According to Amelia G’s article at Blue Blood Blasphemy Day is today and “is a new internet-spawned holiday like Talk Like a Pirate Day or CAPS LOCK DAY. I’m not surprised that more people added typing like a pirate to their holiday calendars than typing in all capital letters, but I would have thought more people would have gotten into Blasphemy Day.” The salient point is that Blue Blood’s Amelia G and Forrest Black have shot a lot of devil girl photos over the years and they just posted two new sets of them in the Blue Blood VIP in celebration of Blasphemy Day. You can see a free sample gallery of Nina Sin as a devil girl.

BlueBlood.net just posted a free gallery of vampire portraits shot by Forrest Black and Amelia G at the recent Vampire-Con in Hollywood.

Images range from hilariously playful and silly to downright sexy and hot. Extra kudos for the GQ crazy pose vamp guy, the Los Angeles girl who acted like a hooker on Deadwood and the Transylvania girl who actually is a hooker.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 monster film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes. The film was released in the United States on 5 March 1954.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed and originally released in 3-D requiring polarized 3-D glasses, and subsequently reissued in the 1970s in the inferior anaglyph format (this version was released on home video by MCA Videocassette, Inc. in 1981). It is considered a classic of the 1950s, and generated two sequels, Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us, each a year apart. Revenge of the Creature was also filmed and released in 3-D, in hopes of reviving the format.

The movie has an enduring legacy in both media and the general public. A musical based on the movie opened at Universal Studios Hollywood in late June of 2009. It has also been widely referenced, in part due to its groundbreaking character, in other media. In fact, many movies featuring monsters put a Gill-man likeness in the background as a homage. More directly, the Gill-man appeared in the Robot Chicken episode “Shoe,” voiced by Seth Green. He tells a guy that he prefers to be called the “African American Lagoon.” Its likeness also was used for the film The Monster Squad. However, due to licensing issues with Universal, the creature is referred to as “Gill-Man.” Ben Chapman introduced the creature in costume with Abbott and Costello on live television on an episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour. Even earlier, in The Seven Year Itch, the film is referenced when Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe come out of a theatre showing Creature from the Black Lagoon. Monroe expresses some sympathy for the creature, saying that it was not really bad and “just wanted to be loved”. The creature plays a brief cameo emerging from lake Springfield in the Simpsons in the 10th episode of Season 16.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was later made into a pinball game, designed by John Trudeau (AKA “Dr. Flash”), and released in 1992 by Midway (under the Bally brand name). This game has a retro 1950s drive-in theme. It also features such 50s classic songs like Rock Around the Clock, Get a Job, and Summertime Blues. Completing side missions in the pinball game causes the screen to display “Universal Presents… Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and then requires the player to chase after the monster just like in the film. The game sold 7,841 units.

The film has been immortalized in paleontology circles. When Jenny Clack of the University of Cambridge discovered a fossil amphibian in what was once a fetid swamp, she named it Eucritta melanolimnetes, which is Greek for “the creature from the black lagoon.”(via Wikipedia)

According to the AMF Korsets site, in addition to costuming things like WhoreLore, they dress performers for various events. Some of the shows on their c.v. include Torture Garden in London, Skin Two Rubberball in London, Fetish Evolution in Essen, Absolute Kink in Amsterdam, Klinik in Amsterdam, Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo, San Franciso Fetish Ball in (unsurprisingly) San Francisco, SMack in New York, and Fetish and Fantasy Ball in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas show is pictured in the thumb here with the hooks in flesh. I must confess that I am a fan of the Hellraiser movies, but I am sort of icked out by most suspension performances. I know it makes no sense, but I just can’t get into the fleshhooks. Hellraiser is about the pleasure of pain and experiencing a body suspension in a controlled safe environment is an impressive extension of the themes I loved in the movies. Just not for me.

Speaking of Geek Girls Online, AltPorn.net has a really interesting interview with Athena Hollow. Athena Hollow is the webmistress of GGO. My favorite part of the interview is when interviewer Cutter asks: “Nearly every alt-model we’ve seen lately claims to be highly intelligent, including many that seem to have their own opinions about how to spell the word. Who should we believe and why?” Athena Hollow replies: “Ask them what Einstein’s theory of relativity is. Chances are, if they don’t know, they are blowing smoke up your ass. What it does show, is that brainy girls are very “trendy” these days. Everyone wants a smart girl, or a gamer girl, as they are seen as the “Unicorn” of the female species. Many guys are getting tired of the same blonde bimbo porn that keeps getting reproduced over and over again.”

