Sometimes, just when I think that things can’t get any weirder (and that doesn’t happen too often), I get that reality slap to the face which tells me that it’s just getting started. I show you now “Drank”, the worlds first (to my knowledge) anti-energy drink. It’s grape soda with valerian root and melatonin, and according to the Wikipedia is based on an urban cocktail which involves mixing codeine-and-promethazine-based cough syrup with Sprite and Jolly Ranchers. Popularized by some idiot named “Dj Screw”, who wound up dying from it, the concotion spread around the hip-hop scene in the southern US, taking several more lives in the process. Now it’s being marketed, hoorah! I can’t tell if this is just a culturally ignorant money-making venture, or a sly and calculated attempt to make certain sectors of society even more fucked up, but it certainly feels like a bad, bad idea all around.

Drank - for when you want to fall asleep at the party [DoseNation, via Gothamist]

Of all the video game machines to be haunted, having a Ms. Pac-Man machine be infested by a spectre seems the most ironic. On the Boston Craigslist site, an ad was found for a free Ms. Pac-Man standup arcade machine. A member of the arcadecontrols.com forum e-mailed the poster, asking about the machine, and why it was free. He received the following response:

“When I bought this machine the previous owner told me it was haunted. I laughed, didn’t believe him, because I didn’t believe in that sort of thing.

Got a bad feeling the day it was delivered. Game started on its own in the middle of the night several times, had a tech service the machine three times (very pricy housecalls), but he couldn’t find the problem.

Three-year old daughter started talking about the “man in the video machine”, didn’t think much of it, then my wife saw a dark figure move across the basement and into the machine. She ran out of the house, would not return until the machine was out of the house. I moved it to my business garage (two miles away), and several times I have opened the garage to find tools missing or scattered, things tipped over.

This is why I am giving away a $1000 machine for free.”

That’s some spooky dealings right there, I tell ya. Personally I’d love to have a haunted arcade machine, and if I was anywhere near the Boston area I’d be on this like flies on a corpse. Alas, it is not to be. If you’re in the area and interested though, here’s the listing. Please be sure to report back with the results, yes?

Oddities: The Haunted Ms. Pac Man [Kotaku, via arcadecontrols.com]

Now here’s a bizarre little rarity. Back in the 1930s, Paramount pictures made a ton of little shorts under the blanket title of Hollywood On Parade, using a wide variety of actors, some famous stars, some not so much. The Three Stooges got their start in these films with Ted Healy, and some earlier Marx Brothers shorts were also part of the line. This is probably one of the weirdest ones I’ve seen though. Mae Questel, the voice of Olive Oyl for many years, was also the original Betty Boop. This short features her in a rare live performance as the lovely Miss Boop, singing a song to a pair of manly mannequins. Things are going swimmingly when suddenly Bela Lugosi shows up as the Count! With the chilling words, “Betty, you have booped your last boop,” some 1930s vampire-style necking occurs and, well, you get the picture.

Betty Boop Meets The Count [Ectoplasmosis]

This is Marco. Isn’t he adorable? His little swirly ball, big buggy eyes, and glistening exposed fangs just scream huggable, dontcha think? I love his little hands. Marco was made by the amazingly talented Jessica Joslin, a Chicago-based artist, and apparently a junkhound extraordinaire, judging by the amount of neat stuff she’s found to make her menagerie with. There’s an interview with her over at Coilhouse, which I’m not even going to bother excerpting, because you’re all going to go right over there and read it. Or at least stare at the pretty pictures.

Jessica Joslin’s Delightful Wunderkammer Creatures [Coilhouse]

I know the pirate thing is about done to death right now, happily making way for sweet, sweet steampunk to rise in its place in the hipster underground, but these johnny-come-lately speakers still manage to get my heart all a-flutter with coolness.

I mean, really, you can see how badass they are, yes? I especially love the eerie inner blue glow. Frankly, I’m a sucker for things that glow blue, but what can you do? I’d feel the need to mod them up a bit, make them look more like religio-magical artifacts than just plain ol’ skulls, but they’re still pretty damn cool. Even better, there’s a matching webcam!

I’m really loving the webcam. It looks more like a piece of background scenery for someone’s tropical fishtank, but there’s something Sailor Jerry about it that I love, a slightly camp feel to it. Plus, that skeleton on the far right looks hella pissed off with the snaketail around his neck. Unfortunately, these pretty little items are out of my price range for aesthetically pleasing yet horribly impractical PC accessories, but feel free to pick yourself up a pair. Feel even more free to get two, and send one set to me. ;)

Skull Speakers and Skull Webcam [GeekStuff4U.com, via technabob]

Stolen from a mailing list I’m on…

A man goes into a library and asks for a book on suicide.

The librarian says; “Fuck off, you won’t bring it back.”

God I love the French.

God getting on your back? Satan won’t stop calling you? David Letterman keeps peering in your windows to watch you change? Keep them away the easy way with a Paranormal Restraining Order. At only $5 a pop, these babies are a steal for sure-fire protection against the above mentioned entities, as well as constant pests like extra-terrestrial visitors, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and even the Grim Reaper himself! Check ‘em out, and tell them Uncle Frank sentcha!

Paranormal Restraining Orders

This picture was taken on Avenida Chapultepec and Calle de Monterrey in Colonia Roma. She was a very famous journalist who wrote some really good books. That day she had a book-release party and was on her way there. She was all made up, going to pick up her sister to go to the event. Crossing the street, two cars crashed and then ran her over. This picture is great because she has all her makeup on and she just doesn’t look dead even though she is.

Not much more to say to that. She just looks so… uncomfortable. I think it’s nice that young man is giving her a blanket…

Enrique Metinides is our new favorite photographer [Viceland.com, via Ectoplasmosis]

I don’t really think this needs any further explanation.

Blood Puddle Pillows, courtesy of FromKeetra

Wow, I don’t even know what to say about these. Painstakingly hand-coloured, these photos show the battle of Paaschendale as never seen before. One of the most brutal battles of the first Great War, over a quarter of a million Allied soldiers died between July and November of 1917. Over 54,000 of the dead have no known graves, just an arch with their names engraved on it. The photos show the Belgian countryside turned into swamp, a festering wasteland of death. Back then, war really was Hell.

Hell on Earth: The never before seen colour photographs of the bloody battle of Passchendaele, via Ectoplasmosis