A Propensity

It’s been no time and all time.
But,
a frail ink tears out of my pen
to rain this page
with the sere memory of you
(Swan)
and knowing that our days passed by
as the quick game of pool we’ve played
over a beer and a shot of Jack;
I’ll see you on the dust-kicked road
to Greece and a hermitage that you
would share with me.
But,
Rather than lose the wars,
they settled on the spoils of boredom.
But,
Rather than lose faith,
they twisted your spine
into a hangman’s knot to die
(and die)
in the corner by your restless jacket.
But,
It’s been no time and all time.

David from the UK requested a half-sleeve tattoo design featuring Rufus as a vampire guardian angel, watching over his wife and daughters… Amd here’s my first pencil sketch

Channeling is forbidden by the Bible, it is the same as trying to speak with the dead, whether the person channeling knows it or not. They are opening themselves up for communication from a demon, and demons are all liars, everyone except Satanists and those as deluded as them know that demons, are, by definition, evil beings.

There is no evidence that any channeler has ever channeled an alien, all the evidence suggests that they are either lying or a demon is speaking through them, as the things that come out of their mouth is always wrong in some way, and always fits a certain type of communication style, that is the person supposedly being channeled always claims (and they are always things that anyone could make up, like about Atlantis) that what it is saying is fact, never opinion. For example, something lie this, “The Atlanteans lived 10,000 years ago but destroyed themselves in their carelessness), and that is the sign of a prideful liar. I’m not saying that people must arbitrarily saying, “This is my opinion” but I’ve heard and read supposedly channeled aliens and dead humans, and there is always something that goes against the Bible. Why isn’t there one single spirit that agrees with the Bible? If you claim it’s because they find out it’s wrong, well then why don’t any say, “I was a former Christian and learned this part of the Bible was wrong.” No, it’s always, “Go for the kill” so to speak, in other words, get the lie out as fast as you can. And the lack of sophistication also shows that the beings speaking are careless about the truth (not bothering to be clever about it like saying that they were a former Christian or that they also had a Bible on their planet that turned out to be false and that they learned their lesson). This is evidence of low intelligence or a lack of concern for the truth, of a personality that just goes about sloppily bashing the truth as if it were a joke. On the other hand it could be that the reason we only hear stupid spirits that lack sophistication is because God only allows the stupid ones to possess a person or speak through them. The reason for that may be that if more clever spirits were allowed to use a person to speak, that the deception would make it more difficult for people in general to tell the truth from a lie, a level of difficulty that God doesn’t want the world in general to have to deal with for whatever reason.

Evidence of God or at least some superior being imposing a limit on what these spirits can do is that it’s known they can sometimes possess people and do things that humans are not able to do naturally: manipulating objects without touching them, speak in languages not known to the person being possessed, do things that are so painful that it’s unlikely that even an insane person would do them (like repeatedly biting on things that cause teeth to immediately break off or scratching things with your fingers so that your nails ripped off), floating, saying things that couldn’t be known without having been spied on or seeing and hearing a person’s memories, making smells seemingly out of no where (probably by transmuting the particulates in the air into some other form that smells),  changing the temperature of the air or an object, making or projecting images like of an object or possibly of some creature (which may be a demon or part of a demon itself rather than a projection or temporary manipulation of matter), making vocalizations or music on audio recordings that were apparently directly imprinted onto the recording, making images directly onto video recordings so that the images couldn’t have been seen by anyone, causing wounds that don’t get infected, and that can remain opened for long periods of times and bleed greatly without the person they’ve wounded, dying (stigmata), HOWEVER, that these powerful spirits aren’t doing this whenever they want, and let us know now and then that they don’t like to hear or see anything that is strongly related to God (for example a certain famous prophet who commanded that his followers randomly terrorize non-believers, and that command is recorded in their holy book) was said to go beserk when he saw crosses, suggests that it’s God who is limiting them. And note that no one has ever heard of a spirit being saying, “Stop talking about Shiva! I don’t want to hear about Zeus!” to someone trying to cast them out using their names, but only throwing fits when hearing something like, “In the name of Jesus,” or verses from the Bible, and so on. Though God seems to have limited the kinds of spirits that can possess people, he has allowed much great deception in the form of misleading people as to what the true religion is (as opposed to allowing any supposed alien or dead human to teach that there is no God). For example implying that no one goes to heaven but just reincarnates or reincarnates a certain amount of times then goes to Heaven, or that Catholicism is the true religion (a few times Catholics or people that could be persuaded to become Catholics have seen or at least claimed to have seen visions of angels fighting or while possessed, supposedly hate to be touched with holy water, and the holy water concept is strongly associated with the Catholic religion). You never, not even in movies, see a possessed person being exorcised by an Episcopalian priest, a Mormon, or Baptist, it’s always, suspiciously, a Catholic, and since the New Age, by sorcerers/witches and or mediums. The malicious intent of the demons is also evident by their choice of what they throw fits over with regards to who and how they are repelled: Catholic priests, mediums, and witches. Why these three? Here is a psychological analysis again:

1) Catholic doctrine and the Bible forbid channeling or consulting demons, casting spells, and even fortune-telling. And demons give us the impression that Catholics can repel them, but not other types of groups that many consider Christians, whether considering them to be hypocritical Christians or not. And a careful study of a certain chapter in Revelation indicates that God considers the Catholics church to be the “whore that rides the beast” who is “drunk with the blood of the saints”. In other words God considers them to be unfaithful, both physically and spiritually adulterous (including not being faithful to God) and to be responsible for the deaths of a great many true Christians. The clue is the reference to the city on “seven hills” in this chapter (Rome is the only known city on seven hills with great influence of the world). Now if you suppose that Satan is a very malicious liar, and a clever one as the Bible teaches he is, then it’s makes sense as to why he would want to give the appearance that one “Christian” group (that God took the time to write about as being the worst on Earth), as being the only Christians powerful enough to stop him, or that even have a chance (Catholic priests have a high failure rate of getting rid of demons, and as far as the evidences shows, they don’t actually get rid of any demons, but rather the demons leave on their own, and according to the Bible, possess the same person again, and probably sometimes when their are no priests around or anyone to notice the possession, (like hidden abuse)).

