Club High Castle Pre-Pandemic

I hope everyone is having an awesome Halloween! Remember to have a boooooo-tastic time. Eat plenty of candy, and do let the boooo-bugs bite! I've extended the Trick-Or-Treat deadline to tomorrow. You have one extra day to send a picture of your costumes and decorations! I didn't realize that the 1st fell on a Saturday when I initially made the contest. Saturday is the busiest day of the week for me. I'm home for a total of two or three hours. I'll announce the winner on Sunday...unless, of course, Major Pierson doesn't get his three entries. Full giveaway post is here: 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway What is a Halloween contest without posting my own costume? I am a random extra from the anime, Attack on Titan . I've got several sets of shiny keys that lead to no where. Weekly Roundup ~ is very brief this week This week in  Space It has been a very sad week for space exploration. An Antares rocket exploded on Tuesday, 28 October. It w...

I laughed my heart out yesterday. It was glitter, glitter everywhere in my mind. I was writing in a cafe and needed a quick, temporary name for a miserable, middle aged character. I don't want to know what my fellow coffee drinkers thought of the crazy woman laughing and snickering into her tiny keyboard... Since everyone I've told about this wants me to keep the character's name as it is, I decided to post an excerpt. The following excerpt is (c) M.L. Crabb 2014 Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Richard Butkiss! “We'll get you help,” Kenneth stated, emerging from the shelter with a large knife strapped to his brown belt. His ruck sack was hanging from his left shoulder, and he was slipping his right arm into the remaining strap. “Where is Butkiss? It doesn't take this long to take a dump.”                   “We are in...in...” My cousin started muttering something about his books. I didn'...

~A quick recap of things around the Empire Earth over the past week. Don't forget my 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway!  This week in… Things I Find Newsworthy I missed the partial solar eclipse on Thursday. In my defense it was raining. I came home to a lot of awesome pictures on Twitter--everything from professional photographs by astronomers to snapshots of pinhole projections. Want to see some awesome pictures of it? Let me press the magical Ctrl V keys: Gallery: The Partial Solar Eclipse of October 2014  …And then there is the tale of yet another white house fence jumper. The number of these is starting to edge away from comical to ruining-it-for-the-rest-of-us. This particular jumper kicked and punched a Secret Service dog. I’m sorry, but that is Grade-A douche baggery right there. The dog is fine if anyone would like to know! I wonder if the dog and his K9 partner get special treats for taking this guy down. You can read more about the incident here: Meet The He...

A quick costume for the Trekkie at heart. Wear it at parties, incognito, and at conventions! It's not an authentic Star Trek uniform, but it will do the job if you just want something simple. What you will need: 1 Redshirt - You can either recycle an old T-shirt or pick one up at the store. They run relatively cheap. I got mine for less than $10. Pick a shirt that fits the way you want to fit it (I am not a fan of the droopy, over-sized awkward angle 80s flair that's coming back in style. A regular V-neck T-shirt worked just fine!).  1 Stitch Witchery Roll - These run under $5, and you will have a lot leftover to use for other projects. Stitch Witchery beats hours and hours of hand sewing any day! 2 Black Strips - Considering that 80% of my wardrobe is black, I had no trouble finding an old slip to butcher for this project (I never wore it anyway). You can use anything so long as it's black. Minor Sewing Supplies - Pins and a needle & black thread. ...

 ~A quick recap of things around the Empire Earth over the past week. Don't forget my 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway!  This week in… Science Or should I say mass media hysteria? An infectious disease nasty enough to warrant its own horror movie? After hearing all the talk around the proverbial water cooler, it seems like the media is going nuts with the three cases in the US. Yes, ebola is a scary thing akin to some sort of eldrichian horror crawling out of the pages of a Lovecraft story, but it’s not time to panic. When my next door neighbor or a coworker has it, cue the panic attack. I learned all I ever wanted (and more) about ebola when I read The Hot Zone . I even wrote a review about it on goodreads: Untitled Review of The Hot Zone . One word of advice: don’t google “ebola” and then click on images. Geekdom As I contemplate and stare aimlessly about the room for a geeky fun filled topic, my eyes drift towards my latest autograph. I can’t believe that I n...

...Because sometimes you have to do a crazy crossover between Frozen and Babylon 5 and share it with everyone. Babylon 5's Susan Ivanova singing Let it Go . "A station of isolation, and it looks like I’m captain…" "Your thoughts never bothered me anyway."   Here's the Official YouTube video of the song:   Don't forget my 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway!   Send in your Halloween costumes and decorations! Want to see what I'll be wearing? Attack on Titan! I have yet to figure out what pants I'm going to wear. The official Attack on Titan uniforms involve white pants, but mixing me and white pants is like dipping double sided tape into an army of dust bunnies.

Don't forget to check out my 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway!   ~A quick recap of things around the Empire Earth over the past week. This week in… Space If you’ve been following the stars, then you know that there was a kickass lunar eclipse on the 8th. Normally I am all about giant bloodmoons, but getting me to wake up earlier than I need to is like baptizing a cat. It’s okay though, there were plenty of reports and images on the Internet for me to satisfy my need to see it! The first bloodmoon I remember was waaaaay back in 1999 when I was at Keesler AFB in tech school. I was in the night classes, and our instructors let the entire schoolhouse out for a while to watch it. It was amazing to say the least! Lunar Eclipse Image Credit: The Total Lunar Eclipse, as seen from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, 10:25:37 UTC:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2014_lunar_eclipse   Geekdom I’m not a hardcore MMOer, but I still like to play now and then. The late...

It is officially October (well, it has been for the past five days, but that's beside the point...right?). Bring out the orange and black, the fake bats, goons, and goblins, and spin those webs of cotton! As for me, I will be enjoying many pumpkin spice lattes. Yes, I am extremely cliche when it comes to certain things in the mundane world of life. [ Insert winking emote here ]  Happy BOOctober from Elly and Pierson!  ...Although he is not too happy about being forced into a Dracula costume. I'm working on a spooky tale, chipping away at it when I can. The process is slow, but it's better than never. In the meantime, if you want to get your Halloween spirit on, try Donner Lake Disaster on for size. It has a popping amount of pulp and Lovecraftian fun. The best part? It's FREE! 2014 Trick-Or-Treat Giveaway! Elly is feeling generous and wants to hand out treats at the end of the month. Watch out for Pierson though...he's full of tricks! Send me a pic...