Just a Friend (or Just for Spite)
“You’re just a friend,” I was told, “forget the familiar stuff.”
Then you laughed scornfully, because your heart was tough.
“Fine with me,” I caustically replied, and went my merry way,
“I’ll forget your face and your charms, perhaps this very day.”
I tried my hardest, my very darndest, to keep me at my word,
But I forgot what I told myself and this is what occurred,
I asked you out, perhaps for spite, I know I lost my head,
And you should have played your part by saying, quote, “Drop dead!”
But no! “Yes,” you said, and acted very pleased,
And one thing led to another until on bended knee,
I said, “I don’t need other friends. Won’t you marry me?”
(It was plain you should have laughed if you wanted to stay free).
A joke, it was a joke, not to be taken seriously,
But you went and told who should not be told, friends and family,
There was no escape this dastardly deed, without losing face,
And I pondered long and deep, what another would do in my place,
I remembered your words, those deadly words, you’d once said to me,
“Just a friend, only a friend,” and then laughed derisively,
My heart grew cold, so very cold, as my revenge I planned out,
And what I did, I’m sure was best, of that I have no doubt,
I made you eat those words, those ruthless words, you once said to me,
I married you and became more than a friend, and all I was meant to be.

Waitrose to bail out Duchy Originals
Duchy Originals, Prince Charles‘ struggling food company, is expected to announce a rescue deal led by the supermarket group Waitrose, according to reports. The organic food and farming company has seen profits slump from £1.53 million to £57,400 in a year as sales of its luxury food products have been hit by the recession. The Prince set up Duchy Originals in 1990 and named it after the Duchy of Cornwall estates, which are held in trust by the Prince of Wales.

• Waitrose rescues Duchy Originals (guardian.co.uk)
• Waitrose seals royal deal with Duchy Originals (telegraph.co.uk)

Giving a pre-schooler an unwanted digital camera and letting her take photos on a picnic in a tourists’ spot on the Isle of Wight seems harmless.  But she takes a photo of a killer who only has four cartridges in his shotgun: one for the pre-schooler, one for her mother, one for her eighteen-month-old brother and one for their dad.  That this leaves the killer without a shot for his intended victim isn’t a problem until Doctor Karen Taylor turns up.

Young widow and forensic psychologist Karen Taylor camps in her family-owned chalet on the island where she’s come to interview Spike Falconer as part of her study into Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder.  Spike, convicted of the murder of the picnicking family, was adopted as a toddler by the wealthy Falconers who are reluctant to talk about their adoptive son, or, at least, Colonel Falconer is, Karen believes that his wife may be persuaded to talk if only she could be separated from her domineering husband.  The Falconers adopted because Mrs Falconer seemed unable to have children, but she fell pregnant naturally shortly after Spike comes to live with him, giving him a brother, Silas, two years younger than him, who is now a “successful city type” working in finance and earning more than enough to wear designer labels and drive a high-performance Porsche.  Dr Taylor finds her interviews with Spike puzzling as either he has an a-typical variant of the disorder or he doesn’t have it at all.

Apparently having overpowered a prison guard, that Colonel Falconer was privately paying to keep his adoptive son secure and who Spike accused of spying on the Colonel’s behalf, Spike escapes from Parkhurst Prison.  Dr Taylor gets a phone call requesting her presence at a potential hostage situation: a three-year-old girl has been tied up in full view of a window on the first floor of a house and the police don’t know if the abductors are nearby.  Rescuing the girl, Dr Taylor makes herself unpopular with the police for messing up their crime scene.  Spike is later recaptured, but Dr Taylor finds herself being dragged in for a police interview about her part in his escape. 

Of course, she had no part in his escape, but, having stirred up a hornets’ nest, Dr Taylor sets about pacifying the hornets.  There’s a lot of smoke and some of the hornets don’t seem to be sure whether they should be attacking their queen or the intruders and appear to change sides.  There are also powerful interests at work in ensuring Dr Taylor doesn’t get her answers.  Theories are fine for psychologists, but police need evidence that can be taken to court and Dr Taylor must not only consolidate and prove her theory but deliver evidence or at least a confession from the real killer to satisfy the police.