2) Demons give the impression that mediums and witches can make them leave, at least in the mass media (for example no medium has ever been shown being attacked by a demon, a ghost investigator was recently attacked/possessed, supposedly, and it can be seen on youtube, but there was no indication that he was a medium or a witch that I knew of). Now what makes no sense about that, is that, again, traditional and official Catholic doctrine teaches that mediums and witches are evil and are under the persuasion of Satan, and if Satan, then the rest of the disobedient angels/demons, as Satan is their leader. The Bible also implies this.

Notice the polar opposites: Catholics, supposedly the only true Christians or rather only ones who will make it to Heaven and live forever in peace, and the mediums and witches, mediums who are said to channel demons, and it’s implied that witches, even if they don’t know it, rely on Satan/demons to accomplish their magic. Do you notice the irony, or the joke of this “Trickster”, this comedian, this mocker, called Satan?:

He’s simultaneously promoting the Catholic denomination, which at least in the opinion of 50+ million Christians is the most hated by God of of all Christian cults and the mediums and witches, whom Satan works and speaks through, and more ironic, is that Satan often uses mediums to console those who are tormented over the loss off someone they loved. In other words Satan is making it look like the worst cult on Earth is the true religion while causing great confusion also by making it look like Catholicism is completely wrong, by putting mediums and witches in a good light. And this makes the Bible look wrong to those WHO KNOW that the Bible forbids speaking to the dead and witchcraft, and which implies that the Catholic denomination prevents lasting peace.

Is what I’ve said just ranting? If so, then show the flaw or flaws in my logic. Note: simply telling me that the Bible is false is not evidence of anything, let alone scientific evidence, also showing any supposed evidence that it is won’t be accepted by me, since I’ve already examined it all, and though I’m not a professional biologist or physicist or archeologist, I don’t need to be anymore than any who disbelieves the Bible needs to be in order to “know” it’s not true, rather we can read the research of those who are and examine their trustworthiness in various ways to know if they are telling the truth, or if their research makes sense. And for those of you who think, “Well if you won’t except the only evidence that the Bible is false then you’re preventing anyone from showing your reasoning is false”, that’s wrong, because you can view my belief in the Bible as true as a hypothesis that it is true, and then look for any flaw or flaws in my exposition based on that hypothesis.

For example, if someone wouldn’t accept that the basic evidence for macro-evolution were true, and wrote a exposition based on it, that wouldn’t prevent me from showing that their exposition was wrong (if it were long enough) being that flaws are inevitable in any teaching based on a lie, especially a great amount of lies as many think the Bible is.

Count on Audrey Niffinegger to surprise you endlessly with her storylines and plots.  We were absolutely blessed with her concept of time travel in The Time Traveler’s Wife and this time, the focus is on the supernatural forces of ghosts.

The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. Although they are 20 years old, Julie and Valentina have had no real world experience and seem to be almost childlike in that they dress the same, often sleep in the same bed and only make plans together.

The twins move to London, and Historic Highgate Cemetery, which borders Elspeth’s home, serves as a haunting setting as the twins become entwined in the lives of their neighbors: Elspeth’s former lover, Robert; Martin, an agoraphobic crossword-puzzle creator; and the ethereal Elspeth herself, struggling to adjust to the afterlife.  Niffenegger has you mesmerized by these characters within no time, particularly Robert in my case.  Elspeth’s life as a ghost in the apartment is a bit hard to follow, but if you can suspend your disbelief, it is well worth it.

Valentina begins to develop a relationship with Robert, making Julia jealous, particularly when Valentina also decides to pursue her interest in fashion design independent of Julia.  Elspeth secretly is developing a relationship with Valentina, also based on jealousy but much more deviously than Julia.
Valentina and Julia create a plan (sure to go awry) that will allow Valentina to move forward with her life while at the same time “rescuing” Elspeth.

While the characters are wonderful, the plot unique, the setting haunting, and the writing beautiful, the very confusing ending does take a bit away from this otherwise incredibly creative and compelling story.

Click here to find this book in our catalog.

After Mark had made his big discovery, Sam grudgingly walked his horse over to him, and took a look for himself. Sam was tired, confused, and somewhat disappointed. The first half of his hunch had been correct, but it looked like the second half of it was dead wrong. Sam wasn’t expecting this new development. He wasn’t ready for it. He hadn’t prepared for it, and that made him mad. Whereas, before he had feigned anger and enthusiasm, his anger had now become tentative, and he was truly concerned. He was mad at that murderer, because it seemed as if he’d changed his mind, and now Sam would have to change his plans. He’d been thoroughly ready to go on home, get warm, and go to bed. On the other hand, Mark was just beginning to find himself. He was coming into his own. He’d accomplished two feats, one daring, and one investigative. Mark’s confidence had been revived, and he was raring to go. Now that he had the guts that he’d been lacking, he was able to get up the nerve to ask Sam a question.

“Why is he going back, do you think?” He’d caught Sam off-guard. Sam had been probing his own mind for his next hunch, for some other possibility, for the one that wasn’t quite so obvious. Sam returned the favor by saying this to Mark. “I don’t rightly know, Kid. I’m thinking the worst. I’m thinking there’s something he didn’t finish doing last night. I’m thinking, perhaps, he didn’t complete his mission. Maybe, he had intended on murdering the pastor’s entire family. I’ll be damned, but I’m afraid he’s going back for those two kids, if he isn’t going after Luke. He’s the only one who saw him leaving the place.”

