Okay, ich kenne alle Hobbys, Lieblingsfilme, Bücher, öffentliche Gedanken, Umgangsformen, Jobs, Freunde, Freundinnen, Dates, Haustiere, Sportvereine und Weltansichten bevor es überhaupt die Chance gab all das in den ersten paar Gesprächen raus zu finden – ich bin ein facebook Stalker. Wird Small Talk für mich jetzt endgültig (Fluch oder Segen?) hinfällig bei allen neuen facebook-Freund, die es mit ihren persönlichen Daten nicht so genau nehmen? Und überhaupt?! Wo sind die Illusionen geblieben?!

Ganz im Ernst?! Der Gedanke hält mich nicht gerade wach, aber: Bevor man eine Chance hat nach dem Namen der Schwester zu fragen, hat man’s doch schon in einer social community gelesen. Im Zweifelsfall weiß man auch schon, wie sie, die Mama und der Garten aussehen. Kann man dann noch guten Gewissens nach sowas banalem wie Lieblingsfußballverein fragen, obwohl man’s wissen könnte? Oder knüpft man an die gewonnenen Einblicke nahtlos an? „Lausiges Spiel letzte Woche, was?“ (als ob ich’s ohnehin wüsste…). Die ersten wirklichen Unterhaltungen, die in vielen Fällen schon allein kulturgebunden Small Talk erfordert, ist für einen facebook Stalker wie mich nicht einfacher geworden. Kann mich doch auch irgendwie nicht gleich outen, dass ich in der Tat alle Fotos durchgeklickt habe… oder doch? Denn das zweite ist doch folgendes: Ja, ich meine nach ein paar Klicks zu wissen, wer ein Frauenheld oder eine Angeberin ist. Ziemlich genau sogar. Punkte auf der Vorurteil-Skala: astronomisch. Und nicht gerechtfertigt (naja… manchmal nicht…).

Funktioniert natürlich auch großartig anders rum: Gleicher Musikgeschmack? Gleiche „Hobbys“ (diese Frage hasse ich immer: Ich habe keine Hobbys! Ich mache Dinge gerne oder auch nicht und was ich gerne mache, das ändert sich leider ständig) oder momentane Interessen? Clever, witzig und spitz in Kommentaren? Facebook Romeo! Ich bin so oberflächlich! Facebook-Oberflächlich. Davon abgesehen, dass ich mein Studium wegen dieser Plattform nicht bestehen werde (zu viel Zeit dort verschwendet, die ich lesend hätte verbringen können), kann es sein, dass ich mich persönlichkeitsverrenne. Instant-Meinungen auf Knopfdruck. Funktioniert natürlich auch geschlechtsungebunden.

„Halt, halt“, rufen da die regelmäßigen Besucher meines Profils: „Wenn man Deine Bilder so ansieht, dann ist die Schublade aber auch schnell auf und wieder zu.“ Freunde! Richtig! Ich weiß ja. Das Schöne, wenn man als Deutsche unter Engländern ist: Die deutsche Sprache haben einige in der Schule gelernt. Aber das wird auch nach Ende der Schulbildung schnell wieder vergessen und – Schwupps – ist mein Profil ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln (die Fotos nicht, ja… richtig… müssten Einstellungen endlich mal ran und dieses Getagge verhindern…). Das ist auch so ein Ding: Ich müsste (das gebietet die Höflichkeit bei allen Unterhaltung) doch in die Sprache wechseln, die die Mehrheit meiner Kontaktpersonen versteht. Mache ich aber nicht. Bin ich jetzt ein schlechter Mensch? Und ob ich jetzt trotzdem noch nach den weltpolitischen Ansichten fragen darf?

P.S.: Besonders gerne stalke ich die facebook-Seiten meiner asiatischen Mitstudenten. Danach hab ich wenigstens noch Ideen für Small Talk. Mein Mandarin muss für alles andere einfach besser werden. Über Weltpolitik will ich aber lieber erst nach dem dritten Treffen diskutieren.

P.P.S.: Und nun noch ein Lied, in der Hoffnung, dass ein paar Seelen da draußen den momentanen Beigeschmack meiner generellen Musikausrichtung nachvollziehen und mich in die “richtige” Schublade stecken können:

Jamie Cullum – Don’t stop the music

it hasn’t even been two weeks of existence and i already have a stalker.  apparently, this person isn’t too smart because i know where they live and work.  they thought that by changing their emails they could fool me,  oops, looks like the pie is in their face.

just in case anything happens to me, here’s this person’s information:

IP Address- 76.200.192.28

Mailing Address- 631 E 5th Ave, Columbus, OH 43201

Now that Windows 7 has officially been launched, Direct X 11 games aren’t far behind. In fact there are already a few DX 11 compliant games available in the market today and the coming months will see many more. Today we’ll check out some of the more interesting upcoming DX11 games :

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was all about immersion and whether you were roaming the Zone searching for loot in broad daylight or exploring some creepy old military base at night not knowing what lurked around the next corner, the feeling of dread was palpable. And now with the power of DX11 backing them developer GSC Gameworld can dial up the intensity to 11 to deliver an even more immersive experience for the sequel. The game’s already been released in Russia with the English version slated for a worldwide release this month.

