Soviet Space Stamps

These were sent to me by my Belgian pal Peter Dans-
saert.

Click on the image twice, to get them really big!

Survival Under Atomic Attack

A reader named John, commenting on the WHY STUDY SCIENCE? thread, asked to see a film about surviving atomic attack. Here it is, John!

(There's no static image on the screen, but just click the PLAY button on the bottom of the viewing window.)

Micronations

The concept of micronations is a fascinating idea. I utilized the notion in one of my recent stories, the title piece from The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories. But I hardly began to exhaust the narrative possibilities of the idea.










Here's a recent article on one such place, the Republic of Molossia.

Sexy First Ladies

As anyone who has not been living for the past several years deep in Carlsbad Caverns knows, the great nation of France, upholding its richest traditions, boasts one of the sexiest first ladies around, in the person of Carla Bruni.

But as we are reminded today, in this profile of Vaclav Havel in The New York Times, Czechoslovakia once boasted an equally alluring first lady in the person of Dagmar Veskrnova. (We've been forced to hide Mrs. Havel's photo behind the jump, due to its mildly NSFW nature.)

Now, both Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama are great-looking women, and will certainly grace the White House. But it seems to me that Dagmar Veskrnova's bar-raising status as "an actress almost 20 years [Havel's] junior known for her role as a topless vampire" could only be met here in the USA by someone such as Elvira or Julie Strain.



Since McCain seems arguably the underdog in the race for president, Weird Universe hereby offers this free political advice: ditch Cindy, and pick up either Elvira or Julie.

It would certainly change our votes!

More >>

Follies of the Mad Men #5

[NOTE: this is actually two image files, upper and lower, and you need to click on each one for enlargement. From The Saturday Evening Post for October 23, 1965.]

Sorry I didn't get this one up in time for Fourth of July--but then again, WU hadn't debuted then!

In any case, this ad is very confused. It seems to be appealing to the mystical vibe of the ever-iconic American War of Independence, what with the flintlock pistol and all. But then again, Sexy Car-crawling Girl is patently an attempt to attract the Pepsi Generation, those wild 'n' wacky "rebellious" kids, with their surfboards and long hair and love beads.

So who's supposed to want to buy a Polara? Mom and Pop Daughters-of-the-American-Revolution? Or little Janie Peace-Sign?

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.