N J Cooper has skilfully created a labyrinthine psychological thriller that satisfyingly keeps the pace and tension all the way to the credible conclusion.  She focuses on the characters and their relationships, unobtrusively bringing in Dr Karen Taylor’s training and knowledge as real, solid background rather than something her character happens to do because the story needed a lead with access to the police who wasn’t governed by police procedures and paperwork.  Dr Karen Taylor has a personal life too but that takes place in the periphery of the story and is seamlessly fed in around the main plot.  A polished performance and I hope to meet Dr Taylor again.

A new messaging service from beyond the grave has been launched, allowing personal notes written prior to death to be sent to loved ones in the future.

The Last Messages Club offers busybodies and those who insist on having the last word – even when they’re dead – the opportunity to keep poking their noses into other people’s business for days, months and years after they’ve breathed their last.

For a small fee, members can write up to 100 emails that can be released once they have died at times of their choosing, such as when a loved one marries, has a child or needs prompting to put the bins out on a Thursday.

Simon Gilligan, 63, from Cambridgeshire, has signed up to the service and has written messages that will be sent to his wife, children and friends after his death.

“The messages are personal, but most of them are humorous,” he said.

“It also makes you think about smaller details, like making sure you remind someone to cancel your bus pass.”

In other words, the new service is like really low-level haunting.

Rather than all that pointless banging on the pipes at night, or moving objects or causing people to feel a chill down their spine, you can just email them and cut out the hassle-factor.

Thanks for the funeral, although I did think I might have warranted a slightly more expensive coffin. The fixed rate on the mortgage ends next month, make sure you shop around. Off to see Michael Jackson tonight - Elvis is the support act. Love, WIB

I only hope that the messages are sent under a comforting pseudonym, rather than the name of the deceased: I can see how it might be a bit disconcerting to see that the person you buried six months ago has clogged up your inbox with messages about shopping around for an insurance quote on the Mondeo or remembering to have the boiler serviced.

Otherwise, the messages might serve one purpose early – to reunite the loved one with the deceased by virtue of a catastrophic heart attack caused by sheer fright in front of the computer.

Personally, I’d find it incredibly frustrating to be limited to just 100 emails after the grave – I bang out that many in a day, and I’d hate to be constrained in the afterlife, especially as I’d have eternity to be frustrated about it.

No, if I’ve got the option, I’d like to send an email for every conceivable eventuality.

I sincerely think that my reassuring voice from beyond the grave would be a huge comfort to all, especially if it was regarding a matter of great importance, such as whether or not my daughter should get her belly button pierced (no) or if my son should be stopped from leaving the house if he insisted on gelling his fringe (yes).

And then there are other equally pressing issues I need to advise my children about.

They need to know that it’s socially unacceptable to call themselves ‘Dr’ on their chequebook and in non-academic situations after post-graduate studies UNLESS they become a proper doctor, in other words one that can write a prescription and remove in-growing toenails.

They must also be stopped from pronouncing ‘clique’ as ‘click’, dating men who wear patent shoes (or women who wear t-shirts with ‘Pornstar’ written across them or talk in ‘little girl’ voices to get their own way), thinking Peter Kay or Lee Evans are hilarious or wearing any form of yellow gold jewellery.

In fact, come to think of it, there are so many issues that I have an opinion on that I’m minded to dedicating the rest of my life to writing emails about them just in case I drop dead without any notice.

After I’ve dealt with the really important stuff – the patent shoes, the show-off ‘Dr’ titles and so forth – there are practical matters to contend with.

Who, other than me, for example, understands the complexities of the family tumble drier and realises that if you run the tap in the kitchen during the final spin it will render the entire drying process pointless?

Explaining the tumble drier alone would take 100 emails. And that’s before I’ve even started on how you make back right-hand oven ring work by twiddling a knob in several directions while giving the whole apparatus a sharp shove.

