We have been dealing with a family emergency this past week and a half and I just have been too depressed and uninspired to write anything. I won’t go into it, but things are looking a little brighter the last few days, so I am hoping to start blogging again. It may not be every day, but certainly more often then it has been. I hope you guys can understand and forgive me. If you do, you rock and if not, I don’t need you anyway!

Found the coolest Cuckoo Clock ever! If you loved Stanley Kubrick”s The Shining, you will love this Shining Cuckoo Clock. If you are actually more of a fan of the later TV version, then you won’t like this and should probably hang your head in shame and go away. Every hour Jack breaks through the door and says, “Here’s Johnny” followed by Wendy’s scream. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that sound every hour during the night? I think I’d get tired of that after a while, but as an alarm clock it would be totally cool. This clock was designed by Chris Dimino. Unfortunately there was just one made, so not much chance of getting my hands on one.

Please excuse my non-posting. I have been sick, sick, sick for the past two days, barely lifting my head off the pillow to say goodbye to my daughter each morning. I am determined to be up and about today and to write a post. So far it’s taken me two hours to walk across the hall to my office and write this, so don’t hold your breath.

Yuck! Too scary for me. Don’t know if this is real, but here it is anyway. Can you imagine standing behind her in line? It looks so real, that I’m sure someone falls for it and tells her she has a spider on her neck. I must admit though that it is very well done.

*Thanks Lisa for the photo and thanks for the creepy crawlies that I now have!

If you don’t know by now, I love skulls. I love anything with skulls on it, but apparently even I have my limits. I came across this Skull Radio and thought to myself that some things are just better left without a skull. This little plastic radio has a sound-activated skull that wags his jaw along to your favorite station and has light-up eyes. According to the website the push-button settings are “fun to use”. Really? I sincerely doubt that. I’ve never come across push-buttons that are anything more than functional. I don’t know. This just looks cheap and stupid to me. Not everything requires a skull perched on top of it. As a joke gift maybe, but that’s about it. Might explain why it’s marked down to $8.98 from $19.95. If you love it and can’t live without it wait a little longer and I’m sure the price will go down even more.

I’m taking the day off to enjoy my birthday, but I’ll be back tomorrow.

And now for the person who has everything…Rotten Luck Dice. This is a set of five extremely cool dice designed by Douglas Little that are made out of a zinc alloy and Swarovski crystals. Each one is engraved with a skull, a peace sign, the devil, the number 13, a shamrock and a horseshoe and comes in a cool black box. Now for the price that’s not so cool…$195! They are beyond neat, but I’m not sure they are worth quite that much. Of course, Barneys is selling them so that might explain the price. If you go over to Unica Home though they are selling them at 20% off. They would be neat to have sitting around to play with. The kind of people that can afford to spend $195 on a trinket seem like they might have quite a bit of luck already and wouldn’t want to risk the luck of the roll. I also tend to picture rich executive types as not having a wicked sense of humor which I think is required for an item like this.

Here is a picture of a scary statue that I found on the internet. I absolutely love this statue. The problem is I have no idea where this statue is or if it is even real. It looks real, but in the age of Photoshop who knows? I’d also like to know what it is actually a statue of. It looks like the Grim Reaper, but I can’t imagine anyone making a statue of him. I can’t make out what the plaque says. If anyone knows anything about this statue please email me or post a comment. I continue to search on the internet for it. I’ll post if I find out anything.

*Update: Ask the world of the internet and quickly get an answer. Gotta love it! This was designed by Anna Chromy, a sculpter & painter born in the Czech Republic. Her best-known piece is the empty coat, known as Coat of Conscience. There is one located in Austria, one in Praque, one in Athens and a few others. So much for for my scary ideas. Thanks Irie.

This is not so much scary as just weird. I understand people wanting tattoos. It shows off your personality or what you care about, but this is just plain strange in my book. A dental lab in Salt Lake City called Heward Dental Lab will tattoo any image onto your crown or bridge. Prices range between $70 and $250 depending on the complexity. My question is what’s the point? No one can see it. I guess you could open your mouth really wide and pull your cheek out and you are also giving your dentist something interesting to look at. Beyond that though, I don’t know. It’s a lot of money to spend when no one is going to see it. I know people put tattoos in strange places and on their nether regions, but then at least someone is seeing it. Well, I assume, anyway. If you are really into looking creepy putting a skull on your front tooth might be pretty cool, but I get the impression from the website that they mostly do inside the mouth. I think I’ll stick with the more standard body parts, thank you.

Sunday seems to have become scary/weird/creepy/yucky picture day. I didn’t plan it, but I never feel like writing much on Sundays for some reason. People are always sending me weird pictures that they have found on the internet and it just seems like the perfect day to post them. Plus today I am knee deep in a Hitchcock marathon on TV. With that in mind here’s today’s contribution. Not really sure what to say about it or where it even comes from for that mattter, but here it is anyway. I find it creepy and cool at the same time. Enjoy and keep sending them!

*Thanks Lisa!