The casket opens...

It turns out, I'm still alive. But yeah... I guess it's been a little while, eh? I've simply been caught up in life's other stuff and things. Thought I'd pop in for a brief visit on the b-day of one of screen's old school boogie-men.

"The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly."

Happy Birthday to Bela Lugosi. Not the best actor, by any stretch of the imagination (nowhere near the chops of horror greats Cushing, Lee, Price, Rains, etc), but his portrayal of the Count in 1931's Dracula still creeps me out to this day. And I'm a grown man. Well, sorta.



So there it is, I guess kinda "back in '31." See ya soon.

"*Charmed*, I'm sure."

Cheers, Borrrrrris!

Happy b-day to one creeeeeeeeeepy dude.


If you have some free time (or free DVR space), check out TCM today for tons of Karloff flix (The Lost Patrol, The Walking Dead, West Of Shanghai, You'll Find Out, Isle Of The Dead, The Body Snatcher, Bedlam, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, The Terror).

Obviously a few of these have ...already played this morning, but maybe you can time-travel and you're just keeping it a secret from us all. Dunno.

Those Val Lewton (RKO) ones are some very cool films (Body Snatcher, Isle/Dead, Bedlam). Or pull out some classic Universal Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, or The Mummy, if ya have them. Probably the most famous (mainstream) of his movies.

Kinda makes ya wanna dig up that old box of CHILL stuff, right? Who knows what else you might unearth...

pants = soiled

Oh BTW, HBD2 Sara Karloff (his daughter) too! Pretty cool dualie celebration, right there.

Super-cool birthday gifts... from back in '77

I was diggin' through some old photo albums at my folks' house this week, and came across this snapshot in time:


I found several years of birthday pics, including some from back in '81, but this one really caught my eye, especially with some of that suh-weeeet vintage Star Wars swag.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a peek at some of those AWESOME b-day gifts from "a much simpler time."

So let's take stock. From left to right (sorta):

• a Star Wars marker/coloring poster (with 3-D Vader mask, mind you!)
• a Dallas Cowboys helmet lamp (I either put 12 or 33 on the back with stickers)
• a set of 6 "silver" (ok, silver-colored) Hot Wheels cars (these I kept... they're my son's now)
• an mpc R2-D2 *fully-articulated* model kit
• a full set of all NFL teams pencils
• an amt Cuckoo Nest Custom Ford Van model kit
• an Obsession board game - "The game you can't get enough of!" (Dig that preposition-ending sentence. Nice grammar, babe!)
• a Skorpion (advanced design street machine) model kit - I guess I got my share of sniffing glue back then, eh?
  

Sadly, no TSR loot. But then again, the earliest I really got into the likes of D&D, Gamma World and Top Secret was, well... back in '81.