And finally, I don’t think I’d be able to pass up the opportunity to send a few unsettling emails to people who have wronged me and who deserve a damn good haunting.

You know, a few titbits about the afterlife to give them food for thought: eternal burning lakes of fire, demonic servitors of Belial, hell’s uncanny resemblance to an Ikea warehouse on a Bank Holiday Monday, that kind of thing.

It’s important to me to know I won’t be forgotten when I’m gone. My only fear is that the WiFi connection in the afterlife will be as ropey as the one I have in the land of the living.

PS I promise not to send ‘hilarious’ jokes titled ‘ You HAVE to see this!’ or links to YouTube clips or terrifying, but false, pieces of ‘health information’ that suggest wearing a bra gives you a brain tumour. Unless you’ve really pissed me off. In which case, that inbox of yours is going to need some extra memory.

Here’s the list of businesses so far.  We’ve got 44 of the most interesting businesses in Second Life for you delectation.

Well, I would say that wouldn’t I?

There’ll be a little something to tempt everyone.  I’ve also heard it whispered that there will be some very special hunt only gifts available…

Sponsors Participating

Satiated Desires

Bondage and other kinky, BDSM, CARP and sex toys to stir your imagination.

Something Spunky

Awesome-a-licious Animations, Furniture, and Fancy Scripted Items for SL’s BDSM and Vampire Communities. Also serving SLs sexiest couples with hot lurve animations, cuddle pillows, luscious bathing tubs, and oh so much more…

vMotional Animations

Animations for discerning couples

Nasty Girls Brothel

We are a high end brothel with highly educated, very friendly, carefully selected, trained and managed escorts.  About half of our staff are non-Americans but are fluent in English.  We have five DJs on staff and a unique, friendly tavern atmosphere with a large number of women and couples as regular patrons.  We are not a freelance escort site.

We also have a line of our own apparel and same as cash gift cards for our services in values of L$100, L$250, L$600, L$1000 and L$1800.  The values of the cards correspond with the prices for our various services.

Beds by Oh

Sex beds low prim sex furniture and rental resort

About Second Presentation

Second Presentation has scripting tutorials, teaching/presentation tools and scripted games.

Jim Gustafson is the owner of this shop and he contributes all necessary scripting to make this hunt a pleasant experience. He developed all the in world scripts and the website with all the database scripts in LSL/PHP/MySQL.

He doesn’t have a shop on Zindra but you can find his scripts and tutorials in his main store at Zoha Islands or on Xstreet SL.

Participating Businesses

12th House Designs
Clothing, Jewlery, Skyboxes, Furniture …all artfully done

A-rakan
Shopping mall, vendor space available.

Adult Second Shapes
Female avatar shapes (no male shapes yet)

Auctioneers Slave Exchange (ASE)
Slave auction/broker, shopping mall, glass maze type sex dungeon, dance club

The Blue Hour
Victorian, Art Deco, Retro, Modern, Neko & Gothic Sex and non Sex Furniture.

Bondage Witch Project aka “Bound Witch Project”
Store selling original content: art, cuffs, BDSM toys, clothes.

Border Patrol Zindra
In addition to managed security services, we are your friendly neighbourhood hardware store providing all your needs to run a business.

Cage full of Slaves, Sluts and Shemales
My place provides BDSM and public sex, but is also a fun place to hang out and has a lot of interesting things to see.

Chained Heat
Slave, submissive and gorean sliks, camisks and accessories. Collars, slave auction blocks and adult jewellery including scripted clit rings.

Emprasario
Erotic Sex Menu beds Sofas Couches Tables erotic paintings

Escorts of Escort Island
Looking for the perfect Escort? Doesn’t matter what you have in mind, we have a collection of Cyber/Text, Voice, and Webcam Escorts that is hard to match. Regardless of your fantasy, (as long as its not a TOS offence) We can find someone to meet Your needs. Located on the Adult Sim of Rhianna, We offer a high class club, a beach, fishing, shopping, relaxation, and events.  Come see why we never have to look for employees, they line up to wait for that rare opening. Almost 3 years in business in SL, our track record of excellence can not be matched.
Owned currently by Aleesa Rearwin & Brieanne Bomazi, and our amazing Staff, We don’t claim to be the best in SL, We prove it.

