spacematic.net

It looks like the world is engaged in a massive “snipe” hunt. But unlike the fictional snipe, Jersey Devil, Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, this one has been caught on camera. Thanks to the rapid proliferation of digital technology, there’s footage aplenty of this mystery mongrel-thing. The hairless nature of the beastie and its remarkably hideous features have prompted would-be hunters to name it the Hyote – a cross between a hyena and a coyote. Until the last week in July, I had never heard of such a creature roaming around the American landscape. The first documented sighting to make news was in the back yard of a suburban Baltimore home, adjacent to a wooded area.
When experts are asked what it may be, answers range from razorback hogs to pitiful mangy mutts. What makes the story intriguing, though, is that there seems to be more than one of these creatures lurking around Baltimore County and even around the world. Soft news of this sort is always entertaining, and color commentary from locals adds appropriate punch with quotes like “It looks like something out of ‘Lord of The Rings’.”
With the worldwide-web dispersal of the “Glyndon Monster/Hyote” pics, people all over the world are taking guesses as to what the critter is. Laymen are calling it the Chupacabra, the notorious Mexican “goat sucker.” Depending on regional lore, the animal has taken on any number of names. My guess is that the gates of Hell have officially opened up, pouring Hyotes upon the landscape to terrorize the masses. Things like this would have been a sign of the end times perhaps 500 years ago, but in contemporary society, the Hyote is merely a curiosity. Hellish propagandists will have to do a better job of scaring us in the future. My advice would be to create something of truly horrific proportions. One offering I propose is the “Spikey,” an eight-legged monkey with poisonous fangs and a barbed tail. Now that would freak me out. That’s just one. I have a slew of other ideas. Maybe the Hell camp should take a few notes from the madmen at the Doom videogame developer’s lab. Hyote. Love it or hate it, it looks like it’s everywhere these days. –Mike

If you’ve kept up with me this far and held out hope that spacematic.net’s not dead, then you know July is pretty much forfeit – crap, dead, poo, common detritus – and I make no apologies. July was a creative dead zone for me, reserved for the type of fun remembered from grade school summer breaks and two year workforce sabbaticals… wait. That’s me right now! What the hell else do I do? I can’t really go into details. All you need to know is that I’m back now and not all of this pitiful website neglect was my fault.
If you’re a decent and normal human being, my absence on the web will not have made too great an impact on your day-to-day life. If it has, let me be a good virtual friend and extend my virtual sympathies.
Now on to explanations. First off was a week-long visit to my grandmother in FL. Then there was a wedding in Charleston, SC. Glenn and Jo finally got married after nine years of vapor-locking old fogies and keeping friends mumbling low wagers on a likelihood of vows ever being exchanged. And I’ve got all the gory, silly and drunken details. In fact, that’s my next order of business. Get the photos up and captioned for the delight and amusement of all. Yet more incriminating evidence against the questionable lifestyle choices of Mr. Steve Tatum. (To any relatives doing subversive intelligence work on the history or overall worth of Mr. Tatum, keep in mind he is a fine young man and a pillar of the community. He is a rock.) Aside from all the traveling, my hosting service experienced a massive Denial of Service attack, rendering any access by you or me impossible. It was a nailbiting few days as this attack raged on through the code… I was all but certain that my log entries had been belched out the servers, all my hard work lost forever. As soon as everything went back to normal, I was quick to do a backup. As my last defense, I must say that in retrospect I’ve written a lot of crap over the past few months. You can’t expect me to be that creative and not hit a dry spell every so often, right?
Whew. Now that all of this is out of the way, I’m back on the web for a while to come. Visit! Enjoy! Listen to me gripe and moan over life’s trivial perturbances. That’s really a word. I’m almost certain I’m not using it correctly, but you get the idea. Back to work for me. See you tomorrow! –Mike

First off, sorry for the lack of posting over the past two weeks. I’ve been out and about, doing all sorts of things. Between entertaining my nephew to being out of town, (in the wilds of Northwest Florida where there is no such thing as an Internet cafÌ©, let alone a country town population aware of an “Internet”) I simply haven’t had time or access to a machine and I must say it was a bit refreshing to be out from behind the keyboard and monitor and with the family for a while.
Alas, more days away from the blogging world await, with a a wedding to attend next week and what-not, but keep your eyes peeled from today through Thursday. I will be posting over the next few days.
And now on to the topic. Several months ago, I was browsing the aisles at a cool indie record shop down here in L5P called Criminal Records. Not only do they have an astounding collection of legal rarities from the music world, they also have a geek’s paradise of stuff ranging from toys to comic books, maquettes to magazines and so on and so on. Browsing this section reminds me of the old Athens days with my friend Russell, when he would cart me in to Wuxtry down at the corner of College and Broad to emerge with either a new CD goodie or a comic book too strange to refuse. Among the better comic books he introduced me to was a gem by Evan Dorkin called “Milk and Cheese.” The premise was simple. Dairy products gone bad. They were small and inconspicuous refrigerator items given both life and rage, pillaging communities, stereotypes and whatever else author Dorkin had on his troubled mind. Milk and Cheese also had serious problems with acohol, raising the violence level from riotous to world-ending. It was great, mindless fun.
Given the context of odd item discovery in indie music shops, it was natural for me to ask the staff at Criminal if they had any Milk and Cheese. They ordered it for me. Then I forgot all about it. Several weeks later, I purused the comic book aisles once again, sure that my big book of Milk and Cheese would be gone. To my great surprise, it was still on the rack, ready for my eleven dollars.
After purchase, reading and Internet research, I found that Dorkin was one of the minds at work on Space Ghost Coast To Coast on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim progamming block. I have few appointments with television, but Adult Swim is a late night charm I consistently brake for, especially after Russell (the same one who got me into M&C) introduced me to Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
WHAM! After a headache, things started to seem eerily similar. Fast food items run amok in New Jersey – Deja View. It took my purchase of Milk and Cheese to put two and two together. There has to be something connecting these two creations, at least on the creators’ subconscious level. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Dorkin’s creation really had an impact on how ATHF evolved. But from what I’ve read, the Adult Swim family of original progamming staff seem to be a tight-knit group, sometimes too close for comfort.
I’m not saying that the ATHF creators ripped off Dorkin – quite the contrary. With original, stream of conscsiousness plotlines(?) and consistently hilarious “villains,” the Aqua Teens’ comedy cholesterol has clogged my arteries with manic mayhem, placing the series dangerously close to my heart. Whatever the genesis of ATHF might have been, both Milk and Cheese and ATHF continue to entertain me. So, if you were looking for a controversial article rife with potential libel and outsider inference, sorry. I’m merely stating that the genesis of Cartoon Network’s ATHF may have benefited from some magic rub of Sr. Evan Dorkin. Read the Milk and Cheese comics, watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force and decide for yourself. I think both are worth the time you’d be spending picking your toes or staring at the ceiling. Opinions? As always, feel free to comment or email me. Fun. –Mike