Wrong day - AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH

Pokemon Platinum is in the shops on the TWENTY SECOND of May. OMFG. I'll have died of suspense by then.

POKEMON PLATINUM IS OUT!!!

Has anyone got hold of this yet?
I took my poorly self to Morrisons to look for a copy for my Nintendo DS, the first time I've been out of the house in 6 weeks, and by god I paid for it in pain later, only to find a complete lack of lovely pokemon. I was distraught.
Anyhoo, I'm desperate to play this game, and would love to hear from anyone who has, so they can tell me whether it's a good as I'm expecting it to be.
I understand there are new pokemon in platinum, which is a bit of a groan as my pokedex is still incomplete up to existing games, but is incredibly exciting as well. I could cheat by going wireless and trading with other folk to complete my pokedex, but I'm far too precious for that, I HAVE to do it myself, so I can feel marvellous compared to people who haven't completed their pokedexes yet, hee hee.
I'm going to take a look at the cheat sites to read the reviews, but I definitely need to talk about the game too.

A very strange bloke!

I am having the most bizarre experience right now with a chap (can't name names) on the net who won't send me his rewritten story for issue 3 as he doubts my identity!!!
It's so funny because I actually offered to publish this bloke as he's never been in print and by the look of his message board posts, was getting downhearted about it. The story was basically good, but needed some work, which I was prepared to do myself.
When I put the story into the dtp to start work on it, I sent him a message asking for an address to send his contributor's copy to. He informed me that there was no need to rewrite for him as he was doing it himself, using the advice of one Mr Worthington as a guideline. Fair enough. However he declared that he could not send me the rewritten text until I could vouch for my identity in public.
The reason for this need for confirmation is apparently due to the fact that I deleted my account,(as it was a personal one) and started a fresh account solely for the purpose of running the magazine, which is all I do on the net now, apart from my lovely blogger blog!
Get this, he actually thought I might be an imposter, setting up an account and pretending to be me just so that I could gain access to his home address. Just his, nobody else's.
This given the fact that all my magazine conversations were still ongoing, etc etc, so I'm obviously me!
I'm afraid to say I absolutely howled, poor sod, I took the piss out of him rotten. His ungraciousness is forgivable, I suppose, him being only 19 and still full of adolescent ludicrousness, but his paranoia level is just so enormous as to afford much entertainment. How unkind I am.
I see another Chris Barker in the making.
I needed to share that as it's still boggling me a bit, I still haven't had the rewritten story I offered to publish. How very, very odd.

Even more rude veg!

I can't believe it, I've actually got one of my own!
I didn't grow it, my daughter discovered it in a bag of shop-bought carrots while cruising for nibbles. Much hilarity ensued, then she ate it!!!!
Fortunately she took a photo of it before she scarfed it down, so here is my very own rude vegetable, ta-dah...

All on my own :(

My co-editor Caroline Callaghan is no longer able to help me with the magazine. I would like to thank her for her support and work, and wish her all the best for the future.

Anyone want to be a co-editor???????

Black Book of Horror Volume 4.....

Is here at last, hurrah!
The latest anthology of hair-raising, haunting, hellish horror from editor Charles Black is now available from his site, here:
http://www.freewebs.com/mortburypress/
If you haven't tried the Black Books yet you really are missing out. With a plethora of top writers creating some of the best horror fiction around at the moment, both classic style and modern, and the delightfully reminiscent Pan Book of Horror stylings, they are definitely a treat for lovers of the macabre.
I like them too!

The Fourth Black Book of Horror
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Fourth Black Book of Horror is now available.

CONTENTS

Soup - Craig Herbertson
Words - Paul Finch
A Cry For Help - Joel Lane
With Deepest Sympathy - Johnny Mains
Many Happy Returns - Carl T. Ford
All Hallow's Even - Franklin Marsh
Dead Water - David A. Sutton
And Still Those Screams Resound...' - Daniel McGachey
Love is in the Air - Gary McMahon
The Head - Reggie Oliver
The Devil Looks After His Own? - Ian C. Strachan
Bad Hair Day - Gary Fry
Flies - Hazel Quinn
Nails - Rog Pile
The Lord of the Law - David Conyers

15 TALES OF TERROR SELECTED BY CHARLES BLACK

Very, extremely, awfully,terribly ill...

