The PP lost.

Spain's ruling PP has been ousted by the PSOE, the leading left-wing party over here. There was a bit more pot-banging tonight, this time in celebration. People cheered, sang, waved Catalan flags. Something like three-quarters of Spain's population turned out to vote, which rips the piss out of the UK's usual 50-odd percent.

I've just watched footage of a family who'd just buried a son killed in the bombing drag themselves weeping from the funeral to the polling booth, and I think I need to cry now.

This post over at Instapundit has many relevant links.

The vigil

Went to the anti-terrorism demo last night. It was massive; I think extra trains had been laid on but even so the train in was packed solid.

The Placa Catalunya was seething. I don't know how many people turned out to show their grief, their solidarity, their defiance, but there must have been tens, maybe hundreds of thousands. Mostly they were ordinary people, the kind of people who wouldn't normally demonstrate: there were far more salon perms than bleached dreds, more short-back-and-sides than pink fauxhawks. People painted their faces with peace signs, slogans, and loops to represent the little twist of black ribbon that has come to symbolise mourning here. That same image was repeated everywhere: real ribbons and painted; printed and photocopied, stuck on walls, windows, doors, coats, and bags.

Home-made banners were brandished above the heads of the crowd. Some of the slogans seemed inspired by the rumours of Islamic terrorism, attacking Bush, Blair and Aznar for provoking the bombings. Mostly though, it was peace that people were thinking of. PAU! PAZ! Terrorism No! ETA NO! said the signs; We won't forget you, Madrid. No more bombs. No more deaths. They flung their white-painted hands* in the air, or clutched votive candles that cast flickering shadows on painted faces.

There was some chanting: "ETA no! ETA no!" and "Hijo de puta!" (son of a whore). Mostly, though, people were subdued, talking quietly amongst themselves or calling to friends in the crowd. There was sorrow in the air, and anger, and fear, but also a kind of grave joy in their unity. Here in Barcelona and all across Spain, millions of people are turning out to say the same thing: We don't want your bombs. What we want is peace.




*"Manos blancos, " a symbol of peace and defiance against ETA and the name of a Spanish peace organisation.

Just got back from a small demo in the main plaça of the campus. No chanting, no banners, no hubbub, just a show of solidarity. Sort of brings home to you how useless you are in the face of something like this. Me, I can't even give blood.

Going into town for the big demo at 7:30 tonight. See if there's any volunteer-type stuff that an ex-cleaning lady with bad Spanish could do. I wish Madrid weren't so far away.

"In one hospital, a doctor answered the mobile phone of a critically injured woman to find it was the patient's cousin, desperately trying to trace her."

God, imagine it; trying to reach a loved one after a calamity like that, and hearing a stranger's voice on the other end of the phone... Or worse, getting no answer.

There's an anti-terrorism demo tomorrow night. I'm going. Fucking futile, of course; the people who plant the bombs don't give a shit what anyone thinks. But sometimes you just need to be around other people who feel the same way, you need to get together just to say This is wrong.

Tonight the balconies of my neighbourhood have erupted into a fury of protest: pots and pans are being banged together, airhorns are blasting, people are shouting, screaming, whooping, whistling, stamping, banging on doors and windows. They are angry and they need to be heard, even if it's only by one another.

"When Eta attacks, the Basque heart breaks into a thousand pieces."

ETA massacre in Madrid

Christ. When I went out this morning the death toll was around 60, 70; now it's up to 180+ and just keeps rising.

I can't fucking belive it. All those people. They hadn't done anything, nothing; just a bunch of ordinary people. All they wanted to do was get to work. People here are talking about it in the streets, on the train, in the bar, in this cybercafe. Impromptu banners and ribbons hang from the balconies: PAU, says a hand-lettered sign in one window: the Catalan word for peace. ETA NO, says another. Everyone's stunned.

Well done ETA, you gutless, mindless, worthless pack of scumfucks.

Madrid blasts: Who is to blame?

Who are Eta?

Free money.

Right. Now, when I entered the contest I promised myself that I wouldn't think about the contest at all until they announce the winner. But in my current state of penuriousness, I can't help it. Which is bad. I keep thinking about all the things I could do with that dough, and if (well, when, really) I don't win, I'm going to feel even more gutted about not being able to do those things than I did before I even knew there was a contest.

So here it is, once and never again, just to get it out of my system: the big fat list of Things I Could Do With That Money

Sign up for a TEFL course.
Get my Reiki 2 attunement.
Get on an advanced Spanish course.
Get some new clothes. Shiny shiny black clothes mmMMMmmm shiny.
Buy sword lessons. Big sword. Big pointy sword.
Go and see my folks.
Toys for Lurid.
Books on how to write more betterer.

Dearly beloved Spooky Perverts: Please fix it for me to win this contest, or if not this ontest, some other contest with a big wodge of prize money. Please help me to sort out my grubby little life. Thankyou.

In other news...

I sold another story. w00t! It's only ten bucks but what the hey. It's for this nifty fantasy & spec. fic. webzine and it'll be out at the end of March. That poem I sold will probably be in the same ish. Wow.

Suicide Note Generator

Dear Ungrateful World;


Although everyone on Earth has failed to give me even half the accolades and adulation that should go with me, Mordant Carnival, being the 3rd coming of christ, I will still fulfill my destiny. For you insolent pukes, I will shed my blood to once again open the gates of heaven.

Start erecting statues, singing songs, scoring touchdowns and doing other shit for my glory, because you fuckers owe me big,



Jesus Christ III
a.k.a. Mordant Carnival


P.S. Tell everyone I'm not psychotic.

Lies, damn lies, and GM spin

Champion article by George Monbiot, detailing exactly how the "GM will solve world hunger!" line is bullshit. I mean, we already knew that, but it's nice to see it all written down properly.

Ouch.

Punitiveshoes.com

Like I say, Ouch.

In other news: I've updated Leftover Parfait for the first time in fucking forever. I haven't got around to it for a while because I was focused on the more saleable, less sectionable side of my work, but I've been such a busy little wannabee lately that I thought I'd treat myself to some disposable fun. I think I may use the premise of this new piece for something, someday, but it isn't really strong enough to carry a whole story by itself.

Trees.

Had a good day today. Crawled home from Nocturna at around 7am (fun night, cute little Spanish Gothlings, and a pretty good set to boot) and fell into bed for a few hours. It was really sunny today so I took advantage of the fine weather to go for a walk in the woods with Lurid. We played catch.

Walking in the woods makes me happy.

earthbounddog.com

In case of alien abduction these dog tags may save
your life. The crucial data an alien will need to get
you back to Earth is die stamped into these dog tags.

And all for only $12.99!

Meanwhile, in Romania, they're gearing up for entry into the EU by getting rid of the vampires:

Haunted by "strigoi" - the undead - villagers on the slopes of the Carpathian mountains exhume a corpse from the graveyard and drive a stake through its heart to banish the evil spirit. They burn the remains of the heart, mix the ashes with water from the local well and drink it, to complete the macabre ritual.

1804? No, 2004. This February just gone, to be exact. Jeeze Louise.

Okayer...

Frisky little darling of a day today: Punted out a new short fic in the afternoon, then topped things off by entering for the Van Zorn prize. (the deadline's the 10th, BTW, so if you haven't entered yet you should get your skates on. They accept emails with a Word.doc attachment, so you've still got time. Go on, I know you freaks can come up with summat.)

So I'm jolly pleased with myself and am inspired to keep up the pace. I should have the D&D-style thing punted out by midweek; I reluctantly abandoned my original idea as being too grim for that particular market and am polishing off a rather lighter piece to send instead.

The fly in the ointment is that my entry for the Van Zorn prize has already been rejected (or rather pointedly ignored until I went away) by no less than two webzines. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The other fly in the ointment is that I was planning on sending it to Interzone, and now I'll have to work like a demon to get something as good together in time for my self-imposed Sending Something To A Magazine That Pays More Than £20 A Pop deadline of this coming Friday. Fortunately I have something on the hard drive that fits the bill; unfortunately I wrote it when I was 24. Everything that I wrote around that time is either a) a not-very-thinly veiled attack on exploitative work practices in the UK, or b) incoherent due to sleep dep. The latter can be fun, the former less so.

Either way, it's going to take work.

Okay...

So I've done the working, with the help of the spooks, a map of Barcelona, a marker pen, and a plakky bottle of water from the fountain in town. Just going to let that stew now. I've done all I can, I think.

On to the next thing. I need more spook help for this, but it's for them as much as me.

Guys, you keep on at me to do this book of drawings and stuff. You keep dropping all these images in my head. Which is all well and good but in case you hadn't noticed, my drawing is really sucky at the moment. And being me, I get stressed out by the suckiness and that makes my drawing suck even more, which makes me more sucky, etc.

Deliver me from the Suck Loop. I'll work hard, I'll persist, I'll stick with it, but right now there is no IT to stick with. I need you guys to get me started, please. Inspire me, point me to a really good How To Draw site, or anything that'll help me address my particular set of problems.

Meanwhile, here's someone who can really create: Kurt Wenner, master street painter.

