"Sweet Spirits Of Nitre!"

Or, Ethyl, That Nice Lady
I beg your pardon if this title and opening throws you a bit, as Conrad's thought processes can be obscure, even to him.  Sometimes especially to him.  As with this.
     Sweet spirits of nitre are, all unknown to your humble scribe, a real thing, more scientifically known as "Ethyl Nitrite", which sounds rather like a vaudeville star of the late Fifties.  Hence that title.  Don't worry, she kept all her clothes on - like BOOJUM! she was Safe For Work.
     The actual blog title today is a phrase, more correctly an exclamation - perhaps even an expostulation! - from one of E. E. "Doc" Smith's sci-fi novels, probably one of the "Skylark" ones.  This, you see, was back in the day when Swearing Was Not Allowed, and all printed matter was Safe For Work*.  No cursing, not even in the form of a row of asterisks.

I have no idea what this is, except it looks terribly exciting!

     Quite why this phrase cropped up in your modest artisan's mind is, of course, an utter mystery.  Perhaps Doc was inspired by the spirit of Thomas Pynchon channeling Philip K Dick, as what did I find to be the answer to the first Cryptic Crossword clue thirty minutes later?
     No!  Not charcoal!

Top left, folks

     Whilst also incidentally proving that I had been "on fire" and completed the crossword, I do wonder about this coincidence.  Any comments, Phil?

"Aliens are manipulating your reality, Conrad.  It's the only explanation."

     Wowsers.  Not exactly heartening, Phil.  Thanks for your candour.

"Houdini And Doyle:  Strigoii"
Yes, note that title, gentle readers, as Conrad, looking at it from the other side of the room saw instead "Strigoli", which sounds like a pasta dish instead of the Children Of The Night.  This episode concerns Bram Stoker and, inevitably, "Dracula", which the scriptwriters claimed was going into a paperback edition.  "Hang on," instantly objected Conrad's Inner Pedant.  "A paperback edition that early in the history of publishing?"  A little digging reveals that it was unlikely yet plausible, as mass-market paperbacks had been around since the mid-nineteenth century.  But necessary, as the original had been published too early to fit into H&D's timeline**.

Close enough.

     Conrad was also skeptical - if he were a stick of rock it would have "Cynically disbelieving empiricist" all through the middle and would necessitate a stick so wide you could use it as a club - a bit skeptical of vampire cults springing up so soon after Dracula gets published.  Nowadays you can't avoid squadrons of pasty-faced Goths swarming beneath solitary streetlights, but back in 19 <coughcough>?
     Also the Chief Villain was easy to spot.  Scooby Doo's pernicious influence still echoes in the scriptwriters world ...

Strigoli.  No, that's not pasta sauce, it's blood ...

The Thing Is -
You have to admit the underlying is a pretty cool tee-shirt.

     I refer to the TEE-SHIRT not the obviously Photo-shopped Russian Ekranoplan.
     Look at that.  No girly stuff present, as in the film, which is one of Conrad's favouritest, just sheer unrelenting TERROR!  And done with practical effects by Rob Bottin and Stan Winston***, no CGI in sight.
     Conrad also has the excellent Dark Horse mini-series of comics that continued on where the original "The Thing" left off.  Nail-biting stuff.  

DOOMed.  Or Not
I haven't played the game, and indeed know little about it bar the fact that it's a successful First Person Shoot-'em-up.  The Mythbusters team seem to know altogether too much about it, to the point that they wonder "Could you achieve in the real world what the characters in the game do?" which is - carry all the equipment they find along the game route?
     Adam and Jamie tried themselves, as the Control version, and ended up managing nothing faster than a palsied hobble.
     They then brought on a monstrous man-mountain of muscle, a UFC champion called Brendan Schaub. 

Brendan ran

 He ran the course using one item at a time, then again collecting all the guns, the ammo packs, the medipacks (and the chainsaw, mustn't forget the chainsaw) that added to 66 pounds in weight, and it slowed him down by exactly 5 seconds.
     So - plausible!
     I'm glad we got that sorted out, it would have bugged me for ages.

By the way, Bram Tchaikovsky vanished utterly from the music scene in the mid-80's and as far as I know has entirely disappeared from the business.  Not even a thirty-years later reunion.  Quite a mystery.  If you happen to know any details, do let Conrad know in the Comments, won't you?

That's quite the question, isn't it?

*  Except maybe "Lady Chatterley's Lover"
** Fudged timeline!
*** Pronounced "Bott-een", FYI