Argggghhhhh, help, dying etc.
There's been a big gap betwen the latest post and it's predecessor because I've been a bit poorly. Actually I'm still a bit poorly, but I'm bravely sweating over a hot computer whilst awaiting an operation to put me right. Hopefully it won't be much longer, then I will regale you with all the gory details, hee heee.

TTMC ISSUE 3 LINE UP

Monday, April 27, 2009

TTMC HAS BALLS Current mood: froggy Metaphorically speaking of course! Due to the fact that female submissions are at a premium, I've had no choice but to open submissions fully to male authors as well, otherwise it would be a positively anorexic publication. Changes are going to have to be made. While I will still be rooting about trying to find new female talent, I will be considering submissions from both sexes for the main body of the magazine, rather than just having a men's section. It will have to be the thinking PERSON's crumpet from now on, hee. I refuse to feel a failure, if ladies won't submit I can't promote them, it's as simple as that. I will get round to updating the various blurbs eventually. In the meantime here is the line up for issue three. Stories: CONTROL by Anna Stephens GHOST by Sue Rule THE STRANGE CRUCIFIXION by Lobolover RUBBISH by Suzanne Jackson SOLTICE by Franklin Marsh SHE WALKED INTO NIGHT by Sue Rule BEYOND THE DOOR by Benedict Jones Also verse by Roswell Ivory and Mia Quayle, and art by Karn McCloud and Roger Pile. More items are expected in from Glen Hamilton, James Stanger, Craig Herberson and Sean Parker, and with that, submissions for issue three are now closed. Should anyone care to submit for consideration in future issues, please feel free to do so, reading is not done at set times. Coral x Currently listening: Rollodex Propaganda By At the Drive in Release date: 2000-12-04

"ODDEE"

I was thinking of doing a humourous post on the weirdest place names in the world, as I've seen them on "Oddee", a site devoted to strange facts and amusing lists of stuff you'd never even think of, but I think it's probably better if you see for yourself. If you haven't visited the Oddee site yet, and you love hilarious trivia, then go and have a look, it really is quite...odd!

http://www.oddee.com/default_0_87_datetime.aspx

Serial Killers-5-Peter Kurten

Peter Kurten - The Dusseldorf Vampire.

Peter stands out among the German serial killers and has a particular fascination for me. Unlike Fritz Harmann, there was no element of gain concurrent with the pleasure of his murderings. Nor was he extremely psycopathic like Grossman. In fact Peter killed purely for the thrill of it, in "cold blood", as it were, and in pretty much complete control of his faculties. He chose to kill. I think he justified his actions to himself as revenge on a society that had let him down, not showed him the proper respect. And indeed had punished him with prison sentences for his "lesser" crimes.
Germany between the wars was a fairly disorganised place, and was in a state of political and social flux, so it is partially possible to see why he got away with so many killings without being caught. Also he appeared on the surface to be quite normal. He married a lady with a resentful attitude similar to his own, possibly the one person in his life that he ever treated a a human being rather than an object to be subjugated to his will. He attended church regularly.
As the soubriquet suggests, there was a cannibalistic element to his murders. That usually suggests a killer who has tried everything and has reached the ultimate degredation. When the sexual appetite has become jaded enough to break this final and deep rooted taboo, it's generally a culmination of a lifetime's experimentation with all things "perverse", and after that, apart from becoming more abandoned in his actions, there was really nowhere left for Peter to go.
That, subconsciously, is when he became careless; the desire to be released from being driven by insatiable appetites making him vulnerable to errors of judgement that simply wouldn't have happened earlier on in his serial killings. Killers of this type have often to be "opportunist"" and grab their victims where they can, but to take one into his home, then allow her to leave unharmed, was definitely a sign that his reign of terror was becoming wearying to him. After all, being born in to a dysfunctional and abusive family, he had been practising sexual perversions since early childhood, starting with attempted rape and bestiality, and culminating in the first of his serial killings, the sexually motivated mutilation and murder of an eight year old girl.
His final intended victim kept her word not to say anything verbally, but a letter she wrote to a friend describing her experience was misdirected to a lady who was so shocked by the contents that she immediately reported it to the police. Thus the victim was contacted and asked by the police to show them where this person lived. She was able to remember his apartment in the Mettermanstrasse and took them straight there. That was the end of Peter Kurten's serial killings, based loosely in fantasy on the "Jack The Ripper" murders, for whom he had a great admiration.
Kurten was guillotined for his crimes in July 1931. His final wish was that he would hear his blood gushing out of his neck when his head was severed. Well, they do say that the sense of hearing is the last thing to go. That was his idea of the ultimate thrill.

