30

Absoloute Tw@t  They should amuptate his limbs !!!!

Uncle of meningitis amputee toddler stole £315,000 from her trust fund to pay for holidays… leaving just £239

Claims he didn’t know the £250,000 worth of cocaine capsules found in his stomach was drugs…..What a Di**head !!!

Love This Table

Drug smuggler who swallowed 67 packages of cocaine caught because of his bulging belly

A drug smuggler swallowed 67 packages of cocaine in an attempt to get through British customs. Student Fidelis Ozouli, 30, risked his life trying to hide the 1kg haul of the class A substance in his stomach. He later claimed he did not know the packets contained drugs. Officers at Manchester Airport became suspicious because Ozouli looked unnaturally bloated.  They carried out X-rays on his stomach and discovered a quantity of cocaine equivalent to two bags of sugar. It is one of the largest amounts ever found internally by UK customs officers. The drug, hidden inside scores of condoms, was 78 per cent pure and had a street value of £250,000. Ozouli left officials and a court baffled by claiming: ‘I didn’t know they were drugs.’ He added: ‘I just did not know what they were. I thought I was swallowing something else to take into Britain as a favour for a pal.’ At Manchester Crown Court, Ozouli, who is from Nigeria but lives and studies in London, pleaded guilty to importing class A drugs and was jailed for ten years – but continued to deny knowing what the haul was. Judge Thomas Gilbart QC told him: ‘I do not accept your evidence and do not believe it is credible. ‘The story is fantastical and I don’t believe a word of it. This was a calculated decision on your part to solve your money worries.’ Ozouli, of Kennington, South London, was stopped by UK Border Agency officers on his arrival at Manchester from Switzerland on September 5. He claimed he was on a business trip from Zurich on behalf of a pharmaceuticals company but inquiries revealed he had taken a lengthy and unusual route back to the UK from countries in Africa. He was arrested and the case was passed to customs officers who interviewed him. Later he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was X-rayed to ensure all the packages had been recovered.

Mike O’Grady, assistant director of criminal investigation for Revenue and Customs said yesterday: ‘Forensic tests showed that the purity of this cocaine is significantly above what we would normally find. ‘Swallowing any drugs puts the courier at risk, but with purity levels this high he was putting himself at considerable risk of death. ‘Criminals dealing in drugs with high purity levels are thinking solely of increased profits, to further fund their illegal activity.

Mr O’Grady added: ‘They show utter disregard for the damage drugs do to individuals and communities. ‘Customs is working closely with our partners in the UK Border Agency, police and other law enforcement agencies such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency to protect the public from the significant and damaging effect drugs have on our communities.’ The biggest ever recorded haul of cocaine found in a smuggler’s stomach in Britain was 1.5kg found inside 39 packages in 2003.

2 Lucky Guys

The independent Treasure Valuation Committee reached the figure after meeting at the museum.

The money will be split equally between the finder Terry Herbert and the landowner Fred Johnson, the museum said.The two men and the two museums which hope to acquire the hoard, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, have all approved the valuation, a spokesman added.Professor Norman Palmer, chairman of the Government-appointed committee, said: “The task of valuing this hoard required the Treasure Valuation Committee to analyse a very large amount of information in order to arrive at a fair market price and I am personally indebted to my fellow members whose energy and expertise made this result possible in so short a time.”He added: “All finders of treasure can take encouragement that the most valuable treasure find ever made was dealt with so speedily and yet so scrupulously by all parties concerned, given that the hoard was discovered only in July.”It is of course immensely important that this extraordinary hoard is acquired for public benefit and I know that the two museums are anxious to raise the funding to keep the hoard in the West Midlands as soon as they can.”

A fundraising campaign is being launched to help the two museums buy the hoard, highlights of which are currently on display at the British Museum in London.British Museum Press has published a book about the find, called The Staffordshire Hoard, and £1 from every sale is going to the appeal fund.A selection of objects from the hoard will also go on display at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery from February 13 to March 7 next year.Mr Herbert, 55, from Burntwood, Staffs, a jobless council tenant on disability benefit, discovered the hoard while searching the field near the M6 toll road between Lichfield and Tamworth on July 5 using his 14 year old metal detector.He has described unearthing the treasure as “more fun than winning the lottery” and said he hopes to buy a bungalow with some of his windfall.Mr Johnson, 65, described the valuation as a “fair and reasonable figure”.He said: “The public have to raise that money and I don’t think we could have expected anything more.”The haul of over one thousand items – most of it gold and silver and thought to date back to between 675 and 725AD – has been hailed as a hugely important find.Experts believe it was buried at the site by its owners at a time of danger and then never recovered.

Horrendous

Ten students at North Naples Middle School were sent home for a day after a girl told the head teacher that she believed she had been kicked for being Jewish, prompting further instances to come to light. Florida passed strict anti-bullying laws last year and schools that do not do enough to stop it risk losing their state funding. Margaret Jackson, the school’s head teacher, has responded to the kicking incident by setting aside the first 20 minutes of each day to teaching students – aged 12 to 15 – about kindness, respect and ways of preventing bullying. David Barkey of the Florida Anti-Defamation League said the organisation had been consulted over the incident. “You are talking about an incident that has anti-Jewish bias if not anti-semitism. You have Jewish students being singled out, harassed and assaulted,” he said. Last year, four pupils were suspended from a middle school in St Louis over a “Hit a Jew Day” in which one Jewish student was slapped in the face. The “day” had been the culmination of a “Spirit Week” organised by pupils which included “Hug a Friend Day” and “Hit a Tall Person Day”.Some believe the idea for such behaviour originally came from the satirical cartoon show South Park which featured a “Kick a Ginger Day” in an episode.

