calliopes_pen

Inquest Held Into Death of Mary Tamm’s Widower.

Livejournal is changing (the alterations are currently in beta testing) the style for all friends lists so that it reflects the new style for the comment and update pages. I’ve also been reading that their U.S. offices were shut down.

Spook Me Master List 2012.

Happy Birthday To Matt Smith.

Children In Need line-up announced.

Rifftrax Live: Birdemic—How Did You Like The Show? There were 15 people at the theater I was—well, 14, really, since someone jumped over and across seats and bolted from the room as it started. He was supposed to be in the room next door, showing Halloween at the same time, from what I gathered. It was a good Rifftrax, went off without any technical difficulties. As I was leaving, I heard from behind me someone was muttering over and over: "I...didn't know movies could be that bad. I-I didn't know...I didn't know..." Their friend consoled them. Upon my telling him there’s a sequel, Dad started laughing hysterically in the car. The short with Norman was hysterical.

31 Days of Horror: Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead.

Cinemassacre’s Monster Madness—80’s Rerun: Gremlins.

Ain’t It Scary Reviews #26: The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Longbox of the Damned: Jack Davis’ Tales From The Crypt.

Trailers From Hell: Adam Rifkin on The Shining.

MTV Geek’s Frightful Faves: Friday The 13th Part 2.

Rare Halloween Videos: 1988: Fun House.

10 Long Lost Horror Products.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark Comics Return In 2013.

Beetlejuice: A Ghostly, Gothed-Out 80’s Fairy Tale For The Ages.

Behind The Scenes Pic Of The Day: Peter Cushing.

6 Things You Don’t Remember About The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon.

IDW Mars Attacks The Real Ghostbusters Comic Solicitation.

Mattel Ghostbusters Courtroom Battle Ray Stantz Figure Review By Pixel Dan.

13 Ghosts of Halloween: Day 7.

AV Q&A: Scariest reading experiences.

Listen to an excerpt from R.L. Stine’s new adult horror novel Red Rain.

Matthew Vaughn Out As X-Men: Days of Future Past Director; Bryan Singer Could Take Over.

Lethal Ladies: The 10 Best Female Supervillains.

2012 Top 100 Comic Book Runs #25-21.

Mike Mitchell re-skins Superman #6 with disturbing results.

The Line It Is Drawn #112—Marvel Family Tribute.

Comic Book Legends Revealed #390.

P:R Approved: Kevin Wada’s Elektra

8 Photos From NBC’s Upcoming Hannibal.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Will Return as Conan the Barbarian.

Check This Out: Weta Installs Gigantic Gollum At Wellington Airport.

Wonderful Jack Skellington Cake.

The Eye of Sauron Cake.

Spectacular Beauty and the Beast Cake.

The Myth Of ‘So Bad It’s Good.’

Starlog Magazine: Crazy Movie Rumors Before The Internet.

That One Time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Punked Houdini With Dinosaurs.

Looking back at Carnivale.

Ask Chris #126: Who Will Survive And What Will Be Left Of Them?

The AV Club reviews Mockingbird Lane. FearNet’s review of Mockingbird Lane. And here’s Shock Til You Drop’s review.

Top 10 Movie Psychics.

The 55 Scariest Moments From Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies.

An Alternate Poster For Iron Man 3.

Next Two Bond Films To Comprise Two Movie Arc, Both Written By John Logan.

G4 Cancels Attack of the Show And X-Play.

Sofa Dogs Podcast #260: Prince of Darkness (1987).

Bad Movie Fiends Podcast #148: Invitation to Hell (1984).

Alex Karras has passed away, at the age of 77. He had been dealing with a variety of health problems, including dementia, cancer, and kidney failure. May he rest in peace. I may have been one of the few to never watch Webster—instead, I remember him from an episode of Faerie Tale Theater.

Inspirational links for the Spook Me ficathon.

31 Days of Horror: Psycho/Freaks.

Vampires 101: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Carnivàle Creator Dan Knaufto Head Up NBC’s Dracula

TV Tango updates Halloween On TV: 262 Halloween-Themed Movie Marathons, Episodes And Specials.