The Extreme Fetishist Club

Who are we? The best, strongest, and most exciting brand in adult oriented fetish/BDSM entertainment in SL. We are serious about pushing the boundaries..

The Extreme Fetishist Club is an all-inclusive club, open to all sexual orientations. We pride ourselves in accepting and including all fetishes. The only taboo here is child avatars, as outlined in SL’s terms of service. We offer a large social room where we dance, talk, chat, and socialize. We offer great music, DJs and special events. We also have theme rooms; a luxury bedroom suite, orgy room, lapdance room, fully stocked dungeon, vampire room, one of the largest bathrooms in SL, and a Dulcett Diner.

On our full sim, we offer The Church Of The Holy Fuck, A luxury VIP House for anyone in the VIP group to use as their own and set home to, A romantic beachfront for nude swimming, boatrides, and much more. We also have a beautiful castle called The NuDoll Clininc, specializing in dollification and latexification. Best of all, we have the best family of staff I could hope for, sexy, friendly, and openminded!

Eye-Catcher
One stop BDSM Shop

FMS Deviant Domain
BDSM Devices designed to pull on genital piercings.

Grey Gear
Grey Gear provides a variety of scripted and prop items for BDSM, dark fantasy, bruise and mark tattoos, and gorean needs.

*HAUTE* Fashion and Trends (and) Timeless, Extraordinary Clocks.  Also Club Eros Dance and Strip Club & Mall.
*HAUTE* Womens clothes, have a Batman costume for the men or could make something.  Timeless…   Clocks.. grandfather, anniversary, mantle, regular, art…

The Hyper Shop Mall  & Escort Ad Center
Featuring “Hyper >i< Luv” Sex Furnture Shop & “Frisky Fairy NymphZ” WingZ & PixZie ThingZ Shops for all your furniture and fantasy avatar supplies.  We also have an Intimate Free Sex SkyBeach. Vending space available

Kidnapped!
Bondage toys (gags, blindfolds, bindings, hoods)

Kira’s Kinks
BDSM Toys, Furniture, RLV tools & Prefab Buildings

Kiss Kiss
Sex toys and fashions

LapGirl Boutique
Lingerie / fetishwear / stripperwear / swimwear  …. established 2005, inventors of the first SL dollar-stuffed lapdancer thong, and home of the oldest lucky chair in second life (now delicately removed prim by prim from its original location, and lovingly restored in Zindra!)

Moon Song
Fetish furniture and dungeon supplies, concentrating on spanking fetishes but touching on a myriad of others

No Escape
RLV-enabled BDSM furniture – aiming for the unique  and unusual.

PixelSlapping.com Boardwalk
Public Sex!!!

SEXDREAMZ
Sex animated furniture, offers relaxed atmosphere lounge and free orgy room, clothing, freebies odds n ends, wedding services

Sinful Minds
Erotic Art by Phoenix Welles, fetish furnishings and accessories by Tumania Teardrop

slapt.me
A new Independent and innovative shopping experience for SL. Creating Values for both shoppers and merchants, in an honest and transparent environment. slapt.me is Adult Merchant friendly.

Starscape Designs
Low prim prefabs, furniture and sex beds

Temptations Swingers Club & Adult Resort
We are a swingers club, free sex area, BDSM area and adult mall.

Think Kink
We build unusual BDSM furniture; all kinds of restraint devices can be found (we have more than 100 on the sales floor) from cells to stocks to hangers as well as many others. Almost all of our toys are RLV-enabled and those that are not soon will be

Torture of Instruments : Qie Labs @ Zindra
Scripted stuff: some naughty vehicles, a naughty skybox, a downright nasty gag, and CamCaster.  More naughty stuff in the works.

