Featuring delightful and entertaining interviews from Acclimated Spooks
Boyd McCloyd, CEO of Acclimated Spooks
Again, we bring you a continuation of our interview with Boyd McCloyd from last week. To read the interview from the beginning, click here.
REGGIE: What else have you found interesting about Mr. Ping, Boyd?
BOYD: Well, lots of things. He knew a lot of people. He was pretty popular.
REGGIE: How so?
BOYD: He traveled the world, looking for strange and unusual stuff, you know? And it’s awesome how many things he saw and how many people he met.
REGGIE: What do you mean by “awesome”?
BOYD: Well, it works like this: Where I come from, and where most people come from, I guess…people don’t leave. They just stay there. And their friends are the same friends…forever. They’re the people they went to school with or whatever. But once you start traveling, then you meet all kinds of interesting people. When Mr. Ping was in Paris and he met Pierre Loutrand? The guy who was the first member of the Parkour society? That was really cool. Or when he was in Australia and ran into the Aboriginal guy Tuk Click? And they had that adventure with the Desert People near Darwin? Where the people were made out of dirt? That’s cool. And to think that me met these people by chance. If he hadn’t traveled, then he would never have met them and that’s amazing.
REGGIE: I remember Tuk Click. He was a pretty good guy.
BOYD: He was! And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. There were so many others…
REGGIE: And which of Mr. Ping’s adventures interest you most?
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.
Smelts' guide to the Strange & Unusual all around you...
Greetings, mates! Smelts here, with the first in a series of travel columns for The Week in Weird, entitled, “SUN, SURF, SAND, AND HORRIBLE THINGS TO MAKE YOU SCREAM!” I’ve traveled all over the world, lookin’ at strange and unusual stuff, and I would be delighted to bring you the latest info on the finest destinations from everywhere, givin’ you the straight facts about what kind of kooky stuff you’ll see in the area.
What do I mean? Well, sure, that five star hotel in the mountains is nice, but how many people have been murdered there and now wander the hallways as ghastly specters of death? I’ll answer that. That beach may be picturesque, but have you ever stopped to ask why? Well, those radioactive, fanged jellyfish might give you a clue. I’ll tell you all about it. You like that amusement park? Did you know they steal your DNA and are cloning you in order to use your clones to manufacture cheap t-shirts and toys in an underwater city off the coast of Madagascar? I’ll keep you up to date on that one.
I’ll be fillin’ you full of travel tips from a wide variety of destinations around the globe. From popular tourist traps to off-the-beaten-path backpacker havens, I’ll guide you to the right places.
Our first destination? THAILAND!
Now, there’s a lot to see in Thailand. We’re talkin’ about beaches and ethnic villages, and state-of-the-art cities, but what about the “other” stuff in Thailand? What would you say if I told you that one of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand had a ghost? What if I told you it had several ghosts? Join us next week for our first installment: KOH KOOD: WHERE GHOSTLY TOURISTS SWIM!
with Aristotle Stuttermore, Prestidigitator Extraordinaire
OH, hearty souls that have ventured back to the HALLOWED HALLS of the INTERNETS! Tis I, ARISTOTLE STUTTERMORE here with LESSON #3 in ARISTOTLE STUTTERMORE’S 52 WEEK COURSE for an HONORARY DOCTORATE IN PRESTIDIGITORY ARTS & SCIENCES from PIGSPIT UNIVERSITY. This is WEEK 3 and I trust that you have turned in your lessons from the last few weeks. If you HAVE, then I consider you to be an EXEMPLARY STUDENT of the PRESTIDIGITORY ARTS. If you have not, might I suppose you to be lazy and sullen and slightly UNWORTHY of being taught by one as GREAT and KNOWLEDGABLE as myself.
Still, there is always room for IMPROVEMENT, so perhaps TODAY shall be the day you change your ways!
TODAY: LESSON 3: EYE ROLLING
Ladies and gentlemen, I have unveiled the WORLD on the other SIDE to you, in addition to teaching you about MANTRAS. Today, I will show you how to better ease your way into the world of the UNKNOWN and how it involves your EYES!