Crysis 2

Not much is known about Crysis 2 at this point but if you’ve seen what the CryEngine 3 is capable of in some of the Tech demos floating around the net you know you’re in for one insanely good looking game. Since Crysis pushed the boundaries of PC gaming back in the day, I can only imagine the kind of hardware required to play this game in all its graphical glory.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

The boys from B Company are back and this time they’re really gonna tear things down as DICE has promised even more destruction courtesy of a heavily modified Frostbite engine. While details regarding the single player are still scarce I am mighty impressed with the way the game’s online component’s turning out. PS3 owners will get a chance to sample the action via a beta that’ll be available by the end of this month while PC gamers sadly have to wait till December for a piece of the pie.

Lost Planet 2

Now this is pure speculation on my part since the game’s not even been “officially” announced for the PC but since Lost Planet came out for the PC a few months later, I’m guessing Capcom will dish out similar treatment to Lost Planet 2. And since Lost Planet was launched as a DX10 title, I think it’s fair to assume that Lost Planet 2 will ship with DX11 compatibility.

Alan Wake

Yes I know the PC version of the game is nowhere on the horizon but developer Remedy has always been faithful to PC gamers and I know (and seriously hope) that sometime in the future they will release this game on the PC. And when they do, you know it’s going to be DX11 all the way.

Aliens vs. Predator

When two iconic characters cross each other’s paths you know it’s gonna hit the fan. Throw in highly armed testosterone charged marines and you’re looking at some awesome three way action. The game’s being developed by Rebellion games, creators of the very first AVP game and will allow players to play as all three races through the course of the single and multiplayer campaign.

DIRT2

Dirt 2 released for the Xbox360 and the PS3 in September but the PC version was pushed back to December so that the game could take advantage of DX11 allowing Codemasters to present us with ‘the best-looking racing game that has ever existed.

[Tech2.0]

Unfortunately for Tom the cat, Bessie was quite farsighted and hopelessly attracted to her particular color scheme …

a doomed love that was not to be …

Like, OMG! The BSC has a stalker. Obviously, it must be some sort of sexual deviant to be stalking thirteen year old baby-sitters. Right? Wrong.

Baby-Sitters Club is one of my guilty pleasures. Recently, I have been re-reading them. When I was very young, I used to go to our local, small bookstore and buy a crisp new BSC, Sweet Valley High, Fabulous Five or Sweet Valley Twins book. I admit, this took me into high school, until I decided to start reading VC Andrews and Christopher Pike books (VC and Christopher seriously warped my delicate sensibilities.)

So, for my birthday, a friend sent me a stack of books. I am currently re-reading them in some sort of desperate attempt to recapture my youth.

Dawn Schafer is the focus of this book. She has never been my favorite character. She seems so…stoic. Why should I care if she has long, white blonde hair? Is this going to get her a career in the future? Err…maybe it will. Who knows what kind of mindset there is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, or California, or England, or wherever the hell her adventures take her. Anyhow, needless to say, she is not my favorite.

So, Dawn is starting to get disturbing notes and phone calls while she is baby-sitting. Then the other girls start receiving them. Things like dead mice, dead flowers, terrible notes from a character identifying himself as Mr. X. So, what do the girls do? Well, naturally, they don’t tell the others about the incidents. They don’t tell their parents, or the police. Instead, they are each busy competing with each other for the all-important baby-sitter of the month title. This is like, totally abnormal (yes, I actually said like, totally. After all, Dawn is a California girl. Valley girl has not yet been established.)

No parents, no police, not even each other. I suppose this is how responsible, baby-sitters of the month behave.  We have come to expect this from bonzer sheilas such as Mallory (I think I will refer to Mallory as dishrag from here on out. It seems to fit her.)

So, yeah. In case you didn’t know, the Baby-Sitters Club is made up of 13 year olds: California girl Dawn Schafer; timid, shy, slightly insane Mary Anne Spier; bossy, tomboyish Kristy Thomas; wild, artistic Claudia Kishi; and New York tres chic Stacey McGill. There are a couple of junior members, 11 years old: that dishrag Mallory Pike and some new, oddly put together quickly token black character Jessi Ramsey. I really do not like the characters of Jessi and Mallory. There are other characters as the series progresses, other people that play a role, etc…but really, those are the only ones you need to know about. Oddly enough, the most neurotic character in the series is the only one to have a steady boyfriend. That is an odd relationship I will cover some other time.

In the end, the true Mr. X is found trying to scare the girls in Dawn’s supposedly haunted home. It turns out to be Mel Tucker, a very young boy who is a bully and was upset that the baby-sitters tattled on him. Talk about issues, this kid desperately needs some help.

Young kids stalking baby-sitters, nobody being terribly responsible…just another chapter in the BSC’s unrealistic life.

I have to give this book 2 out of 5 stars. It wasn’t the worst BSC book out there…but it certainly wasn’t the best. At least I got to recapture some youth, and get some giggles.

