In a completely mundane work-related Googling expedition on my most hated of workdays, (Tuesday) I stumbled across the kind of beautiful random treasure that only the glories of the internet could serve up. There, completely unblocked by the company’s firewall, sat a mixture of two words I hated myself for never considering putting together.

I am of course referring to the words “werewolf” and “haiku.”

Ryan Mecum’s poetry is like if a kick to the nuts felt exactly the opposite of how it really feels. Its that good. In doing a little more digging I found he has also composed books of Vampire Haiku and Zombie Haiku as well. I know what you’re thinking and yeah, that’s pretty much a trifecta of awesome.

Read “Werewolf Haiku” here on Scribd.com for free, and be jealous you didn’t come up with the idea first. Happy Friday, strange ones.

What better way to celebrate my birthday than by giving you a new story? That’s right strange ones, on July 12th, the day when I came nude and screaming into the world covered in all kinds of disturbing liquids, I’ll be posting the newest short story “Blossom” right here on STRANGITIES.com to commemorate this blessed event. This one is a coming of age tale of a young girl as only could happen in the land of STRANGITIES, so come on back on Monday for your dose of free weirdness.

And don’t forget, you can have your STRANGITIES in meatspace as well! STRANGITIES: Volume I is available for sale now! See the nifty button up there in the right hand corner? Click it! Buy it! Love it!

Also, STRANGITIES: Volume I will also be available on the Amazon Kindle & in its respective bookstore this week! Get those iPhones, iPads, & eInk readers fired up!

The moment all three of you have been waiting for has finally arrived! STRANGITIES: Volume I collects over 20 short stories featured here at STRANGITIES.com into paperback for the first time ever. Several trees were violently slaughtered in the creation of this tome of the fantastic and bizarre, which features such tales as “Stuffed” and “The Dream Chemist” as well as collecting the first three episodes of the popular noir “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” into one place. If you’re what people refer to as a “weirdo” you should probably own STRANGITIES: Volume I. So click here! Buy it now!

Those of you who are common visitors to the site will no doubt have noticed that the “Stories” category to the right is a whole lot emptier than it was yesterday. ‘So where did all the awesome free short stories go?’ you ask. And my answer is this: “They’ve all been included in STRANGITIES: Volume I.” This is to make room for all the NEW short stories that are coming your way, starting with the third installment of “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” which I’ll post here, for free as always, on Friday, June 18th. (Or, if you can’t wait, its available NOW in the special edition of “Corner,” the most recent single from Blue Stahli. Catch up on Episode I here, and Episode II here.) Each short story I write will be posted as its completed, just like you’re used to, and each story will be free to read here at STRANGITIES.com, just like always. And to help you keep up with when new stories go live, I’ve added an RSS feed for you to follow, the “contact” button to the right will get you onto the STRANGITIES email list, or as always you can follow my inane 140 character ramblings via Twitter.

Slight change to the publishing date for STRANGITIES: Volume I. Looks like it’s going to get pushed back to Friday, June 4th, rather than being on the 1st as I had hoped. I’ll still be posting the newest story “The Dream Chemist” here this Friday, so that will have to hold you over.

I’ve been yacking about this on twitter, (and not facebook, which I’m boycotting due to their horrendous privacy practices)but in case you don’t follow my brilliant and deeply insightful comments I wanted to let you all know that I’m shooting for June 1st to release the first STRANGITIES volume in print. This will include 20+ short stories, so, you know, dig through the couch cushions (but be careful!) and save those pennies.

I know you all love “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” and the most recent retelling of Bret Stahli’s blander tales is now available as an eBook included in the Special Edition of the newest track “Corner.” This is the last single before the full album, so get it while its hot. (And in case you hold an erroneous belief that Bret & I have a mature relationship, this is what we have been laughing about all week.) I will be posting Episode III here in a few months as well.

And speaking of posts, this month’s story “The Dream Chemist” is just about finished and will be showing up soon, so stay tuned.

It’s happened again! Another brilliant track from Blue Stahli, and another “More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” written by yours truly featured in the Special Edition. “Anti-You” is a ‘cyberpunk rooftop samurai swordfight from the year  2130 for your ears’ and I know if you enjoy anything here at STRANGITIES you’ll eat this track up. (The Special Edition also contains “Burning Bridges” which is an alternate version of Anti-You that I am particularly fond of.)

I’ll be releasing “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli: Episode II” here at the end of next week, so you’ll still be able to get your new STRANGITIES fix even if you don’t end up springing for the track. But I’ll tell you: you really should.

Now you can get STRANGITIES on your eReader! I’ve released “Strangities – Volume I” and “Strangities – Volume II” over at smashwords.com which has an eBook format for pretty much every eBook reader out there. Sure, they’re not quite as pretty as the PDF versions hosted here, but they’re portable, and they make great gifts for that cousin you just don’t understand.

www.bluestahli.com

You may notice a sudden glut of posts. Do not be alarmed. In efforts to make STRANGITIES.com a little more mobile-friendly (in the interim while I put together a specific mobile site,) I’ve loaded each short story as its own post. No more waiting for PDFs to load. Hooray!

Collateral damage was the newer posts got shoved way down to the bottom. But going forward this will be for the best. I promise you. And to prove my commitment, here is a fantastic short film called “The Brainwashers” by Patrick Bouchard. I caught this on my iPhone thanks to the NFB of Canada’s fantastic free iPhone app.

My newest short story “Strawman” is nearing completion. You’ll have it in time for Halloween. Keep your eyes here and follow the twitter feed where I do most of my updating.