Mad…But Very Sad

The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife’s grave in 2004, moulded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman, put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed, Vietnamnet.vn said. The man, Le Van, told the website that after his wife died in 2003 he slept on top of her grave, but about 20 months later he worried about rain, wind and cold, so he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave “to sleep with her”. His children found out, though, and prevented him from going to the grave. So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife’s remains and took them home, Vietnamnet reported. The father of seven said neighbours did not dare visit the house for several years.”I’m a person that does things differently. I’m not like normal people,” he was quoted as saying.

Princess of whales: A diver’s magical encounter with a smiling giant of the Arctic deep

Hitching a ride on a Beluga whale’s back, a daring diver glides through the icy waters of the Arctic.In an extraordinarily rare encounter between a human and this beautiful giant of the deep, the white whale is perfectly at ease with her new companion – and even appears to be smiling.Which is just as well – as no one really knew how the Beluga would react to human company before Julia Petrik made this dazzling dive.

For these muscular 16ft whales can get agitated if subjected to unwanted contact and aggressively defend themselves.Thankfully, this magnificent individual was only too happy to let Miss Petrik gently cling on to him and took her for a spin through the deep.The incredible pictures were shot beneath the pack ice in Russia’s White Sea, where a pod of the magnificent Belugas are being studied for a conservation programme.Miss Petrik is an expert free diver and is able to hold her breath for minutes at a time. This avoids the need to use bulky scuba tanks, which release bubbles that can disorientate the whales.

The lack of kit also gives her more freedom to move and synchronise her movements with the whale. The only downside is that free diving in icy cold water takes a heavy toll on the diver’s respiratory system.Julia Petrik had to saw through more than a foot of solid ice just to reach the freezing water below and wears a thick rubber suit to guard against the extreme conditions.Beluga whales – the name is Russian for ‘the white one’ – can survive here because they are able to use their powerful bulk to butt through the ice to breathe oxygen, before submerging once again into the abyss.Their domed foreheads contain a waxy substance, thought to be involved in their ability to communicate.They ‘chatter’ by whistling to each other – so much so that sailors and fishermen call them the ’sea canaries’.Divers can spend weeks searching for Belugas in the wild, but some of the whales are being kept in a large netted enclosure to be studied. Due to its high salinity, the water here freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water and can drop to a bone-chilling minus 2c. But Julia Petrik, given the ride of her life by this giant of the deep, soon forgot about the cold and was having a whale of time.

Sorry Britney…But You Look Crap!!!

And in In The Jungle…..

I’m A Celebrity: Is this the most vile trial ever as Kim and Joe drink pulped kangaroo anus and cockroach juice?

Kim Woodburn and Joe Bugner were seen last night taking part in one of the most vile and stomach-retching trials the campmates have ever seen.They had to drink pulped cockroaches, pureed kangaroo anus and pulped crocodile foreskin during the Jungle Arms task.

TV presenter Kim took offence at being voted to do yet another and said: ‘You are very mean, it’s my fourth one – it’s a test of my mettle.’

Down the hatch: Kim Woodburn downs a shot full of pulped witchetty grub… then retches…

…and is sick, leaving her with slime down her chin

The first drink was Castlemaine Four Legs, a combination of pulped cockroaches and mealworms with a couple of live cockroaches as a garnish.The pair toasted each other and attempted to drink the vile mixture. But while retired boxer Joe seemed to have no trouble downing the drinks, and even seemed to like them, Kim stuggled.The second round was ‘Foreskin and Tonic’.Host Ant McPartlin told them: ‘This is pulped crocodile foreskin, garnished with a crocodile penis stirrer, once again each one is worth one star. You only have to drink the drink.’

Joe swiftly drank his, but it took Kim several goes. She branded it ‘vile’ while Joe said it merely tasted like washing-up liquid and then pretended to use the penis stirrers as fangs.’You have to pull yourself together. You’re crackers,’ Kim snapped at him.Their third round was Bum and Cokes -  pulped kangaroo anus and water.But while Joe thought it tasted like popcorn, Kim admitted it was more like ‘very sour rotten water that had pee in it’.Their fourth round was Croc-Tail – pulped crocodile tail with a croc tail stirrer.

‘The smell is atrocious, it smells like poo. The smell is so bad you could die,’ said Kim as she gagged on the drink.For the fifth and final round, Joe downed an Eye-ball – a glass of crushed crocodile eyes.But Kim had to drink a Sam-Puka – pulped Witchetty grub. She managed to drink the shot glass-full but then gagged and threw up the slimy mixture to the delight and disgust of Ant and Dec.’I’ve sicked a little bit but not much,’ she confessed.

But Ant told her: ‘We can’t take that one, will you give it another go?’Joe offered to do it for her, but was not allowed and she finally downed it after telling Ant and Dec ‘Boys: Stand aside. This is repulsing me.’The pair won all nine stars for the campmates plus an extra treat of chocolate.Joe said afterward: ‘It was disgusting but if I had to live on it, I would.’But Kim added: ‘If I had to live on it, I’d hang myself from the nearest tree.’Meanwhile the campmates are determined that actor Stuart Manning and singer Sabrina Walsh begin a romance in the jungle.Gino D’Acampo has been the chief teaser and is convinced that they fancy each other.He joked to Stuart that he thought the actor had dreamt he’d bought a new car because he kept calling out ‘Sab, Sab!’

But the pair deny anything is going on.

The two sat together on the love seat and Stuart said to her: ‘We’re just good mates, I’d understand it if I was always trying to touch you or something but nothing has happened at all.’People are obsessed, two people have got to get together – why are they so intrigued? I’m not in it to have a relationship.’And while Sabrina smiled and coyly agreed, she did look a little disappointed… Until Stuart asked her: ‘Do you want to lie down?’