Heidi-Lore

Will she follow me?

Twitter stalker

I hate followers

This week Lunki and Sika have gotten their very own Stalker.

Think of this as a first of many articles in which I, the person who tends to miss more titles than he actually plays, go back and find games I’ve been curious about for years and actually play them. I was a Nintendo-only person for the whole of the last console generation, and never really much of a PC gamer outside Grim Fandango and anything developed by Valve.

This instalment, it’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a game that I feel I should have tried to appreciate prior to playing seven hells out of Fallout 3. But nonetheless, it’s my first step (excluding Valve) into PC-FPS territory, so I’ll give you a stream-of-consciousness breakdown of what happens when I’m playing.

It’s a Monday night, and I’m trawling through my RSS feeds, absorbing a lot of games news whilst tracking Kevin Smith on his endless Twitter announcements, a pastime I enjoy as it allows me to Twitterise my little world without actually having one of the diabolical pieces of social-network-cancer myself. I notice the fine fellows over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have drawn attention to an FPS of a few years back that almost slipped past me, if it weren’t for a scathing review in a magazine I don’t remember the name of, any more.

I log onto Steam and see that yes, the price has indeed been dropped to a nice, unemployed-friendly price of three and a half of Her Majesty’s pounds sterling. I drop the cash, and get the download, letting it sink onto my hard-drive in bits over the next 48 hours.

These 48 hours pass, and I’m now loading it up, tweaking a few graphics settings and revelling in a fairly recent FPS my laptop can actually handle. I look over at Lex, watching her work her way through yet another academic paper on 19th-century literature, the odd forlorn glance at my screen betraying the struggle between the FPS-nut and the literary scholar taking place in her subconscious. I watch the opening video, wincing slightly at every bit of dialogue as the sound goes half a second out of sync, ruining any chance I have at reading the quality of facial animation. It’s brilliant regardless.

That being said, I do a double take when the truck in the FMV crashes because it was hit by lightning. I shit you not, this actually occurs in the opening sequence. A truck explodes, from the back, with nothing in the back bar ten corpses, because it got hit by fucking lightning. I remind myself I’m engaging in a medium where marsupials run around collecting crystals for a living, and bite back the instant urge to criticise the absence of realism present.

“Okay,” I mutter to myself. Here we go. I find myself talking to a fat Ukrainian gentleman, who teaches me how to use my PDA, containing the functions of mission-keeping, map-reading, and even ranking Stalkers all in one handy package. Odd, I muse to myself. Food is scarce, and yet everyone’s got some kind of iPhone. He sends me off on my first mission, and I charge across the nearby field to assault a set of buildings, with little regard for tactics. I die fairly rapidly, and decide to change difficulty – I had a “badass motherfucker” moment when setting it – and try a slightly more intelligent approach.

I am rewarded with not only the most brutal shotgun I’ve ever seen, but a gleeful Fallout-esque bout of looting corpses and deciding what I’d like to leave on the soon-to-decay cadaver, and what of its meagre possessions interest me most. I’ve still not worked out the map yet.

*

Fast forward around two hours, and I’ve changed level twice. This process baffles me. The first time, I shot a man in the chest, and it asked me if I would like to change level. I was a little thrown at first, truth be told. Yes or no? I choose “yes,” even though I’ve got side missions left to do, which all get deleted as I move on. The second change came shortly after a firefight against ridiculous odds which began to give me an idea of why some men want nothing more than for someone to compare them to Steven Segal.

Currently, I’m helping a bunch of Stalkers fight off a group of army troops. Why they’re attacking isn’t clear, but at this point my moral compass is rapidly devolving into whether the person is a red or a green crosshair. With that strategy firmly in mind, I begin to lay waste to the troops with a machine gun, before looting a couple of them to fill my ammo back up. But of course, their ammo and weaponry is of a completely different scale to my peasant-style aggro-garb. I decide to step it up a notch, and take his gun.

At this point, I feel conflicted. I own a pistol, two machine guns, and a sawn-off shotgun. While in Fallout 3 this wouldn’t be a problem, as I was a stamina-heavy player capable of hauling a couple hundred pounds of gear at any one time, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. won’t let me play the same tune. My weight limit is fifty kilos, but I’m sitting a couple kilos over. What could it hurt, I wonder?

The answer came as me and my new-found friends sprinted for cover out of the army’s reach. My sprint faltered, and my field of vision was now mainly comprised of the floor as I staggered forwards, gasping for breath. They wasted no time, however, in sending me down into a pitch-black tunnel network to kill some bandits, seemingly completely unrelated to the army attack, which was never explained. I take out the bandits, deciding against using my flashlight as theirs is a dead giveaway (tip: when in a firefight in the dark, attach lamps to poles on the ground, not to your skull). I climb back up the ladder, and bam. Level change.