No one may truly pass into this other world without ROLLING YOUR EYES BACK INTO YOUR HEAD! It is of UTMOST importance to relax your eyeballs and as you relax into this NETHERWORLD of MYSTERY & INTRIGUE, roll them, up, up and back into your head.
“WHY?” you ask? Because it opens the tiny, imperceptible gates behind your eyeballs, into your brain, allowing free movement of the mysterious ideas and concepts to enter your mind. You MUST open this PORTAL to allow this free flow.
Your ASSIGNMENT for this week: TAKE A PICTURE of yourself demonstrating this activity and send it to aristotle.stuttermore@gmail.com
Relationship Advice with Carlotta, Queen of the Amazons
Carlotta would like to speak with you about television. These television shows are pandering to the worst instincts of strong, young women everywhere. Today, we talk of princesses and princess shows and princess toys. Carlotta has known many princesses in her many centuries on Gaeia (or “Earth” for those of you less enlightened and ignorant). First, a few facts:
No princess Carlotta has ever know wears pink. The closest approximation to pink that Carlotta has seen a princess wear would be red, and that red color usually came from the blood of her enemies spilling forth onto her garments. Thus, the first lesson of the day: Princesses don’t wear pink.
Princesses don’t pine for princes. They pine for prince blood. And instead of going to big banquets for marriage or dancing, they turn the battlefield into their dance floor and celebrate the blood of their enemies being spilled.
Princesses do not wear ball gowns. They wear the skinned carcasses of the biggest animal they’ve ever killed.
Princesses do not tolerate dissent. If princesses have wicked kings or queens as their parents, they kill them. It is that simple.
An Amazon princess craves battle, fights for the smallest of reasons, and could kill the best warrior humankind has to offer without even ruffling the fur of the animal carcass she wears on her shoulders. Remember this.
That is all.
Reggie's Weekly Column on the Gadgets of Acclimated Spooks...
Reggie here, with another edition of “Ghastly Gadgets”. Today, we’re going to focus on new gadget I’ve found called the “5-DIMENSIONAL GOGLIFIERS”. I have found this device incredibly useful after discovering it in a magazine ad many years ago. Basically, it works like this:
Every place you’ve ever been has a history. it may not have been an exciting history, but it has a history, nonetheless. Whether it’s the room you are in at this very moment (Who else has lived in that room? What did they do there?), or the forest behind your house (What trees were growing there one hundred years ago? Two hundred years ago?). Well, the 5-D GOGLIFIERS are the best way to find out how rich history can be in your area. You relax into a comfortable position, select the convenient dials located on the side of the lends to the time period you choose (the latest models vary from recent history to hundreds of years ago), and then voila! You can see everything that happened in the past on that very spot!
What this means is that if you set the goggles on the year 1962, and then put them on, you can look around and see EVERYTHING that happened on that spot on that date in 1962. If there were hippies walking down the street, the odds are, they’d walk right past you.
The 5-Dimensional Goglifiers
The technology is amazing, though the images are far from perfect, and some close up images are virtually impossible to see. Still, they have promised many updates, including the ability to go further back in time and improve the image quality. Be warned, however, it is a highly addictive device and those with little time on their hands should definitely avoid this.
Naturally, I’d like to know a bit more about the technology behind these glasses, but Mr. Ping had a hard and fast rule about anything time-related when he was alive. “When it comes to time travel and how it’s done,” he would say, I operate on a strict, ‘No questions asked’ policy. It’s really the safest way.”
The 5-D Goglifiers are available through mail-order only.
The Boyd McCloyd Interview, Part 2
Boyd McCloyd, CEO of Acclimated Spooks
This week, we bring you a continuation of our interview with Boyd McCloyd from last week. To read last week’s interview, click here.
REGGIE: Okay, are you ready?
BOYD: Yes.
REGGIE: You don’t have anything else to do?
BOYD: Not that I know of.
REGGIE: And you’re ready to focus on this interview?
BOYD: YES! Can we get on with it already?
REGGIE: All right. Tell me about your youth, Boyd McCloyd.
BOYD: My youth? I am a youth, man. I’m only thirteen.
REGGIE: Yes, well…all right, then…tell me about your life before you were thirteen.