Goodness, the Blue Blood VIP members area passed 100,000 images while Sexy Fandom was sort of on hiatus. It seems like only yesterday when I was buying my first copy of Blue Blood magazine at a science fiction convention vendor booth. I guess it was actually sixteen years ago. Where does the time go? 100k is a really impressive number of genuine, artistic, erotic, on-topic, cool photographs of interesting-looking people. I think it is a nice touch that Blue Blood chose to pass the 100k mark with a photo set featuring Blue Blood magazine covergirl Cherry. It is impressive to be able to collaborate with some of the same people for so many years and have those people still be so very hot. Cherry is such a beautiful girl.

Chad Savage, master of the Sinister Visions Banner Exchange, is an accomplished horror artist, best known for his Halloween and creepy clown art, but who also draws sexier fare such as his Raptor and Larvae series. If you are looking for spooky fonts, he has a free font collection of his original work at Sinister Fonts. Yes, I am biased in favor of his fine work.

Ani Niow, of One Letter Wonder, says she can’t fathom why she would get placed in the steampunk area at Maker Faire. I think I can fathom it. Victorian women, living in such a repressed society, used to get vapors where they would swoon and be out of it. Doctors could often treat the vapors by putting the women on huge vibrating machines until they felt better. Ani Niow has made a much more compact steam-powered vibrator and she says it is really better to run it off of compressed air, as the steam makes her model get extremely hot to the touch. The guts of the vibrator feature one of the “world’s smallest Tesla turbines created out of brass and Dremel cutoff discs”. She explains the genesis of her creation: “this is it. this is what happens when you’re an engineering student with a minor in sexuality and you find yourself funemployed.”

The LA Weekly has a gallery of forty of their best photos from the Comic Con. I think my favorite was the steampunk animatronic girl costume and the Wonder Woman costume in the same frame. Sums up some of the factionalization at the Comic Con this year. The most extreme example of warring factions was the huge turnout for the Twilight programming coupled with the protesters carrying picket-style signs and heckling the lines for the Twilight panel discussions. Wonder Woman and steampunk girl represent different sorts of costuming, but they both look happy in their photo which is nice. According to the LA Weekly, the steampunk presence at the Comic Con was so large that the Guinness Book of World Records came out to take the record-setting largest steampunk gathering photo on the steps of the convention center.

I was going to get back to blogging about sexy fandom topics back in March when Amelia G over at BlueBlood.net posted her Talking Dirty as SXSW article. She talked about a conversation she and qDot from SlashDong had and hinted that they both thought I should get back to it. I thought to myself that it was very motivational to have two of my favorite internet writers pushing for me to do this site. As they say in Hollywood, it is all about process. And motivation is a process. And process takes time.

To be a Rip van Winkle, is to awake suddenly to profound changes in one’s surroundings. This may be due to physical absence or to absence of mind. (via Wikipedia)

On this date in 1999, NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface. (via Wikipedia)

On this date in 2005, astronomers announced their discovery of a possible 10th planet. Now what should they call it? I vote for a female deity from ancient long-dead civilizations, instead of a male one, for a change. (via Wikipedia)

Mermaid hoaxes were perhaps popularized by P.T. Barnum and his famous circus. He advertised having the remains of a FeeJee Mermaid. FeeJee is the sucker spelling of Fiji I believe. Rotten.com describes these supposed remains as looking like a Hollywood pitch gone wrong: “It’s like Gremlins meets Piranha meets Ebirah!” PT Barnum went ahead and used drawings of traditionally attractive mermaids in order to lure crowds. It’s the damn patriarchy keeping abominations down. The three ring huckster need not have bothered apparently, as the attraction continued to appear before sell out crowds even after Barnum publicly confessed that the mermaid was a hodge podge of glued-together parts from totally unrelated critters. (via rotten.com)

Medical students in New Jersey sure know how to treat a girl. Linda Kay is apparently one uber-goth goth stripper. Police came to her house because they got a report that someone there was suicidal. Very gothic even if the suicidal person was apparently out running errands or something and not actually there. While the fuzz checked things out, they discovered a number of skulls and a sloppily dismembered body portion, specifically a severed arm nicknamed Freddy and given to the exotic dancer in question by the sort of med student who comes courting at a strip club. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. I’ve always preferred the more offbeat ie spelling Freddie when used as a diminutive. Whichever spelling Ms. Kay applies to her mad scientist body parts, her mom is supportive and family is always important in these situations. (via Blue Blood via NJ Star Ledger)