Trixxy’s Shop
Clothing, skins  & accessories for men & woman with an urban touch. Urban style Furniture and buildings.

Twice as Nice Gridwide Adult Advertising
Twice as Nice goes Adult!   Twice as Nice Gridwide Adult Advertising has created an Adult rated network to advertise your adult rated businesses on the Adult continent. If your advert is not suitable for the PG or Mature networks.

Unique Needs!
Fantasy & Goth apparel, Shoes, Boots, latex Capes, Jewellery, Accessories

WaterSoul Brothel
Escort directory, specialised (but not limited) to Furry-, Neko- and Fantasy-Escorts

The Yenta Connection
Personal ads for slaves seeking masters

Zindora’s Box
Ad board and escort board services

Zindra State Prison
Zindra State Prison is a role play environment for females and males wanting to experience arrest, intake, interrogation, getting sentenced in a public court and serving time without committing a real life crime and going to a real life prison. Participation can be from overnight to up to 90 days.

Best get used to it old girl: the Unborn never dies.

You are here for the long haul (aka eternity) – just like this, just this way, just this sweet sentience, just this nameless knowing, just this nondual nothingness.

May as well treat it well, and love it lots.

Be all that’s wrong with the world,
Carving so gently,
Be the evil that tears at your throat,
I see your eyes reflect the light,
Say the words that you cant say,
Startled, confused or damn right revolted,
Be the whore that you want to be,
They fade all out of fight,
Fuck them until they die,
The silence is screaming,
Carve them when they’re sleeping,
Yet your blood makes no sound,
Be their nightmares that come true,
Its hard not to gag,
Be their deepest fantasies,
As it runs to the ground,
Crush them with pleasure,
I didn’t want this end for us,
Bury them alive,
It wasn’t on the cards,
Spit venom in their faces,
I cant take my hands off you,
Bury blades in their hearts,
Its getting far too hard,
Cut their veins open,
Disconnect the one last tie,
Watch them bleed,
That’s binds my life with you,
Watch them beg for their life,
Take this pain away forever,
Be the devil incarnate,
By killing you.
Burn their fucking eyes out.
I will be the end

These eyes are just reflections,
Of who I need to be,
My life feels like my death,
Its tempting me to flee,
My smile died yesterday,
As my heart got ripped in two,
I don’t think I can fight no-more,
I really don’t know what to do,
This custody battles raging,
Its quickly becoming a war,
My wounds too big to suture,
I need to get out before,
My army takes this siege,
Declares me unfit to rule,
Winning doesn’t matter,
This battles just so cruel,
Fighting against my future,
Who I’m supposed to be,
In the end it doesn’t matter,
For it will be the death of me.

Life’s all about the journey, not the destination…

I want to rip my brain out,
To get you out of my head,
I’ve killed you time and time again,
Yet somehow you’re not dead,
Die right now you piece of shit,
Don’t dare ever come back,
I cant take much more of this,
I’m gonna fucking crack,
Get the fuck out of my thoughts,
There’s no room in here for you,
I swear to god you better listen,
Cause you don’t know what I’ll do,
If I catch you I‘m gonna end this,
Skin and guts ripped to shreds,
Bones smashed into mosaics,
You’ll wish you never graced my bed,
Please just die, go leave me alone,
I cannot fight no more,
These wounds wont heal, needles broke,
I’m suicidal to the core,
There’s no way back, I’m letting go,
Laugh right in my face,
You forced my hand, there’s no retreat,
Well here’s your resting place.
…bang…

He pata ua ki runga, he ngutu tangata ki raro.

Drops of rain above, and men’s lips below.—This is applied to a man who is beset on all sides with annoyances, and can find no way of escape.

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-TayTeik-t1-body-d1-d9.html

FOTO – WATERFALL WAY BETWEEN ARMIDALE AND URUNGA.

Child parts come in all shapes and sizes – small, tall, skinny, short, chunky, pristine, messy, filthy, princess-like, raggedy, male, female, quiet, noisy, screaming, crying, silent, confused, dazed, sleepy, busy, playful, happy, sad, angry, fearful, bouncing, babyish, stiff, awkward, hurting, numb.

