Categories
"What We Fear" Fears & Phobias

Video: Your Brain (without drugs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHxyP-nUhUY#t=350
Ladies, Gentlemen, a brain. Stuff like this just fills me with wonder and delight, as is fitting for the son of a science teacher who kept stuff to dissect in the basement freezer. Come to find out that many medical students only encounter brains that have been fixed by formalin, a preservative, which changes their texture to that of a rubber ball. Brains in the wild, so to speak, are squishy… and really REALLY cool!

I post this video also as realistic references for those making brain-shaped jello molds, y’know what with the holidays coming and all.

Looking at this exposed brain, reminds me also of the sensation I had when I first looked in a mirror reflected in another mirror and saw precisely how large my bald spot was. It felt like I was peering into a hole in my skull, one that obscenely revealed a truth about me as naked and vulnerable as my corpus callosum.

Categories
Doktor Food

Skull Cake Pan from Williams-Sonoma

skullpanNote the evident glee of this shopper. Is it caused by finding a cake pan SHAPED LIKE A FREAKING SKULL or because this pan was marked down to roughly a quarter of its pre-Hallowe’en price? It even looks cool as a wall hanging, the pan stabilizer emerging from its forehead like a metal spike. I found this treasure at Williams-Sonoma at The Mall but don’t bother looking because I already bought the last one!

Guess I know what I’ll be bringing to the GLAHW’s annual Crappy Christmas Horror Movie Party… Anyone up for an angel food skull with raspberry glaze, perhaps? Have to do something to top the Pinhead Cheese Ball and Mummy Fingers we brought last year.

Categories
Doktor Food

“Zombie Blast” Energy Drink

zombieblast

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is a common enough refrain among college students, web coders and maniacally-geeked Black Friday shoppers. If sleep is not an option and you’re feeling a little “undead,” you might consider this zombie-influenced energy drink, “Zombie Blast Energy Shot.” One appeared in the goody-bag from last weekend’s Indie Horror.TV anniversary party, and after momentarily trying to find a shotgun large enough to load it into, I realized that these cleverly packaged shotgun shells were precisely the thing I’d need to give me the quick energy I needed to…

… OK so I don’t know exactly what I need a five hour burst of energy for, to be honest. I suspect I’m not the target market for this product. The closest thing to an energy drink I’ve ever taken were the caffeine pills I took back when Reagan was in the White House. And I simply despise zombies both as a metaphor and a cultural product. But darned it, despite being a grouchy, undead-hating curmudgeon, I gotta say the packaging was pretty damned cool.

IMG_0158

Our “Testing:” As one would expect from a shotgun shell, these are “shots,” quite a liberal dose too as shown here filling up two skull shaped shot glass (Your Skulls May Vary) Elsa wasn’t able to down hers so I took a double-barrel and drank the entire container. I can’t provide a nuanced taste test — are you even supposed to “taste” this stuff? There was a definite berry-like sensation as fitting for a self-proclaimed “Wild Berry” product. I can’t imagine sipping it and I really can’t imagine that mixing it with vodka would accomplish much more than prolong the somewhat artificial flavor. I bet no actual berries were harmed in the making of this product. However, I am noticing a pronounced “zip” in my activities this afternoon which normally on a Saturday afternoon would prominently feature a nap. Though I have no external verification, I find myself 37% more witty, 52% more handsome and pretty darned near 83% positive in mood. So far, no blurred vision, heart palpitations or spontaneous amputations.

Maybe I’ll save the other cartridge for the final hours before my next big writing deadline… or the zombie apocalypse, whichever comes first.

Zombie Blast Energy Shots are available through ThinkGeek, that purveyor of all things good and beautiful.

Categories
Elsa Nightmares This Just In

What is the Most Common Nightmare?

Over at i09, Robert T. Gonzalez poses the question, “What is the most common nightmare?” To find an answer, he turns to a body of nightmare research generated worldwide since the 1930’s by psychologists Antonio Zadra, Michael Schred and many others.

Interestingly, the criterion of the nightmare studies vary quite a lot. The definition of what “counts” as a nightmare in some, but not all, studies is “a disturbing, emotionally intense dream that ends with the dreamer waking from sleep.” Data collection methods vary as well. Some studies have used dream logs while others have interviews or retrospective questionnaires. Subject pool size (from 200 to 10000) and make-up (students, the “feeble-minded”, nightmare-sufferers, or the general population) are other variables.

For the most part, the Dailynightmare.com list of common nightmares echoes these studies. Although our “data” has been collected through voluntary reporting and “sorted” and “analyzed” by tagging and clouds, our top themes in unranked order are:

Family
Violence
Death
Animals
Monsters
Creepy houses
Work-related

–themes which confirm those found in research.

As they say in the academic business, more research is needed. Please continue to send your nightmares to the Dailynightmare.com for further analysis.