Giant monster from Thailand

A new giant monster movie is being made in Asia: Garuda. There's a trailer for the film at the site. The Thai film looks like it's going to use a lot of CGI for its big winged monster.

Ellison on Schwartz

Harlan Ellison's Julius Schwartz obituary appears on his Web site.

Stranger than a $3 bill

Woman says she thought her $1m bill was real.

Dinosaur hunt

People on a Papua New Guinea island say they saw a 'dinosaur.' Armed police went out in search of the creature, but no trace was found. From the article:
"Eyewitness Christine Samei told reporters she ran for her life after seeing a three-metre tall, grey creature with a head like a dog and a tail like a crocodile which was as fat as a 900-litre water tank.
'It's a very huge and ugly looking animal,' Samei told local media. "

Cool music site

Last Plane to Jakarta is an interesting music review site (at least, what I've checked out so far are music reviews.) His take on death metal has won me over, now I must read further.
(Link found at another new site on my list, Rake's Progress.)

Godzilla toy news

There's a new toy company launching in Japan with a whole selection of new Godzilla figures. At that site is a large picture of some of the test figures, one of which is the Smog Monster! And he looks awesome! I rarely buy imported toys, but wow, these are tempting.

Help Charles L. Grant

A page has been set up for the Fresh Air Fund for Charles L. Grant. That page is part of a Grant's Web site.
Also, here is Grant's story Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street at SciFiction, if you want to get a taste of his writing.

Ninja lessons

Step by step lessons on how to be a ninja.

Step 7

Find yourself an interesting yet threatening ninja pose. As a ninja you obtain certain responsibilities such as kicking asses and looking cool and tough.

Ramsey Campbell's horror story list

Ramsey Campbell lists his 10 "crucial" horror stories. I reprint them here (but you really should check out his Web site anyway):

"Ten that I think are crucial:
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (Edgar Allan Poe)
"Carmilla" (J. Sheridan Le Fanu)
"The White People" (Arthur Machen)
"The Monkey's Paw" (W. W. Jacobs)
"The Willows" (Algernon Blackwood)
"The Colour out of Space" (H. P. Lovecraft)
"A Warning to the Curious" (M. R. James)
"Smoke Ghost" (Fritz Leiber)
"Running Down" (M. John Harrison)
"The Hospice" (Robert Aickman)
Whether these are the most terrifying is a moot point. Some certainly deserve the adjective, but I don't think it covers all the qualities of any of them. "

It's an excellent list. I've added hyperlinks to the stories that can be easily found on the Internet. (Harrison, Lieber and Lovecraft are all still under copyright.) I haven't read the Aickman story. I've been trying to find more of his works lately, but I don't think much is in print. "Smoke Ghost" is one of my favorite ghost stories ever.
Apparently there was a discussion of this list at The Third Alternative message boards, but I couldn't find it.
(Link found at The Write Hemisphere.)

Harvey Pekar news

Harvey Pekar has made a deal with Ballantine to publish three new graphic novels. The first will be about his experiences making the movie "American Splendor." The next two will be biographies of other people he met during the making of the film. (Maybe Pekar will start updating that blog now.)
(News found at Return of the Reluctant.)

Nazi raccoons

Nazi raccoons conquer Europe. What more needs to be said?
(This and other links from Fortean Times.)

Close call

One Norway family got real lucky. Two giant stones came down on either side of their house, one flattening the garage. Story includes pictures.

Masonic death

Man killed during a Masonic initiation. The event must have been unusual:

Carl Fitje, grand master of the New York State Freemasons, said in a statement Tuesday that guns do not play a role in any officially sanctioned lodge ceremonies.

Winged Cats

I haven't read this long, long article, but just its existence is fun. It's a report on winged cats. (For added fun, there's some bizarre pics at the bottom of the page of "abnormal elasticity of the skin.")
(Found at Undiscovered.)

