Now on ScienceBlogs: What's the buzz?: Synthetic marijuana, K2, Spice, JWH-018
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
• Quick link to the latest endless thread
Keep your faith in God, but keep your powder dry.
[Oliver Cromwell]
« Would anyone be interested in a Pharyngula chat room? | Main | Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to run for the state board of education »
Category: Cephalopods • Weirdness
Posted on: October 20, 2006 7:22 PM, by PZ Myers
This is probably very immature, but for some reason I really want this toy. I shouldn't argue with my inner child.
I need to know: if I printed out this sign on heavy stock and mounted it just below the stop sign on my street corner, would I be violating some kind of law?
Share this: Facebook Twitter Stumbleupon Reddit Email + More
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/23961
starts with a bang! 02.08.2010
the world's fair 02.09.2010
the white coat underground 02.08.2010
living the scientific life (scientist, interrupted) 02.08.2010
Comments
Posted by: John McKay | October 20, 2006 7:27 PM
But think how bad you'd feel if someone was devoured by Cthulu on you're street and you hadn't done all you could to warn them. I think you should play it safe and put up the sign.
Posted by: John McKay | October 20, 2006 7:32 PM
I meant "your street" (stupid fingers!).
Posted by: Cathy in Seattle | October 20, 2006 7:33 PM
John's right; how could you live with yourself?
I vote yes.
aaaiiiiiaaaaiiaiiiiaiiaiiai....!!!!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | October 20, 2006 7:45 PM
The lower-case letters on the Cthulhu sign just don't work. They rob it of its rightful air of versimilitude.
Posted by: profgrrrrl | October 20, 2006 8:10 PM
You simply *must* get that toy.
Posted by: John McKay | October 20, 2006 8:11 PM
I meant "your street" (stupid fingers!).
Posted by: Arun | October 20, 2006 8:25 PM
Your favorite James Bond movie must have been Octopussy.
Posted by: rrt | October 20, 2006 8:41 PM
That's what gloves are for...no fingerprints!
Posted by: D Mitchell | October 20, 2006 8:42 PM
Do you really think it would be fun to act out a gang assault on such a gorgeous creature? You need to spank your inner child.
Posted by: Ron Sullivan | October 20, 2006 9:04 PM
If you decide against using the stop sign, that would also look good among the other campaign signs on your curb strip.
As they say: Why settle for a lesser evil?
Posted by: BlueIndependent | October 20, 2006 9:08 PM
It would be more fitting if it was afixed somewhere near an industrial park or something...you know, enough ominous scenery to match the notion instilled by the sign.
Posted by: llewelly | October 20, 2006 9:32 PM
It's not a 'gang assault'. It's the arrival of helpless and unsuspecting prey. Do you really think a band of frogmen has any hope against that feared denizen of the deep, the Radioactive Octopus?
Posted by: PZ Myers | October 20, 2006 9:51 PM
You better believe it. When I'm playing with them in the bathtub, the frogmen are going to be utterly annihilated.
Posted by: Hank | October 20, 2006 10:17 PM
Just in case, better get one of THESE
http://www.mcphee.com/items/11675.html
to help defend your hapless frogmen. She will also come in handy on Talk Like A Pirate Day, and will be able to conduct FSM worship services. Plus, she's a total hottie.
Posted by: Zarquon | October 20, 2006 10:22 PM
If someone was taken by Cthukhu near your house then you'd be violating the LAWS OF CAUSALITY!! (void where prohibited)
Posted by: Mike Fox | October 20, 2006 11:35 PM
I don't know about Morris, but in the Twin Cities the laws regarding that would basically be that you couldn't affix it to a utility pole or on a major road. HOWEVER, it may be seen as interrupting the flow of traffic or a public nuisance if it is attached to the stop sign pole. Your best bet to keepin' it legal is to post it within someone's property lines. Second to that, making it's own pole to put it on. That said, you can always contact your local district attorney: http://www.co.clay.mn.us/Depts/Attorney/Attorney.htm or contact your own schools legal services.
Posted by: Steph | October 21, 2006 12:13 AM
Dear PZ,
I'm not sure about Twin Cities' regs but you'd definitely be even more trouble if you also mounted "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn - repeat 3 times" along with it.
(I'm also wondering whether you noticed my previous post in your going to NYC thread pointing out this ad on the NYC subways.)
Posted by: craig | October 21, 2006 4:20 AM
Whenever Cthulhu-related stuff comes up in conversation I always feel kind of left in the dark. I don't really know the reference, and I'm too lazy to research it.
Posted by: JohnJB | October 21, 2006 6:33 AM
Whenever Cthulhu-related stuff comes up in conversation I always feel kind of left in the dark.
Me too. I know the basic what, but don't get the pop-culture aspect that I sense going on.
Posted by: guthrie | October 21, 2006 7:21 AM
Maybe I can help....