BOYD: Uh…okay…pretty normal, I guess. I collected comic books.
REGGIE: Yes. Go on.
BOYD: And…I watched TV? Is that good? Now, I read all the time cause you guys make me.
REGGIE: And what is it that you read?
BOYD: You know what I read.
REGGIE: For the audience’s sake, Boyd. Not mine.
BOYD: Oh! Right! So, I read…uh…Mr. Ping’s Almanac.
REGGIE: And how do you find them to be?
BOYD: Oh, I don’t know. They’re pretty interesting. He did a lot of cool stuff when he was younger. And I guess, he did a lot of cool stuff when he was older, too.
REGGIE: Like what? Which of Mr. Ping’s adventures did you find most interesting so far?
BOYD: Well, I just finished reading about him battling a witch doctor from Togo. And quite frankly, I’m not sure I even knew where Togo was before I read about that. It actually kind of weirded me out.
REGGIE: And why is that?
BOYD: Well, that witch doctor had powers. I didn’t think that was real. I mean, to think that some guy had all these weird powers and all and that there are people out there that want to use these powers to hurt people. that’s weird. But some of this stuff is kind of unbelievable.
REGGIE: How so?
BOYD: Well, take this witch doctor guy…Mr. Ping writes that, he could make zombies out fo people. That he’d go and dig up graves and such and turn these people into zombies. That doesn’t make any sense.
REGGIE: Why not?
BOYD: Well, what if there were only bones the the grave. It’s not like a set of bones would be able to walk around, terrorizing people or anything. They wouldn’t even hold together. A recently dead person…I can understand that, but just a skeleton? I’m not buying that. Mr. Ping exaggerates.
REGGIE: He’s not exaggerating.
BOYD: But it doesn’t make any sense!
REGGIE: Of course not. But it happened.
BOYD: How could it happen? The skeleton wouldn’t stay attached! The skull would fall off if there wasn’t any flesh holding it on!
REGGIE: It’s magic.
BOYD: No. No, I’m sorry. It doesn’t work like that.
REGGIE: But it did! The skeletons were walking around.
BOYD: How would you know?
REGGIE: I was there!
BOYD: No you weren’t.
REGGIE: Yes, I was. I saw the skeletons. They moved. They didn’t fall apart.
BOYD: That’s nonsense. That doesn’t make any sense.
REGGIE: Of course, it does.
BOYD: It defies logic.
REGGIE: Boyd, lots of things defy logic.
BOYD: Not really.
REGGIE: Yes, they do. Do you want the best example?
BOYD: What’s that?
REGGIE: You’re being interviewed by a yeti.
BOYD: (LONG PAUSE) Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MORE OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH BOYD MCCLOYD!
Smelts' guide to the Strange & Unusual all around you...
Greetings, mates! The Week in Weird for you and your buddies!
WARNING: HYPNOTIZING TELEVISIONS
This is just a general alert for readers of Acclimated Spooks, Light & Power. Be warned, folks, that Acclimated Spooks is currently investigating a series of strange and unfortunate events regarding certain brands of televisions that are, in fact, hypnotizing viewers. Several people have gone missing over the last week due to televised hypnosis. Don’t forget our campaign last year regarding this new and unpleasant phenomenon. Remember these three simple rules:
- TELEVISIONS DON’T PLAY TV SHOWS WHEN THEY’RE UNPLUGGED.
- YOUR TELEVISION DOES NOT ANSWER DIRECT QUESTIONS.
- NEVER TAKE YOUR TELEVISION FOR A WALK, NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT BEGS.
Remember those three things and you’re on the ball!
with Aristotle Stuttermore, Prestidigitator Extraordinaire
Welcome back, dear readers! ‘Tis I…ARISTOTLE STUTTERMORE, here to teach you the WAYS of the ENLIGHTENED! last week, I introduced you to the REALM of the UNKNOWN! On THIS fine day, I shall continue with LESSON 2 in my 52 WEEK COURSE to help you earn your ARISTOTLE STUTTERMORE HONORARY DOCTORATE IN PRESTIDIGITORY ARTS AND SCIENCES from the highly esteemed PIGSPIT UNIVERSITY!
