The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

The Spook Season officially does not finish until midnight when everyone turns back into a pumpkin but some folks are creepy plump pumpkins to begin with

Warning - Never mind work - these images are not safe for sanity


( Monsanto mutants and other monsters )

Now this serpent is eagerly awaiting to see the wonderful gifts on offer for Thanksgiving in the Magical Mueller Emporium

For a wonderful four weeks in October we had a veritable feast of freakiness. There were witch’s hats, bats, black cats and cauldrons galore gracing the shelves of the mainstream supermarkets and department stores as well as the usual suspects such as the cheap and nasty Red Dot and the Reject Shop.

Of course there were many complaints about importing all these awful traditions from the evil and satanic United States. Lamentations that they are corrupting our children and the rest of it. Izzie likes to inform such folk that it was not in fact the Americans who had invented Halloween (although the Mexicans definitely have the copyright on Dia de los Muertos which is also a big thing here in Oz over the last few years)

It was in fact an Irish pagan holiday from the old days before St Patrick converted them all into cute and cuddly Christians. The Christian Church cleverly co-opted such customs by introducing All Souls and All Saints Days at the beginning of November devoted to the memory of the dead ancestors.

The Americans replaced the turnips with pumpkins which are much bigger and prettier.
The one point of contention where I do agree with the wowsers and naysayers is the fact that Halloween is supposed to be in Autumn as the nights get longer and darker and the realms of the undead loom larger in the mind. It is simply silly to just take such rituals and transplant them without regard to the spirit of the law rather than the letter.

Then came the First of November and the race that stops a nation where many folks got very debauched and disorderly and we all woke up next day to an invasion of elves and reindeer and big fat bearded men in red suits. Not a spook to be seen. It was as if they were all banished into outer space and a bright shiny new era of fluffiness had dawned with the new month
It was just ghastly.

As bad and all as it is to transplant Halloween to the southern hemisphere without regard to the season, for Christmas it is down right ridiculous. Even without all the silly Santa, sleighs, snow and reindeer stuff, the festival is still a celebration of the return of the light after a long dark winter.

Then there’s all the so called born again Christians screaming that the evil Muslims want to ban Christmas. Lots of them also happen to be fans of the Trump who has also jumped on this particular bandwagon.



The Amazon "customer reviews" are priceless.

Any walk down the main street of the city centre or any one of the ghastly big box suburban shopping centres would quickly reveal that the biggest threat to Real Christmas are not those nasty evil Muslims but the devotees of the Great God Mammon.
Next time I encounter one of these ranters, I will innocently ask just where in the city it is possible to find a store display of a baby Jesus in a manger. If this was a drinking game, they would die of thirst.

And then of course, the Sad South Brits still living in their White Christmas fantasy land still insist on roast turkey and ham with roast potatoes and usually brussels sprouts, peas or pumpkin on the side followed by slabs of Christmas pudding covered in brandy sauce. All of this in the sizzling stinking hot summer where it often gets to 35 celsius on the big day and the last thing anyone wants to do is eat huge amounts of heavy, fattening and very rich food.
Such rich winter fare doesn’t even taste good in the middle of summer, it is very expensive, heats up the house and is just a wasteful and stressful way to fill the day.

This sick and twisted serpent cannot even use the occasion to celebrate the summer solstice and the return of Darkness. For it is at the time of Christmas and the following two months that the summer is at its hottest and most horrible and the solstice serves as a marker for the start of the stinking sizzling burning times. It’s going to be especially tricky this year trying to keep the Rudolf red nose out of the sun. Even with wearing a hat and sunscreen and lurking in the shadows as much as possible, it is still tricky trying to keep the big bad yellow blob in the sky at bay.

The only relief in sight is the first week of January. That’s when the Hot Cross Buns make their first appearance in the shops and Christmas is officially over. Last year there were rumours that such buns had been sighted in supermarkets in Darwin on the day after Boxing Day.

So the witching hour fast approaches. It will soon be time for a certain serpent to slink from Cyberia into the abandoned mansions of the mind in search of spooky words. Time to creep about in dark and dusty basements and to leave no door unopened in the search for inspiration.
Decided that a good start would be a slow meander past one of the local abodes with the suitable aura of creepiness. This old house is conveniently located just across from a cafe. There I have often sat while the old mind amused itself with speculation concerning the comings and goings of the occupants of the Big House. The appearance of a very large “For Sale” sign was the perfect opportunity to indulge in a bit of nosiness and the cafe owner was only too willing to oblige with all sorts of juicy gossip. One did not need to take his word for it, simple observation was sufficient to prove that the place is presently occupied by a large group of Fly In Fly Out workers - most likely from the mines up north. But the strange story of the man who hanged himself in one of the upstairs rooms was a rather different matter. Serpent thoughts turned to the image in the Dark Grimoire tarot deck and the allure of this mysterious mansion grew ever more powerful.
The house occupies two very large blocks of land in a very central but quiet location just over ten minutes drive to the city centre. In spite of that fact it never did sell. Maybe the price was far too high or there’s some heritage preservation order on the house meaning that it cannot be knocked down and turned into a dozen flats. Izzie prefers to think that folks can just feel the badlands vibe from the place and that scares even the greedy goblins and housing developers away.