Night task: Sabrina and Gino had to stay awake all night after drinking beer and eating sausages in order to turn back the hands on a clock and win a chest

She laughed it off but the glances between them continued.Sabrina said in the bush telegraph: ‘I don’t know what they are trying to do but I think it’s hilarious and I get on with Stuart just like everyone else.’Gino, in an impish mood, then starting singing Let’s Get It On as Sabrina was pushed by the campmates to massage Stuart.The chef said in the bush telegraph: ‘I know that they fancy each other. They know they are being watched by everyone so they are probably not realising their love at the moment but I know it’s there!’

Gino and Sabrina also completed an overnight challenge to win a celebrity chest for the group.They had to trek through the jungle, walk along a tightrope across a ravine and then stay awake all night in order to win treats for camp.They were given sausages and beer for the evening and spent the time staying awake in shifts, trying to prevent the hands of a clock ticking for more than 30 minutes.Inside the chest were tins of food for the camp, including a can of Spam which Gino cooked up.

Justin said: ‘Who knew that a staple tin of spam could send the entire camp into such rhapsodies.’Meanwhile George Hamilton has been regaling the campmates with tales of his famous friends such as Frank Sinatra, Anthony Hopkins, former lover Sharon Stone, Marilyn Monroe and even Puff Daddy.He said: ‘Elizabeth Taylor, we went out together, we worked together.  Elizabeth is an extraordinary human being and she’s an amazing friend.’And he added: ‘[David] Niven said one of the best things about Errol Flynn ever.  He said you can always count on Errol Flynn to let you down.’

Jimmy White asked George about Marilyn Monroe. He said:  ‘You went on a date with her didn’t you George?’George said: ‘Yeah, she was forever getting ready.  She’d come out and she’d say does my hair look… and she’d go back fiddle with the hair some more.’He told Sabrina that he was a friend of Puff Daddy. He said: ‘Puffy’s a very good friend of mine.  Puffy’s a really good friend.  I like him a lot.  Do you want me to speak to him.  Would you like that?’And he said: ‘My first movie with Robert Mitchum, he said “You know they say I don’t know any lines.”  He says, “It’s not true.  I’m just too drunk to say ‘em.”‘Meanwhile, one of three celebrities will be voted off on tonight’s show.Sam Fox, Sabrina Washington and Jimmy White were told they were all up for the vote.

Justin Ryan sobs as he misses partner Colin McAllister, who was evicted on Tuesday

The Future Mrs Robbie Williams ?

*Jakarta Globe, 6 February 2009

A man climbs quietly from a grave and closes a white burial cloth that shrouds a skeleton. The bones are the color of burned earth and in pieces. A maggot scuttles to hide behind the empty eye socket of the skull. After more than 30 years of interment, all that is left of a once middle-aged adult now fits into a small bundle.

A weathered, wooden plaque with jagged edges bears the name the skeleton once answered to.

At Menteng Pulo Public Cemetery in South Jakarta, the air is fresh with the scent of blossoming trees and rich earth. A lone mottled mutt threads cautiously among the graves, its skin matted and reddish from the rain and earth. She sits on top of a grave, observing as 50 gravediggers calmly go about their work. They are not burying the dead but raising them, literally, from their graves.

Along a large strip of land near the Cideng River, 10,600 square meters to be exact, emptied graves with ragged edges line the cemetery. The workers have been commissioned by the city administration to unearth about 3,500 plots to make way for a highway linking Jalan Soepomo and Jalan Rasuna Said.

“Traditionally, you cannot disturb the dead,” sayd Entong, the head gravedigger. “But this is a city that is developing, and they need to expand the road.”

Inside an open grave, Entong breaks up the damp soil with a rusty hoe. His black jeans and feet are encrusted with red earth. He hands the last of the unearthed bones to his assistant to wrap in cloth and take to another burial plot that has been allocated for the exhumed bodies.

“This one was buried in 1962, so there are very few bones left,” Entong says, pointing to the decomposed bundle of bones about the size of an infant.

Entong climbs out of the grave and begins to break the gray headstone with his hoe. Pieces of stone fly around him. He has to remove the name plaque embedded in the stone so it can be placed with the remains for identification. His skin is burnished from the 32 years he has worked outdoors as a gravedigger.

“People call me first when they want to bury someone,” Entong says.

On this overcast morning, no weeping or hushed prayers for the displaced dead are heard, only the thud of hoes hitting the soil. Entong says it has been two months since the excavation of the graves commenced and it is scheduled to end next week.

“At the beginning there were more relatives,” Entong says. “Now it is rare for families to come even though we have informed them we will be digging up the graves. Maybe they have moved. Maybe they can’t bear the process.”

The majority of the graves are Muslim but Entong estimates 800 Buddhist graves will also be uncovered this week.

The remains are being moved to new burial plots further down the road. Unclaimed remains are moved to a cemetery at Kampung Kandang in Cilandak or to Srengseng Sawah Cemetery in South Jakarta, Entong says.

The ground is soft as paste from the ongoing Jakarta showers and he flings it around him as he hoes. An errant and persistent fly flits around his bare feet.

“We take the remains out, wrap them up and then knock down the gravestone,” explains Suroh, a caretaker at Menteng Pulo since the ’70s. Wearing a red shirt, a large mole jutting from his chin, he watches Entong work in the distance.

“I do not cry at anyone’s funeral,” Suroh says. “I am used to them.

“We are here to fix their homes, their final resting place.”

It is noon when Entong rests inside a makeshift wooden hut in the middle of the cemetery. The soiled clothes of the caretakers hang to dry nearby on headstones and from overhanging trees.
A caretaker chugs on a motorcycle down the narrow dirt road that runs through the cemetery, ferrying four white bundles to an ambulance for relocation.

