2008 Rondo Awards are in.

Well if you didn't figure it out my my complete lack of screaming and strutting I didn't get a Rondo. But that's OK this is one of the awards that it truly is enough to be honoured with a nomination. But that does mean I'm NOT doing the 100 ways to kill yourself post.

Congratulations to all the well deserving winners and to fellow LOTTD members Max Cheney (Drunken Severed Head Blog) who took runner up, and Brian Solomon (Vault of Horror) and Stacie Ponder(Final Girl) who scored honourable mentions in the Best Blog catagory. Here is the Official Rondo Press release:

Barbie tops Creature in Rondo model showdown

Rue Morgue takes four Rondos; Twilight Zone is Best Book;

Rich Koz as Svengoolie is voted favorite horror host;

Tim Lucas is Best Writer; Basil Gogos is Best Artist;

Ackerman's caregiver Joe Moe is named Monster Kid of Year

MARCH 24, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By David Colton
CHFB News

ARLINGTON, VA -- Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, TV's The Munsters and Ray Harryhausen's
7th Voyage of Sinbad were all winners Monday in the Seventh Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror
Awards, which also honored the man who cared for sci-fi legend Forrest J Ackerman in the final
years of his life.

But the biggest surprise came when a special "Hitchcock" edition of Barbie, dressed like
Tippi Hedren and swarmed by miniature crows from The Birds, topped the Creature from the Black
Lagoon in a showdown for Best Model, Toy or Collectible.

Not only did the 50-year-old doll from Mattel beat out the green-scaled Creature, but she outclassed
models from The Exorcist, Invasion of the Saucermen and even an action figure of Rondo Hatton himself,
the obscure 1940s horror actor who inspired the fan awards.

The Rondos are an annual celebration of the vintage monsters who sparked almost a century of horror films
and sequels. The worldwide online survey by the Classic Horror Film Board, a 14-year old online community, is
the largest in the genre and drew a record 2,932 emailed votes.

Beyond Barbie's latest triumph, winners Monday ranged from the modern -- The Dark Knight was
voted best film of 2008, the BBC's Doctor Who was favorite television show -- to classic horrors from the past:

-- A new edition of the 1960 film, Psycho, was voted Best Classic Horror DVD.
-- A collection of Harryhausen's 1950s science fiction films, including a colorized Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,
was named Best DVD Collection, and the collected episodes of The Munsters was the favorite TV collection.
-- The painstaking reconstruction of Carl Dreyer's atmospheric 1932 chiller, Vampyr, was voted Best
Restoration.

The most emotional moments came when it was announced in an online ceremony that a Los Angeles
producer, Joe Moe, had been named "Monster Kid of the Year,'' for his long years serving as a friend and
caregiver for horror and science fiction collector Ackerman. The founder of Famous Monsters of Filmland
magazine, Ackerman died this year at the age of 92.

"For his quiet, constant and unwavering stewardship of Forrest J Ackerman's final decade of life,'' the
Rondo citation reads, "Joe Moe revealed not only the man behind Mr. Monster, but the grace and
strength of the ultimate fan. For being there when we all couldn't, Joe Moe is Monster Kid of the Year.''

Moe, contacted by phone during the event, said, "If ever there was a time when I needed my monster
family, it's now. Thank you so much for validating the work I tried to do in a fashion that would make
all of you proud. I tried not to cry for Forry but now that he's gone, this honor from you, my pals, has me
in tears. Thank you so much."

Other winners included:

-- Best DVD Extra: "One for the Fire,'' a documentary about the making of Night of the Living Dead.
-- Best DVD Commentary: Makeup master Rick Baker, Bob Burns, Scott Essman, Steve Haberman and
Brent Armstrong for The Mummy (1932).
-- Best Documentary: Spine-Tingler: The William Castle Story.
-- Book of the Year: The Twilight Zone by Martin Grams.
-- Best Magazine: Rue Morgue.
-- Best Article: "Coffin Joe Resurrected,'' a look at the legendary Brazilian filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins,
by Scott Gabbey and Jovanka Vuckovic in Rue Morgue.
-- Best Magazine Cover: Rue Morgue #83, a portrait of Ackerman by longtime Famous Monsters artist
Basil Gogos.
-- Best Website: Trailers from Hell.
-- Best Blog: Video Watchblog.

-- Convention of the Year: WonderFest in Louisville.
-- Fan Event of the Year: World Zombie Day.
-- Favorite Horror Host: Svengoolie, played by Rich Koz, in Chicago.
-- Best Horror Audio Site: Rue Morgue Radio.
-- CD of the Year: Soundtrack of The Blob by Monstrous Movie Music.
-- Best Horror Comic Book: Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch, by Mike Mignola.
-- Biggest controversy: An L.A. fan's disputed claim he had once examined the long-lost Lon Chaney
film, London After Midnight.

