A post filled with random things.

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon. I’m sitting in front of the television, but it isn’t on. All I see is the vague, smeary reflection of me, looking strangely demonic. I’m drinking coffee from a mug that says “coffee” on it. Next to me is a cat that wants to eat people food.

I can write things like that, because this post is themeless, hopeless, and only exists because I don’t want new readers who stumbled here from that Cabin in the Woods article to think Dino Drac is all about gazpacho. It isn’t.

And so this will be a post filled with random things.

This amazing device (yes, device) was a late Christmas present from two readers. I feel I should protect the innocent, so let’s call them J & A.  It’s a dinosaur in a tie that spits Nerf-ish yellow balls when you squeeze it. It’s almost as fun to describe as it is to play with.

J & A even added a custom cape, effectively transforming this into the official Dinosaur Dracula Ball-Spitting Dino Guy. Since my blood is warm and I have a soul, I love it to death. Thank you, J & A!

In retrospect, I wish I’d made my top 30 TCITW monsters a top 40. Readers have brought up so many others that clearly deserved inclusion. Here’s one of them now!

Even without any color correction or artificial beefening of the forearms, this Cyclops is fantastic. If you really study him, he appears more as an alien Cyclops than an Earth one, with a skin tone that borders close to metallic. Plus, no nose.  Yes, that will be his name. Nonose the Cyclops.

Subtle Vulcan hand gesture right back at ya, Nonose.

On the weirder side of this year’s Valentine’s Day candy haul, here are gag bottles of Tabasco sauce… filled with Tabasco-flavored jelly beans.  They come with heart-shaped tags reading “Hey HOT Stuff,” with the word “HOT” in a different color, in case your chosen recipient is horrible about catching puns.

I love Tabasco sauce (GAZPACHO), so this was an easy sell. The candies are possibly even spicier than real Tabasco, but taste more like cinnamon than peppers and vinegar and whatever else they put in that sauce. Let me check.

Ah, okay. According to the official site, there’s also salt, but specifically, salt from Avery Island. Which isn’t even a real island, let alone a place ruled by the guy who played Ben Sisko. As the kids said five years ago, I am disappoint.

I guess the fact that I’ve gone this far off-track means I’ve been desensitized to candies with “outrageous” flavors, but for what it’s worth, these are just fine for eating. And they come in bottles that will allow me to create sand art much more quickly than the guy with the reshaped Pepsi bottle. That was my plan all along.

I’ve wanted to write about this scratch ‘n sniff Blockbuster card for a while now. Thing is, I wanted to make a really big deal about it. I wanted it to fly solo. I didn’t want it to have to share the spotlight with jelly beans and Nonose the Cyclops.

Course, there just isn’t much to say. It’s a gift card that kind of smells like popcorn and kind of smells like plastic. The end.

It’s just another of the hundreds of items or topics that I gave up on making huge online fusses over. If we can call what I do “making big deals out of things I like,” there are just times when there’s no good way to sell it.

…and it drives me crazy. Just using this one example, I’m not kidding when I say that I positively adore this popcorn gift card. It makes me happy, and whenever I touch it, I do that thing where the sides of my fingers only touch the sides of the card, thus limiting unsightly fingerprints.  I feel like I’m doing it a disservice with my inability to make it sound interesting for a thousand word stretch.

I failed you, Old Blockbuster Gift Card.  And don’t think I haven’t noticed that your little carton of popcorn seems to be watching me with a crooked glance, sad but somehow accepting.

Finally, this. My Seed of Chucky ticket stub, from 2004. I’m weird with ticket stubs. I don’t collect them or make any sincere effort to keep them in a safe place, and yet, I will never, ever throw one away. It’s like, I want to care, but I don’t care enough.

Ticket stubs come, never go, and just turn up in random places forever and ever, looking worse for wear each time.  This one seems to have been used as a napkin during a meal involving clams. Upside is, those clam stains stole the “inee” from “matinee,” and so this ticket stub is very nearly addressed to ME.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day cleaning my office, because I’m a six-year-old who can’t go a week without trashing his room. On my tiny TV will be a movie that requires zero attention or thought. In the vacuum will be at least ten pennies, because I paid a lot for that vacuum, and it should be able to handle coins.

Have a wonderful Saturday.