“Oh, my God, Sam! I sure hope not. I was wondering, if maybe he hadn’t forgot something else. Something he needed really, really bad to make his trip. Like a map, or something. Money, maybe.” Sam quickly shot back, “I highly doubt it, Kid. That sonuvabitch is a maniac! It’s hard to guess what he’s up to. Those kind of people don’t just blatantly disregard the law, they rule it out altogether, and then they do whatever it is that suits their purpose. He’s at least two hours ahead of us. He could already be back in town doing whatever it is that he’d planned on doing, and we may be too late to do anything about it.” Just then, Sam’s second hunch finally came to him, giving him new hope that his first hunch might still be the correct one. But the high-strung kid had gotten excited, and blurted out, “We better high-tail it outta here then, huh?” “Yeah, Kid,” Sam said, ignoring his words.

Sam turned to the rest of his posse, and filled them in. “Hey, you guys, listen up! Our murderer might be headed to the river to take a different route south. He knows someone’s on to him, or else he’d be riding over yonder on the road. If he does know we’re after him…well, that’s what I would do. He can walk his horse up the river for a ways and lose us. We wouldn’t have a chance. We’ll head on up to the river. If he’s going back to town, his tracks will be straight across on the other side. This weather’s gonna slow him down same as us.” Then Sam reached back into his bag, and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. It was practically empty. He tipped it up real quick, and killed it off, which instantly set him off into a bout of coughing, and gasping for air. After Sam had come back to his senses, Mark gave him a funny look. “It’s okay, Kid. Don’t you worry about me. I know what I’m doing. That stink back in the cave left me with a bad taste in my mouth.” Sam tossed the bottle off into the brush. Mark felt himself compelled to ask one more question, before they took off, so he continued to put up a fuss. “What about all that stuff back in the cave? You don’t think…you don’t believe…I mean, what was that all about?” Sam looked Mark right in the eyes, “I ain’t worried about that idiot’s hocus-pocus! He can cast spells all he wants. The world doesn’t work that way. Wishing will you only get you so far. Don’t you know that?” Sam reared his horse around,”Okay, men. Let’s ride!” The Kid was beginning to get on his nerve, and it ticked him off.

The manhunt was once again underway in that miserably cold rainy weather. Mark fell in line and behaved himself, as a good soldier should. Sam had gotten him to thinking the worst, too, but he was hoping Sam was right, and if that man had cast a spell on them, it wouldn’t work. Mark really did want to believe that, but his old self and his old ways wouldn’t let him. The Kid wished he could make his old self magically disappear, but like Sam said, the world doesn’t work that way. Mark was shivering, and feeling pretty darn miserable himself. He took it out on Sam by wondering why he was going so slow, and cursed him under his breathe. There was no trail to follow, so the ride was naturally rough-n-tough. Sam was having a difficult time seeing, and following the man’s tracks. Right then and there, he promised himself he’d go and get those damn spectacles his doctor had been recommending. But he was able to follow the tracks, all the way to the river. Before they crossed, Sam got off his horse, and led him to water. His men took the cue, and mimicking Sam, followed suit. After a few minutes of stretching their legs, they crossed on over, and picked up the murderer’s tracks. He was still headed north. This frustrated Sam to no end. They hadn’t gone far before the tracks headed back west. After they’d reached the road, the tracks continued northward. By that time the rain was sticking, and freezing to every single thing it touched. It was a half-hour ride from there to Bedlam, and another hour from Bedlam to their town. Sam already had a headache, and the impending doom wasn’t helping matters at all.

In this latest update we have lots of picspam of Piranha in Egypt.  Because she’s so pretty and it’s so pretty and she looks so at home there.  We also have some ghost toddler action and a very exciting learning that those of you who don’t have WA may not have found out about yet.  So, on with the action!

World Adventures would be a great place to play out Doctor Who sims stories, because there is a LOT of running involved.  Characters do occasionally get to use transport, but most of the time, presumably because of the hills and so on, they run places.  It’s a bit time consuming, but if you stick it on 3x speed it’s OK.

We bought ourselves a moped, though your sims get to drive around on these in Egypt anyway (in China it’s bicycles).  Piranha won’t be bothering with catacombs or challenges or anything while she’s here; she’s all about collecting (and buying the relevant fishing books and recipes we need).

Here she is collecting outside some pyramids.  This screenshot is merely so we can all sigh at the prettiness.

Unlike her cousin, whenever she had a second on freewill she chose to play guitar, which is an improvement on homework I suppose.

When you are at base camp on your travels (and in some ‘community’ locations) there are places to eat properly.  However, your sims can buy morsels of dried food to eat in caves and on missions to save having to find somewhere to eat (they can also buy fruit and veg from the shops and there are places where you can harvest plants, too).  There are three types of morsel, and of course, we’ve tried them all out.

The small morsel gives a negative moodlet from eating nasty food; the medium one gives a ‘good meal’ moodlet, and the big one gives whatever it the moodlet’s called that comes between ‘good’ and ‘divine’ meal: the one you get when you have really nice food at home or in the Bistro (but not when you eat the Bistro’s divine meal).  Note to self: make more notes on these things so you can inform people properly.  These latter two are the same length and size of effect as in the base game when you eat food that gives a similar response; I haven’t seen the negative moodlet before (though I think it was similar in size of effect to the cheap fridge moodlet).  Basically, the medium food is probably the one to go for if you can afford it.  Medium food also tends to be what they find if they discover food when they’re exploring.

There are unique collectables in each location, so Piranha will also be visiting China and France at some stage to get bugs and butterflies.

She found two unique types of butterfly here and a scarab beetle.  I hope there aren’t any more but I haven’t found any guide to WA collectibles out there yet.  I guess that’s the disadvantage of playing a game so new; by now there are guides a-plenty for the base game but everyone’s still learning the ropes with the EP.