Shock Till You Drop’s 10 New Halloween Classics To Check Out This Season.

Official Synopsis For Grimm’s Halloween Episode.

Rare Halloween Videos: 1987 Werewolf- All Hallow’s Eve.

The obscure 1980s horror film that Joss Whedon wants you to watch.

Show Your Best Imaginary Selves In io9’s Annual Halloween Costume Show.

Catwoman Then And Now: How Much Has Changed?

DC Histories: The Joker.

P:R Approved: Chito Arellano’s Batman Beyond.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 Trailer.

Interview: Scott Snyder On The Return Of The Joker In Batman #13.

A Fossilized Scene of a Spider Attacking A Wasp, Preserved For 110 Million Years.

Little Shop of Horrors’ original ending is unearthed.

Grace Randolph’s Stacktastic: The Jean Grey Non-Tribute.

Marvel’s Bottom Line.

2012 Top 100 Comic Book Runs #100-91.

Stan Lee’s Rants: Birthdays.

Cocktails With Stan Lee: Seth Green, Extended Cut.

Stan Lee Media sues Disney for Marvel characters.

Release Date And Story Revealed For Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At The End Of The Lane.

Scott Allie Promoted To Editor-In-Chief At Dark Horse.

Abandoned concept art for Jurassic Park 4.

Science Just Killed Any Hope You Ever Had Of Jurassic Park Being Real.

New Zealand is now minting Lord of the Rings money.

You can watch both the Evil Dead and Carrie panels from New York Comic Con live via streaming, courtesy of Bloody Disgusting on the 13th.

From Cracked: 8 Movies Made Possible By Incompetent Background Characters.

Trailers From Hell: Dan Ireland on The Dead.

My Little Pony Jason Voorhees.

From Think Geek: Chocolate Gaming Dice Set.

Watch Jimmy Kimmel pitch Joe Quesada new heroes and villains.

Amazing Predator Pumpkin.

Dr. Horrible TV ratings kinda horrible. Whedonesque discusses it here.

Psych Season 7 Premiere Date Revealed.

Fourth Doctor Robe.

Ten Things To Look For At New York Comic Con.

There’s a new Hello Kitty sofa. It costs over $2,000.

Bizarro Back Issues: The Strange Amnesia of President Superman (1969).

DC Announces New Action Comics Creative Team.

Earth Station One Podcast, Episode 131: Hammer Horror Films.

Horror Etc Podcast, Episode 269.

Now Playing Podcast: Never Say Never Again (1983)

Forgotten Flix Podcast #82: Pumpkinhead (1988)

Chloe Moretz talks about her role in Dark Shadows.

LeVar Burton is launching a new Reading Rainbow—only for the iPad.

When sign-ups open for Yuletide for fandom nominations next month, you can only submit up to three fandoms. Over at yuletide, the fandom pimp post is here. I need to make a very small list, with one other thing besides Ghostbusters and Back to the Future. Maybe the 90’s version of Dark Shadows, The Librarian movies, She-Wolf of London, or something else.

spook_me sign-ups end today.

In the UK, the final filmed season of The Sarah Jane Adventures begin airing on October 3rd and 4th.

In England, a man broke a Guinness World Record with his collection of 571 Daleks.

Author and Lovecraft biographer Michel Houellebecq has gone missing.

Satellite News asks who your dream riffer would be for Rifftrax.

Watch Sylvester McCoy deliver the Doctor’s Pandorica speech, at DragonCon.

Linkara and The Nostalgia Chick interview Mike Nelson for Radio Dead Air.

Preview for the season finale of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

For those in search of RPG related memes, over on Insanejournal someone started the group rpmemes. Compiling the memes one at a time.

A very elegant TARDIS dress was spotted at Dragon-Con.

From The AV Club: 21 Forgotten TV Subplots.

A look at the Terror Dog lamp when it’s in use.

Confirmation as to the character Juno Temple will play in The Dark Knight Rises.