The Silent Healing CD

"The CD contains over 34,000 different bio-energetic and Homoeopathic resonance patterns, which have been sampled and stored on the CD. When played on a Hi Fi or other CD player it releases the bio-energetic and Homoeopathic type patterns to harmonise imbalances. Every imbalance in the body has a complementary energetic pattern that will bring it back to optimum health, the body knows best and responds through resonance and accepts the patterns it needs..."

Uh, yeah.

There's also the usual bunch of testimonials from people who sound like they've been eating paint since childhood, extolling the virtues of the Silent Healing CD.

The website neglects to point out that that same effect ould be acheived with a fucking blank CD and a random selection of gullible whackjobs.

Things are hotting up around here.

(Nah, not the weather.)

Last night I had one of the oddest nights in years. Went to be early, slept really erratically, and had loads of peculiar dreams. (I wrote them down, of course, but I'm not going to blog them until I work out what the hell my head was on about.) Woke up many times with sleep paralysis, something I'm accustomed to but still find irksome. The sleep paralysis was associated with difficulty in breathing and a very loud buzzing in my ears, like a giant insect.

Woke up feeling all drifty and weird. This better be something magick happening. If it's not magick it's probably 'flu, and I hate 'flu.

Oh, and today's the day I do that spell to get L.A. the Spanish grant. All good vibes appreciated.

RVTargets.com
Online Magical Library
Sacred-texts.com

Just added these to the ever-expanding beast that is my sidebar.

Into the Dead Zone

Lena gives us a tour of Chernobyl. Haunting.

Update on the nutbar side of my life.

Still keeping up with the RPK. Results variable, but graaaadually improving.

Developed a visualization to help with the thought intrusions (you know, the brain gangrene thing). Not sure whether to blog that or not tho'.

Decided to start working a bit harder on my RV. I'll be using the guess-the-tarot-card game from Liber 9. Obviously I've doen this sort of thing before but TBH I've never really stuck with it for long, nor have I kept very detailed records.

Oh, FFS...

Be more uptight. Maybe you'll implode. That'd be funny.

I'm hot.

I'm hot and I want an ice-cream.

It's all sunny out and the little studenty people are sprawling on the lawns. And on Sunday, it was snowing.

It's not hugely hot -- most of my ice-cream hankerings were generated by walking uphill -- but I confidently predict MAJOR heat soon. I reckon we'll be properly baking in a couple of weeks, and in a month I'll be splashing happily around in the Med.

This is bizzarre.

So, awhile ago this guy commented on my Lj and friended me, right? Which is nice, you know, friends are good. I visited his Lj and there were no entries. Well, he must be new, I shrugged. But the thing is... I've just gone back and he still has no entries. None.

So it looks as if this guy signed up with Lj just to comment on one of my fics. And to join Lj, you need a code which you must either purchace or beg from a friend who's already got an accont. It's not like just anyone can sgn up, you have to make a bit of an effort.

Which is flattering but... Dammit, I hate the idea of being important enough to make any kind of an effort. My only defence in this wicked world is the complete indifference of the vast majority of people.

(PS: talking of indifference, I've updated the green book.)

Why?

Why must you do this? WHY must you be such an INCREDIBLE bunch of FUCKBUBBLES? I'm coasting along, right as rain, happy as a sandboy, thinking nice calm thoughts, ready to wrap the whole world in the Joy of the Divine, and you! You come along with your stupid ideas and your smug, deluded self-aggrandisment and you TRASH MY MOOD to the point where I must ABANDON THE PATH OF LIGHT and go all EVIIIILLLLL. Again.

I pop open my blog so I can get at the sidebar links, and what should be advertised in the banner across the top of the page but this?

Apparently the author of the website, one Jhershierra, is going to show us the path to Immortality. Which is nice.
Of course, she was born with her gifts, which include astral travel and lucid dreaming. (Funny, coz everyone I know who claims to be able to do that shit had to work their arses off. Not saying it couldn't happen, just saying "hmmmm.")

She has also, and I quote, "been visited by Jesus, Immortals,Ascended Massters, Extraterrestrials, and other Spiritual Beings since childhood." Nice of old J.C. to drop by, eh? Not to mention those Ascended Massters. (According to the website, these include St. Germain and, uh, a "dark-skinned Indian woman." So spiritual, these dark-skinned folk, donchaknow.)

Of course there's a bit of a catch. In order to find out how we too can be immortal, we've got to buy her book and, location permitting, attend her classes. But it's a sweet deal -- these Ascended types pop up all the time to tell her what great classes she's giving and how super she is.

How come I never thought of doing this? Why am I boshing away with the green book when I could just invent invent a big pile of crap and imagine myself a nice friendly Ascended Master to shill for me? I'm so in the wrong job.

Shout out for magickal aid.

Okay. So after due consultation with Lurid Archive, I'm going to be doing a medium-sized working to get him the 5-year postdoc he's got his eye on. It's not just the best chance we have of staying in Spain, it's also the best chance Lurid has of getting a good solid job. (As opposed to more of this year here, year there stuff, which quite frankly we could both do without.)

I'm going into town tomorrow to do some stuff, so I'll probably go and score some agua from this fountain that if you drink it you're supposed to not leave Barca, which I will use in the ritual. (Also there's this thing where you light a candle in the Cathederal to similar effect.) Ritual will most likely take place on the 5th, when the proposal has to be in.

Any good vibes would be appreciated.

Also, if spooky perverts ML and RML are reading this: guys, help me out here. I promise to update your blog more if you would please please please help LA to get this grant. I'll update and I'll draw your weird little pictures and write your book and everything.

Wow.

It's snowing out. Big and small flakes, fast and slow, coming and going in waves. White petals drifting past the deep green conifers. The sky is yellow-grey, lit by the occasional lightning flash. The distant mountains are hidden by cloud; the woods are a mystery. An afternoon to dream on, all right.

Blah.

Which is odd, you know, because I had a pretty good night last night. Went out with L.A. and one of his work buddies, who's a cool guy. Went to Gracia and had Lebanese food, then flicks. (Monster.)

Turns out there's this 5-year postdoc going here in Spain, which L.A. is going to apply for. Man, I'd really love that. Well, I'd love to be anywhere for a whole five years, but being able to stay in Barca would be awesome. Might actually be able to get some teaching quals., and hence a job.

Which brings us to the thing that's really bothering me, as it always bothers me: the writing. Seeing my story up there made me feel grand for about 2 seconds. Then I actually re-read the horrid little abortion and wondered if maybe I shouldn't just chuck it all in and learn to love hosing down public toilets for a living.

I don't know. I mean, I write, I submit, and I get... not very much, frankly. I know this was always going to be hard. I know about the grinding persistance required. I know about Phillip K. Dick papering his study with rejection letters and blah blah blah. But I've been trying, really trying for the past 3 years. And I've been trying in a half-arsed way for far longer-- half my life, if anyone's counting. I submitted my first story when I was 15. Paper my study? Hell, if I was the kind of person who hoarded rejection letters, I could BUILD a flaming study.

The thought of quitting fucking slaughters me. When I think about giving up writing, I feel like I'm contemplating the amputation of all my limbs with a blunt breadknife. I feel sick, dizzy, breathless. It literally, physically, hurts just to contemplate the idea. But on another level, this is a huge drain on my time and resources. I'm pouring hour after hour into something which brings hardly any money into my household, while my partener is forced to support us both. Is this the way a responsible adult would behave? Sure, I'm still trying hard to find work, but maybe if I wasn't spending so much time at the wordprocessor I could try a little bit harder. Maybe I'd already have a job by now.

I need to write. Fall-back positions and sidelines and all that aside, I need writing to be my career. I need this, all right, but do I have to have to have it? More to the point, do I deserve to have it? Or am I just one of those no-talent losers that real writers bitch about, the nobodies who keep on banging their heads against a brick wall of rejection and never seem to get a clue?

Toiiz

Forgot to tell you guys-- one of my stories is up. Thanks to all the lovely people at Bloodlust-UK :)

I want to get abducted by aliens again, again.

And by "again" I do not mean "I have previously been abducted by aliens and wish to repeat the experience," but "I have previously wished to be abducted by aliens, and now find myself experiencing a resurgence of that desire." And by again, I mean that I wrote a post exactly like this one a few months back.

Aliens, ghosts, moving stuff by the power of my mind-- anything really. I'm easy. I want ET to phone. Or Mothman. I just want something to happen. I don't want to do any more donkeywork in my magickal life. I want a sudden, dramatic paradigm shift, with loads of smoke and a blue filter and flashy lights. And I want to be played by some hot chick.

Stuff has been happening since last Spring, of course, but it's too slow. You know what it's like? Puberty, that's what. Weird changes, mood swings, tons of diarys, odd stuff popping into my head that I can't really talk about without a sense of acute embarrassment-- puberty. My wisdom teeth have even started growing again. Stupid magick.

At night I dream of coastlines: mostly rocky shores and stormy seas. The significance is not lost on me. Interfaces, places between places-- I've had a foot in two worlds for so long, I think I'm getting groinstrain.

Hunting.