“It is funny. Kaplok, kaplok, kaplok is the sound of the bodies flapping,” says Suroh as he watches.
“We are all the same. In the end we will die,” he adds as he deeply inhales from a clove cigarette.
Under the cool shade of the hut, the men sit in their mud-caked clothes, sipping hot, milky coffee and talk lightheartedly about death. Entong recounts a time when he had to break the legs of a corpse.

“If I didn’t, they wouldn’t fit into the cloth,” he says.

The kain kapan, or burial cloths, are rough pieces of white cloth two meters in length. “These ones cost Rp 12,000 [about $1],” Entong says, pointing to a pile of fabric in a cupboard. “Cheap ones.”

The hush is disturbed by the arrival of Iwan Suwandi and his family. Together with his wife, Suwarti, his sister, sister-in-law and grandson, he has come to rebury his son Rachmad.

“I was shocked to get the notice from the cemetery,” Suwandi says, of being notified of the disinterment. “I found out at Lebaran,” he adds.

A gentle-looking man with glasses and specks of grey through his hair, Suwandi had been ill for the past three months and unable to come to Menteng Pulo earlier.

Wearing a tan fishing hat and checkered shirt, Ali greets Suwandi, whom he knows. The caretaker has been tending Rachmad’s grave since he was buried here four years ago. An old hand, Ali has worked at cemeteries since 1948 and takes care of 100 plots in Menteng Pulo.

Rachmad, Suwandi’s third son, died of liver problems at the age of 24. “I wanted to move him to Bogor but we have no family there,” says Suwandi, who instead asked for his son’s body to be moved nearby within the Menteng Pulo cemetery.

Entong is called upon to dig up the body.

“It is his job to dig. We each have a duty,” explains Suroh, whose own position is caring for the graves, like Ali.

Entong alternates using his hands and the hoe to scoop out the earth. The burial cloth is laid on the ground beside the grave and he begins to place the unearthed chunks of bone on it. Two assistants crouch nearby to lay them out on the burial cloth. Standing above his son’s grave, Suwandi’s face is placid as he calmly inquires about the whereabouts of his son’s skull.

The wooden headstone reads, Rachmad H. bin Iwan Suwandi, etched black upon painted white wood. Slivers of the skeleton’s rib cage are taken out one by one. Entong continues to dig and finds a hipbone. Finally, he finds the skull. Suwandi places his hand over his mouth and lets out a small gasp. The family begins to pray. A sniff escapes Suwandi as he continues to look at Entong in the grave.

“His legs aren’t here yet,” Suwandi says.

Entong clears the mud from his hoe and continues digging.

The air is hushed and the smell of rain is heavy on the breeze. “We forgot to bring an umbrella,” Suwandi says to his wife, who nods agreement. Their 7-year old grandson, dressed in blue, has his hand on his knees and keeps his gaze intently on the open grave. The women look distressed.

When Ali comes over to help wrap the bones, Suwandi asks if the bundle is heavy. Ali says it isn’t. Three men wrap the bundle tightly and hand the bones to Suwandi. With steady steps on the slippery, rain-soaked earth, Suwandi carries his son to a prepared burial site, mouthing a silent prayer.

A little way up the road from where Rachmad was originally buried, a gaping hole six feet deep awaits. The small congregation stops, and Suwandi hands the bundle to a gravedigger as he jumps in the grave. The body is gently returned to him and the gravediggers tell him to open the bundle. “All of it,” says one as the other balls up chunks of soil with his hands. “It is to prop up the body so it does not overturn,” he explains.

Suwandi carefully tucks his son into his resting place and two men start to fill in the grave. An imam in a black velvet skullcap, propping himself up with a multicolored umbrella, asks for the name of the deceased and begins a low chant. Only the boy’s name, Rachmad, rings out as the imam crouches by the grave. All else is quiet save for the sound of hoes hitting the ground.

The mother opens a prayer book, her face partially hidden under her black jilbab as she prays along with the imam. Her grandson stands behind her, holding her arm.

Suwandi straightens his son’s old headstone and turns his palms up to the sky. The imam moves toward him and they pray side by side. The earth atop Rachmad’s new grave is choppy and uneven but Ali explains it will be tidied later. He takes out a clove cigarette, lights it and stands before this new grave he will also care for.

A warm wind blows. From a nearby mosque, the resonant call to prayers rings out, echoed softly by surrounding mosques.

(photos: JG/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

Daddy, don't expect me to change the sheets!

Now there’s devotion for you. A Vietnamese man dug up his dead wife, moulded a bit of clay around the bits that had fallen off , clothed her and placed the remains in his bed. For 5 years he slept with his wife’s corpse because he just wanted to hug her. Originally when his wife died, Le Van just slept on top of his wife’s grave but when it started getting windy, cold and rainy he dug a tunnel to the grave to “sleep with her”. Once his kids found out they friggin freaked and banned Le Van from going back.Next thing they know he’s dug her up and brought her back to the family home.

Psst I hear the sex is the same but the dishes are piling up in the sink!

Some awesome fairytale pictures from Korean celebritys. I wonderd if i should have something like this in my final work?

Han Chae Young and Baek Seol Gong as the Queen and King from Snow White.Ye Ji Won as Little Red Riding Hood

Ha Ji Won as Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels

Kim Seong Ryeong as Rapunzel

Chae Sira as Cinderella’s step-mother. Models Kim Min Hee and Lee Hyuk Soo’s reinterpretation of Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride

Nice work, i wish i had a budjet for that…

Mark McNease

Closed casket with a photograph
and a surprising number of people
saying how natural you look.Well, yeah,

it’s a photograph.
The casket was open when we first arrived.
Creeped me out. Corpses ain’t my thing.
They found your wallet circa 1973
with fifteen pictures of your favorite,
one of Caro, none of me. But I thank you

for the money. It was
how I tried to prove myself, calling you
with every six percent raise, hoping once
I would be your son and not
your son who worked at Sesame Street.