As different as they are, they all have similar qualities.   They are typically some of the oldest, most knowledgeable members of your system.

But as the youngest parts, how can they be the oldest?

Let me explain.

For example, if you split off a 5-year-old child part when you (and the body) were a literal age 5, and you are now age 35, that child part has been around for 30 years.  Even though that little one might not have aged during that time, they may very well have seen or participated in many of your life’s events over the past 30 years.  Being around for 30 years means they are one of your oldest parts.  They could contain 30 years worth of memories, information, emotions, relationships, etc.

Child-aged parts do not have to be split off when the body was young, but many of them were.  They will be very much aware of many of your life’s events.  They will remember who many of the people are, and they will know who else from your system was involved in activities of the time. They lived through all the various years, so their ability to know and remember can be impressive.

Child parts will also, of course, retain much of the trauma information from your early years of life.  People are at their most natural dissociative ability when under age 7 – the same years when they are also the most physically vulnerable, small, and defenseless.  For young children, almost every single person in the whole wide world is bigger, stronger, and smarter than they are.  Children are at the mercy of the adults around them, and when those adults are sadistic – cruel – vicious, children have to find a way to cope.  Being physically unable to defend themselves, and typically not given the option to literally leave abusive environments, children can “leave” in their minds, even if they can’t leave with their feet.

During the crisis moments of the actual trauma, dissociative splitting is incredibly helpful.  Going far away inside when you cannot go far away outside at least gives most of the person a fighting chance to be in a place to be as far away from the trauma as possible.

But it is sad, massively sad.  These child parts were split off because there was no other help for them.  There was no other way out for them.  There was no other safety for them.  There was no other protection, no other escape for their pain, and all too often, there was no other comfort for their heartbreak and emotional conflict.

The very first time you see your child parts, they may very well be locked into the same state where they were split off.  They may still be trapped in that “time zone” of the original trauma, and they may or may not know that years of time have gone by.  They may present with the same injuries, messiness, blood, and gore that they experienced at the time of their trauma.  Or they may manifest in metaphorical pictures of what they felt like during their trauma, or in the aftermath.  Most of a dissociative survivor’s internal kid parts were split off to deal with trauma-based situations, so unless you had a happy childhood, don’t expect to find bunches of happy child parts.

Because these little young ones are the foundation of your multiplicity, it is very important for the older leaders and hosts of the system to understand that so much of your healing revolves around meeting the needs of these children frozen in time.

Each time a little part of you had to split off and stay stuck in that their trauma, a piece of you – the overall person – was unable to grow up in a healthy, safe, productive manner.  And honestly, until their young needs are met in a safe manner, the inner kids will stay there, exactly as their abusers left them.

The good news is that as you meet the needs of these child parts, they will naturally progress on their own.

Many mental health professionals use age progression techniques to “make the kids grow up quickly.”  I have a different perspective on that.  First of all, I do not think that snapping the fingers and magically saying (or hypnotically suggesting) that kids parts grow older means that the kids can actually get older.  I am sure they will try their darndest to do that.  But I doubt that they will be able to maintain that kind of suggested aging.

In my opinion, the child parts are frozen in these young ages for a reason.  They were not safe enough to move forward in life, and their entire development was arrested on the spot.  Pay attention to that.  Listen to them.  Look at their appearance.  Have empathy for their emotional state.  All this information means something.  They are telling you exactly where they were, what was happening, and why they are stuck there.

If a real child, in the outside world, was standing in front of you, and looked like that, what would you do for that child?

How would you help an outside child to overcome a current-day trauma?

Use those same exact skills to help your inner children.

As you tend to all their unmet needs, and give your child parts the healthy, positive, comforting response they needed at the time of their splitting, they will be allowed to move forward from the place they were stuck.  If they need safety, protect them from whatever they are afraid of.  If they need food, feed them.  If they need a drink, give them something safe to drink.  If they need a chance to play, let them have fun.  If they need to learn and develop their intellect, let them try new things and develop more skills.  Figure out what they have been lacking for genuine growth and development, and give it to them.