Still don't have a job, by the way. I'm still trying; emailing, writing, phoning, pounding the streets. No dice. I can't even get a cleaning job. Why can't I get a fucking cleaning job?

I'm trying not to get too frantic about this, but to be honest it's really kind of getting to me. I've never had anything other than menial, casual, minimum-wage type jobs and now I'll also have a big chunk of unemployment glaring out from my CV, which doesn't look good.

Then there's the writing, which frankly isn't going well. I mean, I'm writing tons and submitting like mad, but all I'm getting is rejection, rejection, rejection, punctuating the deadly silence of those editors who don't even bother to write back. I know this was always going to take time, but I'd hoped to be selling stuff more regularly by now.

I'm becoming increasingly afraid that sweeping streets and mopping floors is all I'll ever have. I don't know how I'd cope with that.



(Of course, if a certain pair of spooky perverts would help me out here, none of this would be an issue...)

A state of uncertainty.

Well, my remote viewing is still an utter shambles but the micro PK is going a lot better.

But I'm anxious. What is actually happening here? See, when I'm going to have a good day, I have this sort of sense of peace and clarity. I just know that the pointer is going to move the right way.

And there lies the rub. See, whilst my precog is utterly weak, I can't rule out the idea that what i'm actually doing is looking at the data with my mind rather than letting it arrive unknown. In that scenario I would be basically 'fixing' the results because observing the data in any way means that it becomes fixed rather than being in a state of quantumy uncertainty (a la Schrodinger's Cat, doncherknow). Apparently this is a real consideration for people trying to design micro-pk experiments.

I'm trying to avoid this possibility by selecting the same goal over a number of experiments, but I'm not sure that's the best way to safeguard against the sort of thing I'm describing. Perhaps I should alternate, aim for ones, then zeros, then ones...

Or maybe this whole thing is baloney and I'll give it up in a week or two. Whatever.

Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Kill. Must. Not. Killlllllll.

(The only possible silver lining in all this is the faint hope that people aren't as narrow-minded, pig-headed and reactionary as I sometime belive, and that Dubya may have shot himself in the foot with this worthless bigot-snogging.)

You see what I mean?

Camera strap. Camera. Strap. CAMERA. STRAP!!!

Make plans. Eris likes a laugh.

Yes! Finally! I've finally spoken to someone at canned fish U. who was able to tell me how much I owed and where to send the cheque. I'm so relived. Of course, I'm not out of the woods yet, since they could still screw up (lose cheque, send stuff to the wrong flat, etc). I won't be entirely happy until I have that goddamn certificate in my hot little hands.

Of course, after the initial rush wore off I was immediately plunged into a dirty great slough of despond, coz even when I get my certificate I still won't be able to sign up with the OU since I'm flat broke. It looks like I'm going to need at least another year or so to get the money together, which depressed the hell out of me until a tiny fragment of sanity surfacedin my brain and pointed out that, look, you don't even know for sure what you want to do your course in yet.

Which is true. I mean, my initial plan was to do, well, electronics. But then I thought: why? Why not try a new direction? Broaden your net, sort of thing. So then I'm thinking, hmm, maths... Eng. Lit... jounalism... physics... engineering... hmmm. But then at the back of my mind there was this little voice saying that none of those was quite right.

"Hello! Strengths, playing to! What's a subject that we've been interested in since we were ten?"
"Ummm... writing?"
"Not that, dufus! We're already doing that. We can do that just fine without studying at all."
"Ummm... maths?"
"Well, we're good at maths but we have an unfortunate tendency to FREEZE LIKE A LEEEETLE BABY RABBIT IN THE FUCKING HEADLIGHTS OF AN SUV when we're asked to actually do any. Think again."
"I dunno... art?"
"We failed the A-level. Twice. Don't even go there."
"Ummm..."
"LOOK! We're buggering about with micro PK experiments! We're studying energy manipulation! We're trying to become a Reiki master! We're always hanging around magick and paranormal sites on the net! HELLLOOOO!"
"Ummmm... Ohhh... you mean parapsychology."
"YES! BINGO! God, we're an idiot sometimes."

And so here I am, thinking seriously about becoming an academically certified, professional wacko (instead of just an amature wacko of Olympic standard). I don't know, but the idea has some things to recommend it. Parapsychology would be a way to tie some of the disparate strands of my life together. It's a subject which I know quite a lot about, and which interests me. It's a qualification which would help in a career as a complemetary therapist. But I don't know, I mean there's reasons why I shouldn't do it too. But like I say it's a long way off. I'm going to have plenty of time to weigh up my options.

"Climate change will destroy us"--Pentagon

Full story here.

Key Pentagon findings here.

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world...

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life...

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network...

In short, we're all fucked.

Changes

Got rid of the tag board. It was generating pop-ups whenever I logged on form the laptop. Use the comments system if you simply must pollute my mindspace with your hideous drivel.

I'm bitter.

And fed up of things. Moreso that usual, I mean. I've been downloading and listening to some of the songs over at diepunyhumans.com, and it's making me all teared-up and frustrated.

I want my voice back. Year on year, it's been eroded. Every time I try to sing I feel the hand of memory rising to squeeze me into silence. The more I fight, the worse it gets. The other day I woke up with total laryngitis; I could hardly speak. I feel like I'm choking, like there's an arm round my neck and I don't know where my attacker's nads are to kick'em.

Not worksafe.

I've got this uneasy fascination for reading the websites of online Dommes. My favourite by far is the terrifying evil genius known as Princess Sierra. I began by thinking she was way too extreme, but over time I've come to realise that dude, there are just some guys out there who have an honest-to-goodness Having Their Lives Trashed fetish. Who am I to say that the object or facilitator of said fetish is somehow wrong?

I guess it's always going to be a contentious area: where does informed consent stop, and coercion begin? Is there an inherent sexism in the use of feminization to humiliate, to say nothing of the homophobic aspect of said feminization when it includes sexual interactions with other men, these being presented as inherantly humiliating acts. And what of the fetishization of the financial transaction, the sexualization of Capitalism itself? It's a vast, tangled moral briar in which we could meander for hours, hopelessly lost.

In the meantime, here's a grown man simulating sex with an inflatable toy alien.

Heavy psi.

Yesterday's z-score was pretty good (for me), but I had an off-day today and trashed it. Again. Also, I made the mistake of googling for psionics sites.

Stuff me with a wombat and call me Gertrude, what a load of tosh. Most psionics sites fall into one of two categories.

Type one: SheriLynn's Faerie Psionic Realme. SheriLynn's Faerie Psionic Realme will have loads of crappy animated gifs of rainbows, bunnies, doves, twinkle-stars and shit, with either a baby-blue or magenta background. The page will be so full of crap it will take like half an hour to load, and there'll be about three lines of text o it. The text will be crap. The text will be about how FifiTrixieBelle, SheriLynn's Faerie Guide, taught SheriLynn to move a compass needle with the power of her mind.

Type two will be called Lorde RavenGrimm LeDarque'z Castille of Psionic Myght. It will be done out in tasteful red'n'black with day-glo green text. There will be roughly four million lines of text, relating how Lorde RavenGrimm discovered his psionic powers when he came into his Vampyre Heritage whilst live roleplaying. Lorde RavenGrimm will eschew animated gifs, preferring instead to personalise his site with his Vampire: The Masquerade clan badge and a song of his own composition, entitled Glory of the Undead Psi Lord's Might.

You'll be hoping against hope that these two are teenagers, but no. Both will freely admit to being in their early forties. They'll even put up pictures. With their cats.

I need some decent psi links please. Oh, and I also need to move some bodies. Bring a shovel.

Ragggh!

So I've finally finished that stupid story I was stupidly hoping to send to stupid TSR, and it sucks, and I'm going to have to do half a ton of stupid re-writing before I can send it anywhere, and I hate it, and I hate you.

I'm just going to leave it alone for a few days. Maybe if I come back to it with fresh eyes... something.

Had an idea for a vampire thing which I might be able to sell to one of my fave fanzines. I'm getting pretty fed up of the way that the only goddamn things I can sell are vamipre stories. I don't even like vampire stories that much. They're really, really boring. Got an idea for a vampire story? It's been done, pal. Vampirism is a disease? Been done. Vampirism as an addiction? been done. Priest vampires, detective vampires, mafia vampires... mafia priest detective vampires... been done. Everything has been done to death. It's boring. Boooorrrrring! And it's the only freaking thing that anyone will buy off of me! Even Anne bloody RICE has quit writing vampire stories! It's not fair!

What about my amputee sex robot stories, huh? What's wrong with amputee sex robots? Who will buy my amputee sex ro-o-bots? Nice ripe amputee sex robots!

213.234.225.182

This looks like the next wave of spambotage, doesn't it? Seems that a vast number of wikis have been trashed and replaced with porn links, and all the damage has been done from a Russian IP address. I can't really imagine anyone being sad enough to sit down and go through thousands of wikis this way, so it must be a bot.

How vexatious. I wonder how you could stop this kind of thing? Short of declaring open season on spammers, that is.

http://www.wonderfarms.com/

"Cooter likes exploring small dark places with his eye, and has a tendency to get into trouble."