She went looking for interesting stuff in the mausoleum catacombs but came out with nothing but a bad moodlet and some bear electrocution.

We couldn’t find a triolbite beetle here, either.  But look how pretty it is.  We also discovered that there is a delay between when sims come back from one holiday and try to go to the next, as I wanted Piranha to go on the France expedition and it wouldn’t let her as it was too soon after this one.  Will let you know how big the gap is when I do.

Piranha brought some souvenirs home, including the moped, books, incense (which we haven’t played with yet) and our new Mummified Teddy, Sharon Osbourne (I renamed the others after Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue after pinkfiend1’s comment yesterday).

Here’s our current collection of butterflies and beetles.  I like them a lot better than fish as you don’t have to feed them (and they’re prettier).

Piranha is demonstrating something else I learned: she’s a slob (a slob AND a snob: go figure), and when she licks a used plate clean, her hunger bar fills up.  She can also, of course, eat spoiled food, which is fine as the fridge glitch hasn’t been fixed yet.  In other news, Sindy can now make key lime pie so Thomas will finally get to eat his favourite food.

As promised, some ghost toddler skilling.  The library books trick works just as well as for living babies.  We got Harry through his books in one sim afternoon and we’ll do the same for Eddie as soon as we can.

Here’s the obligatory cute picture of the boys skilling on the toys.  Now they are toddlers, their graves have the ‘return to Netherworld’ option on. Not that that’ll be happening, of course.

Some of you wanted to see their CAS pictures, so here they are:

Eddie Kidd Daye

Harry Houdini Daye

Other than their hairstyles and clothes they essentially look the same as each other now, but that’s sim toddlers for you.  When they get to teen I’ll hopefully be able to ambrosia one of them up and then hold an heir poll (Evel is about to turn YA in game, and so I don’t want to wait until the boys turn YA or she’ll be ancient!).

Harry hates the outdoors so his LTW probably won’t be anything funky from the new EP but Eddie will totally get to do one of those new LTWS.  I’ve discovered five so far (based on exploring, martial arts, photography, relic collecting and nectar) though there may be more.  As soon Eddie turns child, he’ll be travelling along with Piranha and Thomas (children can’t travel alone) and then I’ll decide what his destiny is.

Not sure what Harry will do.  I’m leaning towards science so we can do experiments and make all our stuff give off nice moodlets.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this tidbit, which pretty much makes WA getting all by itself (as if those pretty pyramids weren’t reason enough!).  There are several new LTRs.  We’ll be play testing all of them as we go.  However, the best one is ‘No bills ever’.  Yes, that’s right.  The only time that little flag will go up is when we have a certificate, book, fish or gem delivered (and when I need a repo man so hold off on that LTR for a nanosecond in a later generation).  It only costs 15K LTH which is a ridiculously small price to pay for something so amazing (it’s one that applies to a sim so you’ll have to repurchase it if that sim dies/moves).  Considering we’re going to have to have a monster-sized house, this is very good news indeed!

While I remember, just a warning about money and the patch: when I patched up my base game, the businesses couldn’t be collected from any more.  I sold them because there was no point in having them and making nothing.  Since installing WA I have bought the cheapest share (the diner) to see if the glitch has been fixed.  We’ll keep you posted.

Join us later in the week for France, fishing, gardening, journalism, singing, cooking and the girls aging up!

As I’m sure some people have noticed, I’ve been using the terms ‘ghost’ and ’spirit’ pretty much interchangeably when they’re not. While ghost applies pretty much only to dead imprints, spirits can be things that were never ‘alive’ at all. Consider nature spirits, spirit guides, spirit beings such as negs, etc. I’ll try to be more clear in the future, but my old stuff will still be categorized and tagged inappropriately.

Louweasleydore:

I bet you missed me, admit it.

I have not used the internet for a million years, aside from briefly at college, but hello, education comes first and all that jazz. I have actually forgotten how to use it, and I am now remembering how much my computer hates me. It does not do anything. For example, I just typed that sentence and it got as far as “I” and then it did that annoying flashy-mozilla-firefox-not-responding thing. Ah well, there are bigger things to do in life.

Like building a computer that works.

But I shall never be able to do that because I barely know how to switch one on, although I did plug in the internet box thing and the phone line without electrocuting myself earlier.

But the weirdest thing happened today, and no fear, I hear your cries for me to tell you, so I shall. I unfortunately am of the bespectacled kind and am too squeamish to wear contact lenses, but anyway, I got out of the shower today and had a towel wrapped round my hair, like you do. Walked into my bedroom, leant over my bed (which I built from flat-pack BY MY SELF. I’m not just a pretty face, hahaha) to grab my glasses from the windowsill. I then blowdried my hair, and then proceeded to attempt to make myself somewhat normal looking with makeup. I failed miserably, but anyway, I have a double wardrobe, on which one of the doors there is a mirror. Next to my wardrobe is my sisters bunk bed, and I, as always, went to put my glasses on her bed. Ten minutes later, I turned round to grab them, AND THEY WERE NOT THERE. Like really, really gone. So I put on my spare pair, which I hate so much and cannot understand why I bought them, to have a better look. AND THEY WERE NOT THERE. They were not under the duvet, in the duvet, under the pillow, in the pillow, under my clothes, under the mattress, on the bottom bunk, down the sides, under the bunks, in the ottoman box thing, in the wash basket, on my bed, on my duvet, under my duvet, under my pillow, on the windowsill, under the towel, on my desk, in my wardrobe, in a shoe, in the airing cupboard or anywhere on the floor. I was most confused, and angry because I had to wear my beast glasses that are just so bad OUT IN PUBLIC. Which got ’stolen’ and I realised how really bad my eyesight is, because I could not distinguish the gender of people more than five feet away from me BECAUSE I COULD NOT SEE. I got them back though, and was late for Spanish. When mentioning to my mother about the lost glasses scenario, she said “with all due respect, Louise, but how do you expect to find ANYTHING in your room with it in that mess?” It was not that bad. But lo and behold my mum has just handed my my glasses after spending half an hour about an hour ago searching my room for them and she could not find them, and she is bloody good at finding things. Then she gave up, went upstairs and there they were on the bed. Why are all my houses haunted?