We are who we are, and finally
we are dead bodies in a funeral home
or urns filled with ashes. The truth of our
existence as memories becomes transparent.
There is no wall to wail against,
no trial to conduct, no verdict.
We are sons, mothers, daughters, fathers
resting quietly while the mourning file by.

Mark McNease

All Rights Reserved

© 2009

 11:59 pm

I’d Like the Corpse Kabob Please, Hold the Testicles – MOSCOW -  If you’ve ever eaten weird foods from around the world you know that there are all kinds of funky flavors and textures that come across as totally gross.  With this being the case, the first thing that enters your mind after taking a bite of something exotic might be, ”what the hell is this?”  If you were sitting in the Peking Gourmet Asian/American Buffet, you might think that crunch in your General Tso was a cat claw.  On the other hand, if you were munching on a late night gyro bought from the Middle Eastern  man’s  corner store and wondered what the hell you were eating, you might think  the tasty pink flesh is monkey meat.   But if you were in Russia, would you think the balls of meat grilled on a metal stick were from a dead dude?  Maybe.

Russian police have arrested three nut cases who they believed ate a 25-year-old man whom they butchered, barbequed, then sold the remaining parts to a local shish kebab and burrito house.   The jig was finally up when charred body parts were found near a bus stop around the corner from the restaurant.  All three bums had previous criminal records and a history of mental illness.  “After knocking the guy senseless with a hammer, they cooked him, ate him and sold what was left to a kiosk selling kebabs and tacos,” the Prosecutor-General said. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091116/od_nm/us_cannibals)

It was not immediately clear from the statement if any of the corpses had reached the homes of customers, but some said their meat had a little wang to it, while others said it tasted like nuts. 

I hear scratching on the other side of the wall. (Earlier thought to be mice. Now thought to be the desperate scratching of a possessed hipster living across the hall.)

There are also grunt noises like that chick did in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. CrEePy…

I hope she doesn’t die or anything…

I have no patience for the smell of a rotting corpse seeping through the walls.

That and if she dies than the demon might try and posses me. THEN I’d be pissed!

Jordan sent me a few new videos today. One of which deals with embalming a mad cow victim and in that he talked about how he goes about dealing with the embalming process and some of the many steps that he takes during such a process. He shot that video in the special area of his funeral home where they handle problematic cases.

I’ve lost track of time
And the days have forgotten me
Meaningless, they’ve become
They just pass, no significance
Life no longer progresses in terms of days
But in shifts of time
Random leaps
Or rather, tugs
I’m not moving
But the waves are pushing me forward
A corpse in the sea
Seeking the shore

You say I’m standing at a crossroad
But how am I to choose a path
When I don’t know where I came from?
How am I to know which way
When I can’t see where I’m going?

I am a stranger in this body
I’m not in control, I’m weak
A parasite, feeding off the host
Till I get my fill
Till I reach my halt
And get off
Except
I am the host
And by the time I stop
There’ll be nothing left

I
can’t
feel
anything

I’m tired of this vessel
I’ve outgrown this place
It’s only a skin, I need to shed
If I keep it on, I’ll become an empty shell
I want out, now
This vessel must not consume me
I need to end this phase, begin the next
I would choose hell over this

“This numbness”, is not numbness
I’ve lost my senses
Or my ability to perceive them
“You were perceiving quite well,
What happened?”
I woke up.

The Reluctant Waiter, Luigi’s Restaurant and Speculation Theater ‘What If Early Man Had Cable Television’

I remember we were going to attempt to do a stage version of the ”BU skit”, but many technical problems would have cropped up, (we needed a flaming arrow shooting thru a working window, a provost desk, and a full set of china for tea) which had us move on to the Reluctant Waiter skit.

Mark knocked it out of the park.

A few behind the scenes notes – I’m a lousy memorizer – in fact for half the skits, I found a prop or some other way to conceal the script in the scene. Here, it’s in the menu. I also somehow saved the plant I hit from falling down at the last second.

Next – Luigi’s – This was one of our radio bits, in fact the audio is straight from that skit. We shot the video in a bathroom in Needham MA, and edited it at Newhouse the day before the show, so the finished product was a surprise until right before airtime.  Mark was game to be the corpse, and we made a toe tag from a file label. A few scrubs and sheets grabbed from the local hospital, a can of cat food, a saw and a jack from the car later, and we had a passable autopsy room. The audience reaction was miked for this during the live show, and it really sold the bit.

And last – Speculation Theater. We did this one just so Andrew could have the punch line – we kept cracking up just hearing his voice say it. Look close and you’ll see we’re all actually wearing toilet bowl covers from K-Mart. Anything to sell the skit… that’s dedication. Enjoy.

Movie Poster 27x40

 

Creepshow is an American horror-comedy anthology film directed by George A. Romero (of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead fame), and written by Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining, Misery, The Stand).

It was considered a sleeper hit at the box office when released in November 1982, earning over $21 million domestically, and remains a popular film to this day among horror genre fans. The film was shot on location in Pittsburgh and the suburb areas. It consists of five short stories referred to as “Jolting Tales of Horror”: “Father’s Day”, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, “Something to Tide You Over”, “The Crate” and “They’re Creeping Up on You!”. Two of these stories, “The Crate” and “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” (originally titled “Weeds”), were adapted from previously published Stephen King’s short horror tales. The segments are tied together with brief animated sequences. The film is bookended by scenes, featuring a young boy named Billy (played by Stephen King’s own son, Joe King), who is punished by his father for reading horror comics. The film is an homage to the E.C. horror comic books of the 1950s such as Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear.

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In later years, the international rights of the film would be acquired by Republic Pictures, which today is a subsidiary of the Paramount Motion Pictures Group, itself owned by Viacom. The film’s UK rights are owned by Universal Pictures.