"Pinky is a loving creature that likes to be played with. She has a stretchy eye that snaps back into her pocket. If you rub her special spot, she can give magical powers."

You know. For kids!

Psi. Balls.

Okay, so I'm three days into my latest stab at psionics. I'm doing visualizations, and going through the experiments over at the RetroPsychoKinesis project. I was going to do a week, but I spoke to the imaginary friends yesterday and they said I should go for two weeks at least.

And nothing's happening. My results are terrible. I'm supposed to be banishing my doubt for the duration of the experiment (I can have it back when the two weeks is up), but that's really hard when nothing is happening!

Is any of this real? Are we all, as I sometimes suspect, a bunch of delusional losers who want to belive that our tiny minds have some influence on the world so badly that we'll pick lunacy over the truth?

Answers on a postcard please.

Oh, yeah-- and my remote viewing still blows goats as well. I feel forsaken and mopey.

Stuff that gets me irrationally pissed off and which I should learn to chill out about yet somehow can't.

#342: Really stupid 'ghost' photographs. No, I don't see a face. No, I don't see the hooded figure. No, I don't see a damn thing. Why? Because there is nothing to see! That's a gatepost, you muppet! That's a reflection, puddingbrain! That's dust! That's cigarette smoke! That's your own thumb, you UNBELIVABLY CREDULOUS FOOL!

I was looking for info on channeling last night, and I came across a whole bloody page of pictures taken by some woman. They all had this white fuzzy stripe across them. According to the person taking the pictures, this was the image of her spirit guide.

Yuh, huh. Just out of curiosity, dear--your camera wouldn't happen to have a white strap, would it? BECAUSE I CAN SEE THE GODDAMN WEAVE in the FABRIC! There were like twenty or so pictures, all with this really obvious camera strap across them, all solemnly labled as images of this strangecase's 'spirit guide'. I mean, I've heard of people's guides taking odd forms before now, but not A PIECE OF FRIKKIN' NYLON RIBBON.

If I end up like that, you guys'll slap me or something, right?

Crackpots.

With a bit of prompting from a friend, I think I've worked out the significance of the potsherds. To cut a long story short, I belive they relate to an incident in my past, and represent the destruction/twarting of hard work by (buried) fear and humiliation. From this I can extrapolate that this is something I need to fix properly both for my own good and for those around me (rather than something I've brought upon myself and therefore ought to just suck up and deal with).

So. Brain donors. Form an orderly queue...

Just updated Liber V.

Haz click aqui.

Brainsss.

Ah, it's about time we had a proper one of those barking mad magickal ramblings, isn't it? Haven't done one of those for a little while.

So. 'K. Current status.

The last Really Big Thing I did was about a week or so ago. I was sick of having random self-loathingy shit pop into my head at odd intervals. You know, Gazpacho soup moments? I seem to get more of them than the average freak.

So I decided to do a visualization excercize to try and fix my head a bit. I sat down and zombed out into a trance, and found myself looking at my brain. I dosomething like this fairly regularly anyway, as a means of controlling my epilepsy. I have an imaginary magick zappy stick thing for fixing the busted circuits. Anyway, this was a bit different. Instead of my brain appearing as a complex chunk of circuitry, I was instead presented with a huge blob of decaying brain tissue. Gangrene and everything, man. You should have smelled it! Beyond gross.

Adopting a bird-form, I started to fish around in the icky mess. I found several fragments of a hard, dark-greyish substance, which seemed to be the root cause of the infection. They were like bits of ceramic or stone. I fished out a lot of them, but there were too many for my bird-form to deal with before the trance began to break up under the effort. (Holding a bird-form in a trance is hard for me, since I'm not really a bird person.) When I lost the trance, there were still all these little bits like BB shot.

So, anyway. That was not a pleasant surprise. Didn't realize how much of a mess things were in that part of my mind. Whipping out the fragments isn't the half of it, either; even if I get all of them I'm going to need something to kill the infection, and some way of replacing the dead and rotted 'tissue'. (Anyone got a spare brain I could cut up for parts?) Also, I don't know why one would have a headful of potshards anyway; I'm at a loss as to their significance. I usually see stuff in terms of electronics, like I said. If I'd seen a big pile o' loose wires, I'd know what to do with it.

Things are a bit funny generally in that department. I've gone all rabbit-in-the-headlights about everything. Tarot? Arggh! Freeze! Talk-To-Guides? Arrgh! Freeze! Meditate? Arrrgh! Freeze! I know what it is, of course: various nasty little aspects of my current self are facing death and they're going to fight for their lives. It's hard to fight something when half the fight is just picking up the weapon-- nay, walking to the weapons cabinet.

I will win, though. I always win.

I'm bored.

And we all know how ugly that can get.

My friends have gone home. I'm sulking now. Sulky sulky sulk sulk.

Been on a big shutdown since the festivities, but the ol' writing on the wall says it's time to get back into the swing of things.

UJnconsciously, I've been stripping everything down: no frills, no adornments, just the bones of a life. Even my attire: the same black combat trews, the same t-shirt. No makeup. No jewellery apart from my labret. My hair allowed to grow in will-i-nill-i. Now I think it's time to start rebuilding: Spring is in the air, the trees are in blossom here in Spain (and have been for a couple of weeks).

The guides have been almost silent in my mind. I can feel them, though: waiting for the right moment. I need to get out there, out into the woods and the hills, out into the wild places. It is spring, and I begin again.

If the spooky perverts are listening, and they always are: I appreciate the break but I'd like to get a move on now. We were going great guns before Crimbo, and I think we should get back to it. Ready for the next stage!

Toys and stuff in sidebar.

I put some name generators and stuff like that down in the sidebar so I don't have to spend like half an hour thinking up a name every time I want to write about an Elf who is also a Dragon who is a Cleric. And then another forty minutes thinking up sword names for all the big swords.

Swords should always have cool names, like "FrostFang the BloodSpurttastic Blade of OrcDoom." It's that level of craftsmanship that makes me a superawesome writer of Fantsy, like Tolkien only with strong female characters. Who have swords, nopt just any swords but named swords. That is how you know they are strong. I should write a book about what a superawesome fantasy writer I am, but all you less awesome writers would steal my ideas.

Attention foes!

I have just had a very tasty tortilla de patates* with frozen peas, and earlier today I saw some odd kind of cobwebby nesty things high up in the trees which must be made by some kind of huge spider or something, I don't know, I've never seen them before. Also, the other night I saw this thing that looked a Wild Boar, but I thought Nah, that an't be a Wild Boar, surely. But just now I looked it up on the internet and apparently this place is PRIMO wild boar territory and I probably saw a Wild Boar after all! I am therefore Happy.

Eat the Happiness of Mordant, foebeasts! HA!


*Spanish omelette, not a flour tortilla like you use for fajitas or wraps. With potatoes in.

More on Canned Fish U.

Since the last time I wrote about this, I have heard nada from these guys. Zip. Zilch. So much for "Someone will email you in a day or two." It's been over a week, and no one's contacted me.

Once again: I am trying to give these people money. Give. Them. Money. And they won't let me.

If this doesn't get sorted soon, I'm naming Canned Fish U. I'm going to post a link to the web page, and tell anyone who'll listen what a fucking shambles their institution is. I've fought shy of doing this in the past because I thought they might be petty enough to deny me my qualification, but if they won't give me my qualification anyway then why shouldn't I out them? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

No comment.

My comments system went kerflooie once too often, so I've replaced it.

Stuff.

Well, it's starting to look like we probably won't be staying in Spain after Lurid's current job runs out. That makes me feel a touch sad, since I've really fallen in love with Barcelona, but what the hey.

So, if we're not staying here then where are we going to go? Dunno, really. Lurid's got a couple of things a-brewing in the UK, one in So'ton, one in Surrey. Permanent, like. I could do with some permenance, TBH. Apart from that there's a place in Boston that needs someone for a year. It would be a touch upheavalish but truth to tell, a year in the States wouldn't sit ill with my plans. I've wanted to see America for a while now; there are places I would like to see and people I would like to visit. It is, as they say, all good.

Unless we end up in Slough or somewhere. That would suck.

This is all very up in the air, obviously but I'm going to check out the employment sitch for unwed S.O.s; don't know if I need some sort of visa or permit or whatnot to work in the USA.

Kid's stuff.

Hmm...

ARGGGHHHH!

Don't! Just don't do that! Don't put on your writer's guidelines that you'll let me hear back in under a month, and then sit on my dead people story for more than two months so I don't know if you want it or if I should send it to someone else or what, and THEN when I go to your site have a thing up saying you're closed for submissions! Now what am I supposed to do? Did you get behind on your reading over Christmas? Is my story in the pile of Things To Read? Or did my story run smack BOOM into a brick wall of close-for-submissionness? Should I contact you, or will you get all shirty and defencive and can my story because I added one more email to the tottering pile of emails you don't have time to reply to? I hate webzines! I especially hate Goth webzines! I hate writing! I hate everything! You're all a bunch of cheese-weevils and I hate you!