'St. Death' calls to the living

Many people in Mexico City's El Tepito slum are looking for help and mercy from Santa Muerte, or St. Death:

Swathed in a cloak and equipped with a long scythe, Mexico's Santa Muerte, or St. Death, is a dead ringer for the Grim Reaper.
But devotees like those in Mexico City's notorious El Tepito slum insist she is a motherly angel of mercy, and they make sure to attend to her like a queen.
Her larger-than-life statue, kept in a glass box at a street-side sanctuary, is draped in lace-trimmed satin. Her hooded, grinning skull is crowned with a rhinestone tiara, and every bony finger protruding from beneath her cloak boasts a glittering ring.
"She's not frightening. She's beautiful," insisted welder Isiel Alvarado, 27, flipping up his T-shirt to expose a tattoo of St. Death on his tummy. Genuflecting and crossing himself repeatedly before the shrine, Alvarado said he believes in St. Death because she delivered his brother safely from prison.

Jellyfish invasion

Comb jellyfish, the world's most dangerous alien species, is invading the Caspian Sea after having run wild on the Black Sea. It's killed anchovies, decimitated the kilka population and is threatening caviar:

A self-fertilising hermaphrodite, Mnemiopsis breeds as fast as it eats. It reaches maturity within two weeks and then produces 8,000 eggs daily. Its appetite is so great that it can double its size in a day. By 1990, its total biomass in the Black Sea had reached an estimate 900 million tonnes, 10 times the annual fish catch from all the world's oceans.
One snorkelling marine biologist from the Ukraine, Yu Zaitsev, calculated that there were 500 of the beasts in a single cubic metre of water in Odessa Bay. There was almost more jellyfish than water. Meanwhile, fish catches across the Black Sea had declined by 90 per cent. The valuable anchovy virtually disappeared.

Looking back at Godzilla

Daily Yomiuri On-Line gives a look back on the original Godzilla film. The reporter manages to talk with a few of the people that actually worked on the movie.
""Both Honda and Tsuburaya strongly wanted Godzilla to land in Shinagawa," after they visited coastal locations in the Tokyo and Kawasaki areas, he said. "They both wanted Godzilla to knock trains over because they thought destroying something moving would make a good spectacle. Shinagawa was the perfect location because the Tokaido Line trains run along the coastline there." "

Notes on "Eternal Sunshine"

Scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman talks a little about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Recently, la gringa talked about getting an early view of the film. She says it's brilliant:
"It's an extraordinary film. It's genuinely funny, and -- in places -- heartbreakingly sad. But the overall feeling you walk away with is that this is a very human film. I can't describe it better than that."
I can't wait for this movie to come out. It's being released March 19.

Ramsey Campbell interviewed

In better horror writer news, there are interviews with Ramsey Campbell at SuicideGirls and Science Fiction Weekly.

Horror writer needs help

I'm going to quote Nick Mamatas' Journal because this is for a good cause and he's explained it well:

"Charles L. Grant, the acclaimed horror author, has been diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). As a result, and probably for the rest of his life, he will rely on bottled oxygen to live. Alas, Charles and his wife, Kathryn Ptacek, are without health insurance and their need is great.
"A 'Fresh Air' fund has been set up to accept donations which will be used to pay the staggering expenses of oxygen and other durable medical equipment required for his care and sustenance. If you can spare ANY amount, the donation would be appreciated.
"There are two ways to contribute. Mail a check in any amount, made out to Kathryn Ptacek, to:
"Fresh Air Fund
c/o Kathryn Ptacek
P. O. Box 97
Newton, NJ 07860-0097
"or Paypal: katptacek@yahoo.com
"Grant has published over 100 books in various genres, with a number of his novels appearing on the bestseller lists of USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times. His nearly two hundred short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines worldwide. He also edited the award-winning anthology series, Shadows.
"In 1987 he received the British Fantasy Society's Special Award, for life achievement. In addition, he has received two Nebula Awards and three World Fantasy Awards for his writing and editing. In 2000 he was given the Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002 he was honored with the Grandmaster Award of the World Horror Convention." "

So send some money!