The following video beautifully exemplifies the meaning and celebration of Dia de Los Muertos or Day of the Dead. It is a 2013 CGI Student Academy Award Gold Medal Winner Short Film HD: “Dia De Los Muertos” from Whoo Kazoo.!!

When I moved to Mexico, I became enamoured with the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Despite, its rather gloomy sounding name, Dia de los Muertos is a joyful celebration.! Family members and friends gather with food and drink to remember, honor, and pray for their deceased loved ones. Basically, they invite the deceased back into their lives for an annual visit.

The holiday is celebrated October 31, November 1st, and November 2nd and is tied to the Christian traditions of All Hallow’s Eve, All Saint’s Day, and All Soul’s Day. However, it also has origins dating back to the Aztecs and…

But first…
Dulltown, Europe: Today’s unusual pencil sharpener is the one shaped like a cumulonimbus.
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Excuses for being late. No. 269.
I’m sorry I’m late, but I found a George III half-sovereign in a tin of cream of mushroom soup.

A single overheard remark:
‘Yes, but look what happened to her omelette…’

‘I think people of a religious persuasion should keep it private, and not advertise their beliefs with items of attire.’
‘Oh really? You won’t like my bible belt then?’
‘You have a bible belt?’
‘Yes, look…’
‘Oh, how very novel!’
‘Yes, I used to have it buckled up as far as Leviticus, but I’ve put a bit of weight on since and I’m on Genesis now; it’s the last hole…’
‘Ah, right…’

I’m toying with the idea of changing my name to Jim Nastix.

Now, what’s this? It’s another item of spam in my comments box. This…

I think my veins are filled with either honey or fear.  Because of the warm weather (65 degrees!, just kidding 85) in the last two days, I have had to roll down the windows of my car.  It seems like whenever I pull up to a stop, a member of the bee community has been stalking me, to the point that they are flying to get in my car to show their psychotic tendencies by planting a stinger in my arm, thus making it really hard to text and ignore the road, while having to deal with a huge bee sting. Yeah, bees are irritating.  Today I’m going to demonstrate other irritating things by way of  Bitter Irritating Friday Giftures.

 Do you want to know what really irritates me?

When you hit a home run that ruins your home.

Another thing that irritates me?

Trees. Trees are jerks.

This guy…

For some reason, around this time of year, fears seem to pop up as an issue.  People seems to want to talk about their fear of spiders or ghosts or the dark or cholesterol or the way too upbeatness of SpongeBob.  Maybe it’s because Halloween brings the spookiness out of people, or this time of year is way too busy with parties that bring out the inner rage of introverts, that just want to lay on the couch and watch TV instead of going to yet another Halloween party and have talk yet even more words.  Since it is so close to Halloween, we will finally address some of those fears in our weekly Bitter Friday Giftures.

First we should probably talk about the fact that humans have many fears…

…but ducks don’t seem to have any.

So what are some fears that we have? Some people have the..

…fear…

“I got a rock.”
–Charlie Brown

“Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with.  C.B. is such a loser. He wasn’t even the star of his own Halloween special”
–Chris Rock

I’m going to start this with something I said yesterday.

What will be painful: they’ve got CNN on in this damn waiting room, and they keep going back to that poor kid getting her ass beat by that cop in South Carolina the other day.  Having to watch/hear the footage is rage-inducing enough; I swear to God if I have to listen to some fucking Hoosier conversation about it I’m gonna go to jail today, and it’s good that we’re already at the hospital.

I have a new policy, and I’m sticking to this motherfucker: if I am ever in public where a 24-hour news station is audibly playing over a television set, and I’m in a situation, like a waiting room, where I literally cannot get away from the TV, I’m unplugging the goddamned thing, and to hell with the consequences.

I had to spend several hours in a waiting room yesterday…

Weightless. Mr. Bowie feels like Yuri Gagarin. Although, it shows I’m not a great photographer. You always have to be ready and expect the unexpected. Get great pictures by balancing aperture, shutter speed and ISO. But wait a minute… A cat and boxes? There is nothing new, nothing unexpected in this scene! Anyway, I hope that I’m a better musician and songwriter than a photographer… One day, we will rock you.