After realising, finally, that “level change” is sometimes the equivalent to Half-Life’s infuriating loading bar that activates geographically, I head back down into the dark, worming my way through passages filled with odd warped-air effects representing Anomalies (physics anomalies… *sigh*). I kill a crazy Licker-like creature that has the ability to cloak (seemingly so it can stand facing a pillar), and die to a horde of bandits who are seemingly impervious to acid, bullets and/or gravity. I quit for the night.

*

And I never actually went back to it.

Most would assume this is me simply copping out, not wanting to make the effort and play the entire title start to finish. Perhaps you’re right if you’re making the rather arrogant decision to force your own mentality on my own and apply them to decisions I myself make. However, the real reason was much more simple; I didn’t enjoy it enough for it to drag me back in.

At first, I wondered about the lack of gamerscore and whether that added to my unwillingness to play the game after being thoroughly sucked into the Xbox point-score fanaticism. But that being said, I play DS games and TF2 regularly enough, and I recieve no points for these, surely? I adore the Medic class and have exhausted most achievements for the gentleman in gloves and a lab coat, but I still play the game because it engages with me on a fundamental level.

With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it was a different experience. The shooting mechanics are great, the movement fluid, and the inventory system all very neat and Diablo-esque in its own little way. But where was the fundamental background? Telling a long, flowing story is all very well, but imagine The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe starting in Narnia, with no explanation of how they got there, only their dialogue indicating they’d been anywhere at all? Ridiculous, no?

The missions were well-scripted, as was the character animation, but it was the anomalies that finally sent me packing. The concept is beyond inspired; warped clouds of altered physics that will damage anything coming near or into direct contact with them, pacified by a small grenade-type piece of equipment. But ultimately, they were physical obstacles. Characters were concerned with getting their coats and killing other Ukranian thugs in the locality. Yet, were they concerned that the fabric of space-time itself was wandering around, semi-sentient, hell-bent on throwing them in the air and collapsing their skeletal structure from ten yards away? Where were the science-soldiers, the ones tasked with restoring the balance?

I sigh at this point simply because it defies belief that you wouldn’t expand on the anomalies from the beginning. Look at Half-Life, and imagine if there had never been any explanation to events whatsoever. You can’t introduce science fiction into an average, post-nuclear military narrative, and then have it not become the focus of what draws the player in. As I write I wonder what engaged others so much; those brave souls at RPS proclaimed this to be one of the best PC games of the last decade, and in the age of titles that redefined videogaming, titles such as World of Warcraft, Left4Dead and Wii Fit, are we really bestowing this accolade on a title that merely flirts with science fiction and inspired design?

What’s more, where was the emphasis on the post-nuclear setting? Chernobyl is a real place, and I’m confident a title set in the unbelievably bleak wasteland that is the real, contemporary Chernobyl. The second fictitious explosion is logical enough, with that alternate reality being an actual possible reality in today’s Ukrainian society. The playable area you inhabit is based on the real-life Zone of Alienation, an area full of radiation, suffering and poverty brought on by a disaster of unimaginable proportions and a lack of support from those who are fearful of venturing into the cancer-stricken radioactive environment. A moral dilemma exists within the location itself, and in my opinion, the fact this is real, existing place with similar problems (minus the floating lightning balls) is something that needs to have attention called to it. This is no Alternate Washington, this is, minus the excessive gunplay and mutants, something that draws from real life.

I’ll expand on this in a longer article, soon, but for the meantime, look at Fallout 3. Everywhere, the emphasis was strong on what would happen if the rockets that sit under our collective feet were ever launched. Most people found it inspired, found it to be “cool,” as it were. Personally, I found it chilling. I don’t see nuclear war as a bogeyman story for children, I see it as a cultural inevitability. In order to cleanse the human race of the arrogance and violence so inherent in its culture – by this I mean real life, not Call of Duty, a game criticised for its violence when the events it was based on were never criticised by the same demographic in turn - the human race will need to destroy and reinvent itself. No pain, no gain.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a good game. Great, even. But it’s just not to my taste, and in my opinion, the taste of any gamer who values a sturdy background in order to accept such a massive change in pace, scenery and historical events that pre-date the timeline of the playable sections. I never got around to it, and I doubt I’ll get around to finishing it, simply because there are other titles where I can sit behind the eye sockets of a hero in a forlorn wasteland and think about nothing but survival, and I don’t see the thrill of a new version of that idea arriving until Bioshock 2 makes its debut. Think of my tastes what you will, but consider this: when a game claims to instil a raw need for survival in the player, are they not making the fundamental mistake of assuming the player doesn’t want to survive already?