I expect you want to know everything that has happened in my absence? I bet you do. Or not. Either way nothing has happened. Got shouted at by a customer at Argos on Sunday, talked alot, laughed alot, got rained on, panicked about UCAS, watched Gossip Girl, ate cake at Karen’s, started History coursework, had some early nights, and went to a Jonas Brothers concert, but I shall not tell you about that because I will get fangirly and annoying and I will cry. I cried because they took a little girl on stage and sang Gotta Find You from Camp Rock to her. I cried because I was thinking “oh my god my heroes are actually amazing, i love them they’re so lovely etc etc”. Charlotte cried with jealousy. It was good times Though I felt very old, very tall and so immature it was unreal. But on the way back on the tube, there were three women who were like 35+ who were saying they had just come back from the Jonas Brothers concert, and at that point my shame vanished. I think it a little excessive to go to a Jonas Brothers concert when you are old and you do not have a child in tow. I shall not go to an Elliot Minor concert, or indeed a young persons band, when I am visibly aging before their very eyes. Which is unfortunate because I look much older than I am. And I shall be heartbroken when I decide I am too old to go to a concert. I will be reduced to watching old Mel Gibson movies on a Friday night eating ice cream by the truck load.

Speaking of which, I went to another Elliot Minor concert and it was amayzing, as usual:

<fan girl>omg i love them so much i would like to marry alex davies he’s such a babe i love him so so so much but omg they’re all so amazing i have a shrine to them on my bedroom wall i don’t know what i’d do without them they are my inspiration if they break up i shall have a broken heart that will never be mended omg alex davies! it hurts to see him in photos with other people omg why are all other elliot minor fans so pretty? i miss him!!!1!!1!!!!!!1</fan girl>

I will fo’sho get children’s tricycles thrown at me for saying this, but I very much miss Jedward, I got quite attached to them, I like John better than Edward and X Factor is not worth watching now. That is complete seriousness.

And also, why does it have to rain ALL NOVEMBER?

x

Movie reviews are always one-sided and biased, so I tend to shy away from offering much of an opinion outside of friends and family circles. Now that I’ve thoroughly cornered myself, here is my brief review of Christmas Carol 3D.

• I have not seen a movie that has utilized 3D effects more than this film. Every scene was packed with 3D effects.
• The plot was almost word for word from the book.
• I loved their new take on the different ghosts.
• Jim Carrey did an excellent job, though he tends to vex me at times.
• Some scenes get a bit long in the tooth and are obviously only employed to further the 3D effects, which again, were enjoyable, but in the end, renders the sub-ghost plots flaccid.
• It’s a bit creepy in parts and loud. I would not suggest taking children under the age of 13 to see the film.

That said, enjoy the film!

Most of the time, when you’re dealing with the restless dead, you’re talking about phantoms. These spooky spectres love to haunt houses, and will make odd noises and cold spots and all sorts of strange phenomena. Some have the power of possession, and will jump inside a victim for a quick ride. They generally look like the person did when they were alive, except spectral. Most people can’t see them unless it’s the middle of the night, though, or if they’re all alone. This isn’t due to any sort of supernatural restriction – the phantoms simply have a proper sense of decorum.

A phantom tends to stick around due to unfinished business. He never got a chance to tell his wife that he loves her, or finish that last game of Mahjong. He thus will stay in the shadow between worlds until he is able to complete this task, no matter how long it takes. You might be able to figure out what this goal is through a game of spooky charades. If the walls start to bleed whenever you mention someone’s name, perhaps the phantom was murdered. Do some investigation, bring the killer to justice, and the ghost will leave and you’ll be able get a good night’s sleep.

Desteni Productions
Video Response to BlissWeaver
Part 2
November 18, 2009

Hey! This is part 2! Darryl with Desteni Productions, and this another clip in regards to Cari AKA BlissWeaver, who had a problem with the 2012 ascension prophecy that we made a couple days ago.

Right. Okay, Cari, again, this is not an attack on you. This is not something that insult or humiliate of offend you in any way. I hope not, anyway. This is just a point; some responses to what you’ve said, and they’re directed at the response [made by BlissWeaver to the Desteni 2012 clip], okay? All right.

One thing that you said, is something that I have heard a million times from these people who profess “love” and “life” and “positive” and “beautiful” metaphysical feelings and emotions – is that suffering is “useful” for “learning.” Or, suffering is what people have “chosen” to endure. Or, suffering is vital to “provide lessons.” I do not know why the people who profess “Love,” “Light,” “Higher Consciousness” would have such a callous disregard to other people’s suffering.

You know, the same people who have the Candy Land Metaphysics of “Everybody is One,” “We’re All One,” “We’re all thoughts of God,” “We’re all the same,” “We’re all One Entity, one gestalt of being, one great chain of being,” “We’re all One, we’re all beautiful, bright, radiant things.” But, these same people disregard the suffering as something beneath them. Something that can’t reach them. Something that they have “spiritually evolved” out of. It’s like, “Oh, I’ve made it! God loves me! Oh, you guys will have to stop suffering and come up here with me!” I mean that’s just silly. It’s selfish. It’s silly. And it’s callous. And it’s like these people have both polarities – they the polarity going of callous disregard and “Oh, Love and Light.” And they’re the same thing. I find it disgusting, actually, that whole point of suffering. As the comment you mad, Cari – the comment’s disgusting – that you said: “To think that one can relieve another’s suffering is Ego-Trip.”