One of the sleeping editors just woke up.

w00t! I got a poem accepted! I got PAID! for a POEM! I'm so chuffed. I mean, it's only $2, but it's still poem=money, right?

Worm heads-up: Don't open any attatchments UNLESS you are sure you know what they are...

(...you stupid pillocks.)

'Kay, the latest worm has been doing the rounds for a wee while now but I thought I'd mention it. This bugger is transmitted via a zipped attachment.

It tries to get you to open the attachment by putting a message in the email body that tells you the email was in a non-standard format that couldn't be displayed, so the actual email is being sent as an attachment.

This is what we experts call "a load of bollocks."

The attachment is a WORM, dur-brain. It does all kinds of nasty things. It digs out your address book and has a quick shufti, then sends itself on to all those unfortunates therin. (For the benefit of passing idiots: This means that the worm-laden email can appear to come from someone you know.)

It also seems to have a keylogger involved somewhere, which might let a hacker find out your passwords and user names.

Once again: These are ordinary-looking emails containing an error message which asks you to open an attached file. Attached file is wormy. Do not click on it.

howwasshe.com

When I make shit like this up, people ask me how come I'm so cynical. They ask me where I could possibly have met guys like this. They imply that making shit like this up is a symptom of some secret misandry on my part.

I am not a misandrist. I hate everyone.

And my mind can never be as foul as reality.

Show and Tell.

Why? Why do I do this? What demonic force is it that impels me to overcomplicate every damn thing I do? Oh, sure, I've got loads of little bits and piece of writing scattered up and down my hard drive which could be dusted off and punted out to TSR, but because I'm a collosal toxic perfectionist I think I'll just quickly write write a huge great ten-page story. I know, let's make it about a Doomed Hero who is on a Quest for Redemption, so I've got to explain just what said hero has done that wants redeeming without making the reader hate said hero for doing it, and do all this without too much thinky exposition because it's supposed to be a sword and sorcery type deal with much hacking and magicyness and action, rather than long boring treks through the character's psyche? Oh, and why don't I make it even more interesting by using tons of flashbacks, so I've got to manage changes in perspective and tense and still keep the momentum of the main story ticking over?

Please. Kill. Me. Now.

Fed up.

'S a bit grim out, all dark and foggy. Don't know if it's the weather bringing me down or what, but I'm feeling sullen.

Been looking into those pay-to-click programmes. The idea is that advertises pay them to display their links, and the pay-to-click guys pay you a little bit of money-- between half a cent and five cents, usually-- if you click on the links.

What I bet really happens is, you click on a whole pile of stupid links and they never pay you. In the absence of a proper job, tho', I'm giving it a whirl just to see if I'm right. Doesn't take long anyhow.

Shit, I need a job. I'm getting all kinds of stupid ideas.

Spoke to University of Canned Fish on the phone the other day, about clearing my debt to them and finally getting some kind of acknowledgement that I exist. That yes, I pissed away four years of my life and huge sums of money trudging backwards and forwards to a big aluminium shed full of alkies and useless gits and staff who were too busy looking for their next job to give a fuck if you lived or died, let alone passed or failed.

It's fucking ridiculous. I probably owe them like a fiver or something but the tightfisted little gits won't release my certificate, or even tell what I've got a certificate of, until I cough up yet more cash. Should have done all this before I left England of course, but at the time I was so pissed off I just couldn't bear the thought of giving those bastards one more penny.

Anyhow: I finally got someone to answer the phone (no mean feat, considering that the vice-chancellor is trying to replace all the staff with Ikea coffee-tables by 2008). Unusually for Canned Fish U. the woman on the other end was actually polite & helpful. She even sounded sober. Like everything else at Canned Fish U. the computer system is fucking useless, so she couldn't actually sort anything out right then. However, she did let slip that I've got a Certificate of Higher Education, whatever the fuck that is, when the money finally clears.

She said she'd get someone to email me with details of how to proceed, but I haven't heard anything. No surprise there. Fish U are so fucking useless you can't even give them money without a fight. So far they've ignored at least five letters, a dozen or so phonecalls and a survey form. Look, I'm trying to GIVE you MONEY! See? you know money, don't you? Mon-ey.

Why the fuck am I doing this to myself? Why do I continually struggle to make something of my life when quite clearly the Universe at large intended me to sit in a bush shelter somewhere wearing fingerless green gloves, alternately necking Thunderbird and screaming at imaginary people.

On a lighter note, I am number four on Google for Teeside+smack+heads. That makes it all worth while.

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classesusa.com

Hmmm...

Ragh.

I am in the most unremittingly FOUL MOOD. There is much HATE within me.

It has been building from within for many weeks now, but is coming to a head. Today I decided to make good on my New Year's res. to get better at maths, and began cracking some books. Halfway through a polynomial I started to get this weird semi-flashbacky thing to my university course; all the hate and anger at this bunch of supposedly professional fucking people and how the whole lot of them had, one way or the other, fucked in the EAR my last best hope at turning my life around.

Yeah, I could have worked harder. I could have bullied the technicians, I could have complained when marks were deducted from perfectly adequate work for no reason, I could have done this, I could have done that.

But when...

on the first day of your foundation year you are told that half of you can expect to fail the entry requirements for the degree and the rest of you can't expect to graduate anyway, because Foundation Year oiks never graduate,

And when...

in the first year of the degree proper the vice-chancellor decides that the whole department is to be shut down at the end of the course (and starts selling off books and equipment and sacking staff, and stands up in front of the entire student body and tells them that they're all rejects,

And when...

the Sonic Arts staff think you're a bunch of knucklebrained philistines who shouldn't be allowed to play with their nice shiny musical toys and won't give you the time of day,

And when...

not one but TWO lecturers on your course get booted off your course for incompetence, after a term or two of having to listen to them talking complete shit for hours at a time,

And when...

One of the lecturers who got booted off your course for incompetence is still taking you for lab and marking your labwork,

And when...

You're competing for lab-space and the technicians' attention with guys who break stuff and threaten violence if they don't get their way,*

And when...

your course involves a lot of recording work and your right ear decides to make things really interesting by packing up,

And when...

on the first day of your final year it turns out that the reason you don't understand any of the new maths is because they somehow failed to teach you about a YEAR AND A HALF of vital mathematics, which you will now have to learn in a seperate tutorial, because of course you have so much free time in your FINAL FUCKING YEAR ,

And when...

the one thing you were absolutely convinced you could pull off, your final year project, gets shitcanned because the alkie stoner fuckhead who was supposed to be ordering the parts for it fails to order said parts despite repeated and increasingly frantic requests that he order said parts because he's too busy being an alkie stoner fuckhead,

Then, I think you will agree, IT'S JUST A WEE BIT FUCKING TRICKY!

Six people made it to the end of my course. Six. And one of them was from the year above us. Last time I saw him he was talking about legal action. Good.

I'm increasingly loth to go back into conventional education. What the fuck do I have to show for those four years except ?18,000 of debt? Fuck all. All I got was fucking older. Now I can't even get the crappy insecure dangerous minimum wage jobs that I was getting before I went to Uni. If I don't make it as a writer, my life is utterly and irredeemably fucked.

Can I hurt them with magicks now? Just a little bit?

Writer's markets

Lj community now up.

Fatbeards unite.

Thinking seriously about approaching TSR for writing work. (Stop laughing.) Apparently they will consider new writers on the basis of a short story, after which you might be lucky enough to get picked up on a work for hire basis. (I said. Stop. Laughing.) Probably not very easy to get into this sort of work, but I feel that my fantasy writing is now of a high-enough quality to have as good a chance as any. (STOP LAUGHING! STOP LAUGHING NOW!) There are drawbacks, of course: less creative freedom, being restricted to a certain setting, a certain formula. That might be a good excercise, though, and any kind of writing job is better than the jobs I've been doing.

So my plan for this coming fortnight is to finish at least one piece of travel writing (there's a local church I'm dying to snoop round) and one short fantasy story of the pointy kind. Should keep me pretty busy... (RIGHT! THAT'S IT! I'M GONNA MAKE YOU LAUGH ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR FACE! I'M COMING OVER THERE AND YOU'RE GOING TO DEAL WITH MY SWORD OF SHARPNESS +5!!! I WARNED YOU!)

Home.

Just been tinkering with the new digital camera I got from my folks. It's great. My other camera, the cast-off one, is really a webcam and doesn't even have a preview screen so it's impossible to compose pictures properly; also, the colours are weird, not enough blue. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because the resulting images are fun to play with, but I would like to take some "proper" photos. I want to submit some pix of Barca to Jade's globalwatch thang, and the other cam just isn't good enough for that.

Took a few pix of the view from the great big window at the back of the flat, just as an experiment. I love the view from my window. Maybe it's the fact that I'm up on the highest level of my building, maybe it's the hills in the distance with the big communications mast up there, picking up signals from all over the sky, but when I stand there and look out I feel airbourne. I feel like I could fly off anywhere, like the sky's the limit. Sure, I know I don't have a job right now (and that when I do get a job it'll probably involve rubber gloves and bog-brushes), but when I look out of my window I realise that doesn't matter. I'm free. Just being in this part of the world is a lesson, an experience, a source of joy. When and if the time comes for me to leave, there'll still be a piece of it locked inside me for the rest of my life. I draw strength from that.

