Excerpts from the Diary of Theodore Miro, Competitor on CryptoChefs Season 2

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Mad Scientist Journal

An account by Theodore Miro, as provided by Zach Bartlett
Art by Leigh Legler

May 6th

I understand that TV audiences want to see a little more showmanship than I’m used to providing on the line back at Lilette, but this is ridiculous. They trucked in a six-foot tall burlap sack with “HOUSE FEED” painted on the side, and we had to spend two hours getting shots of me and some crew pouring it out onto a giant plate. They kept having to refill the bag between takes, and I had nothing to do but sit around in the freezing-ass Russian afternoon. The only wifi reception out here is a 1980-looking suitcase laptop with one of those inch-thick rubber antennas. I think all it does is let Chaz keep in touch with the producers through some kinda HAM radio satellite or whatever. No apps or anything. I’d tried making small talk with him in between takes, but I think the only thing he’s ever actually read is liner notes from Smash Mouth albums. Album, singular? I don’t even know. He sure would though.

All I want to do is go with Benny [Dr. Benjamin Havener, the show’s cryptozoology consultant. -ed.] and trap the damn hut so I can figure out if it’s even going to have some edible meat on or in it. He already let it slip that my first round is going to be against a guy who’s serving Sasquatch. The longest pork! I’m going to have to do a lot more than toss those legs in Buffalo sauce if I want to advance to the next bracket. But can I just plate it and be done? No, I’m contractually obligated to cheese it up with a bag of fake house feed and have tedious interviews with Chaz where he keeps trying to work a handful of sponsors into the conversation.

Benny, at the very least, is as frustrated with the reality TV junk as I am. Dude is all business, and his business is hunting down things most people don’t think exist for a few people who have more money than most people. During breaks, he hangs with the crew and tells us stories about tracking Mothmen who were messing with fracking sites in Virginia, or throwing back Loch Ness Monster fry that weren’t regulation size. One guy during dinner asked him if he’d ever hunted vampires, and Benny started laughing. Like, a chest-heaving face-turning-red giggle fit at the idea that someone would ask him that. The guy felt embarrassed and went back to his trailer after like thirty seconds of it, and Benny recovered maybe another ten seconds after that. He apologized and just picked up in the story he was telling before. I didn’t realize until we’d all turned in for the night that he never actually answered the guy’s question.

I’m drinking tonight from a bottle of … something wet. All the words on the label have those make-believe letters with dots and little arrows on top of them. Any grappa in a storm!

~

May 7th

Chaz can quit calling me “my man,” or I’m gonna keep flubbing lines and making him restart scenes until he does. We only have like six hours of sunlight a day up here. Hostbro gotta learn, this teddy bear’s got the subtle claws.

Today, they shot footage of me and Benny walking through a sporting goods store looking at hunting equipment and making exaggerated frowny faces, then they had him take a compound bow up to the counter and ask the clerk if they had “anything bigger” while I held my arms out wide. The clerk refused to let the cameraman get reaction shots of him making a corny surprised face, and apparently the crew hadn’t actually gotten written permission to film in the store, because a guy who I swear to God was the model for the Heavy in TF2 came out of a back room and started shouting at us. I don’t speak Russian, but I knew to beat feet because the body language for my-foot-comma-your-ass is universal. Benny said the guy might even have had some ‘squatch in him.

There are two days left until the hunt, and I still haven’t figured out what to do with the hut’s legs. I could easily scale up my usual fried chicken recipe and maybe brine ’em in an inground pool, but there’s no way frying in oil would cook through something that size before the outside was completely burned. I could cut them up and make hundreds of tenders out of them if that’s how it needs to go, but damn, that will hurt the professional pride.

~

May 8th

I did not even know orphans were a thing you could just go out and get, but I guess when you’re raking in that streaming TV money, it opens up a lot of doors. Orphanage doors.

Somebody in a suit showed earlier up looking for Chaz with a five-year-old kid handcuffed to one arm and a briefcase to the other. He had Chaz sign some paperwork then uncuffed the kid and left. Even for Russia’s reputation, it seemed shady as all hell, and I say that as a guy who’s worked back-of-house at an Emeril restaurant. Benny didn’t know any details about how they … leased? … the kid, but said that he wouldn’t let him come to harm under any circumstances. They just needed him for bait. Apparently the Baba Yaga can tell if a kid is an actual orphan, so they couldn’t have hired an actor.

We also got one of those giant back-hoe cranes delivered, which four-year-old Teddy would have thought was awesome, but it seems pretty tame in comparison to some of the stuff that’s gone down in the last week.