Today’s walk down the back alley way revealed more strangeness behind the rotting picket fence. Did not get the proper peek I was hoping for due to the presence of at least 5 males wearing high vis vests slouching around the veranda with beers in hand. A new addition to the scenery was a blow up bouncy castle. Seems most incongruous for a house without children. Or maybe it’s some sort of sinister lure.
It was fun to sit and watch the comings and going over at the house and up and down the street where hordes of squealing beasties carrying plastic pumpkin pails went searching for booty and terrorizing the neighbourhood.
On the bus journey back to the Lair I noticed quite a few kids in costumes out and about on the streets and a surprising number of houses with plastic pumpkins and ghosts in the gardens. One had no such decorations but a stunning Angel’s trumpet in full flower looking seriously sinister. The one in the Lair is still alive and sprouting new leaves but no sign yet of those spooky moon struck pendulous blooms.

Other strange tales must wait for another day. Old Mick the Devil himself was in town on Wednesday and one of his minions made an offer that Izzie refused. Glittering golden tickets may sometimes have strings attached. Strange things happen at the crossroads at midnight.

Izzie will be slinking down south tomorrow so will be most unlikely to have much access to Cyberia. Might snaffle some 30 minutes online time at the local library

Bad luck that so much fun is on this week end on the north side of Dursleyville including all sorts of Mexican ghoulishness. Zapata's zombie nachos were very tasty. Saturday is the annual Pride 'Mardi Gras' Parade along with a collection of hot rods and hearses at the piazza.
There were zombie marches last weekend but only found out about all this fun stuff on Monday. Here's hoping such macabre delights become a regular feature on the calendar

Thanks to the old toad will most likely not be paying the annual visit next November and the Grand European Alchemical Adventure is definitely off the agenda

Got together a nice little word stash to last another two days. Will be doing lots of old fashioned pen and paper squiggling anyway but at least there's no need to feel guilty about three days of not slaving over a hot keyboard

Izzie is one pissed off python indeed. The map is so so not the territory. Had made a little arrangement that Monday evening’s online slinking would be dedicated to completing a certain Coursera exam. The deadline is 3pm today local Oz time but with the weird weather over in the States, it would be reasonable to expect all sorts of power outages

Not to mention the ridiculous nonsense on this side of the fence. In order to avoid temptation of any kind had put the old Mac in sleep mode so the relevant page was displayed. Therefore there would be no need to go near the internet and time could be devoted to revising assorted slides and stuff.

The fact the computer got itself into such a state of slumber that it could only be awoken by touching the on button was the first omen. The pathetic wifi dongle then decided it would fart around and take a whole 30 minutes before letting the Izzie visit Cyberia.

There’s a strange sort of exhaustion induced by the frustration of a badly behaving portkey to Cyberia. It is much more draining than doing a decent day of physical work. Maybe it is a control freak thing. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.

But there was still the minor matter of that last minute cramming to do. Lucky these files were already on the computer downloaded at the super zippy speed of 13kbps. It was only after starting these courses when the serpent realized just how seriously sucky our ISP really is. Until then most online activities consisted of reading and sending email, visiting assorted blog and journal sites and of course the recent lurking in Nanoland.

The original intention was to do the first of the two attempts allowed that night so that if there was any more connectivity dramas at least the serpent score would be something slightly larger than a big fat zero. Had spent so much time on this stuff it would be silly to waste all the work within sight of the finish line.

Got a pissy little 6.75/13 on the first round. Then got to thinking that it was time to just bite the bullet and get the whole thing over and done with so we could get back to the scheduled bitching about the old toad and jellyfish and other assorted corporate zombies. After all, it’s time for a clean slate at the stroke of midnight tomorrow evening

Could not do the second attempt straight away as there is a ten minute delay. Not sure if it is a cooling off period or some geekish system requirement that gives rise to this rule. Waited patiently only to discover that the pissy little portkey had decided to play the game of leaving all the lights on and the signal on full strength but simply refusing to deliver the goodies. It was some twenty minutes later being turned on and off several times that it finally started to do its job. Just wanted to get the damned thing done and turn off the infernal computer and go to bed. It is possible to ‘game’ even the final exam but the opportunities are limited with only two attempts instead of the previous four allowed on all the other homework. So the Izzie had to choose very very carefully. Being able to peruse a printed copy earlier in the day made a big difference in eliminating possibilities and stacking the odds a little more in the Izzie's favour

At least the next day we could start with a clean slate and dedicate the morning to some serious catch up squiggling. But silly Izzie must be a glutton for punishment. Just one quick peek at the Nano forums and gmail and then it is time to write. Needless to say such a suggestion would be hosed down very quickly if today had been on the other side of Halloween. There’s something about a deadline that brings out the inner beast.

This time it was easy to get on. It just so happened that within five minutes it became impossible to actually go anywhere. The browsers were full of spinning wheels and those dreaded DNS messages. A normal creature would have got the message damned fast and got the hell out of there. But in some perverse way this just made the Izzie more determined to feast on all this ‘forbidden fruit’
In the end all we had to show for it was a lot of frustration and two hours of the morning totally wasted. Thirty mins of those was on a nano forum post only ten lines long. It took that long for Google to fetch and deliver the links needed

Will be at Petunia’s place this evening where their internet is nice and zippy. But it is a bit wasted on the old 2005 laptop with the infernal spinning beachballs and the zombie O key.
Apparently Halloween is huge this year in downtown Dursleyville. There’s all sorts of vampire and zombie stuff going on. Will be off to Zapata’s Mexican restaurant tomorrow evening to feast on Zombie Vegan Nachos (sounds as likely as vegetarian vampires) before going to a free evening of local ghost stories

By now a certain Halloween ‘care package’ will have arrived at Toad Hall. If it gets past the filthy fingers of dearest Dolores, there is going to be lots of amusement indeed. Professor Lupin would be very impressed