Благодарение на pcgameshardware.com се натъкнах на видео от пълният DX11 бенчмарк тест на S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat. Ето го (пссс от 2-рата минута нататък почват да дават всяка една част от теста на цял екран):

Иначе тук Stalker: Call of Pripyat – DirectX 11 vs. DirectX 10 можете да прочетете малко повече, за реалните плюсове от прословутия DirectX 11

L’adattamento può sembrare talvolta così irrazionale da mettere a repentaglio la stessa società che lo pratica. Un adattamento dei Koryak in Siberia, lontanamente imparentati con gli Eschimesi, potrebbe colpire un forestiero per la sua stranezza. La loro religione richiede che ogni anno essi debbano uccidere tutti i loro cani, un fatto apparentemente suicida per un popolo che vive di caccia e di allevamento delle renne. Perché, dunque, la loro religione rende le cose ancora più difficili in un ambiente già duro? La verità è che non si trovano in difficoltà, perché rimpiazzano immediatamente la loro dotazione di cani comprandoli dai gruppi vicini che empiamente fanno accoppiare i cani invece di ucciderli. Le relazioni tra i Koryak e li loro vicini diventano così molto più chiare. I vicini si accontentano di allevare i cani e di commerciarli con i Koryak in cambio di carne e pelli. Se i Koryak mai cessassero il loro massacro annuale di cani, i vicini perderebbero il proprio mercato. Dovrebbero andare fuori a caccia per conto proprio, in tal modo distruggendo le loro pacifiche relazioni di scambio con i Koryak e rimpiazzandole con una competizione per la selvaggina.

(Peter Farb, Man’s rise to civilization: the cultural ascent of the Indians of North America, 2nd edition – 1978)

About the Book

Beth and Alex Frey both leave their jobs in Michigan on a sabbatical to travel around the United States for an undetermined time.  They try to pretend that they left their jobs for the fun of adventure but the underlying reason was that Beth had been stalked by a mad man and Alex wanted to get her away from the threat.

Leaving their jobs and family behind does not eliminate their problems or fears.  The stalker seems to be following them on their travels.  How does he know where they are?  Why does he think he has to pursue his harassment of Beth now that she is no longer involved with his case?

Each time the couple thinks the past is behind them and they get involved in their travels, something happens to shake their peace of mind.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about, their best friends, Joyce and Kevin, seem to be bringing their own problems into the Frey’s life.  There is also an underlying secret that Alex and Joyce share that could rock the foundation of his and Beth’s relationship.

The threats start escalating and where there were just innuendoes before, now the threats are getting physical and deadly.  Putting the pieces together it finally dawns on Alex that the stalker is not who they were so sure it was.  By the time he figures this out he knows that Beth is alone in a remote place with the stalker who he now knows intends to be a killer.  Can he get to her in time?

About the Author

Bobbie Altschul has published short stories in the past but Gypsy Escape is her first published novel.  She has traveled extensively in order to research the locations in the novel.  As well as all of the travel to give her book credibility she was also involved with the Michigan Circuit Courts for over fifteen years and was herself harassed by a mad man as was Beth in Gypsy Escape. 

After experiencing the 2004 Hurricanes in Florida, Bobbie and her husband, Hank, have been living and traveling in their motor home with their animals:  a dog, a cat and a parrot.

Bobbie is presently preparing a second novel, Delusional, for publication as well as being in the midst of writing the second novel in the Gypsy series.

Bobbie has dedicated this novel to her beloved Jacques Cousteau, the inspiration for the Hootmaan character.  We love you and miss you.

Gypsy queen: Adventure everywhere for traveling

couple

By Peg McNichol

Christine

Ex-Vox’hoodies may remember me talking about the freak -husband of a coworker who acted like he was trying to run me down in the car park…for YEARS?

I’m not the first woman he did this to, either. A girl named Becky -no longer works here is who he started with as far as I know. It’s sort of hard to describe but just picture any scene from Christine.

We’re not talking about funning around or joking. I reported it, as did Becky. The company said, “Him? He’s no bother to anyone.”

My.Arse.

I’m not saying he was trying to kill us. He was getting off on intimidating us. Anyway, he has gone so far as to run up on a curb when I tried to jump over it. He’d drop off his wife and then sit in the dark, empty car park and wait until he got to do this and then he’d leave.

Oddly, the wife started driving herself to work after I let everyone know that I videoed myself going into work everyday.

Anyway, here’s the deal:

creepy

Guess who got run the f over by a car and is in intensive care?

Dickhead.

So, while I do not wish harm and pain on anybody, if there is anyone who deserves to be run over, it’s that ahole who jerked off whilst scaring women for the past 15 years that I know of…probably longer.

It started yesterday when kateberger1 posted this comment on our first eighteen videos on YouTube;

I’m in love with one of you…guess who? Sorry but I just discovered you today & I’m playing catch-up starting w/the very 1st episode. You guys (I mean 1 of you) are the greatest. I just got the book, “stalking for dummies” so I’ll be seeing (one of you) real soon!

She then posted comments on the rest of the videos so far (up to the 32nd) saying stuff like;

Oh Sika…my heart be still! You are a magnificent specimen of manhood!

OK Sika, time for me to come clean. Yes IT IS YOU THAT I LOVE! It’s true what Johnny says, and I love the color of your P*N*S! (oh sorry, that was me next to you in the public urinal that day). OK, I’ll admit it, I’m also the one snapping the polaroids from your bedroom window.
Johnny is spot on, your voice, acting talents, P*N*S…all adds up to the perfect man.