Love put me in space, way above the trees
Listen NASA can you get my heart back please?
Weightless, love is a pure sensation
Weightless, I feel like Yuri Gagarin

“Weightless” – Prefab Sprout

no π can make u ψ
but 4 a φ u can have t

ρ ρ ρ your boat
last night i η π
these greek letter puns r bad
they’ll make u want 2 cry

I have no excuses 2 offer

But first…
Dulltown, Europe: Today’s peacock is the drab nunty one.
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‘So anyway, Mary, in the bible…’
‘Which one?’
“Which one?’ Are there more than one?’
‘Yes, at least two.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes, there’s the Virgin Mary, and there’s Mary Mag….’
‘Virgin Mary?’
‘Yes… Of course.’
‘Ah yes, I remember now, it was a sort of miracle wasn’t it? She is Virgin Jesus’s mother, right?… Oh, and by the way, what did her husband, good old Joseph, think about all this? I don’t suppose that gets a mention in the book.’
‘I don’t know… and anyway, he’s not called the Virgin Jesus!’
‘Oh? Why not? Did he have sex then?’
‘No, certainly not!’
‘Well he’d be a virgin then.’
‘Yes, but he’s not called that!’
‘Well, that’s not very even-handed is it? His mum gets the title and he’s just plain old Jesus.’
‘Don’t be silly, he’s not…

The world of advertising is a powerful and manipulating place, but hwo wonderful would these brands really be if they told DUNDUNDUNNNNN the truth…

‘We will take hours of your life by uploading cat video after cat video’

‘We will make you think you can dance…you can’t (and susan from work will video you trying to)’

‘Yup, we’re just basically really expensive flavoured milk…’

‘Come into our shops, feel bad about yourself and lose your ability to bw okay with daylight…’

‘You know you want it! You know you want to see Karens lunch for the 6th consecutive day in a row…’

‘We dare you…try not to eat a whole pack…just try’

‘Come follow our wise and wonderfulrude sales advisers and we’ll contour the shit out of your face…’

‘I hope you enjoy a broken screen, ooh our inability to stay unbroken ia just so appealing’

‘Come…

I said I’d get it done, and I did!

Virago

VIRAGO – A high-fantasy novel long on action. light on magic, and inspired heavily by the Watch books of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, as well as HBO’s television series The Wire. I describe it (like every other person explaining their fantasy novel to non-fantasy novel-reading friends) as ‘Games of Thrones-y, with 75% less murder and 100% less rape.’

Virago On Kindle

Virago in Print

The Secret Wilderness

THE SECRET WILDERNESS – Inspired by Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories and my own research into Medieval and early American history, this is the prequel to Virago. You do not need to have read it to enjoy Virago, although it does explain a lot of things about Adelaide and Neville’s past. I will warn curious readers that it borders on Grimdark and doesn’t have much of the comedic moments of Virago.

One of my favorite ads on TV.

Music by Alana Davis

Available on iTunes

Author’s note: This post is part of the Welcome to the Future series of essays. If you haven’t read Welcome to the Future, I suggest that you start >> HERE <<

Author’s second note: I wrote the bulk of what you are about to read three to five years ago, when I first decided to start writing. It sat ignored and ‘unloved’ for many years. Time to show it some love…

I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

Joan Baez (Bob Dylan) – With God On Our Side

Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Grateful Dead – Truckin’

You see, George, you really had a wonderful life.

Frank Capra –

When a man who works for the CIA makes 1,000,000,000,

Drug money to buy guns for a war that makes many people rich.

What crimes are committed here in our government agencies,

Crack cocaine distributed throughout the city of Los Angeles for sale.

From the FBI, CIA, and other orginizations there is abuse and corruption,

There is no law when those whom make the laws and enforce them break them.

Who do we trust when we know we can not trust our countries leaders,

It all makes sense as not a thing makes any sense when corruption is a disease.

A man, a journalist sacrificed everything for what he believed in, he lost all,

Gary Webb did accuse a higher power of wrong doing, their knowledge of crimes.

He lost his wife, backs of co-workers were turned on him, wrong were many,

Never again as a journalist, mysteriously died alone…