LESSON 2: MANTRAS!
In order to get into the hypnotic state that will allow you to pass through the membrane of that which is THIS reality and into that of a LESS REAL state of reality, one must have a MANTRA that one repeats regularly. A MANTRA helps you concentrate. By allowing the physical self to concentrate on something other than one’s thoughts, you open the gateway for strange and unusual things to fill the void that is your mind!
A mantra works as simply as this:
- Think of a sentence or bit of gibberish.
- Memorize it.
- Repeat until your brain is a porous mush.
An example. Repeat this phrase over and over:
RECKON IT’S GONNA GET COLDER BEFORE TOO LONG.
Repeat the phrase over and over again, preferably running the words together until it becomes a jumbled mess and the words have no meaning. Once you’ve done that, voila! You have a mantra.
YOUR HOMEWORK:
- Create your very own mantra.
- Practice memorizing the words.
- Repeat mantra for camera for AT LEAST three minutes.
- Upload to YouTube and send me the link.
Send your lessons to aristotle.stuttermore@gmail.com
Relationship Advice with Carlotta, Queen of the Amazons
Dear Carlotta,
I wrote a note to Tim asking if he would go out with me. He said yes, but now what? What do I do? What do seventh graders do when they go out?
Sincerely, Bristol
Now that this “Timmy” has agreed to “go out” with you, he is under your divine influence and you should wield your power accordingly. This means that he should be forced to do menial labour at your request (which would be any time of the day or night). Because he has shown weakness in the face of your demands, it would be beneficial to you to break his spirit even further by demeaning him in public, or conversely, pretending as though the “note” had never been passed in the first place. Pretending that someone does not exist is an excellent way to destroy someone’s ego.
In the end, the simplest solution to your problem of “going out” with Timmy would go like this. I have provided a transcript of how the event should take place:
YOU: Hello, Timmy. Might I engage you in casual conversation in a private setting?
TIMMY: I agree to your demands, mistress.
Once you have lured him to a private setting, feel free to club him over the head. make sure not to kill him, as I understand it is illegal in your “civilized” society.
That is all.
Reggie's Weekly Column on the Gadgets of Acclimated Spooks...
Hello, chaps! Reggie here with another edition of “Ghastly Gadgets”, where I detail all the cool and nifty electronic stuff that one can find all around the world. Last week, we told you about the “Transdimensional Sonic Sound Swiper” and this week, we focus on one of the more popular gadgets amongst the fearful, which would be the GAZTECH GHOUL FILTER!
Your average city dweller loves to have an air filter in the house. These can be good for you, as they filter out the toxins and particulates to be found in your average household. Any pollution or germs or various other nasties hanging about will be sucked right out of the air with these wonderful gizmos.
However, what does one do when the air around your house is filled with the protoplasmic entities of the undead that might seek contact, companionship, or even revenge against the inhabitants of your abode? The GAZTECH GHOUL FILTER might be your answer.
The GAZTECH GHOUL FILTER can be placed in any room of your house. Once it is turned on, its powerful, patented system of magic, lima beans, and technology will help rid your house of unwanted ghouls and ghosts. When I moved into that old, abandoned mental hospital in the swamps outside of New Orleans, I swear that I couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep, what with all the moaning and screaming and general threats of death from the myriad ghouls that lurked about everywhere on those grounds. Every night, I’d wake up to see a man floating above my bed in a ghostly light, staring down at me with contemptuous eyes, or I’d see a haggard-looking old woman running towards me with a butcher knife from the end of the hall, who would subsequently disappear just as she was about to strike.
The Gaztech Ghoul Filter
Needless to say, if I was ever going to get any sleep, it wasn’t going to be there. Then, Mr. Ping recommended a GAZTECH GHOUL FILTER for me, and though I was skeptical at first, I soon realized that, “Hey! This thing works!” I put one in each room of the house and sure enough, that thing sucked those ghouls away overnight.
That being said, Ghoul disposal, once the container unit is full, is a bit of a harrowing experience, but it’s a small price to pay to sleep in a house that is guaranteed to be haunted. I highly recommend that you pick one up.