Elaine never took her eyes off the yellow Jeep Wrangler as she flung herself into the ditch’s deep snow. She watched as the Wrangler spun itself inversely on the spot she had stood just a moment before sliding along the iced gravel surface of the road slamming its passenger side into the old wooden power pole opposite of where she lay. She almost closed her eyes when the raw sound of treated timber repelling an object screamed into the chilly February mid afternoon air and echoed off the empty pastures that surrounded the otherwise deserted country road. It was only when the Wrangler flipped itself over; spraying snow that she closed her eyes. When she opened him she saw the Jeep had landed stopping itself from completing its roll onto its roof, stilling itself at a sharp angle with the undercarriage towards her, still slightly swaying as if determined to finish its acrobatic exercise.

Elaine picked herself out of the snow, dusting herself off as she got to her feet. That was close, she thought to herself. At thirty six Elaine would admit begrudgedly that she wasn’t in the best of shape; she had sold off all the livestock in the fall so even with the country living lifestyle she didn’t have much to do that forced her to stay in shape. She hadn’t worn make up for month’s either, what was the point of getting all gussied up for some sixteen year old bag boy at the store? Besides, she hadn’t felt like leaving her farm house unless it was for a very important reason. Her thick dull green parka, pink toque with her knotted shoulder length dirty blonde hair haphazardly sticking out and red mittens that she wore to complete the ensemble on her five foot frame probably didn’t help her appearance, she supposed, but regardless she knew she had to go to the Jeep and hoped that the person driving would not be in the mood to criticize her lack of fashion sense.

Elaine’s body didn’t absorb the throw into the ditch very well, she could feel her hips protesting their involvement in any movement but she forced herself towards the almost fully upturned Jeep. A pair of blue jeaned legs stuck out from the front where the wheels would have been if the Wrangler had been upright, the curved proof of the solidness of the telephone pole curled into the snow on either side about half way up the torso. She could hear groans as she neared the grill; the driver was still alive, thank god. When she stepped beside the barbed wire fence that was holding the Wrangler up by a single thin four by four post and bent down to peer under the metal tent she could see that the driver’s head was pillowed by the bottom wire of the three wired fence just at the spot where neck met head. He must have been thrown out then the Jeep followed him. Elaine could see no major patches of blood pooling around the driver; he had been a very lucky man – the depth of the snow, the recent melting that would have formed an ice undercoating was probably propping the metal up rather than crushing the man on impact. Yes, Allen Turnbull, license plate number HOTSTF and the only single handyman in the county was very fortunate. Elaine had to wonder if his luck would hold out. Elaine stepped through the gap in the barbed wire to the other side where she could stand and still have a good view of Allen Turnbull without tempting fate and its tender touch on the fence.

Fuck, Allen Turnbull, town stud and jack of all trades on the side, thought as he groaned. What a day: first that bitch Sherri, who he had sweet talked at the bar the night before to come home with him, had left the toilet seat down which had narrowed his friggin’ target for ‘bullet’ to hit through sleepy half closed eyes, then a simple furnace clean up had turned into something more dangerous when he smelled propane leaking from the pipes. A two hour job had turned into a five hour one and one damn sore shoulder. The Wrangler defrost had decided not to work when he had finally finished the job even though it had worked fine going out to the farm house that morning; then to top it off seeing something green and pink standing in the middle of his path through the small circle that he had managed to scrape through his windshield and the spinning, a hard thud and a flying feeling.

Allen’s eyes started to become focused from the just blur of colours to shapes of actual objects. What the fuck happened? He tried to pull his head up but the moment he moved pain pistoned up to brain from the back of his neck. He tried to move his legs but there was heaviness to them, his arms were next; his left arm seemed stuck as his legs but his right arm seemed free. The shapes took on identifiable objects: The white fluff from the middle to the top of his eyesight was the sun glistened moisture in the air; the yellow from the bottom to the middle was the roof of his ride.

With his right hand Allen felt beside his head; it was a barbed wire fence that his head rested on, the other two wires that made up the fence dangled dangerously low to his face but slightly over from his eyes due to the angle the post had been pushed when the jeep had attempted to force its will upon it. Allen remembered that his seatbelt had snapped undone as he had tried to stop himself from going into a 360 spin, then he remembered a jarring sensation and going through the windshield. He must have been thrown out of the Jeep only to have the fucking thing follow him like a starving dog you’ve just given a hunk of meat to.

Allen moved his eyes downward. He didn’t want to move his head but he could see that his left arm and legs and most of his chest disappeared underneath the angled metal, to the left he could see that the edge of the roof had lodged itself on a post; he was lucky he was still alive. From the corner of his right eye he caught sight of something black. He strained his eyes downward further to find that the battery had dislodged itself from the engine block and now sat in the snow with half of it holding up the twisted remains of his bumper. There was a movement in the upper right hand side of his peripheral vision; someone was there.