Art for "Excerpts from the Diary of Theodore Miro, Competitor on CryptoChefs Season 2"

I was worried that they might wind up being magical wood or something, but I can confirm that the chicken legs of Baba Yaga’s hut are, in fact, made out of regular chicken meat.

To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2018 collection.

Theodore “Teddy” Miro is a chef, dancer, and poet. He’s worked the line at Lilette, Quenelle’s, Emeril’s Delmonico, and has strutted the length of the Big Easy several times over with his marching krewe. His first chapbook Wisdom from the Marrow is forthcoming from Next Left Press. He is legally barred from discussing any time he may or may not have spent in Russia, but he doesn’t usually drink with lawyers.

Zach Bartlett is an editor and former Masshole living in New Orleans. His fiction has appeared in Gallery of Curiosities, The J.J. Outre Review, and Mad Scientist Journal, and is performed regularly at the local reading series Esoterotica. A collection of his comedic stage work, Northern Dandy, was published in 2016. You can find more of him online at http://zachbistall.wordpress.com.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

“Excerpts from the Diary of Theodore Miro, Competitor on CryptoChefs Season 2” is Copyright 2017 Zach Bartlett
Art accompanying story is © 2017 Leigh Legler

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Strange Science: Corpse Consumption

Posted on January 5, 2018 by scarywhitegirl

Humans have long believed in all sorts of weird remedies and supplements for their continued health. But cannibalism? That might be taking it a bit too far.

Nonetheless, Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries had a wide array of curatives that were derived from human body parts, mummified or otherwise. According to author Richard Sugg, who published Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians in 2012, “The question was not, ‘Should you eat human flesh?’ but, ‘What sort of flesh should you eat?'”.

Antholopologist Beth Conklin makes a distinction between New World cannibalism and European corpse medicine: “The one thing that we know is that almost all non-Western cannibal practice is deeply social in the sense that the relationship between the eater and the one who is eaten matters. In the European process, this was largely erased and made irrelevant. Human beings were reduced to simple biological matter equivalent to any other kind of commodity medicine.”

If you’d like to read more about the details of this gruesome form of medicine, check out this article from 2012 at Smithsonian Magazine.

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Review of Full Throttle by Jon Hartless

Posted on January 3, 2018 by scarywhitegirl

Cover art for Full ThrottleFull Throttle (Accent Press, 2017) is a fascinating story of a working-class girl’s struggles in the world of competitive car racing in an alternate Edwardian steampunk/dieselpunk setting. MSJ alum Jon Hartless weaves a compelling tale of family, friendship, and burgeoning romance set in this world, while still appealing to lovers of technology and racecars.

Poppy Orpington, the novel’s main character, has struggled with her disabilities for her whole life. Her father has had his own struggles, including the all-consuming Thunderbus, his diesel-powered automobile. In a world where cars are steam-powered, the Thunderbus is an oddity, but Robert Orpington is certain that his invention is the way of the future. After a chance casual race against a member of the upper class, the Orpingtons and Poppy’s best friend Amy are swept into a different lifestyle as they prepare to race the gargantuan Thunderbus against steam-powered racecars.

While the book primarily tells Poppy’s story, it does occasionally veer into the points of view of other characters in the story. While this head-hopping is unusual, Hartless executes this technique in a clear way that doesn’t leave the reader confused. The novel is also filled with endnotes, which are a sort of fictional author’s commentary on the story and how the pieces were put together from journals and other first-hand accounts. It’s unlike any other novel I’ve read in that regard.

This book will appeal to a wide array of readers, whether they’re fans of the real Edwardian period or alternate history, steampunk or dieselpunk, or stories dealing with the intersections of class politics, sexism, disability, and same-sex relationships, set against a backdrop of racecars.

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A Chef’s Microbiology

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Mad Scientist Journal

Reviewed by Phil A. Minyawn
Brought to our attention by E. B. Fischadler
Art by Scarlett O’Hairdye

If you’re reading this over lunch, or even a snack, put it away until you’re done eating. For that matter, don’t read A Chef’s Microbiology by Lotta Wurms unless you need to drop a few dozen pounds; it has left me wondering if I will ever eat again. This book comes on the heels of Wurms’ other fine book on food: Digestive Forensics, in which Wurms describes how she learned that her adolescent was gorging on junk food by examining the child’s vomitus. Wurms on food is (are?) clearly suitable only for those with an iron stomach.