Trivia:

• Stephen King carried a toy figure of the character “Greedo” from Star Wars (1977) on the “Creepshow” set for good luck.
• Cameo: [Joe Hill] (son of Stephen King) The young boy featured in the beginning of the film (avid reader and collector of “Creepshow” comic books).
• Rice Krispies were used as maggots on the corpse’s eyes in the first story, “Father’s Day”. In addition, real maggots were also utilized.
• The marble ashtray (which plays a major role in Creepshow’s first story, “Father’s Day”) is featured in all five of the film’s stories if you look closely.
• The wrestling match Jordy Verrill is watching on TV in the second segment, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, was being called by Vince McMahon (Chairman of the WWF – now WWE). The wrestlers in the ring were then-current WWF Champion Bob Backlund and The Samoan No. 1.
• A sign leading to “Castle Rock” (Stephen King’s trademark fictitious town) appears at the very end of the segment “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, among other signs.
• Ted Danson, who played Harry Wentworth in “Something to Tide You Over”, said in a T.V. interview that his daughter was on the set during the scene where his character returns from the dead encased in rotting flesh and seaweed. He purposely tried avoiding his young daughter out of fear of scaring her. Finally, despite his best efforts, she went up to him, looked at him and simply said, “Oh, hi Dad.”
• It is rumored that Max von Sydow was originally slated to play Upson Pratt in Creepshow’s final story, “They’re Creeping Up On You!”.
• In a “Creepshow” special feature from the pages of “Cinefantastique” magazine around the time of “Creepshow”’s release, Stephen King (screenwriter) and George A. Romero (director), revealed that if the film’s final story (“They’re Creeping Up On You!”) had proven to be too difficult and ambitious to film, it would have been substituted with the King short story “The Hitch-Hiker”, which ended up being the final story of the film’s sequel, Creepshow 2 (1987), directed by George A. Romero’s cinematographer on the original Creepshow, Michael Gornick.
• Originally, in Stephen King’s first draft 142-page screenplay for the film, the stories “The Crate” and “Something to Tide You Over” switched places. Making “The Crate” story number 3 and “Tide” story number 4. This is also how the Berni Wrightson Creepshow graphic novel adaptation turned out.
• In Stephen King’s original script for the film, the final story, “They’re Creeping Up On You!”, originally took place in a lush, carpeted penthouse apartment. However, because with roaches this would have been unworkable, Romero opted for a more empty almost hospital room-like set for the story.
• Two of the characters featured in the film, Tabitha and Richard (The new professors at the faculty reception at the beginning of the fourth segment, “The Crate”), were named after Tabitha King (Stephen King’s wife) and Richard Bachman (his ghostwriting name), according to the author.
• In the film’s second segment, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, the film playing on Jordy’s television in the background is A Star Is Born (1937), according to director George Romero’s commentary on the UK special edition DVD.
• The prop 10-cent “CREEPSHOW” comic book featured in the film was drawn and inked by veteran artist ‘Jack Kamen’, one of the artists for the original E.C. crime and horror comics of the 1950’s. Creepshow was a tribute to these comic books. Jack Kamen also created the comic book-style poster for the film, which was also featured on the front of the Plume “Creepshow” comic book adaptation (which Bernie Wrightson, another prolific horror comic artist, drew and inked the interiors for). Originally, (‘Stephen King (I)’ wanted Graham Ingels, another EC artist (famous for his work on the title “The Haunt of Fear”) to do the artwork for the film’s poster, but he refused. It was head of EC comics ‘William M. Gaines’ who then suggested Jack Kamen do the assignment. Kamen accepted.
• A screen capture of the “Creepshow” comic book featured in the film reveals that the letters page has letters from “Brian Hall of Ann Arbor, Mich.” and “David Graves of Spruce, Maryland”, among others. Spruce is the maiden name of King’s wife Tabitha. David Graves is the name of King’s late brother-in-law (married to wife Tabitha’s sister, Catherine). David Graves lived in Maryland (although not “Spruce”, Md), until his death in 2000.
• The on-set nickname for the monster in the crate in Creepshow’s fourth story was “Fluffy”, as named by director George A. Romero. The creature’s creator (and makeup artist on the entire film), Tom Savini, was the shorter garbageman featured near the end of the film.
• Why does Aunt Bedelia’s father come to life after 7 years in the first story “Father’s Day”? Not because of the lucky number it turns out. If you watch closely you will see Bedelia spills whiskey on the grave. In Gaelic, the word for whiskey is translated as Water of Life, and is likely a nod to James Joyce and his book “Finnegan’s Wake”. In the story a builder’s laborer falls from a ladder and breaks his skull, but is revived when someone spills whiskey on his corpse at the wake. The story of Finnegan’s Wake is in turn written based off an old Dublin street ballad.
• At the end of “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, on the signpost is the town of Portland, Maine. This was Stephen King’s home town, and King is the star of this segment of the film.
• Adrienne Barbeau was still married to John Carpenter when Creepshow was released. Carpenter would make the film version of Stephen King’s Christine (1983) the following year. King wrote and makes an appearance in Creepshow.
• The housekeeper in the “Father’s Day” sequence is Mrs.Danvers. The malevolent housekeeper in Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense film Rebecca (1940) is also named Mrs. Danvers.

We created this whimsical Corpse Bride Halloween cake for a wedding reception that was held at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY.  Each tier of the cake was a different flavor and covered in freshly made marshmallow fondant.  The spider web is actually edible.  It was created using Sugar Veil.  The silver on the cake was all hand painted and we fished the cake with colorful butterflies and a hummingbird.

Best wishes and congratulations to Ben and Devina.

To order a cake or to schedule a complimentary wedding cake consultation, call The Twisted Sifter Cake Shoppe at 859-285-0306 or email Pam@TheTwistedSifter.com.