No matter what happens, no matter where I go, I'm free and flying.

Oh, joy unconfined *grimace*.

Ah, the lovely lovely editors must be sobering up: I've just now got the first rejection letter of 2004. Part of me is dejected, of course-- I worked damn hard on that story, and it was pretty much written with this very webzine in mind. I wanted sooo much for them to like it! On the plus side the rejection letter was really sweet: they loved the story, they raved about the writing, and they went as far as to recommend another mag that might take the yarn in question. How scrumptious is that? It was almost as good as an acceptance.

Unfortunately, the zine they recommend isn't accepting new submissions until March this year. Never mind, I'll just send it to one of the other gothic/horror/ghost-type webzines out there... oh, wait. They don't like multiple submissions, and they're all still SITTING ON THE STUFF I SENT THEM LAST SUMMER. Four week turn-around, my foot. I realise that these webzines are usually a labour of love rather than a moneyspinner, but if you pay ten quid a pop for a three thousand word piece of original fiction you either attempt to honour your advertised response time, OR you change your advertised response time, OR you bite the bullet and accept simultaneous submissions. I don't care if your Granny's just died, I want a response!

Work-related maunderings and a self-education rant

Dammit, but I want a job. Only been back a few days and already I'm tearing my hair out (metaphorically speaking, duh) at the thought of my continuing unemployment. When your partener is an academic, lenghty spells of unemployment in Foriegn Parts pretty much come with the territory (a friend's bloke was out of work for 2 years and that was in Australia, and he was all degree-having), but knowing that doesn't help. I like to be up and doing. Currently I'm tracking down electronics-flavoured employers (there are many manufacturing plants out on the way to the airport, including a dirty great Siemens), but I don't hold out much hope. Not much hope either for the English teaching option, since I can't afford to do a TEFL and frankly I'm not convinced my English language sk1llz are up to snuff. GCSE in English (B*) striking fear in no-one's heart.

Thing is, if I want to start an OU course in the autumn (and boy do I want to), I need to be working now or I won't be able to afford it. Arrgh. Also it looks likely now that we'll be heading back to the UK after September, and I really want to get my Castillano match fit before then. Working with Spanish people would help with that, so non-job-having puts a crimp on things. Arrgh argh arghhh.

These, friends, are my Cunning Plans...

Cunning plan A: Work on my travel writing, try and get a foot in the door, so that by the time I return to the UK I have some dosh in the bank and some clippings to wave at editors. If this pans out, of course, I shan't be so frantic about the degree-having coz I'll be doing what I lurrrve. Ditto the short fiction, tho' I feel there's less money in fiction than in articles so no breath-holding there.

If plan A fucks up, then there's...

Cunning Plan B: Get all fluent and things in Spanish, thus paving way for translation work, teaching, ect. when back in UK. If I train myself up to A-level standard I can just barge on in and sit the exam.

Should B gang aglay then there's...

Cunning Plan C: Finally get results off of stupid uni and actually get some work IN THE ACTUAL FUCKING FIELD THAT I HAVE FUCKING TRAINED IN AND STRIVEN FOR AND SWEATED FUCKING BLOOD OVER FOR LIKE SIX YEARS ON AND OFF, YOU KNOW, IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK, IF YOU DON'T MIND, PUUURFUCKINGBLOODYLEASE.

Cunning Plan D: See if I can't knock my art & design skills into some sort of exploitable shape. It's a long shot, but something might come of it.

Cunning Plan E: Some strange synthesis of all of the above. I do not know what form this might take, but suspect that one exists and everyone else knows about it except me.

Cunning Plan F: Invent a religion or something.

Plan G is less cunning. It is the Life of Minimum Wage Machine-Minding and Related Crap. All I need for that is a prescription for Valium and maybe some mild brain damage.

There's also the Novel, but that doesn't really count as a plan. The novel is more what I'm doing everything else for; it's not a living, it's a way of life.

I'm 30. I don't, as I have said, feel old. Yet I'm approaching the cut-off point, the point where the world says that you do not pass go, do not collect a career, do not do anything except resign yourself to being where and what you are, no matter how much you hate it and how far below your weight you are punching, because you will never be given the chance to do anything else.

Nothing new to me. It's only the same old song I've been hearing all my life, ever since I was a kid, ever since I discovered that if you don't have a conventional education there is no place for you in the world, that self-educated people are nothing but worthless freaks. Sit down. Shut up. Get that floor mopped. Get out the way of the real people. Accept mediocrity as your lot. Do not hope or strive, do not do anything except what we tell to do.

Self-education is the way forward. I took over the reins of my own education when I was eleven, and I did an okay job. My big mistake was buying into the hype surrounding conventional education, assuming that I needed their grades, their bits of paper; trusting the lie that if I collected enough bits of paper they'd let me into their world. My biggest mistake was ever handing those reins over to strangers, to a system whose outlook was and remains utterly alien to me and whose concerns are frequently inimical to my own.

See, the Western education system is not about aiding the success of the many, it is about abetting the greed of the few. I wish I could go back in time and say all this to my younger self.

I can't, of course. But I can say it to you. Only you know what you are capable of; only you know what you might be able to achive. Do something for me, right now: Ignore the voices of self-doubt and remembered criticsm for a while. Forget "I can't afford", "people like me don't" and "I'm not good enough"; forget the things they said and the names they called you, stick your fingers in your ears and go "Neener neener neener!" till they're gone.

Just be for a moment. Look down inside yourself, look at the things that thrill and impassion you. See all that you might be, see all the potential locked away inside. If you don't see anything, try again later. Eventually you will glimpse it, that buried treasure, and it will astound you. Grab a little of it to take out to the world. Just a fragment will do for now.

I am currently looking into ways of formalizing my self-education somewhat. I will discuss my findings at a later date. I know it's possible (in the UK anyhow) to barge on in and sit an exam even if you haven't done a conventional course, like a GCSE or an A-level or whatever, so long as you sort it out with the exam board and pay the exam fees and so forth. I'm looking at ways in which I can expand on this principle, if it's possible to pull the same stunt at higher levels. Basically I want to see if it's possible to get a degree without setting foot in another fucking bloody university. (Apart from the OU, I mean.)

Understand: I will win free of the trap I am in. I will make someting of this little life and it will be bigger and brighter than even I can imagine right now. I will walk through the world that has rejected me like a ghost walks through a ceiling. When they shut the door in my face I will find new doors, different doors, better doors; dammit, I will punch a dirty great hole in the wall and wave the rabble on in after me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I saw a cleaning job in the small ads and I want to catch the post.

j0.

Back again, after a longish interval. Ah, bliss. No filthy readers to worry about for at least a few weeks. Decided to give the internet a bit of a break so I could bond with meatfolk more effectively. Internet tends to piss me off these days, and I didn't want to be all pissed off around freinds and family who have 0 to do with pissedoffness.

The hols were good fun, for the most part, but going back to see my folks gave me a lot to think about. Nothing I can really discuss here, tho', as it involves other people who might not be best pleased if they found themselves putting in a cameo turn on my blog.

Hooked up with loads of mates, both real and imaginary but mostly real. Sorry to have missed some of you. Looking forward to seeing Cherry and sleaze again in Feb.

The spooky perverts were a bit quiet. More alcohol and bad food = lower level of magickal consciousness. What I need is a short fast, I suspect, but past experience would suggest that jumping directly from overconsumption to vichy water is... unwise. I'll leave it a week or two.

Not much on the writing front. I tried, but all I have to show for the festive period in that respect is several reams of word-salad. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe this is something that happens to everyone sometimes and I shouldn't worry. Maybe I'm doing something totally wrong and should worry like mad. Buggered if I know. I'd ask another writer for advice but writers suck.

ME: I want to be a writer.
WRITER: Writing is hard.
ME: I know. I still want to be one.
WRITER: Writing is really really hard.
ME: Yeah, I heard you the first time. Still want to be one.
WRITER: Well, then you should write.
ME: I do write. I write a lot. Sometimes I get a bit stuck, but--
WRITER: Ah-HA! You don't do the work! If you don't do the work, how can you be a writer?
ME: Look, I'm doing the work. I want to know how to do it better, consistently and successfully. I was wondering if--
WRITER: How dare you hang our shiny writer medals on your unworthy carcass, grubby non-writey person? Go and get me a beer and make me BEANS ON TOAST!

Writers suck.


Spanish going okay tho'. I'd sort of hit a plateu just before Christmas and now I seem to have beaten it.

Other than that: I find myself on a bit of a downer. My stupid uni is still ignoring my letters, so even now, a year and a half after I chucked it in, I still don't have my results. I still don't have a job, either. World fails to appreciate GENIUS in midst. Stupid world.

New Year's Resolutions: Get another tatt, play more bass, paint more, draw more, get good at Flash, get good at Spanish, do more practical electronics, improve pure math as well as applied, write more, travel more, and ROCK THE FUCK OUT.