An object purported to be somewhere between a mermaid and a sea monster just sold on eBay for $1,550. The seller calls the find a golden mermaid and refers to it as female. He explains his assumption that the mermaid is a she by pointing out the lack of a protruding sex organ. Really, though, what self-respecting heterosexual fanboy would bid on a male sea creature? That would be totally gay. So it just makes sense to describe the mermaid as her. I feel I can paraphrase the Q&A portion, but you really have to read the auction description verbatim to do it justice:

“While exploring desolate areas of Fort Desoto Beach at the southern end of St. Petersburg, here in Florida, I came upon a rather startling discovery. Before me lay what at first appeared to be a very large strange fish. Shocked and amazed, I realized I had found another mermaid or sea monster. I went back to my car to get my camera. My hands were shaking as I tried to calm down to take these photos. This Mermaid or Sea monster, you be the judge, is a few inches shy of being 5 feet long. Laying on a fresh natural bed of seaweed, this creature of the sea looks out as if still alive. What killed this mystery from the depths? Recently in the news there was talk of another outbreak of Red Tide. Had this mermaid fallen ill from this mysterious dreaded disease from the sea? Looking over her gracefull body, I realized what a special creature she must had been in life. Was she the missing link between primates and fish? In time, what would evolution had shaped this creature to be? I sat there thinking for awhile and realized I must get this mermaid back home. I could always ponder later. The winner to this auction will recieve the sea creature shown in the photos below. The photos have not been altered or retouched nor are they result of photo shop. The entire body has been determined to be covered in once living fish skin with scales. I have drilled a small hole in the back of the head so that it can be hung up on a wall for display.”

The seller was quite adamant about the fish scales being real, although he later changed his story on having drilled a hole in her head for display. As the description uses the word “another” to describe the discovery on this lonely Florida beach, presumably the seller has experience in customer service to buyers of curios.

IGN, now, just like MySpace, owned by the very savvy folks at FOX has its Comic Con galleries posted now. They have them broken down into convenient categories like The Babes of Tokyopop and Final Fantasy Figures.

Galleries of pictures taken at the record-smashing Comic Con 2006 are already starting to post. ComingSoon.net has more than a hundred photos although most are not of people, but more importantly the booth babe galleries are starting to post, such as this Flickr gallery by Greg O’Connell, as reported by Comic Book Conventions.

I’m apparently going to a dinner at The Omni and then getting some sleep tonight. However, everyone else appears to be going to the X-Sanguin V ball. Blue Blood has posted some photos from X-Sanguin IV.

According to their site: We were the kids that lived down the street that at the age of 8 were putting on haunted houses for our friends. We were the ones that started setting up stuff in our yards in August for Halloween, and the ones that spent more time thinking up how to make realistic eyeballs in the candy bowl than doing our home work (by the way, peeled grapes work really well). We were also the ones who were so sad we could almost cry when November 1st rolled around and all of the pumpkins came down, and we had to put everything away until next year.

Well, it’s 20 years later, and we are still doing the same thing. On just a slightly different scale.

The original name of the group was “The Brotherhood of the Forbidden Grape.” That was before we were of legal age, and the single largest goals we had were acquiring booze and meeting girls. Usually the beer was much easier to find than the girls, thus we pursued the attainable goal instead of what we figured was a quest that would bear no fruit.

Sometime around 1990, the first ever Brotherhood party took place. We decided that costume parties were where it’s at, and our likelihood of getting girls to show up was much greater if we did something really cool. So we built Dante’s Inferno Room, the whorehouse from Beetlejuice. Much to our surprise we really did get some girls to show up, and we even have some photographic proof somewhere.

It took about 4 weeks of arguing, 5 cases of beer, and one long-ass night to put it all up. We messed with it for another week or so, but the bulk of it went up in someone’s backyard in one night. It was by far the biggest pain the ass thing I have ever built. Its a miracle that it didn’t fall down on top of everyone, and kill them all in a single blow.