For more information visit our website at http://www.TheTwistedSifter.com

Anyone who thinks that la Alhambra is the only sight worth seeing in Granada is wrong.

When I started planning my trips around Spain, everyone — both the natives and the knowledgeable — told me that Granada is a beautiful city in Andalucía, the famous southern sector that also includes Sevilla. Most also told me that all I really needed was one day in the city to see la Alhambra, the famous expansive palace that housed centuries of Muslim caliphs and, later, Catholic kings.

I disagree with that sentiment. When I traveled to Granada with two other Marquette students over the weekend, we found a small treasure tucked into the mountainside. Granada is a city bursting with diverse culture, beautiful architecture, breathtaking scenery, great flamenco music, delicious food, Gypsies living in caves, and — of course — la Alhambra.

Liz, Rachel and I took an early bus out of Madrid Saturday morning, arriving in Granada in the early afternoon. We decided to just meander around the city center.

We did the obligatory tour of the city cathedral. Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, but churches have become old hat at this point.

The cathedral had a pair of really cool pipe organs!

We then proceeded to shop, (I’m cringing as I type this), until dinner time. For once, I actually had an item of clothing in mind that I wanted to buy. Ever since I got to Europe, I’ve been craving a cool European jacket. All the Spanish guys wear similar dark-colored coats with lots of pockets. I can’t pull off leather, but I think I could rock this style.

After a few hours of looking, we failed to come across the perfect jacket for less than 80 euro. So that plan was out.

Liz, Rachel and I ate cuscus and drank Pakistani tea in a Moroccan restaurant that night.

As is usually the case when one goes shopping, I found something unexpected that I really liked. I’m the complete opposite of an impulse-buyer, but how could I turn down a cool jacket for 10 euro? It screams European, it’s a new look for me, and it’s reversible. Sold.

Eventually, the growling of our stomachs overtook the urge to continue searching the stores for my dream jacket.

We ate in a really quaint Moroccan restaurant. Each of us ordered cuscus with chicken, and Rachel and I also tried Pakistani tea. The food was delicious, and I’ve decided that Americans don’t know how to do tea because the Pakistani tea was heavenly.

Later that night, we crammed into a flamenco bar. We felt cool and completely un-touristy because we were the only non-natives in the place.

I love flamenco. It has the simplicity of American blues mixed with the spontaneity of jazz, but I am thoroughly convinced that the average American would completely eff up a flamenco concert.

As you may know, flamenco usually involves women dancing while someone plays acoustic guitar and sings. It always incorporates clapping, but on the off-beats. Since the crowds at every American concert I’ve ever attended epically failed to clap along with a straight 4/4 beat, I’m positive they would cause a train wreck at a flamenco show.

I felt like I got a taste of real flamenco culture at our show. There was a young Spanish guy playing guitar while seated. On the other side of the stage, a woman clapped the accents while occasionally dancing to the music.

Seated in the middle of the stage was this 80-year-old singer. He would scat a lot, using the vibrating voice that characterizes flamenco. He also hopped off his chair to belt out particularly powerful moments in the song, at which point everyone in the crowd would go nuts. I hope I’m that passionate about music at his age.

We soon grew tired of standing in the packed little bar, so we searched for a new hangout spot. It makes me cringe again to say that we settled on an Irish pub. In our defense, it had the television tuned to Spanish premier league soccer while blasting a kick-ass rock playlist through the speakers.

We three were the last to return to our hostel room, which also served as the temporary abode of three other travelers. Now is a good time to explain the part of this article’s title that probably made everyone go, “Wait…what?!” Rachel, Liz and I did not actually encounter corpses in the sense of cold, motionless cadavers.

However, one of our roommates seemingly lived in his bed that weekend. He was fast asleep when we arrived in the afternoon, he was out like a light when we got back late that night, and the cycle repeated itself the next day. There were only a couple of times that we saw his bed empty. Thus, Rachel dubbed him, “The Corpse.”

We met The Corpse the second night. He seemed like a pretty friendly Australian. The ten-second conversation we had was the only time we ever saw him “alive.”

The second day we tackled the big kahuna: la Alhambra. Our tickets weren’t good until 2 p.m., so we scaled the city’s hill to explore the famous Albayzín neighborhood. It was a chore to navigate the labyrinth of narrow streets, especially while walking uphill. There was a major payoff.

Me standing at the mirador de San Nicolas, with la Alhambra laid out in the background.

The view from el Mirador de San Nicolas was spectacular. From it one can see all of Granada spread out below, and la Alhambra stands directly across, on the adjacent hill.

The neighborhood also is home to many native Spaniards and immigrants alike, mostly Moroccans. I was digging the diversity.

We ate tapas along the river, surrounded by medieval Granada on one side and the impressive Alhambra on the other. Afterwards, we put our walking shoes back on to climb the other hill to la Alhambra.

La Alhambra did not disappoint. In 2007, it was in the running for the title of one of the “new” seven wonders of the world. The controversial poll, in which people could vote online an unlimited amount of times, yielded these results:

• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer
• Peru’s Machu Picchu
• Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• India’s Taj Mahal

I can’t argue with any of those choices, but I still think la Alhambra is worthy of the list. Like I said, it was built by Muslim caliphs, who ruled Spain from the eighth through the 15th centuries. Granada was the last bastion of Moorish rule to fall to the Catholic kings, peacefully turning it over to Isabel de Castilla in 1492. Isabel was living in the palace when Christopher Columbus delivered the earth-shattering news that he had discovered a New World. Isabel is now buried on the site.

La Alhambra

In addition to the rich history, the palace/castle has some of the most stunning architecture I’ve ever seen. I believe the Moors were the best thing to ever happen to Spanish culture, and la Alhambra gives strong credence to that argument. It is filled with colorful tile patterns, beautiful Arabic phrases carved into clay and wood, intimidating towers, luscious patio gardens, and unique ceilings.