I only read Cthulu stuff for the first time last year, despite being 28 years old and into SF and some fantasy for 20 of those years.
Essentially, if you know fo the Cthulkumythos, you'll get the rough idea of what its about. OK, i dont understand why people find it so great, but in the past few decades there ahve been a lot of live role playing games set up based upon the Cthulu mythos. BAsically you get to scare yourself silly and play until your brain melts, its all a kind of horror oriented set up.
Its a pop culture aspect predicated upon your membership of the loose group of people that edges upon geeks/ goths/ roleplayers/ computer obsessed almost-madmen.
As written about by Charles Stross in his book "The atrocity archives".
Posted by: guthrie | October 21, 2006 7:32 AM
My last comment got held for checking. Is anyone else having this happen to them?
Posted by: James Orpin | October 21, 2006 7:36 AM
I love the category "UNICORNS & NINJAS" on that site. What a cool combination.
Posted by: David Harmon | October 21, 2006 9:26 AM
Craig, JohnJB, Guthrie: To "get the spirit" of reading Lovecraft et seq, you mostly need to realize that in his time, most of his "foreign" locales were clear off the edge of the maps, well into "here be monsters" territory.
The "inbred rural" areas were playing off a somewhat different set of anxieties. Sometimes these are dismissed as mere racism, but they also represented the current fears of his time.... Back before universal phone service (let alone cell phones) had taken hold, before satellites had mapped every isolated valley and lonely island... well, it was a lot more plausible for people venturing away from "civilized territory" to just disappear. This was so even in "modern" America, much less off at sea, or in "Antarctic wastes"!
Likewise for space and time: The public was just becoming aware of how scarily big the sky was, and how many "strange aeons" had passed over the Earth before we petty humans had piled brick upon brick. And in a time when mental illness was still mostly "madness", but new science kept getting weirder and weirder... indeed, "ultimate truth" might well be enough to shatter men's minds!
Posted by: llewelly | October 21, 2006 10:58 AM
You think Cthulhu is boring. Cthulhu thinks your brain is a juicy snack.
Posted by: JohnJB | October 21, 2006 11:12 AM
Thanks, Pharyngulans guthrie & David. I was sure I'd learn something.
Posted by: Simple Country Physicist | October 21, 2006 11:15 AM
"The tree of liberty must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots."
Posted by: Cathy in Seattle | October 21, 2006 11:50 AM
>>Whenever Cthulhu-related stuff comes up in conversation I always feel kind of left in the dark. I don't really know the reference, and I'm too lazy to research it.
Posted by: craig | October 21, 2006 04:20 AM
25 years ago my soon-to-be husband and I read HP Lovecraft stories to each other at night. We're still married, so I recommend it.
Here's an interesting site:
http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-12-01
Posted by: Disgusted in St. Louis | October 21, 2006 5:36 PM
Wouldn't you rather have a 36" Plush Giant Octopus instead of the 9" soft vinyl octupus that glows in the dark?
Posted by: guthrie | October 21, 2006 7:16 PM
Yes, tahts a point I am not so familiar with, DAvid. Being from the UK, where we had the country mapped in the 16th century, (OK, not very well, but still...) and trains everywhere by the end of the 19th century, its kind of hard to imagine how bad things were in the out of hte way bits of even Eastern USA.
Posted by: bargal20 | October 21, 2006 10:17 PM
Here's the definitive Jack Chick-style tract that explains Cthulhu and what He means for you and your family: http://www.geocities.com/tribhis/cthulhutract.html
Posted by: Steve Watson | October 22, 2006 10:44 PM
Oh, go ahead PZ -- you know you want it. And while you're at it, this would add a certain je ne sais quois your car.
Posted by: arensb | October 23, 2006 9:21 AM
Yeah, Archie McPhee has all sorts of cool stuff. My stated excuse for visiting Seattle last year was to make a pilgrimage to their store, much to the surprise of the lady next to me on the plane.
Posted by: Warren | October 23, 2006 12:15 PM
The joy of the Cthulhu Mythos, as presented by Lovecraft, is that it was more or less the antidote to the obsession in the teens and early 20s for world conquest, for exploration, for domination. Sure, Tut-ankh-ahmun had been dug up ... but what else might be lurking in the dark and forgotten tombs of a mad king whose name had been carefully effaced from all records, from all memory? What unnatural, eldritch and arcane horrors lay in the forgotten vales of Appalachia? What hideous nightmares stalked human prey in the furthest reaches of the Tibetan plateau?
Lovecraft dared to suggest something that most people still find inconceivable: That the human race is simply insignificant on a cosmic scale, that if there are other life forms out there, they may be so far beyond our comprehension that they wouldn't even notice our world as they destroyed it in some casual cosmic tiff.
That is pretty heady stuff.