However it was bad-ass looking and managed to stay up for the 7 hours of the event. Plus, it was the coolest thing we had ever done. From there, every year, it has gotten bigger, harder, more fun, and much more cool. As we got older, our disposable income grew, and our imagination grew with it. Every year since 1990 we have started the planning earlier and thrown a larger shindig. Sometimes in the past we would take a year off and do something mellow since we were burned out from all the work of the year before, but for the post part we would do some type of large shindig every year. Recently we started moving to more than one event a year even though it drastically cuts into our drinking time on the weekends. (via freaksnightout.com)

Biotech Hobbyist magazine already offers online instructions for growing human skin, but now they are gearing up to help you figure out what to do with your vat of flesh. From the Biotech Hobbyist web site: “What to do? There are endless things to do with skin-do you want to make it glow in the dark? Do you want it to talk directly to your computer by interfacing it with silicon? Of course you do! The next project installments will explain how to splice in an amplified Great Star coral gene that will make your tissue glow cyan under UV light.” Yes, how can I make blob-like clones of my parts glow in the dark and post personals ads to the web? (via Mars Dust)

Anzen Senshi supposedly translates from Japanese to English as “Safety Warrior.” No idea if this is accurate, but I noticed these robot-themed condoms on Slashdong and I could not rest until I found where to buy them. Now that my primary prophylactic mission is accomplished, I may address my secondary goal of making sure as many people as possible are aware of their options for robot penis wear. Amen to the thought that clearly anyone who thinks otaku get no play are mistaken. Apparently they just don’t use birth control, unless a mecha robot transformer monster tells them to.

Weightless Flight (also known as Parabolic Flight) is achieved aboard ZERO-G’s Boeing 727 aircraft named G-FORCE ONE. Weightlessness is achieved by flying G-FORCE ONE through a parabolic flight maneuver. Specially trained pilots fly these maneuvers between approximately 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude. Each parabola takes 10 miles of airspace to perform and lasts approximately one minute from start to finish.

The maneuver is somewhat like a roller coaster in that the plane is initially pulled up to approximately 45 degrees ‘nose high’. Next the plane is ‘pushed over’ the top to reach the zero-gravity segment of the parabolas. For the next 25 – 30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless. At approximately 30 degrees ‘nose low’ a gentle pull-out is started which allows the Flyers to stabilize on the aircraft floor. Finally, the g-force is increased smoothly to about 1.8 g’s until the aircraft reaches a flight altitude of 24,000 feet. The maneuver is then repeated.

The weightlessness experienced by everyone inside the airplane is actually equivalent to the type of “free fall” you experience when sky diving. In this case however, the body of the aircraft surrounds you and protects you from the on-rushing wind. At the end of the free fall period, the aircraft also scoops you up and carries you back up to the top of the arc to begin the free fall process again.

In addition to achieving zero-g or weightlessness, G-FORCE ONE can also fly a parabola designed to offer Lunar (1/6th) or Martian (1/3rd) gravity. These reduced gravity environments are also created with a modified parabola that is not quite as steep as zero gravity parabola. (via gozerog.com)

With Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest breaking all box office records, you would think it would be easier to find naked pictures of Johnny Depp online. I’m 99% sure that nude photos of the swashbucking pirate exist, so I’d appreciate it if someone would email me a link already. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thumb my nose at those who say that genre work is doomed to be smaller than “general interest” media. With $132 million smackeroos, Pirates beat the previous record-holder for opening weekend gross, which was of course another fandom movie, Spider-Man. With $55.5 million doubloons on opening Friday, Pirates also beat the previous one day gross record, which was held by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The top grossing flick the weekend before Pirates opened was Superman Returns. So I think this fandom thing might just catch on. Subliminal message: hire more screenwriters to create and massage fandom scripts or just send me nekkid pics of Johnny Depp. Either one is good.

I have heard that you don’t count as rich until you own your own jet. Well real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow is raising the bar. He has committed five hundred million dollars towards attempting to make my dream of zero gee sex come true. Technically, the owner of the Budget Suites hotel chain has so far only funded the launch of a space-faring Russky balloon, but it is a scientifically important balloon in the journey towards creating the first commercial space station, which is the ultimate goal of Bigelow Aerospace. (via AP on Yahoo)

The thing that Hollywood people always say about Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, when speaking of the movie Speed, is that “oh, they had such amazing chemistry.” That thought certainly never crossed my mind watching Speed. I think Keanu Reeves is a fine actor and Sandra Bullock managed to reach for his level in Speed, but sometimes actors can seem like they are in love because they, you know, can act. This is why you should never ever ever date an actor. One night stands with actors are okay but not relationships. At any rate, I’ve never been sure whether this chemistry comment was code for “they had a steamy fling during shooting” but now it seems that every journalist who covers The Lake House is contractually obligated to imply that maybe someone’s driving their bus in the tunnel, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, maybe putting their boat in the ocean, get it, ha, ha. Bullock is recently wed and Reeves is famously private and, kids, it is just a movie, not real life, so this line of questioning is totally insufferable to me just as a reader. Plus it distracts from the average person remotely comprehending what this paranormal romance is about.