Moorish decor

El patio de los Arrayanes. Love the reflection. (Copied this photo idea from a tourist guidebook.)

This ceiling never ceases to "wow" me.

Perhaps the best “wow” moment of la Alhambra was looking out on Granada from the highest tower of the castle, Torre de la Vela. It’s hard not to feel like you’re on top of the world.

View from the tallest tower of la Alhambra.

Having accomplished our main goal for the weekend, everything afterwards was just gravy.

That night, we decided to go on the hostel’s tapas tour to be social while having a night on the town. We went to three different tapas bars, and I had a blast talking with guys from Australia, Mexico City and Cleveland. The food was pretty good, too. I even tried blood sausage! (Never again. I ate one bite, and it tasted kinda like jerky. Problem was, I couldn’t eat it while knowing what it was. Too gross.)

The next morning, we rousted ourselves out of bed to hop on the hostel walking tour of the Albayzín neighborhood. Even though we’d already seen it, it was worth hiking up the hill again just to hear the guide’s commentary.

Our guide was a Brit who has lived in Granada for a number of years. He was hilarious, making us do a silly hokey-pokey thing at the beginning of the tour to loosen us up and telling us pretty witty jokes.

He was also a gold mine of interesting and useful tidbits. For example, I learned a ton about the history of Granada and la Alhambra, including that gem about it being the site where Columbus delivered the news to Isabel. He told us that Granada, which is Spanish for pomegranate, was thus named because of the abundance of the fruit that was introduced to the area by the Moors. Interestingly, granada is also Spanish for grenade.

He also explained why medieval Spanish doorways have smaller openings within their large frames. It’s not because Spaniards are historically short; it’s actually because the short doorway forces one to duck his head upon entering, thereby making it easy to chop off an intruder’s head.

The guy even explained to me why residents of Ireland and the U.K. drive on the left, while most of Europe and America drive on the right. (For the sake of space, I’ll leave this explanation out. If you really want to know, feel free to leave a comment below.)

All too soon, it was time to catch the bus back to Madrid. I started to miss Granada as soon as we departed. Although the city is fairly small, it is so full of life. I fell in love with the culture, the history, and the scenery. I’ve decided that Granada is my second-favorite Spanish city, behind Sevilla. It’s not a coincidence that my top two are located in the southern community of Andalucía, which has the most visible, lasting fingerprints of Moorish culture.

Although I’m completely satisfied with my three-day trip to Granada, there were a few things that would’ve been fun to check out, like the Gypsy caves on top of the hill, the aqueducts that supply water to the fountains of la Alhambra, and the abandoned monastery hidden within the surrounding mountains.

Having been there myself, I know that Granada has much more to offer than just la Alhambra. I will passionately argue with anyone who thinks otherwise.

Just started (what I assume) is the latest lnspector Sejer novel* by Karin Fossum. Normally, I love her books, but I’m struggling to get into this one, mostly because for the first time I’m noticing the mechanics of the story, the stuff that, when you’re swept away by the writing, goes undetected.

There’s an excruciating passage on page 5 where she’s trying to flesh out two minor characters, a couple who are about to discover a dead body (lucky them!). She writes:

She brushed her long hair away from her cheeks and forehead. It was thick and brown with auburn streaks. She was petite, her face was small with a high domed forehead and round cheeks. She had tiny hand and feet, and indeed her husband would in more affectionate moments call her his ‘doll’. Reinhardt, too, ran his fingers through his hair. A short, sandy-coloured tuft stuck up at the front, it looked like a shark’s fin.

Why doesn’t this work (for me anyhow)? The answer: it’s too obvious that she’s describing people. It feels to me as if Kristine (that’s the woman’s name) and Reinhardt are messing with their hair for no other reason than to give Fossum an excuse to remark on it – and in Kristine’s case to tell us just about everything else she can think of about her appearance. Making it worse, this occurs in what feels like an interminable passage in which our two protagonists do almost nothing but stand by a lake while we hear all about their troubled marriage, Reinhardt’s domineering and childish personality, Kristine’s lack of self-confidence – when all we really want is the body that we know is waiting for us out there somewhere! Sorry if this sounds callous, but this is crime fiction after all.

I think that the only time that a writer can normally get away with extended descriptive writing is at the beginning of a scene, when we have not yet focused in on specific people, specific perspectives, but are peering at the scene as a whole, watching it come into view. I’d compare this to the kind of sequence you get at the start of some movies, where the camera pans around the setting for a while, before dropping down into the story itself. Once we enter the characters’ world, descriptive writing only feels natural if there’s a reason – a convincing reason – for one of the characters to notice the attribute being remarked on.

For example if characters Smith and Jones have never met before, it’s quite believable that they might notice something striking about one another’s appearance. A third character, MacDonald, who accompanies Smith but doesn’t join in the conversation might conceivably notice even more: this does tend to be the case when we are observing rather than participating. But if Smith and Jones are alone, know each other well and nothing in particular is happening – and yet the novelist starts describing one or the other of them in detail, the information feels incongruous. Who is noticing these details? You might get away with it in the kind of story where there is an intentionally intrusive narrator, but if the storytelling style is naturalistic then this kind of descriptive ‘anomaly’ will quickly undermine its authenticity.

* The Water’s Edge (ISBN 9781846551703)

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

So the error remains close to the surface of my brain, haunting and taunting me.  I thought:  Why in the world would the Pale Horse actually be green, such an unnatural color?  Then last night I was watching Dr. G.- Medical Examiner.  She was talking about a young man who died and was decomposing earlier than normally expected.  She said:  “Decomposition turns the skin a blue-green color.”  I found myself sitting upright and at attention!  Wikipedia talks about the decomposition process and its stages.  Here is a part of it (where the green comes from):

 Putrefaction