Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 100

Screw the Protein Pills

Little Jimmy always wanted to be an astronaut, right until the point he hit the upper layer of the troposphere and his little jimmy froze solid.
Alltop is also full of gas. Photo via Twisted Vintage. (NSFW, but funny and worth a visit.)

Always willing to help

Constable MacHeath was surprisingly helpful when Torag the Bounty Hunter asked him if he'd seen a couple of aliens recently.

And, did he know where he could find a decent brothel?

Alltop has a policy against being helpful. But in a funny way. Photo via Twisted Vintage.

Win a Kindle!

Apparently, the proprietor of The Skwib is out of his tiny little mind, and he's giving away Kindles. One for liking his Facebook page (when it reaches 2000, he'll give one away) and one for every 75 copies of Marvellous Hairy sold.

There's also a 1/10 chance to win a Kindle skin, if you've already got a Kindle!

You can get all the details here.

Alltop does not know what a Kindle skin is, but it sounds sexy.

The importance of backups

Having had a hard drive flame out on me once (and losing the electronic text of a novel in the process), I am cognizant of the importance of backing up my data. Still, I probably don't have enough redundancies to deal with this situation.

Don't worry, the novel wasn't very good, and I have a paper copy somewhere. (Though orbital bombing would probably erase that too.)

Alltop welcomes our new alien overlords.

The Zombie Attack on Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Many art historians believe this painting is called The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, but they are sadly mistaken. What Rembrandt has portrayed, quite brilliantly, I believe, is the moments before the attack of the first ever zombie.

Dr. Nicholaes Tulp was regarded as a highly moral doctor and surgeon, and he taught anatomy. However, he was getting frustrated with the limitations of only being allowed to dissect the corpses of criminals, which were only usable until they started to rot. He experimented with several "reanimation" processes so his students could see muscles in action, as well as extending the "life" of the corpses they were examining. Up until the time of this painting, he had been unsuccessful, but during the middle of this particular examination, the corpse, a recently executed Aris Kindt woke up.

The first to die was Kris Vandenclod, who was about to graduate from the college, and who is pictured, his head pushed forward over the corpse to get a closer look at the arm muscles. His throat was fully exposed, and quite easy to rip out, even for a newly re-animated zombie.

Art historians have noted "the whole scene is bathed in a dramatic light, imbuing the composition with a sense of action and suspense" [source]. This drama makes SO much more sense when you consider that Rembrandt painted this to celebrate the Dutch victory over the zombies.

Dr. Tulp, surprisingly, avoided becoming a zombie himself by reverse engineering his "animation" matrix, and played a prominent role in the Dutch victory.

Later, he invented the tulip, which he named after himself.

Feel free to check out Wikipedia's entry on this painting, but they have most of this wrong.

Alltop doesn't believe that tulips exist.

Elevating the discussion

I never have the courage to be the red arrow guy, but it always makes me giggle when I think about doing it. (Later. I giggle later, when it won't freak out my elevator mates.)

Original standing schematic found at I Love Charts.

Alltop makes its elevator mates uncomfortable the "stealthy" way.

Warning: this may disturb you

This Tumblr is surprisingly perturbing. The simple premise is to take "beautiful" celebrities and replace their eyes with the eyes of Steve Buscemi. Why should this cause such psychic disturbance? I don't know, but all I can tell you is this website is much less upsetting when viewed on a nice sunny afternoon.

I'd advise going if it is: a) night b) stormy or c) the day before you have to convince anyone of your sanity.

You can find "Chicks with Steve Buscemeyes" here.

Alltop is always worried about its mental state.

A humourous vintage photograph

After this photo was taken an alien zygote burst from this child's chest at a tremendous velocity, blasting through the watermelon slice a moment later, and then running down the street; the photographer experienced years of insomnia, heaving drinking, and eventually, suicide.

Now you feel bad for laughing, don't you?

Alltop doesn't.

March of the Angry, Fuming, Vengeful Penguins

Suzie loved penguins, ever since her first trip to the zoo.

She'd tell her mother every night, "oh I wish I could see a funny, awkward, goofy penguin, again Mummy. I love them SO!"

"One day we'll go back to the zoo," her mother replied, "so you can mock them some more."

And Suzie would fall asleep, thinking of how lovely it would be to see the clumsy, ridiculous, hilarious penguins.

But they were going to see her first.

Alltop is angry, funny and goofy, all at once.

Creepy euphemisms

This ignores the list of euphemisms that are creepy all on their own:

making the beast with two backs
enhanced interrogation technique
pre-loved
asleep with Jesus
therapeutic misadventure.

What are your favourite euphemisms?

Alltop has no idea what I'm talking about.