Check out this Dalek Car, guarded by a Stormtrooper, at Burning Man.

Sign-ups start today for this year’s spook_me, and end on the 15th.

In other news, thanks to something Dad did to the computer, which wrecked IE 7, I upgraded to IE 8 (yes, I know I’m behind) this morning. While I love it so far, there are a few sites that don’t cooperate now, so I’m trying to figure out what they have in common, that IE 8 might be lacking, so I can fix it. So far, it’s Whedonesque, Comics Alliance, and Kindertrauma. The message is “IE cannot open the internet site __. Operation aborted.” At which point, it switches to “IE cannot display this page.” Those are the only three that I've come across that give me that message.

ETA: SFX is also on the list of sites this happens to.

Speed Dating In The Marvel Universe.

Cthulhu sells Old Spice. Io9 discusses it here.

toast_ofthetown is hosting The Tarot Card Meme. Simply post your username, and people will come by and tell which card matches your personality best. My thread is here.

There may be a movie version of Goosebumps.

12 Educational Video Games That Were Actually Fun. The only two from that list that I’ve ever played were Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, and The Oregon Trail, but I loved them both.

5 Weird Examples of Superheroic Identity Swapping. Includes Aunt May as The Goldie Oldie, Herald of Galactus. And the assistant editor that came up with the idea during his short-lived time at Marvel can be found in the comments.

From Funny or Die: Eyehole Paintings With Adam West.

I’ve received my spook_me assignment. The creature prompt is Aquatic Monster. The classic horror comic covers I’ve received for inspiration are this one and this one. I’m going to try to work at least one of these things into a Doctor Who/Ghostbusters crossover. The first trip on the TARDIS isn’t quite what they expected, maybe? I’m particularly inspired by the demonic hands coming out of a mirror in the first one. And does that sort of look like a relative of Cthulhu in the second?

spook_me sign-ups are now open.

Peter Wingfield answers eleven Highlander questions from fans over at Io9.

There’s a new Merlin trailer, and you can watch it here.

Runaways should begin filming in March 2011.

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is being developed for television…unfortunately, without Neil Gaiman.

The first pictures of David Tennant as Peter Vincent in Fright Night have been released. Is it just me, or does he resemble Chris Angel, mixed with a little bit of Russell Brand?

The designs for the Back to the Future game have been released. Christopher Lloyd will be doing the voice for Doc in the game.

This Ghostbusters item would have to be the best response to LJ’s drama. 51stcenturyfox tells how to remove the little Twitter and Facebook checkboxes from your journal—but it only works if you are in S2. Here is a poll where you can let LJ know what you think of the cross-posting features.

I’ll probably start a poll later, just asking for people’s Insanejournal or Dreamwidth usernames. I never cross-post at the latter, and once in a blue moon (and mostly for finding icons, which I keep track of via Memories) use the former, but I’d like to try to keep track of everyone.

Emily Montague has been added to the remake of Fright Night.

Dalek Attends Doctor Who Themed Wedding--No Humans Were Exterminated During The Ceremony.

Blockbuster movies and their bargain basement equivalents. Including Mac and Me. Given that I loathe E.T. with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, I would have to say I prefer Mac and Me. Only for mocking, mind you.

Topless Robot found an interview with Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, shortly before the release of The Empire Strikes Back.

7 of Movies’ Most Murderous Things. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats was not included, although it is mentioned in the comments.

spook_me sign-ups start in September. I think I’ll sign-up this year, with Doctor Who/Ghostbusters as the fandom--same time frame as the other crossover I wrote. The Doctor and the Ghostbusters can deal with whatever creature or scenario I happen to get assigned.

It appears as though the brainstorming for fandoms to nominate for yuletide has begun. If Merlin weren’t too popular (and likely has a Secret Santa) I would nominate it. I’ll probably try for Dark Shadows, The Librarian Trilogy, Being Human, Back to the Future, and/or Ghostbusters. That’s the best I can think of at the moment. Any ideas? Obviously, anything from the Doctor Who fandom doesn’t qualify, since there’s likely a Secret Santa somewhere.