Serial Killers-4-Harvey Glatman

The chap you're thinking of goes by the name of Harvey Glatman. he used to pretend to be taking girls off to the desert for the privacy to take glamour shots of them, but when they arrived he would tie them up first then abuse them, taking pictures at each stage of abuse. Then when he was done he'd leave them to die or kill them himself. He didn't kill very many girls, indeed he often took them out and didn't do anything at all, and as you pointed out one of them got away, so he wasn't an awfully effective serial killer.
Glatman was committing crimes in the fifties when a car and a camera and a spot of cash in the pocket would have been an indication of a good character and he was an intelligent chap, so probably had no problem seeming sincere. By all accounts he was very unattractive physically and didn't have a good time at school, which left him with a great deal of resentment. He found his victims by advertising in a lonely hearts column.
He was finally stopped in his tracks by one of his victims who managed to gain control of his gun, despite already being wounded!
He ended up in San Quentin's gas chamber in August 1959.

Posted initially as a response to an enquity elsewhere.

Serial Killers-3-Elizabeth Bathory

Did you know that mediaeval murderess Elizabeth Bathory was first recognised and encouraged as a sadist by her husband?? He liked her to be firm with staff and get good results from them, and as he was away so much, he thought it would do her good to have a little hobby, having also recognised her lesbian tendencies. By all accounts it was a good marriage, although Elizabeth outlived him.
To a certain degree I think she DID believe that bathing in blood was a good anti-ageing remedy, but it was also rather convenient given her tastes!
She had a specialised room for torturing girls that her two servants "in the know" helped her to operate, and a male servant to procure said girls. She liked to tie them helpless and flay, beat, bite and generally hurt them until they died of exhaustion and blood loss, allegedly gaining a great deal of sexual pleasure from doing so. Sometimes she had more than one tied up to torture at once, I think seven at one sitting was the record, but don't quote me on that.
The parish priest knew for some time what was happening up at the castle, but continued to bury the bodies while wondering what to do about it. The servants disposed of a great many of the bodies too, apparently they had to be put in the woods after the moat became too congested to hold any more.
The crunch only came for Elizabeth when she discovered that torturing the innocent, gently reared daughters of the nobility and other emminent citizens added a certain piquancy to the proceedings. Parents began to wonder why so many girls died off when taken into service at castle Bathory. Unlike the peasants who had too many mouths to feed, were unlettered and in the habit of putting their children out anywhere to work, or even selling them, the upper classes wanted to know what was happening to their valuable marriage tokens, and enquiries were made.
Under pressure the servants gave up their information and they were executed for their parts. However Elizabeth was too important to be executed so she was "walled up" in her own castle. A room slightly larger than an oubliette with no opening other than a small hatch for food and water to be passed in was her home for the last four years of her life.
The anti-ageing remedies must have been very good for her, she was obviously quite robust to last that long under those circumstances.

ISSUE 3 of TTMC.....

Issue 3.....

WILL be published, despite my personal misgivings. I have had a great deal of input over this problem, and have decided that while I intend to cease trying to do "social networking" on the internet, I will continue for now to produce this magazine. We've already got some fabulous material lined up, and are looking forward to getting more. It would be a shame to let down the readers and contributors who have worked hard to make TTMC successful, so keep the subs coming and we'll publish in June.

Serial Killers-2-Nature V Nurture?

