The Shrine of Insanity

Disconnected.

Posted on Wednesday, 3rd March 2010 by Interloper

In only two days I’m moving house, which means that the site will be out of commission for a while, while we wait for our essential services (such as that they call the “internet”) to be reconnected.

Expect updates to resume later this month and in the meantime feel free to keep on posting in the forums or pay a visit to the chat.

Bye for now!

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Be horrified for rupees.

Posted on Thursday, 25th February 2010 by Interloper

Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has issued a challenge for anyone brave enough to endure his horror sequel, Phoonk 2, claiming that he will award a 500,000 rupee prize (that’d buy a lot of soup) to anyone who manages to watch the entire film while remaining alone in a theatre.

The brave (or foolhardy) contender will be hooked up to a heart-rate monitor and their vital statistics will be displayed outside the cinema while the movie plays.

This is the second time Varma has issued such a challenge to moviegoers: a similar stunt involving the first Phoonk movie was cancelled after the credibility of the competition’s selection process was called into question.

You can check out a trailer for the film by clicking here.

Posted in Gossip, News | Comments (0)

Kobolds!

Posted on Thursday, 25th February 2010 by Interloper

Kobolds are creatures of German folklore that are normally depicted as small humanoids.

Some legends claim that every house has a resident kobold, that is believed to bring good luck to the inhabitants of the home if they are treated kindly. If you anger or disrespect a kobold, however, you may quickly fine yourself prone to any number of supernatural calamities.

The metallic element of cobalt is named after the legendary creatures, as subterranean kobold varieties were frequently blamed by miners for the toxic nature of the metal.

Posted in Trivia | Comments (0)

Free of the factories.

Posted on Tuesday, 23rd February 2010 by Interloper

For the longest time, Ophelia and myself have lived alongside factories. You get used to it after a while: the inescapable dust that clings to everything, the whooping sirens that every dog in the neighbourhood howls along with and the multitude of mysterious bangs, crashes and thuds that echo through the night.

Recently we got word that the owner of our current house is selling the property, so things have been a little quiet around here as I’ve taken some time away from the computer to begin packing our belongings into non-descript cardboard boxes and label them things like “rare and precious antiquities from far-away lands”. Those labels aren’t going to help much when it comes time to unpack, but writing them helps me to inject some creativity to an otherwise mind-numbing process.

Moving house is always a melancholy experience and yet there’s a slew of positives to it that you can’t really experience any other way. For starters, it truly gives you the opportunity for a “fresh start”: it forces you to clean out that crowded cupboard you’ve been too scared to open for fear of being crushed by junk as it tumbles free and it exercises your brain as you are required to figure out things like where you hid your coffee mugs (here’s a hint, future self, they’re not in the box labelled “rare and precious antiquities from far-away lands”).

It’s a time when you can seperate yourself from past mistakes, a chance to gather your belongings and really take stock of them. It’s a chance to redecorate, to rebrand yourself, to aim higher and for this upcoming move that is exactly what we are doing.

No more will we be hemmed in by factories, having chosen a house overlooking the Adelaide Hills: a place where the gully breeze will help to keep the house cool during summer and where, at night, we will be able to watch the twinkling lights of the idyllic housing estate in the valley below.

It is quite a literal “step up” for us, but unfortunately there’s still some days to go before we’re finally free of the factories. Please bear with us during this difficult time. Keep visiting the site and soon I’ll soon be updating from an elevated vantage point, which has gotta grant me some sort of attack bonus.

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Pope Benedict XVI Vs. Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

Posted on Tuesday, 16th February 2010 by Interloper

Okay, so it’d probably never happen; but what if it did? For a moment it appears as though the Pope is throwing his hands in the air as a show of surrender, but maybe it’s because he just don’t care. And you can see by the gleam in his eye that he’s planning something. Does the Vatican even have an army?

Click on the image to go to the voting page.

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Pope nominated for Brit Award.

Posted on Tuesday, 16th February 2010 by Interloper

Pope Benedict XVI has been nominated for a Brit Award in the classical music category, for his vocals on the album Alma Mater – Music From the Vatican.

Once it was considered a big deal for actors to “cross over” and launch musical careers, but in recent years even the U.S. President, Barack Obama, has managed to score two Grammy Awards (both in the spoken word category). Could the pontiff be the next world leader to nab such an accolade? You’ll need to wait until May 13th to find out.

Last year the same category was won by the impressively-named Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, whose motto is nobody touches me with impunity.

Posted in Gossip, Music, News | Comments (0)

I’m afraid of Coconut Crabs.

Posted on Friday, 12th February 2010 by Interloper

In prehistoric times the Earth’s atmosphere is believed to have been much richer in oxygen than it is today, allowing exoskeletal creatures (including insects, spiders and crustaceans) to grow much larger than their modern-day counterparts. This information hasn’t stopped some creatures, namely the coconut crab, from growing larger than I consider reasonable for any creature that wears its skeleton on the outside.

The coconut crab (or Birgus latro if you’re in Ancient Rome) is believed to be about as big as an arthropod can possibly be in Earth’s current atmosphere. The crabs can be found along many Indo-Pacific coastlines, terrorising villagers (or maybe just me) with their pincers.

At night, while sensible humans have sealed themselves away and performed the appropriate warding rites, the coconut crabs emerge. Each member of the species possesses ten legs, the front pair consisting of claws with which they can lift objects weighing up to 30 kg (or 64 lbs, for those of you who aren’t down with the metric system). These claws are powerful enough to puncture the hard shell of coconuts, as well as—assumedly—human skulls.

The next four legs are strong enough that the species uses them to climb vertically up objects such as up the trunks of coconut palms—not to mention all the way up your body in order to eat your face off.

Coconut crabs are capable of living for as many as 30 years and are considered by the inhabitants of some islands to contain the spirits of Taotao Mona, “ancient people” that haunt the land.

Posted in Panic, Trivia | Comments (0)

There is a place not far from here.

Posted on Thursday, 11th February 2010 by Interloper

“There is a place not far from here,
In fact, it’s rather near to here,
Step away from the reality you see,
And you’ll see the reality that belongs to me…”

For many years now the Shrine has featured a forum accompanying the site, that’s intended to be a place for people to come together and share their opinions on practically anything without fear of unfair reprisals or hasty judgements.

In recent years the forum has become a quiet place of self-reflection and solitude, a place where the silence is broken only by the melodic trickling from the fountains set into the walls; although you might hear it differently, as the howl of desert winds or the creaking floorboards of an haunted mansion.

And that’s the best thing about a forum like ours—in so many ways it is a blank slate, a tabula rasa upon which our members are free to engrave some trace of themselves.

So if you’re looking for somewhere to expand your mind, or even just to pass an idle few minutes, look no further than the Shrine of Insanity forums. Membership is totally free and includes the benefit of a padded cell where you can bounce off the walls without causing yourself serious bodily harm.

It is a place for you to vent your frustrations about life, or share your new favourite song. The forum currently features topics on everything from Thor to energy drinks (how else do you think he lifts that hammer?), Tony Stark to Lady Gaga and Slavic vampires to baked potatoes. Plus, there’s always my wildly underappreciated topic about Prehistoric Antarctica.

So do yourself a favour, become a Shriner today. It won’t hurt as much as you think, we promise.

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