The book starts off innocently enough, enumerating the dozens of species of microbes that create the several varieties of green and blue cheese. Wurms soon digresses far afield when she purports to demonstrate the existence of life on the moon, specifically the microbe “Noxious Gorgonzolas,” which, she argues, converted a pleasant Camembert into the green cheese that composes the Earth’s satellite.

She returns to more familiar turf, albeit macro, not microbiology, in her discussions of biologic meat tenderizers. Reading her formula for crispy beef made me gag on a dish of rice. Wurms places a tough cut of beef with hundreds of maggots into a plastic bag that she tosses in the fridge for a few days. Over that period, the maggots eat most of the connective tissue in the meat, making it tender. Wurms also recommends this as a means to store meat without refrigeration, as the maggots prefer meat gone bad; they will eat the rancid outer layers, leaving a core of fresh meat.

The meat, maggots and all, is then roasted at 350 degrees for 30 minutes per pound. The result is a medium to well-done roast, tender inside with a crunchy outer coating. My nutritionist neighbor insists the coating has no nutrient value, but that it acts like an overdose of fiber on the digestive tract.

Wurms’ concept for the “kitchen silo” arose when she noted that some popular high-fiber digestive aids are merely fine wood fibers dissolved in water. She sets up a stovepipe on the counter, into which she tosses peels, rinds, and used toothpicks. She then “starts” the silo with an over-the-counter probiotic. After several weeks, Wurms pulls the resulting silage from the bottom of the stack, which she serves as a side dish similar to naturally fermented sauerkraut. It’s a bit hard to discriminate between Wurms’ silage and compost–both taste about the same to me. This may be an example of the fine distinctions one encounters in haute cuisine.

Art for "A Chef's Microbiology"

Several novel approaches to meats appear in Wurms’ book. Her technique of using hemorrhagic fevers to render meat free of blood and thus kosher must be employed with caution. Unless one selects a disease that can be killed by heat, the consumer will be rendered as pale as the beef.

To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2018 collection.

Phil A. Minyawn came to culinary science with a degree in physics. He readily made the transition from nuclear fusion to fusion cuisine. His book If it Quarks Like a Duck … is based on his dissertation, Sweeping a Few Particles Under the Rug. He is also well known for his biography of Leonard McCoy, Physicist, Physician–It’s All the Same to Me. Minyawn is currently Oscar-Meyer professor of sausage and franks and is much in demand for his lecture series “you don’t know beans.”

E. B. Fischadler has been writing short stories for several years, and has recently begun publishing. His stories have appeared in Mad Scientist Journal, Bewildering Stories, eFiction, Voluted Tales, Beyond Imagination Literary Magazine, and Beyond Science Fiction. In addition to fiction, Fischadler has published over 30 papers in refereed scientific journals, as well as a chapter of a textbook on satellite engineering. When he is not writing, he pursues a career in engineering and serves his community as an EMT. Fischadler continues to write short stories and is working on a novel about a naval surgeon. You can learn more about Fischadler and access his other publications at: http://ebfischadler.wordpress.com/

Scarlett O’Hairdye is a burlesque performer, producer and artist. To learn more, visit her site at www.scarlettohairdye.com.

“A Chef’s Microbiology” is Copyright 2017 E. B. Fischadler
Art accompanying story is Copyright 2017 Scarlett O’Hairdye

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Strange Science: Feathered Dinosaurs

Posted on December 29, 2017 by scarywhitegirl
Artist's rendering of a velociraptor

Matt Martyniuk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Velociraptor_dinoguy2.jpg) CC-by-sa-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Paleontologists have learned a considerable amount about dinosaurs in recent years, allowing them to rename or reclassify some dinosaurs. They’ve also learned a lot about what dinosaurs really looked like, based on fossil evidence.

The latest discovery is a feathered dinosaur tail trapped in amber. The dinosaur itself was only about the size of a sparrow, but the structure of the tail shows that it was a dinosaur, not a bird.

Since only the dinosaur’s tail was preserved in this amber fragment, paleontologists can’t be sure if the rest of the dinosaur’s body was also feathered, nor whether it was a flying or gliding creature. Still, the information they’ve gained from this lucky discovery gives them a new avenue for investigation!

You can read more about this feathered dinosaur tail here!

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On Kickstarter: Victoria Black #1

Posted on December 27, 2017 by scarywhitegirl

Comic book art from Victoria Black #1If you like your comic books gory, gritty, and violent, you owe it to yourself to check out the Kickstarter for Victoria Black #1. The sample images shown in the Kickstarter appear to cover all of those angles, and then some! It’s also created by a team primarily comprising people of color, and the protagonist is a black woman assassin. All in all, this looks like it’s going to be a fun ride!