So if I can extrapolate that point: Martin Luther King was on an ego-trip. Abraham Lincoln was on an Ego-Trip. Mahatma Gandhi was on an Ego-Trip. Nelson Mandela was on an Ego-Trip. Jesus was on an Ego-Trip. Mother Theresa was on an Ego-Trip. Mother Theresa. Maybe she was. If we’re gonna be on Ego-Trips, we might as well try to alleviate the suffering of others.

As long as we’re going to spit in the faces of people, of beings that tried to alleviate the suffering of others, we might as well call it an Ego-Trip. If we can just spit in their faces or rub what they’ve done or accomplished or what they tried to do in the dirt, as long as we can do that, we should just call it an Ego-Trip. Just to complete the whole point, there, just to put a cap on it.

I think what an Ego-Trip is actually, what I think an Ego-Trip is actually, is professing “Light” and “Love” and “Beauty” and disregarding the “Ugly.” Disregarding the Grotesque, disregarding the Rejected, Disregarding the Dark, Evil Places that can’t find acceptance anywhere – that’s an Ego-Trip, to think that you above or Better than anybody else, Better than people who suffer.

I know you don’t think that. I know you don’t think you’re better than people who suffer. And I know you don’t think that you’re better than people who are concerned about other people’s suffering. But to say, “To think that one can relieve another’s suffering is an Ego-Trip,” I would have to ask you, do you really believe that? I don’t have to wonder that, because you don’t believe it – it’s just a statement, like al the other statements you’ve made. But this statement, you denigrate and sully the accomplishment of people who did actually – got off their butts and did something about it.

Now, take that for what it’s worth. What we are doing as Desteni, are producing people… raising awareness – and these people that we’re producing will stand as the point of common sense. We want our Principles acknowledged; the Principles of Life and the Principles of what is best for all: Equality and Oneness. All these things you’ve read about and seen on the videos. We’re not just going to make videos about – we’re gonna do something about it. And Expect that you will Spit in our faces while we are trying to correct what needs corrected. We don’t care. You know, we’re not gonna take it personally when you spit in our face. We expect a lot of people who like things the way that they are, to have the same reaction. We’re not going to be stopped. And in the end, you’ll thank us. So I think that’s all I have to say.

Wow. Great movie, just for the simple fact that someone was capable of making a film without stupid things jumping out at you like those youtube shockers and things of that nature (we’ve all encountered the maze or color test I’m sure)

This has by far been one of the best paranormal movies I think I have ever seen. It’s no wonder this $25,000.00 budget movie made uber millions! This movie takes you through a view of the other side, which if you’ve never experienced a paranormal event, it gives you a pretty good idea of what types of things you could expect. Footsteps, scratching, knocking,  inhuman breathing through EVP (electronic voice phenomenon). I have heard of people being disappointed in this movie and that is probably due to the fact that they’re so used to having something leap out at you with some wacky film effects and lots of LFE going on.

Paranormal Activity gets a 5/5 in my movie rating book for thrills and suspense. This movie exemplifies how a paranormal thriller should be! Honestly, I did not even want to look at my monitor in full screen because I was completely suspecting some wild looking demonic figure to just pop out in front of the camera to make me have to put on my Depends =P.

The boyfriend however was a serious douche who just made everything worse, to all you kids out there interested in playing with a Ouija board or spirit board, DON’T DO IT! Take it from someone who has had numerous paranormal events in his life and has certain abilities. Pissing off an inhuman is definitely something you do not want to do….The ending was a disappointment to a point, I wish they wouldn’t have shot Katie at the end, I know that’s kinda the point, but still, could have made it longer and shown the after effects and stuff, ah well, I just know what I would’ve liked to have seen ending-wise.

Feel free to leave your comments!

Josh

When your life just happens to be larger than high school in the suburbs, you want to find that one little safe haven, beyond your parents' house, where you won't encounter latter day ghouls. But that search is illusive like the green faery. Hardly anyone make legit Absinthe anymore.

As Providence would have it, I've been reading about drunk authors lately and put to rest pursuit of the Ghost: impulsive expression or explanation or something a lot more vivid--and yet ephemeral--that fuels the fingers translatin' nasty neural messages or whatever. I have no grand delusions of successful articulation. Arrogance and self-deprecation are trendy again these days with the written word.

I just like the way words curl and erode on the tongue beneath nothing more than a single breath. The Force of fricatives crashing into a period and liquids flooding some wading pool of shallow words. These days again the longer words are forehead-stamps for Pompous Douchebag. Mm, but some of them are also more fun to say, with syllables tumbling every whatever way. Much like Providence sent me unsuspecting to one of the dives just beyond town limits recently. I believed it to be that illusive safe haven.

Most people find themselves in this situation, I suppose. Face to face with schoolboys who are more inflated and liquored up than four yrs ago with chemically ingrained interests in self, flattery of, and ... refusing to order a beer to meet the ten dollar minimum for paying on credit card? Carrying around credit cards, wielding their oh so impressive wit, disenchantment, and crude egos. Another shot over here, please.

It's not all bad. Running into someone who looks like Joe Shmoe only four yrs older and in posession of the same name, birthdate, social, etc. Different person, maybe. Someone angst obscurred in the ugly public school lights some yrs ago.

The dreaded run-in with high school history is somewhat like the In Between that Polly finds herself in, only less wondrous. Staler. More hung over. Another ghost to shoo away and leave behind, realizing Providence teaches nothing.

Frog and toe
leaf
another stretch
a spark
red oliver
dangles
the ogles.

New York City
autumn
another year
a diamond
gold moon
seduces
the eyes.

For the better part of this year, I have not been able to sleep. 

A few weeks ago it dawned on me that I do not even like to go into my bedroom, let alone sleep in there.  I realized that I feel angry when I’m in there, and I don’t like that.  So as I looked around, I started to realize why.  First of all, this is the bed I shared with my ex.  Um, ew dude.  That’s all I have to say about that. (Thanks Forrest.)

