lot of nerds, I have always been fascinated by magic. I think it's because magic is really about knowing secrets, and knowing more than the other guy is the true core of all geekiness.

Outlaw Effects is website selling custom-made props for mentalism tricks. The presentations are top-notch, and the quality of the products look fantastic. Wallets that reveal messages hidden inside! Antique books that let you peer into the mind of their readers! Marked Tarot cards! The Relic! The Scorpion! Godammit, I want a PK ring so bad it hurts and I have no idea what to do with one. I might actually bite on the Kioku, as it seems like something I could actually carry and use without looking too much like a spaz. Or is it too late?

http://outlaw-effects.com/

In Sickness and In Health

Been a rough couple of weeks here. No sooner do I shake off the lingering effects of a general malaise than I am struck with a wicked sombitch of a flu or food poisoning or a tiny evil man breakdancing in my stomach. And after I had recently "boasted" of not puking since 2005. In any event, I hope to be posting more often in the near future. I know how my imaginary readers are counting on me.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Fábrica de Heróis

Fábrica de Heróis is a nifty Flash-based program that lets you design characters in the style of Bruce Timm's DC Animated Universe. I've been playing around with this program for a while now, and it's a lot of fun. As the program was created by Brazilians, the whole thing's in Portugese. It doesn't take long to get the hang of it, though, and there's always Google's on-line translator if you get really stuck.

The creators have now posted a link to download an off-line version of the program, so you can create new superfolk wherever you and your laptop go. Megaupload rubs me the wrong way for some reason, so I've uploaded a copy of the files to Rapidshare for good measure.

Still no sign of the teen heroes templates, however. They'd be nice to have if I get around to running an old school Villains and Vigilantes game for the kids.

Real-Life Supervillians Suck

Via the Tangency forum at rpg.net:

Woman Wearing Cow Suit Arrested

A Middletown woman is arrested, after chasing children, urinating on a porch, and blocking traffic... all while wearing a cow suit.

Police say 32 year old Michelle Allen was chasing children in the 3100 block of Wilbraham, while wearing the cow costume early Monday evening. Allen also reported urinated on a neighbor's front porch. An officer told Allen to go home and stay there for the remainder of the evening.

Police were later called to North Verity Avenue, where Allen was allegedly blocking traffic. The arresting officer says Allen smelled of alcohol, slurred her speech, and was belligerent. She also alleged cussed at the officer.

Allen is charged with disorderly conduct.

Ship of Death

While I am enjoying the on-going saga of the Somali pirates who are holding a Ukranian ship transporting 33 T-72 tanks for ransom before finding themselves surrounded by warships and taking to fighting amongst themselves as well as the aforementioned warships, this story about another crew of Somali pirates on another hostage ship is even weirder:

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

---

The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.

At Eyl, the ship was secured by more pirates — about 50 on board, and another 50 on shore.

But within days those who had boarded the ship developed mysterious health trouble.

This was also confirmed by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, an autonomous region of Somalia.

He headed a delegation sent to Eyl when news of the toxic cargo and illnesses surfaced.

He told one news publication, The Long War Journal, that during the six days he had negotiated with the pirates, a number of them had become sick and died.

“That ship is unusual,” he was quoted as saying. “It is not carrying a normal shipment.”

The pirates did reveal that they had tried to inspect the ship’s cargo containers when some of them fell sick — but the containers were locked.

Osman’s delegation spoke to the ship’s captain and its engineer by cellphone, demanding to know more about the cargo.

Initially it was claimed the cargo contained “crude oil”; later it was said to be “minerals”.

And Mwangura has added: “Our sources say it contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals.”

But IRISL has denied that — and threatened legal action against Mwangura. The company has reportedly paid the pirates 200000 — the first of several “ransom instalments”, but that, too, has been denied.

More at http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=851953

Monday, September 22, 2008 Things I Found Looking For Something Else #1

Came across this looking for the hangover illo below. Not for the squeamish!

Edit: Just to be clear, as I think there may be some misunderstanding on this point - I did not post this video because I thought it was funny. I simply had to share it in order to shake loose the malignant grasp it held on my psyche, like you would with a cursed Japanese videotape or something.