The Kickstarter is running through January 26th, and has a modest funding goal for producing the first three issues of this comic. So head on over and check it out!

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Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2018 now available

Posted on December 26, 2017 by scarywhitegirl

Cover art for Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2018Cooking advice, previously undiscovered species, and tortured artists. These are but some of the strange tales to be found in this book.

Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2017 collects thirteen tales from the fictional worlds of mad science. For the discerning mad scientist reader, there are also pieces of fiction from Laura Arciniega, Judith Field, and Alexander Forbes. Readers will also find other resources for the budding mad scientist, including an advice column, gossip column, and other brief messages from mad scientists.

Authors featured in this volume also include E. B. Fischadler, Zach Bartlett, Catherine L. Brooke, Tamoha Sengupta, Darren Ridgley, Maureen Bowden, H. Pueyo, J. A. Psoras, Robert Dawson, J. A. Grier, Stewart C. Baker, Rebecca Siân Pyne, Joachim Heijndermans, Sophie Sparrow, David Wing, Andy Brown, Lucinda Gunnin, and Sean Frost. Art provided by Errow Collins, Scarlett O’Hairdye, Shannon Legler, Luke Spooner, Amanda Jones, Justine McGreevy, and Liz Argall.

Available at:

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Don’t Miss Today’s Webinar on ExitZ, the World’s Only Zombie Employee Offboarding Software Solution

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Mad Scientist Journal

A webinar by Margot Sanchez, as provided by Jessie Kwak
Art by Luke Spooner

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the webinar.

My name is Margot, and I’m the chief training officer for GreenLeaf HR Solutions. Today I’m just going to be going over some of the features of ExitZ, the world’s only HR platform to combine a quick and painless zombie employee offboarding process with early warning analytics to prevent further infections of your team.

Before we get started, I wanted to go over a couple of housekeeping items. First, I know you were all expecting to meet with our lead product innovator, Lauren. I’m sorry to say that, ah, Lauren isn’t feeling great right now, so I’ve got her notes, and I’m stepping in.

You’re in good hands.

Second, you should see a chat box to the right of the video. Can you all just let me know if you can see and hear me okay?

Mario, thanks. Thanks, Joanna. Great. Trish, Manoush, awesome. Thanks, everybody.

Paul, can you try closing your browser and relaunching the webinar? Everyone else seems to be seeing and hearing me fine. So just–

Okay, well, it looks like he closed out. Hopefully he can join us in a minute.

Okay.

Well.

While we’re waiting for Paul, I just want to let you all know that you can leave any questions you have for me in the chat box. My assistant, Inez, is going to be flagging them all for me, and I’ll answer them at the end. Okay?

I’m going to jump right in with some quick GreenLeaf history, which you may or may not know.

GreenLeaf has actually–you may know this–we’ve actually been developing Human Resources software solutions for over twenty years now. A lot of you are probably familiar with our flagship product, ZenHR.

Just a quick show of hands, can you click the “raise hand” button in the chat if you’ve used–or use–ZenHR?

Joanna, it’s in the lower–sorry, let me check–yeah, the lower left part of the chat screen.

Oh, and hi, Paul, glad you can hear me now.

Technology, right, it’s amazing except for when it’s not working!

So, back to the history. About two years ago, when the first cases of zombieism were reported in Missoula, GreenLeaf was one of the first to realize just what a challenge it was going to be for HR directors to offboard zombie employees. Our product was actually in beta by the time the outbreak had gone national, and I’m proud to say we have over 3,500 users today.

Including, hopefully, you folks. So, thanks for checking out the webinar.

We’ve designed the survey with really basic yes or no questions and word associations that most Level I zombies can still comprehend. We worked with some of the best zombie psychologists and instructional designers to come up with this, and it’s really actually very effective.

To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Autumn 2017 collection.

Margot Sanchez was CTO of GreenLeaf HR Solutions until she contracted an unfortunate case of zombieism. If you have any questions about ZenHR, ExitZ, or any of our other innovative HR software solutions please address them to her assistant, Inez Martin, who will be taking over her duties for the time being.

Jessie Kwak is a B2B marketing copywriter and novelist who sometimes amuses herself by imagining how much more lively corporate communications would be during the time of the zombie apocalypse. Her short fiction has appeared in Bikes in Space vols 1-4, and you can find her paranormal and gangster sci-fi novels on her website, jessiekwak.com.