Going by one of the comments, Sherlock Holmes might be getting a little large to qualify anymore.

For those interested, you can watch the trailer for season 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures here. I’ve only ever seen the first part of the first episode when it was on the Sci-Fi Channel. I have to assume the Sci-Fi Channel chopped it up as much as they did Doctor Who, though.

And in other news, briefly considered adding Jack to the mix in the Doctor and Donna meeting Mary Shelley spook_me story. However, it just wouldn’t work—if they’re trying to sneak in as servants, a third would just be too many. I suspect he would flirt with Lord Byron and the rest so much, that he would charm his way into the group, while the Doctor and Donna were left out in the cold, so to speak—to the Doctor’s chagrin.

Apparently there’s going to be a Zombie Walk through downtown Paducah on the 24th, from 5:30-6:00 PM, after which Night of the Living Dead will be shown at the Maiden Alley Cinema. Found out thanks to a mention of it here, at WKYQ’s website. I doubt I’ll go, but they will probably mention it on the news.

ETA: Ah--they start down by the river, and make their way to the Maiden Alley Cinema. I assume they are then stuck in the make-up and costumes, while they watch the movie, rather than washing it all off.

10 Reasons Not To Bring Someone Back from The Dead. Owen Harper gets a mention, as well as Buffy and the gas mask zombie (Jaime, I think)—and Pushing Daisies. Jack Harkness’ version of Immortality is only discussed in the comments.

And for those interested, for the spook_me fanfic I’ll be writing the one where the Doctor and Donna meet Mary Shelley. Or try to, without them getting thrown out for looking suspicious. (Or for the Doctor getting his tie eaten by a goat wandering the estate, after which he threatens it with a sonic screwdriver) For some strange reason, I didn’t have a copy of Frankenstein anymore, so I ran out and bought one.

Found via hils: The Dark Knight Meets Superman. It’s hysterical, and shows how Superman would stop the Joker and Two-Face.

Regarding the new logo for Doctor Who--while I’m not entirely sold on it, I’m certainly not about to stop watching the series altogether. (Yes, I’ve seen a few saying this) You can watch the logo in an ad here.

Scouting NY takes a look at how New York has changed since Ghostbusters. Very interesting.

You can watch the trailer for the new K-9 spin-off here. Den of Geek discusses it here, and Sci Fi Wire here.

Syfy is apparently showing season 1 of Highlander: The Series. Unfortunately, it’s late at night.

If anyone has any other suggestions for what I could write for the spook_me ficathon—anything OT3 related in Doctor Who—please go here. Or just vote for the options there, if you can’t think of any other suggestions.

I’m working on the plot of the fanfic for the spook_me ficathon, using either the prompt Mad Scientist, or using ideas prompted by the covers of Donovan’s Brain or Death Watch.

So far, best I can think of is a bizarre Mad Scientist convention the Doctor attends with Jack and Donna. He destroys the occasional evil invention, in between being a great big science geek. One device can make the wearer think he’s really just a disembodied brain. Another is a watch that kills anyone that wears it—it was supposed to send them into suspended animation. Possibly set after A Slap Is Worth A Thousand Words, in which case it would include Jack, Donna, the Doctor, the clone, and Rose.

That, or something involving the Doctor and Donna accidentally going to the wrong century--they see they are at Geneva, near Lord Byron’s estate. The Doctor wanted to take Donna to 1910, to see the first Frankenstein silent film, but he’s thrilled to get to hear the beginnings of the Frankenstein story firsthand. Since he thought Victor Frankenstein was inspiring for him--he assures Donna he hasn’t unearthed any corpses for experimenting on in the last 400 years or so. They try to pose as servants (so they can listen in--it doesn't work, so they try other ways in) after wandering the estate for a bit.

So I’ve started a poll. Vote for either of the above, or vote for Other. If you can think of a good prompt using one (or more) of the three assigned, just post it in the second poll. Or in the comments. OT3 centered ideas would be great.