Here endeth the lesson.

A small sample of the kind of random crap that sleets through my brain all the goddamn time, which, whilst not terribly edifying in and of itself, may go some way to explain why I must write or EXPLODE (boom).

Patronising Nelson (Nelson="differently abled"). Evil vampire alien nanobot cosmetics that make you lose weight by devouring your life force. An online pro-Domme who uses magick to control her subs, which practice they are not only aware of but get off on*. Everything that begins with an X. A man falls in love with his sex doll and the gods take pity on him and make her live, even tho' she doesn't have a head or any limbs. Your goldfish is God. Your little finger houses the soul of Genghis Kahn. Your tribe hunts mermaids and butchers them for food. The Truth hurts; she's go a recurrent urinary tract infection that's gone to her kidneys. A postmodernist brothel: "LIVE" "GIRLS". There's a clock in my soup. The woman who stole the colour of your hair. Children blossom like mushrooms from the flesh of your forearms.

Borrowing this stuff without asking allows me to sluck out your prana like spaghetti. Really.



*This am my worst idea ever. It must never be done!

Sort of blocked at the mo. Well, not really blocked per se, just stuck in a loop. That last thing I did has stirred up a lot of stuff (for other people as well as for me) and I'm having a hard time moving my head into the next space. I mean, I could just write more of the same (in fact I am writing more of the same) but that gets tired. I'd like to work on my new amputee sex robot story for a while now, then come back to that theme fresh. But I can't. It's like I'm lost in my own anger; the worst of it is, I can see the pettiness of that. The smallness. And yet I still can't seem to pry my brain free of the "I'm cross and I can't do anything and it hurts" box.

Stupid brain.

Maybe write some SMUT instead. Lovely filthy SMUT will fix all things including stupid brain. Mmmm, SMUT.

Still waiting to hear back from the last lot of places I submitted to. I've begun writing poetry again; it's not easy, but it feels good to be doing it. I've even made tentative moves towards a couple of paying poetry markets, shock horror. Only five bucks a pop, but better than a poke in the eye etc etc.

I love webzines. I know I bitch about them, but it's fantastic that there's this big ol' market out there for writers now that just didn't exist a few years back. I wish there'd have been webzines back when I was 18. All we had back then was wood-burning internet.

Anyhow, I have managed to write a new thing for the entities. It's up now, if you want a read.

Some of Armin Meiwes the German cannibal's Usenet posts.

I am Franky from Germany and i search for a young Boy, between 18 and 25 y/o. Have you a normal build Body and will you di, than come to me, i butchering you and eat your horny flesh.

%Well, when you put it like that...%

(via waxy.org)

No big news, just checking in.

Apart from the escalating quantities of snot pouring from every orifice as my recently-upgraded body attempts to throw off a nasty cold via my mucus membranes and completely overdoes it, I'm doing okay. Been feeling energized since my 30th. Not a very interesting number; too divisable, man. 31st is a prime, which'll be cool. Made some more T-shirt designs over on zazzle.com: you can see them here. They are all peppers, though, so don't bother checking if you don't like peppers. So far exactly zero people have bought this stuff but what the hell--i'm extending my creative/magickal datashadow, and that's the important thing. Said shadow is still pretty short, but fortunately the lumpyness of cyberspace means I claim more unreal estate than a cursory glance might suggest.

I will commence putting sigils on tees soon. Then you will alllll be mine.

I've been writing some more: bits and pieces for the entities, and some amputee sex robot stuff which riffs off the Kitchen Lover idea. That's for pimping though so you can't have a read of it until someone buys it. You can, however, have a read of Punching your girlfriend in the tits is a revolutionary act, my newest free fic. Enjoy.

Almost forgot (part 2)

I turn 30 today. (Yeah, me and L.A. have our birthdays within a day of each other. So? Wanna get all astrological, is that it? Huh?)

I guess I'm supposed to do one of those God-I'm-So-Old blog posts, but I really don't feel that way. I'm happier than I've ever been. After years of struggling, there are small signs that I'm finally turning my life around. I'm achieving more than I ever hoped. My magickal life is bearing fruit. I'm living in a beautiful part of the world. I'm in the best shape of my life (apart from the fact that L.A. has infected me with his foul germs and I'm filling up snotrags like there's no tomorrow). Over and above all that, I'm entering the 7th year of a wonderful relationship with an amazing bloke; just being with him makes me happy beyond words. I'm the jammiest fucking bastard alive.

I feel excited to be 30, like I should go out and do something I've never done, go snowboarding or something.

The age-is-death meme must die. Humans (rich western humans anyhow) are exploring the very edges of mortality now; some of us are in this life for a really long haul, maybe 120 years. Time to start enjoying and relishing our long healthy lives instead of bemoaning the fact that we can't stay 15 forever. Time to stop hating and resenting the young just because they're young and we're not. Time to learn to live.

Gonna burn in hell for this one...

fagarina the singing tampon!

NB: link not even a little bit worksafe. Genitalia and everything, man.

Oh yeah...

Almost forgot-- Happy B-day, Lurid Archive! :) We were planning to go clubbing in celebration, but the poor boy's down with the lurgi. (Either that, or he's faking it just so I'll take pity on him and not give him his richly-deserved bumps. Heheheheh.)

A word on the green book...

Was going to post this to the blog in question, but it's more about me than it is about the guides.

I have started a book. They made me. They kept on and on and on until I started this damn book. In vain did I protest that they already had a weblog. In vain did I protest that I'm trying to work on my fiction, poetry, and travel writing. They want a book as well. So the other day I went out to the art /stationary/bookshop and they picked out a notepad. No, they couldn't make do with any old notepad. It had to be a special notepad. And the special green pen.

Then I went and sat in the caff across the way with my green pen and my special book, while Spooky Pervert M-L spent about three quarters of an hour dictating to me.

Five pages.

And it's all about goats.

Goats.

I had a little chat with them in the same cafe yesterday, wherein they chided me gently about not writing a bit more often. Goats, that's why! Goats! Everyone else has proper spirit guides, who bang on about being Evolved and on Higher Planes. Everyone else gets told about their Past Lives on Atlantis and shit. What do I get? GOATS! I mean, who needs Gematria when you can be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY INCOMPREHENSIBILE in plain English?

You are Professor X!

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very
committed to those who learn from you. You put
your all into everything you do, to some extent
because you fear failure more than anything
else. You are always seeking self-improvement,
even in areas where there is nothing you can do
to improve.


Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla


What the fuck? I am so not Xavier! Not not not! I am Magneto, quiz-setting person, MAGNETO! Don't make me come round your house and chuck metal objects at you using only the POWER of my MIND!

Googlewhacking.

Silly damn game doing the rounds, on the B and elsewhere. You have to get a unique result on Google by searching just two words.

Of course, I totally rule at it.

A little more of my stuff.

You're all alone in that internet cafe and nobody loves you

Injectable fetus trainers

Go read, filthy blog-sniffers.

Guidelines.

It used to be so easy, you know? White paper, black type. 10pt Courier, double spaced, title and word count at the top, <end> at the bottom. SSAE for return of manuscript (noone but a fule use email). Sure, you'd make an amatuerish mistake or two at first, but once you knew the rules it was a piece of cake.

But the print market for unknown short-story writers (that would be moi) is pretty much a non-starter. The only chance for the grubby likes of us is webzines. And I swear, every single bloody publication out there wants something else.

First off, it's gotta be email. Most webzine editors turn their noses up at snail mail or 'dead tree' submissions. Fair enough. But how should I format this email? One wants you to attach your story in a seperate file; another wants you to paste the whole thing into the body of the email and jumps up on the chair screaming at the mere thought of an attachment. One wants .rtf, another wants .txt, yet another insists on Word, though Lord knows why. One wants you to italicise your italics using the Italic button, another wants you to use _underscores_. Yet another wants you to use HTML tags. One wants single-space, another wants double. One gets hives if you use a serif font, another gets the vapours in the presence of sans-serif.

What really gets me is that every single one of them thinks that his or her way is right. Their way is the only possible way that any sane, reasonable adult would ever submit anything, ever. And because they're so damn sure their way is the One True Way to send an email submission, zines that haven't been up for long or are run by people with little or no experience don't actually think to have this stuff in their bloody writer's guidelines.

Hint: if you want to play Big Grown-up Editor, create a proper bloody guidelines page (better yet, have a comprhensive guidelines page and an online submissions form, like Bloodlust-uk). Don't just wait for everyone to screw up and then kvetch about it in your editorial about how all these cretins get it wrong, because your cretinously wrong is likely to be someone else's self-evidently right.

Just a reminder...

Mordant Carnival's Emporium of Negativity

There are now four smashing T-shirts for you to buy/rip off. There will be more. Check back in a day or two.

Spec fic markets.

I still can't belive there's a magazine called Gobshite Quarterly. And paying 5-10 cents a word, too...

Selling out again.

'K, so remember when I was going to make T-shirts on zazzle.com and you were all going to buy them because if you don't I'll make it rain microwaves in your house? I've finally got around to sorting out my account. You can veiw my first T right here: memetically altered

Don't worry, I'll do some gothier stuff soon.