Sci Fi has an interview with the faux couple which includes the following exchange: Why has it taken so long for you two to work together again, and will it be another decade or so before you have a romantic destiny again?

Reeves: I’d like to have a “romantic destiny.” Please give me a “romantic destiny”! Wow, a “romantic destiny,” what does that mean? Romantic destiny.

Bullock: Maybe. Does it matter? Let go of time. Have you seen this film? Let go of time and your preconceived notions of time and just be. If you write that literally, and don’t say that I said that sarcastically, I’ll be the first to come to your home and destroy your landscaping. [Laughs.]

Oh yeah, The Lake House is about some chick and some guy who fall in love via some sort of time travel conceit. Not clear on it because I haven’t seen the movie. Reports tell me that Bullock and Reeves held hands at the premiere, but, like, only as friends, so at least I’m clear on that.

A forthcoming movie called Goya’s Ghosts chronicles the life and times and painter Francisco Goya. It particularly focuses on a muse of his, played by Natalie Portman. Said muse gets accused of heresy by a monk. Supposedly nude torture scenes ensue. Yes, fanboys, Padme Amidala only gets naked if torture is involved. (Those of you who wish to bone up on electrodes to the vulva can head on over to Wired Pussy for an education.) Natalie Portman has an entry on Mr. Skin which still contains only sexy, bikini, and the coveted underwear rating. No nudity. Apparently, Darth Vader’s lover made the director of Closer leave nudies of her on the cutting room floor. So it remains to be seen whether torture is really enough of a motivator or whether Goya really has a ghost of a chance of a naked Nat.

This week, The Independent published an article, by their Washington Correspondent Rupert Cornwell, which asked whether human space exploration is really such a good idea. Arguments against manned space exploration were that it was more expensive and unwieldy than robotics and that there would be an inevitable loss of life from time to time. Arguments in favor of using humans, rather than machines, were that people can sometimes do better research and make proper repairs in ways machines can’t. Also, “The drama of watching men and women explore new worlds appeals to something basic in human nature.” They left out “Molly Case has always wanted to have sex in zero gee in front of a window on the stars.”

On this day in 1456, Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy. Unfortunately for Joan, she was executed twenty-five years prior. Being a strong woman can be rough. I’ve been sitting around trying to think how this date would be celebrated if Joan of Arc’s acquittal was a holiday.

There seems to be much debate on what the word chode means and why it is funny that the captain on Tripping the Rift answers to Chode. The Urban Dictionary has a raging debate of 333 definitions for the term. Most people, meaning those who do not spend all their time engaged in flame wars on UrbanDictionary.com, agree that chode refers literally to the perineum, the location between a gentleman’s scrotum and testicles. In colloquial use, calling someone a chode tends to mean you think they are an unsmooth idiot or at least acting like one. Some men find it comfortable to use various commercially available powders in the chode region in order to prevent chafing. That is all you all need to know about what Stephen Root meant about what a chode is. You can all stop emailing now. Future debate on the definition should be directed to UrbanDictionary. Thank you. (via Urban Dictionary)

The Museum of Hoaxes has a listing of the top 100 April Fools Day pranks. Included are the BBC convincing people that spaghetti grows on trees in Switzerland or Discover Magazine describing the new hotheaded naked ice borer species in Antarctica which could bore through ice using the heat of the blood vessels near the bony plate in its head.

It is pretty common for people to forget it is April first and believe various peculiar stories printed by their favorite, usually accurate publications. So I’m only amused and not disturbed that so many of you believed that Sexy Fandom was acquired by The Science Fiction Channel. I’m a little disappointed, however, by how many people wrote and told me essentially to stay strong against any sell-out criticisms because, no matter how much the blog got sucky, the important thing was that I was making a lot of money.

While I’m touched by your concern for my finances, I already make a lot of money. I do this blog for fun. I’m a TV writer, so obviously I’m for sale on some level, but it would take a whole lot of money for me to sell. This is supposed to be my venue to explore things I couldn’t normally. So, while I’m not wholly closed to being showered with cash, I would hope my readers would care if the character of SexyFandom.com changed. Money is nice, but it is not an excuse for bad behavior. If it were, then we wouldn’t have laws to put bank robbers in prison.