Luke Spooner, a.k.a. ‘Carrion House,’ currently lives and works in the South of England. Having recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a first class degree, he is now a full time illustrator for just about any project that piques his interest. Despite regular forays into children’s books and fairy tales, his true love lies in anything macabre, melancholy, or dark in nature and essence. He believes that the job of putting someone else’s words into a visual form, to accompany and support their text, is a massive responsibility, as well as being something he truly treasures. You can visit his web site at www.carrionhouse.com.

“Don’t Miss Today’s Webinar on ExitZ, the World’s Only Zombie Employee Offboarding Software Solution” is Copyright 2017 Jessie Kwak
Art accompanying story is Copyright 2017 Luke Spooner

This story originally appeared in Business as Usual: Corporate Communications in the Zombie Apocalypse.

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Strange Science: Red Onions Turning Green!

Posted on December 22, 2017 by scarywhitegirl

We at Mad Scientist Journal have recently been undertaking some culinary experiments. Jeremy is learning to bake gluten-free breads, pies, and cookies, while Dawn is learning to make Ethiopian food.

One of our recent experiments was an Ethiopian lentil stew, which involved some red onions. The pot of stew made more than enough for leftovers. But when it came time to eat the leftovers, the onions had turned bright green, more the color of green peppers than any onion we’d ever seen!

Our first hypothesis was that perhaps the turmeric in the stew had dyed the onions–after all, a plastic lid that soaked in the water-filled pot in the sink had been dyed yellow. But we did a little research, and discovered that the cause was something entirely different.

Onions serve as a form of a litmus test, showing whether a substance is acidic or basic/alkaline. In the case of our lentil stew, it was apparently quite alkaline, and so the onions turned green. It’s also possible that they could have turned blue due to the alkalinity, which would have contrasted quite nicely with the yellow of the stew.

If you’ve got leftovers in your fridge that contain onions, you may see a similar reaction. Don’t worry, it’s still entirely edible. It’s just a little weird!

You can read more about the science behind this in the following articles:

 

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That Man Behind the Curtain: November 2017

Posted on December 21, 2017 by Mad Scientist Journal
Kittens peeking from a shelf.

Stormy (top) and Foggy (bottom) are the new feline interns at Mad Scientist Journal. Here they demonstrate their problem solving skills by getting higher up the bookcase than we thought they could.

November was relatively quiet, with most of our effort going towards getting Winter 2018 out the door.

Probably the biggest excitement, which bled over to December, were exceptional problems getting our proof copy of the quarterly. Pro-tip: make sure your zip code on your shipping address is correct.

The Money Aspect

Amounts in parentheses are losses/expenses.
Hosting: (-$17.06)
Stories: (-$100.00)
Art: (-$358.43)
Advertising: (-$80.19)
Processing Fees: (-$9.57)
Donations: $38.71
Ad Revenue: $0.31
Online Book Sales: $84.47

Total: (-$441.76)
QTD: (-$527.80)
YTD: (-$6,121.53)
All Time: (-$25,700.00)

As usual, I try to list costs for art and stories under the month that the stories run on the site rather than when I pay them. (This does not apply to special content for quarterlies, which does not have a specific month associated with it.) Sales are for sales when they take place, not when they’re actually paid out to me. Online book sales reflect the royalties given after the retailer takes their cut. Physical book sales represent gross income, not counting the cost of the physical book. Donations include Patreon as well as other money sent to us outside of standard sales.

Art costs were up a little higher due to paying for cover art. We had no conventions in November, so no physical sales.

Submissions

In November, we were closed to submissions. Our all time acceptance rate remains 38.1%.

Followers

Below is the social media following we had at the end of November.

Patreon: 13 (-2)

Facebook: 1,736 (+27)

Twitter: 567 (+10)

Tumblr: 249 (-17)

Mailing List: 84 (+5)

Google+: 64 (+1)

Traffic

Last Three Months:

November 2017: 1,491 visits, 1,137 users, 2,108 page views, peak day of 121.
October 2017: 1,408 visits, 1,134 users, 2,179 page views, peak day of 107.
September 2017: 1,666 visits, 1,266 users, 2,841 page views, peak day of 135.

Last three Novembers:

November 2016: 959 visits, 701 users, 1,475 pages views, peak day of 69 visits.
November 2015: 576 visits, 427 users, 970 page views, peak day of 45 visits.
November 2014: 946 visits, 600 users, 1,595 page views, peak day of 93 visits

Traffic is up significantly from previous years, especially compared to October. Since we were closed to submissions, that’s particularly surprising. As is typical, StumbleUpon and Facebook are our primary sources of traffic. Since I don’t pay for advertising on StumbleUpon, I’m particularly impressed. I keep thinking I need to advertise more on Twitter, but haven’t yet.

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