Obviously there's nothing to stop you from ripping off my idea and making your own shirt for a fraction of the price. I mean, it's not like I'd go to the trouble of creating a copyright protection servitor to hunt you down and suck your brains out of your ears with agonising slowness or anything.

Toodles!

Smut.

Got right back on the horse after my little knock-back the other day, and punted out a thang to Gothic.net. I'd already submitted it to another webzine which shall remain nameless, but the swines never even responded. Rude! Would it kill ya to send out one little standard email, mister big swankypants editor? Anyway, it's a killer little piece if I do say so as shouldn't.

Also finished a piece of filthy disgusting SMUT yesterday. It's not really up to much; I haven't found my SMUTvoice yet. Still, that'll come. I was trying to write a very straigt down-to-earth piece with no ghosts or aliens or prehistoric animals, and that's hard for me. I live in spec fic land so much, it's hard to come out sometimes.

Bleagh.

Story got rejected. I'm going to go and eat worms now.

Okay...

Updateyness over at the Liber V. Spooky perverts give me prezzies now, yes?

First off, I want out of my current blockyness. Like, now. Whatever's causing it, I need to know so I can fix it. I'm writing, but I haven't had a decent splurge for a week or so now. This must end. I want to finish some filthy smut tomorrow, and also a Leftover Parfait piece puhleeeze. If nothing esle, Leftover Parfait actually seemed to be giving people a bit of encouragement to get on with their own stuff, and that made me happy.

Argh fuck.

Submitted a piece to Fables the other night-- just a short, 1000 word-type-deal. And now I'm re-reading it, and it looks like crap. No typos or anything, no identifiable clunkers; it just looks weak, derivative, lame. I wish I hadn't sent it off now. I feel stupid.

You all look the same to me.

I suck at recognizing people. Seriously, I've got a problem. Case in point: a while back, me and the Fawning A. were watching some film on the telly, and I go "Heyyyy, I know that guy. He's been in loads of stuff. What's his name?"

The Fawning A. turns to me with a look of utter incomprehension and says "Dude. That's Robert Redford."

And I wish that was abnormal for me, but sadly it's not. I am so crap at recognising people it's untrue. Faces are not only unhelpful to me, they can actually throw me for a loop-- I can sometimes recognise someone better if I don't see hir face. See, it's not a pattern recognition thing. I recognise patterns fine-- probably better than you lot. It's just human faces that throw me.

Just as a for example, I was watching Buffy videos yesterday and was able to spot that the guy playing the demon with the horns and the beard and stuff was the same guy who played Clem, the demon with the floppy ears and the saggy skin. That sort of thing happens a lot. When the face is occluded with all latex and yak hair or whatever, I'm free to look for other cues-- voice, intonation, body language.

So I'm better at recognising demons than people. I'm comfortable with that. Most people are really boring looking. If you hom. saps. would just make a bit of an effort, I wouldn't even have this problem.

Script.

Okay, so I'm halfway thru an Eric script right now. Not sure why I'm bringing it up, given that a) I'll probably never finish it because of terminal literary constipation and b) I know sweet Fanny Adams about writing comic scripts so what I do write is probably incomprehensible, but there you go. Anyone up for drawing stuff? Want to poke me along a little, or just offer comic script writing advice?

Yep, it's happened.

Fuck fuckity fuck. Totally off the fucking boil, blocked to fuck, sod everything, I hate you, suck any part of my anatomy you find sticking out from under the duvet because I'm going to bed now and even if I never write another word again as long as I live I'm still 5000000% better than you at everything and if even I suck at something it's because that thing wasn't worth being any good at.

I hated you first.

Creamcrackered.

I've got a horrible horrible feeling that I'm coming off the boil. I wrote that Eric thing yesterday and worked on my smut a bit, but that was all. I didn't write nearly has much as I have been writing. I did somethign this morning but it only came to half a page. Please don't let this have been an abberation. Please let me finish something tonight.

Feels like I'm on a comedown; tired, jangly, paranoid. I want to sell stories! I want to do this for a living! How can I do this for a living if I go back into my 200-word-a day coma? Arggh! Help! Arrgh!

Stupid writing.

Something's not right.

Way, wayyy too many of my cool friends have recently or still are going through really harsh times. I'm thinking of you.

Eric and friends.

Well, I got a phonecall from my Mum and finished a story, so big thanks to my imaginary friends. It was just another Eric though, not saleable. (Thinking of boshing out a comic script based on the Eric stories but that means work: narrative, coherency, backstory, actually sitting down and thinking about the thing.) So if the invisible frotteurs could see their way clear to helping me finish something I can get money from today, that would be groovay.

I was feeling afraid that this is just a flash in the pan, that the power will run out and this terrific output will falter. I'll fall back into the 200-word-a-day living death that was my lot only recently. The fear keeps me pinned to the keyboard for most of the day, so my output remains ferociously high. Now I fear losing the fear. I will achieve some sort of equilibrium at some proximate juncture; equilibrium, or at least metastasis.

I am becoming my own fiction, an invented being of my own device, and all the stories that you create around me are thus fan-fic. I have my canon which exists unto itself and which your texts do not violate. It was foolish of me to ever belive otherwise.

In other news: a plea for you to spare the weak(er than you in some regard and in this place at this time) from your unacknowledged aggression is not a violation of your intellectual freedom. This is old stuff but I thought I'd mention it.

Well, it's morning again, half past one to be precise, and still things are not right.

Where is my huge golden pyramid full of drugs and my army of khol-eyed worshippers? Where is my novel that is better then everyone else's novel and impresses the impressionable so that they want to snuggle up to my sagging flesh and warm me with their priceless youth? Why isn't there anything good on the internet? I hate the internet, it's all full of shite. There isn't any descent booze in the house. There is kirsch, on the principle that it's always good to have some undrinkable filth in the cupboard so that you'll keep the vodka topped up rather than drink it.

GODDAMN IT PEOPLE WHERE IS MY BOOZE?

I hate you all. This isn't the reality I ordered.


(Note for guides: All right, you spooky perverts, I've updated your green weblog. Now give me stuff.

I want to finish a story tomorrow, I want inspiration, I want to be magically filled with the passion and energy I need to do all the stuff I need to do, I want the door to freezer compartment to not be all iced open again, I want... I dunno, stuff. You know the sort of stuff I like.)

Dirt.

I'm sick of being broke so I'm channeling the relentless flood of words that has been pouring out of my twitching fingers recently into something more (potentially) lucretive. Namely: smut. Filthy disgusting SMUT. I've got my beady eye on Pink Flamingo Publications (short stories, paperbacks and e-books for the discerning perv). The bar's pretty high but my writing's come on quite a lot just in the last few weeks.

For some reason, I've never been able to finish a pr0n story till now. But things have changed lately: not only am I writing between ten and twenty times as much a day as previously (no, that's not an exaggeration), but the quality has improved. I'm becoming a better editor.

I will sell another story before the year is out. I can feel it in my boneessss. And I got some other tricks up my sleeve, too.

I AM YOUR SUPREME DARK RULER. GROVEL BEFORE ME OR PAY! OR BOTH!

Dreamed this afternoon of many things, including the Two of Swords and the Hermit. My tarot cards want me to take them out and play with them.

Validation.

The kind of backslap that comes with a good solid pricetag attached is nice, but d'you know what? The other day, when Cholister referred to my Leftover Parfait gubbins as "fics," I felt heckofa validated. I mean a) I didn't know what to call those hideous red-headed textual abortions that fester on my Lj and now I do, they're fics, and b) fics is a term that's fairly specific to the fanfic/slasher community, and I felt like Chol was giving me an honorary community... errr... thing. An "OKAY!" type thing. Coz I don't write fanfic. I could, and I don't have any real problem with fanfic or anything, I just, y'know, don't.

Anyway. It was nice.

w00t!!!

Guess who's just flogged another story? :D

Sick.

Or something. I'm processing something big. The night before last I had this minor freakout: loads of stuff from the past coming up, how crazy things seemed when I was growing up. Stuff like my folks getting their post opened because they were in CND, the way we all felt so vulnerable because of the homeschool thing, the way we had to be so damn careful all the time because other families who homeschooled were getting hauled up before the courts and having their kids taken into care left, right and centre. That wasn't what got to me, though. What got to me the impossibility of getting people to understand what it was like, that we weren't just being stupid and paranoid, that these fears were real and justified, and that the world is just such a fucking crazy place.

Realised that although I've begun to put the fear behind me, I've never really dealt with the anger at other people's blank incomprehension. And I need to free myself from it, get it off my fucking throat and pucnh its lights out and shoot it full of tranks until I've got it chained up in the cellar with the rest of this crap. Then I can use it, make it into my creature.

So anyway, all that came up and here I am a couple of days later, with a fever and a gunky throat (blue chakra flashing like an ambulance). And I'm thinking: This is it. This is where I get the poison sweated out and burned off. I think I'm getting to the bottom of where my voice is. The nature of the beast that rises up and chokes me.

When I find it, I'm going to kick its arse.