Then I looked at the color.  Moroccan Red.  Really?  Such an energetic color for a room where I am supposed to rest.  Then when I thought about it, I remembered that my ex picked that color from 3 choices I’d narrowed it down to.  The more I looked around, the more I saw traces of him that I had never even noticed before. 

The Rosary.

The jewelry armoire he gave me for my 30th birthday.

The African dashiki and head wrap hanging in plain view in the closet.  (Truly, the strangest gift he ever gave me.)

But I realized that while this man will always be a part of my history, it is not healthy for me to keep my space so cluttered with phantoms of the man who abused me for years.  And still tries. So as a testimony to my renewed focus, I’ve decided to remodel my room.

Something peaceful.  And green.  With dark wood accents and a yellowish-cream colored trim.

Serene. 

Lots of books, several candles and a kajillion pictures of people I love.

A good stereo system with quiet music being played loud.

Maybe a fountain by the bed.  Who knows.

Projects help me use my creative side.  I love to create.  And I am about to bust out my best creation yet.

Me.

Moving forward with this fun commission… after the “main theme”, I added a squad of ghosts with weird hairdos, as requested Enjoy, I even threw into the mix the first mermaid ghosts… shocking, I’d say. And yes, pencils are difficult to photograph… I hate taking pictures of pencils.

The Topic of this discussion is:  Supernatural. 

Question:    Yo, the name is Maria. I just wanna know more about the scary stuff! I love yo blogs ’bout ghosts and evil spirits. I always found the supernatural and paranormal topics interesting. Y’all seem to know a lot ’bout these subjects. Can you tell me more? I appreciate it. Thank you.

Maria

Answer:   Sure, Maria why not! Well, the unexplained  have always been a taboo subject to discuss. Certain popular tv shows like A Haunting, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Unsolved Mysteries, have always dabbled into these fields. Actually, it’s  very exciting to know about! Many people repeatedly mentioned that they would like to see a ghost. They don’t. Nobody should want to see that. Because there is no such thing as ghosts. Instead, evil spirits or specifically-demonic presences pretend to be ghosts. They do this in order to fool and haunt humans.

Animals always sense the presence of an unnatural occurrence before humans can. Whether it’s an upcoming natural disaster or a change in the temperature. So if your dog usually behaves but starts barking all of a sudden, when nothing seems wrong, then that might be a clue to an unseen presence.

Here’s a few hints if you want to know if you experience a haunting.

• If you feel a sudden drop in the temperature, such as a cold blast of air
• If certain areas of your house feel different. Like a cool spot, where it would naturally be warm.
• Unexplained voices, footsteps, sounds, movements
• If you start feeling sick or stressed.
• If you feel possessed by something.
• Then the most significant of all, if you actually see a presence or spirit.

If you would like to know what you should do during this desperate time, then you can read one of our previous posts about evil presences. You can read it here.

Christian Whitewater

If you would like to provide comments or advice to this reader, then you can post them above.

Also if you would like to ask us a question or give a comment, then you can submit it here at Denise’s advice gossip column or email them at RedHotJuicySizzlingGossip@gmail.com.

The lovely Elaine from the UK sent me a beautiful piece featuring SadCloud and a group of snowflake ghosties, inspired by AFI’s Love Like Winter song, a band we both really like… so I couldn’t be happier to receive this drawing and I’m looking forward to designing a tattoo for her. Please pay attention to the shading, it’s great Here’s the pic and Elaine’s Deviantart page, go tell her she’s awesome!

We begin our new update with another gnome pose.  Here’s Len Goodman – he’s actually pointing at Simon Cowell (who’s still standing on the other table).  There will be more gnomage later.

However… I now have World Adventures!  Hooray!  I haven’t spent much time playing with it yet, but fear not, the family will get around to it.  Because there are traits and LTWs associated with WA I don’t want to waste all the good stuff on the current members of the family who have other destinies (except the boys, whose haven’t been decided), so it’ll take time before we play through it all, but nonetheless, you’ll be seeing a bit of travelling this week as I’m anxioous to get out there and there are things our gang can do there right now that won’t spoil all the exploration and skilling stuff I have planned for future Dayes.

Evel Knievel was the first member of the family to take a trip, and she went to China.  I was very excited to learn that teens can travel alone.  Excellent!  For those that don’t have WA, the first trip takes 3 days and as they progress through challenges, missions and exploration, they can gain visa stamps (up to three per location) and spend longer and longer there.  In time, apparently, they can buy homes there.

There is a sort of neighbourhood layout with houses and lots similar to community lots (at least in China, I haven’t been anywhere else yet) which have various stuff on them, and it’s very pretty.  You can take travel opportunities (though they’re called something else): mini challenges and explorations to help you gain your visa.  For the most part, these particular Dayes will be ignoring those and letting future ones do them, but Evel did a few of them so I could get a feel for the game.

She also did some shopping for me.  You can buy ‘relics’ and also some metals and gems (which is nice if you don’t want the hassle of full-on collecting), food, tents, cameras, fireworks and suchlike.  However, the big thing for us are the books: there are new recipe books, new fishing books and some new fiction type books.  We purchased the recipes and fishing books posthaste.

Seeing as it’s a try everything legacy, I figure we need to cook every new recipe and catch every new fish too.  But I’m totally giving myself bonus points for doing extra stuff in WA.

After sending Evel shopping, I was getting ready to send her to investigate a temple when she got her homework out.  This was to be a recurring theme throughout her holiday.  What teenager, free from family and all adults for three days, exploring one of the most beautiful places in the world, would take their homework?

Here she is doing her homework in the mouth of a great big dragon cave.

And I finally get her exploring, and she’s STILL thinking about school.