-- Writer of the Year: Tim Lucas, author and editor of Video Watchdog
-- Artist of the Year: Basil Gogos.
-- Favorite DVD Reviewer: Glenn Erickson of DVD Savant.
-- Vasaria Public Citizen Award: Cameron McCasland and Creature Cinema for public service announcements
by Nashville's Dr. Gangrene and Nurse Moan-Eek.

-- Monster Kid Hall of Fame inductees: European horror actor Paul Naschy, Jim and Marian Clatterbaugh of
Monsters from the Vault magazine, painter Ken Kelly, the late Calvin Beck, founder of Castle of Frankenstein
magazine, the late Lux Interior, lead singer for punk band The Cramps and an influence on the psychobilly
horror rock movement, and the late Bob Wilkins, original host of San Francisco's Creature Features.

Many of the Rondo winners will receive Rondo busts, sculpted by Kerry Gammill and cast by Tim Lindsey,
at the Wonderfest convention in Louisville on May 16.

Further information, including runners-up and all the nominees, can be found at rondoaward.com

Battlestar Galactica: It has happened all before (answers revealed)

Blog Macabre going sci-fi??? well we'll indulge just this once shall we. So The New Battlestar Galactica has come to an end and fans are in a divided tizzy. Did the ending suck or was it epic, was it a bold conclusion to a bold series or was it a cop out just to try and tie up as many loose ends as they could? Well folks the greatest surprise of all is that BSG (as it has become known) was actually just another of the multitudes of unique incarnations of the Douglas Adams epic The Hitchhikers' guide to the Galaxy. Although much of the story from day one was a dramatic departure from Adams' tale, the writers finally played their hand and revealed in the final episode that this was indeed the case. It had happened all before in fact it happened first in 1979 with the BBC radio series and then the books in which apparently no two publishing's are alike, the 1981 TV series, a later DC comic book adaptation and a multimillion dollar Hollywood flop. In fact the greater the BSG story strayed from the source the more consistent with the HHG omnibus the show became until the final culmination of events where the cast finally arrive at Earth mark2 to start all over again.

With this secret now revealed with the series finale, fans can now look to Adams' works to fill in the gaps that the BSG writers left with somewhat unsatisfactory conclusions...

What of Kara's final fate?
As it turns out, she is inexplicably reunited with the Cylons at a chance meeting at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

What's with Hera? All that for a postscript about being the mitochondrial Eve?
Well there is a bit more to it than that, but that is the gist of it. It would seem that being the last offspring of both the colonists and the Cylons, locked in her primitive brain was the question to the answer of life the universe and everything that the mice wanted so dearly And by mice I mean the pan dimensional beings or "angels" represented by Head Baltar and Head Six.

What of all the dream sequences at the opera house leading up to a rather pedestrian conclusion in reality?
The simplest answer here is that it all took place when the series reached an improbability factor of 2*310888005:1 against which interestingly is Tom Desanto's phone number in Hollywood.

What happened to the Centurions?
Their home planet and in fact their entire solar system was destroyed at the conclusion of a Disaster Area concert which was the first and coincidentally last stop on their short lived "Ultimate Armageddon"tour.

Who was God? why did he hate being called that? and was it the Cylon God or the Human God?
We know they are now colonizing earth mark2 created by the Magratheans commissioned by the mice/angels/pan dimensional beings/the colour blue and designed by the semi-omniscient computer Deep Thought (the Cylon god it would seem). Problem solved.

So there you have it fans, until the next time (and the one after that, and the one following that...)
Gary D. Macabre

Attention Goths and EMO kids

What the hell I may as well do some shameless self promotion for the Rondo Award: best blog category myself. So I'm appealing to the Teenage Goth and EMO kid demographic here. (Hey you guys won Rob Zombie a Rondo for best picture last year after all, right!)

So if you think your life sucks and nobody understands you, you hate them all and would rather go somewhere dark and be alone with other freaks and vamps like yourselves, even if that does contradict the whole concept of alone, who cares the critics can just go to hell anyway, or you're not worthy of existence and want some recognition while your here to bemoan it before skagging yourself (or at least making it look like you're trying to), well then this blog is for you.

So go to the rondo site and mail in your ballot and vote Blogue Macabre for best blog so we can all rule together for one day. Well actualy I'll have a Rondo Award so I won't suck quite so much, but hey, that just legitimises your selfloathing a bit more now doesn't it.

And if I win I promise I'll post Gary D Macabre's top 100 ways to kill yourself and make someone else's life really suck in the process.