Allen felt the rusted metal barbs attempt to pierce the nape of his neck with the littlest of movement; he strained his eye muscles as he tried to focus on the woman using only them. He knew her, he thought. She was the teacher, well had been before they had closed the school last year…She had taught that little shit of a nephew for grade two. Ms. Morier, Elaine Morier that was it. She had introduced herself at the Christmas concert last year. Allen recalled that he had done some work for her parents on a leaky bathtub a couple of years back, the house was somewhere close to around here. The job had stuck out in his mind because the beefy old man hung around asking him questions about how the local pussy was nowadays. The old man mentioned that he had a daughter that gotten herself all educated up but she was still almost as good of tail as her mother. Allen had spied the missus, all that came to mind was ‘ball breaker’ and made a mental note that if some Elaine chick tried to get into his pants was to run the other way. Where had he seen her recently? Allen remembered he had seen her a couple of times sitting in the cold on the bench outside the bar, never coming in but sitting there drinking her ‘7-11’ coffee staring at everyone else having fun. He remembered he had thought she was a dyke the way she stared at the women he had hanging off his arm. Having pegged who the woman was, Allen’s mind went back to the current situation he found himself in; lesbo or not, he needed her right now.

“Help me,” Allen fumbled for the next word before with a grunt he managed to spit out, “Please Elaine, help me.” Though the tendons in his arms threatened to tear he reached out with his right hand towards her and repeated his plea. The top of his knuckles grazed the curved metal of his Wrangler’s hood; timidly Allen pushed slightly against it to test whether he could simply push his body out. The wooden fence post two feet to his left creaked in protest that much movement would sever the solidness that kept the rest of tracker from becoming level with the ground. He stopped his attempt a second too late; he heard a wooden crack – the staple that had held the top barbed wire tier up had given up. Allen took a sharp intake of air as the wire smacked down with an elastic double jump before coming to rest in the little bit of brown hair that he had. He felt the sensation of liquid seeping only to freeze to his scalp a few seconds later.

Elaine stood there.

Allen’s arm gave out and plopped back into its snow blanket once more. Why wasn’t she doing something he asked himself, why was she just standing there, I’m in pain, I’m dying…and she’s just standing there like a fucking tree. Maybe she was slow Allen thought to himself, maybe if I ask one more time she’ll understand. He took a deep breath, winced as the movement of the air through his windpipe vibrated his flesh against the barb.

“Help me, please,” Allen asked once again, trying to connect to Elaine’s eyes with his own. Another breath, another attempt to deny that the pain would win, “My chest, it’s caught.” His arm hadn’t the strength for much more than a limp wave of his hand that Elaine thought was a real cute miniature snow angel.

Elaine still did not move.

Allen gave a heavily moistened cough, the roughness of his throat hidden from him as the barbs embedded in his forehead and neck scratched with each involuntary movement. The phlegm was tinged red, Allen could see that from the spittle that had rained back down onto his face and rimmed along his bottom eyelids. He couldn’t afford to pleasant to the woman any longer; Allen didn’t know where the blood had come from but his mind raced back to all the documentaries he had watched on the “Discovery Health” television network where it was certain it was a symptom of a punctured lung.

“Come on you stupid fucking cow,” Allen growled loudly. He decided that the damage the barbs would do to his head and neck was no longer his main worry; they would be the least if he didn’t get this woman to do something. He turned his head, blowing heavily through his gritted teeth as he felt and heard the trenches being etched into his flesh.

“Stop standing there like a fucking useless cunt and call for help, or fucking look for something to get me the fuck out of here, I don’t give a fuck what you do, just– move – your – fucking- fat-ass! What a fucking waste of skin you are, you fucking slit!”

Allen’s eye sight began to blur from his exertion and he was ready to slip into despair as the woman stood there still with her stupid fucking blank expression for second after long second. Elaine’s expression finally changed; the dullness in her eyes disappeared and a smile crept along her face as she answered him.

“Yes dearest,” Elaine said with wispishly glibness, nodding her head. She stepped from the front of the Wrangler, disappearing from Allen’s sight behind the undercarriage.

Dearest? Fuck it, Allen thought, she could have called him a prick for all he cared; just as long as she did something. He heard three beeps of a cell-phone and her voice reporting that there had been an accident on Range Road 432… yes…at the 865 junction. Elaine Morier. Yes, she would stay at the scene until the officer arrived. About twenty minutes then….good bye.

Twenty minutes wasn’t that long, Allen thought, it could be a lot worse; the price you paid when you lived where they only had the one county cop for the entire area. He could handle the pain. Think of the positives, Allen told himself: you’re only thirty and in reasonable health; it’s only around minus fifteen out so the frostbite won’t be that bad once you get out of here; you’re insured to the nuts; you’re not alone, even if it is someone like that daft bitch Elaine; yeah he was going to be alright.

Elaine put the cell-phone back into right pocket of her parka. She felt woozy; Allen Turnbull had talked to her! Not only he talked to her, he had talked to her in the language of love that papa had used with momma! He loved her! He had acted like she didn’t exist all this time because he was just shy about showing his true feelings for her in public; papa had been the same way. This situation was Cupids’ arrow that let Allen open his heart to reveal himself to her. Elaine knew that it was up to her to show her suitor that the feelings were mutual; she knew how to too – momma had told and taught her how a man expected to be shown by a woman that she loved him.

