All I know is that its highly unlikely that a normal (i.e., not related to Lady Deathstrike) human being could, over time, scratch a hole into their brain cavity using their fingernails (which, again, even over time, would be worn down to nubs in the face of bone) and cause inexplicably green brain matter to leak out. Especially since in order to leak out, it would have to be either melting from high fever, or under pressure due to internal swelling, and either way she’d likely be unconscious, if not dead. Again, the wound probably just got badly infected (with staph or similar) and pustulent, which is a perfectly good reason to send someone to the hospital, especially if they have HIV. Its even possible that between the infection, the external damage, and the HIV, the virus managed to make it to her brain, or trigger a heavy fever, causing the apparent brain damage.

M was probably just misunderstanding or misremembering the incident, which is understandable given the stress she was probably under at the time. Unless I see a medical chart with notes saying “perforation of the skull”, or perhaps a particularly impressive episode of Mythbusters, I’m not buying it.

Comment by Joe Shadows — June 25, 2008 @ 8:17 pm

While Mr. Shadows and I may have our differences — for example: he thinks me a gullible fool and I am fairly certain that he is a Communist — we can both agree that the only way to settle this is to get the Mythbusters on this conundrum post-haste. Hopefully they can construct an itch scratching machine, comprised of a hand made from ballistics jelly and bone connecting to a large motor, designed for the specific purpose of creating a perforation in a severed pig’s head.

I think some credits are in order to James Turner, Creator of Beaver and Steve where that image is from.

Comment by Ben — June 24, 2008 @ 3:29 am

I had heard of Beaver and Steve but never read it, until clicking Ben’s link; and I’m glad I did as it is pure, insane brilliance. Make sure to click the image to see the full comic. Oh Weevil Kneevil, you are sorely missed.

The unfeasible adventures of Beaver and Steve [James Turner]

Yesterday I called into question the effectiveness of illustrator Rowena Morrill in capturing the likeness of Wilbur Whateley for the cover of the paperback edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror. However, ectomite Nick Herold was having none of my shenanigans and, strapping on his neck-beard, brought the pain, pointing out that the fault did not lay with Morrill or her editor but with Lovecraft and my own, preconceived notions:

That’s actually pretty accurate to Lovecraft’s description of Wilbur Whateley. If I may quote:

“Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog’s rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.

Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth’s giant saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it. “

You smell that? That’s the burning smell of emasculating pwnage!

In a word of explanation of the horrifically racist “Banania” print inexplicably hanging upon the walls of my German kitchen, garrulous frog Guillaume writes:

Cher John —

Never heard of him.

As an arrogant Frenchman, I will not let you tarnish a proud part of France’s glorious colonial advertising past. The tirailleur sénégalais (tirailleurs sénégalais were Senegalese soldiers enrolled in the French army back in the 19th and 20th centuries) on the Banania ad is definitely not eating banana custard, but rather drinking chocolate milk.

I am relieved to hear it. A stereotypical African eating a dessert made entirely of bananas might have pushed the boundaries of social taste in a way that a black person smacking his lips over a tin can full of chocolate milk would not. Chocolate milk! It’s dark milk for dark people!

Banania is a cocoa powder brand still popular in France. Paradoxically, the ingredients never included bananas in any way, but the name must have sounded exotic at that time.

The slogan “Y’a bon” means “It is good” in petit-nègre (literally : little nigger) which is the French equivalent of broken english.

Again, let’s congratulate the French on their progressive stance towards renaming their linguistic dialects.

Due to legitimate complaints, the current Banania ads are slightly less racist.

I was in Dijon a few weeks back. No joke: I stumbled across an entire licensed shop selling nothing but vintage Banania memorabilia. There, I bought a cafe au lait cup larger than my hydrocephalic head with the “Y’a Bon” guy on it. I love it, but let’s face facts: obviously, they are still cashing in on this guy.

No, seriously, thanks Guillaume for setting the record straight. This is the best comment we’ve gotten all week.