I think you're right there, if the soul could be translated as "conscience", or the ability to empathise with other people. The true psycopath does not have this ability, even non-psycopathic pattern offenders have less empathy and are able more easily to reason away the bit they do have to square things up with themselves.
I've been looking at the nurture verses nature issue lately, and whether psycopathy that leads to violent physical or sexual offenses has any real biological basis. I've not quite assimilated all the information yet, but there definitely seems to be more of a "nature" problem than a "nurture" one. Serial killers brains do usually have faults from birth, or lesions from other later traumas on the frontal lobes, the "conscience" area that helps people modify their natural instincts.
Obviously an abusive upbringing can bring out the worst in a child, or maybe surface later on in life, but the predisposition seems to already be there for these types, after all not all abused people go on to become abusive to others, physically or sexually, or even verbally.
One "nurture" factor that does seem to have a bearing is whether the person in question was properly bonded as an infant. Serial killers have a much higher incidence of maternal non-bonding than other types of offenders. Perhaps the infant had to spend a great deal of time in a hospital or other institution, or was seriously neglected company-wise in the home. Infants that don't make a specific bond with their main carers have a much more difficult time connecting on an every day levelwith others.
I'm not sure there can be one standard simple explanation for why a particular person becomes a serial killer, but there does appear to be a core of basic factors, the majority of which are biological, one or more of which are present in virtually every case of psycopathic pattern offense, particularly of a sexual type.
Does anyone have more information on the study of the damaged frontal lobes, I'd be really interested to hear it

Serial Killers-1-Albert Fish

Albert is one of my personal favourites. I usually find the German serial killers more interesting than the British or American, but this guy's a real oddball amongst oddballs! Some facts about Albert that I found fascinating: He had children of his own and he got them to beat him up for masochistic pleasure. It took him nine days to completely consume the body of Grace Budd. When he was x-rayed, he was found to have a variety of metal objects (pins, nails etc) sunk in to the groin region of his body. I don't know if they went in too far and got "lost", or whether he embedded them fully on purpose. The mind boggles!

from the TTMC myspace blog, and ditto TTMC freewebs, and the two message boards I post at shortly...

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

OK I GIVE IN Current mood: disappointed Category: Life Anybody want a magazine??? OK here goes. Obviously this needs to be discussed with Caroline, my co editor, but unless she absolutely desperately wants me to continue with TTMC I don't think I'll be doing any more. I'm not wimping it, really I'm not, when one has ptsd as severely as I do it's virtually impossible to function as a human being anyway, without the stress of trying to ineract with the rest of the world. And if you're going to publish a magazine, interact you must. During the majority of the three years I have been using the internet I have managed to produce two vaguely shabby magazines that quite frankly shame the authors that have contributed to them, and have made the sum total of one, yes one!, friend. These are very poor batting averages. The internet is full of nutters and arseholes, I realise that, and I've as much right to be here as the next emotional cripple, but I've become a liability to anyone associated with me, and that really pisses me off, because all I want to do is be useful, believe it or not. Anyhoo, forewarned is forearmed. I'll keep you posted. I'll probably keep my personal blog to witter about childrens programmes and funny shaped vegetables, it's theraputic, but the rest of it seems likely to fall by the wayside. My appologies. Someody just wished me a happy life. I'd laugh if I hadn't cried so hard my head fell off, so now I have nothing to laugh with!!! Bye for now. Coral. 1:54 AM 0 Comments (Add Comment) | 0 Kudos Edit Remov

RETRACTION.

I completely retract the entire "Bad Review" post. My comments were mistaken and ill-informed. My appologies to mr Tennant.

Cat-thulhu

I found this photo on Photobucket a few years ago and posted it everywhere as I liked it so much. Here it is again for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Cute or what?

Dydd Sant Ddewi Sant

Happy St David's Day!!! Mae Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus I Chi!!!

YU-GI-OH!

I'm having one of THOSE days.
Anyhoo, today Duff has mostly been watching "Yu-Gi-Oh" on Veoh Videos. It's not the best animation I've ever seen as the plot is so thin as to seem papery, but much exciting drawing is made of each battle scene, and the monsters are quite inventive. On the up side, there are literally hundreds of episodes, enough to keep the kids going for yonks, and they're all free to view.

http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/yugioh%20english#watch%3Dv1095700knjtKb42