Create positive, healing experiences for your child parts.  As you give them what they were missing in the first place, they will automatically, naturally grow older.  They won’t stay “stuck” as they are once their needs are being met.  They will progress.  They will learn.  They will expand their vocabulary.  They will find new skills and develop greater mastery.

This creates natural age progression.  Your internal child parts can mature the same as any outside child would.  It is a much more realistic way of helping your inner kids to grow up.  It is real.  Genuine.  It’s not going to fall apart at the first hint of stress.

Magical answers are unrealistic.  If you want your child parts to progress into healthier parts of you, then let them experience life in such a way that they can naturally grow up on their own.

However, growing up and maturing doesn’t automatically mean your child parts will get older!!

More about that and ideas about how, where, when to do all this will be presented in future writings.

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

YESTERDAY:
Three years ago, they found me in Florida, but I escaped with my life – barely, by the pesky man-whisker on my chin. Covered my tracks a thousand miles away, in old Waterloo, the Redneck Oasis. I knew it was only a matter of time, though, before they’d catch up to me, back me into a corner, push me to the edge. It wasn’t gonna be pretty. I swore I’d never go quietly, never give them the satisfaction. If I had to steal away another thousand miles, I’d do it.

Do I sound paranoid? Maybe I am, but don’t ever forget Alan Arkin’s famous words to Peter Falk in The In-Laws: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

On the run these last few years, I’ve gone through many changes, from dying my hair super blonde and chopping it short and sassy, to donning thick-rimmed reading glasses and adding a few cup sizes to my chest, to eating organic and wearing thongs (not the rubber-soled kind). So many changes – all to harbor a secret, to avoid a destiny that would not be denied. Now I’m like Jason Bourne: unsure of my identity or my next move, unsure why my stalkers continue their dogged pursuit. But this much I do know: there are few places left to hide. They are relentless, and sooner or later, they will find you. Their reach and mite are too powerful with far-reaching, hard-sucking tentacles that bullwhip you out of your blissfully unaware reverie. And by then you get it: the end is near.

TODAY:
I couldn’t have been more right. I caught sight of the messenger outside my house, their sinister harbinger of mortality. It was too late to make a run for it. I hid in the shadows, but their calling card was already waiting for me. As I held it in my quivering hand with sweat dripping down my temples, fear and dread in my heart, I raised my fist, looked up to the sky, and shouted, “Damn you, AARP! Damn you to hell!”

somewhere there is a god with an Olympian framing hammer and a keen eye.

Although it’s sold out at my favourite magazine spot, I’m pretty sure you can still pick up Adbusters #78 at select stores throughout whatever city you may be living in. If not, there is of course, always, les internets. I wrote a couple articles for the issue as well as an untitled piece of speculative short fiction. The story explores our intensifying relationship with the ‘net and the increasingly bizarre forms of social interaction taking place all over the web.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

32

perception’s toolbox of technologies comes standard.
it’s hard-wired into sentient ‘be’-ings.

but ‘personal’ applications of those technologies, with the ensuing explanations, meanings and beliefs about objects/events perceived, are wholly acquired.

these acquisitions, imports from social consensus via parents, education, church and state, constitute the software called self.

don’t ask me how, but unclouded apperception of this phenomenon inserts a terminal virus into the hardware.

meltdown is immanent and inescapable.

source – the nth notes

Jailhouse Fire Hot Sauce

In Hillsborough County Jail, inmates offer an original hot sauce they make and sell from jail.

“Jailhouse Fire Hot Sauce” has been sold since 2005 and comes in 3 flavors, “Original”, “Smoke” and “No Escape”.  The peppers are grown on the property of the jail.

Allen Boatman is the horticulture instructor and said they sell  bottles of sauce for $7.00 and use the proceeds to help with the upkeep of the greenhouse and buying basic supplies.  They have made an estimated $10,000.00 with the sauce to date. hot sauce