I’m not going to post pictures of her exploring up here because a) it might be a bit spoilery for people who want to try it themselves, and b) I’m sure some future sim will get photos taken of the same activities.  We explored a little, found some treasure and had some fun.

Here’s the Great Wall of China… and something less great… more collecting.  Fortunately collecting in WA seems easier than in the base game.  Evel doesn’t have our collection helper in her backpack and the ores showed up on the map when she had a collecting challenge.  I don’t know if they’d show if the family didn’t own a collection helper but maybe some of you do know?  Of course, you can buy some metals and gems at the store but I doubt it’ll be all of them.  Oh, and to add a new dimension, there are relics to collect.  I’m not thinking about relics until I have a sim that will explore properly, and I’m not thinking about gems until many generations from now.  I may try for metals again soon, but it’s all to reminiscent of the Amaryllis situation right now.

Piranha, on the other hand, will soon be seen globetrotting to add to her beetle and butterfly collection.  Who knows, she may even find a trilobite somewhere, cos there sure ain’t one in the Valley.

Here is a very good thing we’ve learned.  In the China Base Camp there is a kitchen, so Evel was still able to cook meals and continue skill building (btw, she cooked sushi the other day and vomited, so they still haven’t fixed that bug.  She hasn’t vomited up carbonara yet, despite carbonara usually containing ham.  Stupid EAxis).  There are also exercise machines, telescopes and other famliar skill building equipment, though I have no logic or athletic sims right now to play with those.

Here she is learning a song from the special merchant that roams around.  They sing it.  I assume it builds music skill; must check her journal to see if that’s the case, and if it adds to the song list in the music skill.

She also wrote a fortune and ate a fortune cookie.  Her fortune had lucky numbers on it.  I don’t remember what they were.  I like to think they are the code numbers from Lost because that would be funny – but I don’t watch Lost so can’t confirm.

Piranha also did a bit of sight seeing and a heckuva lot of tedious running.  We must invest in some transport on our next holiday.

While you are playing your holiday sim, BTW, you can’t access the rest of the family.  Fortunately for them, time stood still.

Here’s Thomas reading a present of one of the new fishing books in anticipation of his own forthcoming adventures where he will be doing a lot of fishing, as usual, but in a different location.  Yeah, it’ll essentially be a Busman’s holiday for him, but it’s better than nothing, eh?

Despite the apparent loved-up-ness of this shot, he and Papergirl won’t try for a baby at the moment.  I will try a bit longer but then give up.  I don’t know how many members of Gen 3 I want roaming around given we’ll need to be marrying Piranha off soon and then we’ll need space for Gen 3 partners and Gen 4 babies.

I took the CC out when I installed the game, so here are Sindy and Piranha in their makeshift hair.  They’ll be back to normal next time you see them.

In another gnome pose, we stood Louis Walsh back up and he seems rather pleased with himself.  I’d like to insert a joke here about last night’s X Factor but fear it’d be too Brit-centric for an international readership.  I mean, I have called characters and gnomes very Brit-centric things as it is and I don’t want the blog to feel too much like one of those episodes of Friends where you scratch your heads at the American jokes.

And now onto the boys, which is what you’ve all been waiting for, I’m sure.  Ghost babies have a tombstone in their inventory though you can’t do anything with it.  Typing that has made me remember that they need teddies putting in there, too.  Poor boys, they’ve had to survive babyhood without one.  When they cry, they make the ghost noise which is a nice change at the moment but will probably become grating.  Other than that they’re like normal babies.  I haven’t noticed any major impact from one being a heavy sleeper and one being a light sleeper yet.

Above we can see Eddie Kidd as a toddler…

…and here’s Harry Houdini.  Note how they grew up looking different.

Here is Harry demonstrating something very, very exciting.  Ghosts can change their appearance (and we changed his hair though apparently I don’t have a shot of the new hair)… and when they look in the mirror you don’t see the ghost, you see what they’d look like if they were alive.  Both boys are cute as buttons… and they both have Amaryllis’s hair.  Oh yes, one of these boys will be eating some ambrosia at some point in the future.  Can’t let those hair genetics be wasted!  Of course this poses dilemmas for the heir poll when it comes up: Evel is a dedicated sim and very funky, but she’ll be competing with a ghost brother and a brother with Ama’s hair.  Not to mention that it’d be nice to spawn a child from Piranha to see if Abe’s hair carries down.  Such a shame there won’t be room for all of them to have sprogs

Anyway, join us next time for ghost toddler skilling and another trip to foreign climes!

I must have been in third grade or so. I can still remember unwrapping it in the arched doorway between the living room and the dining room in that tiny little house on West 114th. It was a little electric organ, I was stunned. I still cry as I write about what thoughtfulness and sacrifice my Mother must have made to squeeze that out of the budget in a house of nine children and one grandma. We had been to visit family friends, the Domitrovichs’ the summer before and while there I had visited their daughter (only daughter) room. She was a wonderful thoughtful girl who let us play with all her toys and I in particular had been fascinated with her little electric organ. My mother had come in to fetch me when I hadn’t come out to her repeated callings for dinner, and I can still see in her face the puzzlement as she looked at me trying to play that organ. Now I know it was recognition, and she was stamping it in her memory how I loved that organ. And that Christmas she remembered and somehow found the money for it.

And I remember opening it, and looking over to her and being just so so amazed that in the turmoil of all of the things to do and take care of she had remembered. It brings me to tears today. While I never became a concert pianist, i like to think I am a much more thoughtful person and a much better Mom and friend because I was taught that Christmas the power of being remembered.

“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”      William James

It’s true you know. I and just about everybody else only need to be loved. What is appreciation…but the expression of this love in a thankful manner. To tell that other human soul (or souls if your that lucky) that really GET you and tell you that they appreciate you, that you are eternally thankful that THEY exist. And what an appropriate time to let the one’s we love know that their feelings toward us are the only things that really matter anyway.