[Poll #1466924]

[Poll #1466925]

Mary Travers—from Peter, Paul, and Mary—has passed away, at the age of 72, after a battle with leukemia. I only know her because of Puff the Magic Dragon—here’s a clip of that. I used to watch that movie when I was little. May she rest in peace.

Henry Gibson (perhaps best known from Laugh-In) also passed away, also after a battle with cancer. He was 73. May he also rest in peace.

Top 10 Unmade Marvel Films.

There’s another new trailer for Merlin.

oxoniensis is hosting The Fall Fandom Free-For-All.

Currently trying to think of a plot/idea for a fanfic using the prompts from spook_me. Anyone else have any ideas or requests using any one of those? Just for Doctor Who. If you missed it in all my posts yesterday, here’s a repost of what I was assigned. The creature prompt is Mad Scientist. (The Doctor has the hair for it, at least) The two secret prompts (using the covers of pulp novels) are Death Watch and Donovan’s Brain. I’m going to be digging through the TV Tropes page for Mad Scientist in a few minutes.

Edit: As I mentioned yesterday, with that link to Donovan's Brain, it keeps saying Forbidden when you click on it. However, if you cut off the url after /sf/, and then click on sfmisc, and from there click on bantam_819.jpg, you should see it.

In honor of Patrick Swayze, the results show of Dancing With The Stars (on the 23rd) will apparently perform a special dance tribute. Oh, and thanks to mst3k, I also found a clip of A Patrick Swayze Christmas—a skit that MST3K did. You can watch it here.

Battleship—yes, the game—is being made into a movie. And the comments in yendi’s post about it are simply priceless.

I just received my creature prompt and two secret prompts (you take inspiration from two covers of pulp novels this round) for the spook_me ficathon. I’ll be writing something in the Doctor Who fandom. The creature prompt is Mad Scientist. The two secret prompts are Death Watch and Donovan’s Brain. With that second one, it keeps saying Forbidden when you click on it. However, if you cut off the url after /sf/, and then click on sfmisc, and from there click on bantam_819.jpg, you should see it.

stunt_muppet is hosting the Doctor Who Bite-Sized Comment Ficathon. Stories should be no longer than 40 words, and are posted in the comments.

I'll post the drabble for yamx either tomorrow or Friday.

Take a look at the inside of Neil Gaiman’s library. There’s a discussion of it here, at noscans_daily, too. Oh, and I just found this: 20 Neil Gaiman Facts.

You can watch the official trailer for season 2 of Merlin here.

For those who are interested in reading it, there’s an interview what’s ahead for season 2 of Being Human in SFX magazine. You can read it here.

An interesting shirt found via mst3k: Reality is for people who can’t handle science fiction.

The latest round of the spook_me ficathon is due to begin very soon, and you can sign-up here. I’ve just signed up, for something in the Doctor Who fandom. As I can’t decide which of the creatures would work best, I’m going with having the mod decide.

Yesterday evening, Encore showed a movie that I have been trying to track down for years. It is worse than I expected it to be, which is amazing. The movie was Second Sight. Anyone else ever actually heard of it? Here’s the trailer for it. It’s a very, very bad movie for anyone who wonders.

Oh, and I’m possibly considering trying for Spoiler (Stephanie Brown) over at a DC/Marvel crossover RPG, set in a time period with dinosaurs—not entirely sure as of yet. However, I can’t think of a PB for her that would work. I briefly considered a blonde Caroline Dhavernas, but I don’t know. Anyone have any suggestions? Also asked over at Hollow Art (here) but no suggestions as of yet.

I just got my prompts for the spook_me ficathon. The creature is: Reptile. The two title prompts are Island of Terror, and Cauldron of Blood. I only have to use one, but I'll probably try to work all three in.

No idea on what the plot will be (throw me ideas, if you happen to think of one) but the fandom will definitely be Doctor Who.

In other news, Comcast seems to be having a few leftover issues after that tropical storm on Sunday. Since today the internet's been spotty.