Elaine walked to Allen’s legs and kneeled beside them. She was so nervous and giggled to herself as she wondered if this was how virgin brides felt on their wedding night. She removed her mitts and gingerly unbuttoned Allen’s pants. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before her fingers grasped the pant’s zipper and slowly pulled it down.

The assuredness Allen had been feeling disappeared to be replaced by confusion – what the hell was going on? He felt the cold hit the skin that had been kept warm by his jeans. Was that cow checking out his junk when she knew that he couldn’t do anything about it?

“Hey, hey, hey!” Allen hoarsely shouted, “What the fuck are you doing? Cut it out right now you fucking slit!” He concentrated, ignored the pain to move his waist in attempt to get her attention. He increased his efforts as he felt his buttocks being exposed to the partially melted snow under him; his legs now prickled with the exposure to the cold air. His entire lower half of his body let him know that it was damn cold out save for this ankles and feet, thankfully, he thought morbidly, she didn’t need to see what those looked like. He forced his body to lurch once more.

“Ohhh,” Elaine murmured, her man was an impatient one, she had thought it would be more sensual to undress him slowly, but his anxiousness must have gotten the better of him as his pelvis swirled about. Best not to lollygag then, Elaine knew how disappointed a man could get if he felt his woman wasn’t living up to her duty; she had seen her papa demonstrate that more than a few times. She turned her attention from carefully rolling down Allen’s jeans to his pelvic area. Elaine gasped. She had not expected to see what she had; she thought that like papa it would be wrinkled and floppy, that she would have to work on it to show it she had the best of intents for it to awaken for her. Allen, bless his heart, must have already known that she would not hurt him.

Elaine regarded the blood engorged member curiously; she had seen her papa’s topped with grey of course, those of her prepubescent class during swimming lessons when she helped them towel off and pictures on the internet but to see one up close on a grown man, her soul mate, was a different matter entirely. Elaine knew it was a natural reaction for the body to release all sorts of hormones when excited, which she assumed Allen was, not only finding love but being near death must have been a morbidly exciting experience for the fleshy organ to be visibly throbbing so.

With one hand she grasped Allen’s shaft, stroking up and down as her mouth came down and engulfed the tip within its warmth. Elaine noted that it had a stale and salted taste; he must have been really working hard today to make even his cock sweat; she would make sure it was washed and cleaned in the most pleasure way. She closed her mouth even more, the edges of her teeth scraped across Allen’s tip.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Allen screamed as he felt Elaine’s teeth put notches into his member.

Listen to how much he’s enjoying this, Elaine thought to herself as she heard Allen’s voice from the other side of the Wrangler. She let a smile form at the edges of her mouth as she slid her head up and down.

Allen’s eyes began to roll from the agony. Concentrate, damn it, concentrate, he demanded of his mind – he could feel a lightness creeping into his head that he knew each time he would fall into a deep sleep. He couldn’t worry about the bitch, he had to keep himself awake and hinder the oncoming hysteria that was welling and trying to kick start a bout of hyperventilation within the cramped confines of his lungs.

Elaine noticed that the noise from Allen had stopped; he was done his appetizer and wanted the main course. She pulled her mouth off and softly put the hardness against Allen’s hairy abdomen. Elaine stood up, unhitched her jeans and slid them off fully; Allen would appreciate that she wore over-sized jeans for easy access anytime – those other girls wore those skin tight concoctions that only outlined what a man really cared for and took precious seconds from letting them get it, bitches. She stepped over Allen’s legs.

“Dinner time, lover!” Elaine announced over the undercarriage.

What the fuck now, Allen cried in his brain, what the fuck could that whack job be doing now?

Elaine spat into her palm and rubbed herself with it; she was sure that how wet she felt would have more than ample for the easy entrance of her lover’s rod, but it never hurt to make sure. Elaine turned her body so that she faced Allen’s trousers and boots. She knew that to mount him the other way would have been impossible; the Jeep that prevented her from seeing her lover’s appreciative eyes also stymied her efforts to move her less than agile body to where she could be comfortable on Allen.

Allen’s cock ached from the wetness freezing on its sensitive head, he had to get through to this crazy assed bitch before he got frost bitten in a spot that he had no want to see amputated – he would be okay with his arm or a leg being cut off, but not his dick! He tried to squirm again but he found his efforts were stopped by a lighter weight on his hips and warmth surrounding his member. This can’t be happening, Allen thought as a laugh escaped his lips. I’m dying and some fucking psycho is getting off on it!

The sick amusement left him soon enough as he felt the familiar lessening of the pressure and then reapplication of it. The movement pushed his chest and lower arm along the tight metal that had trapped him in the first place, he could feel the top layers of his skin being peeled like a potato. The intensity of the motion increased, travelling up his spine to his neck. Allen screamed for Elaine to stop; the metal of the barbed wire fence began to saw deeper into his flesh. His pleas would go unanswered.

Elaine felt the cold narrowed sharp edge of the Wrangler’s front driver’s side quarter panel wheel hub slice deeply into her buttocks. The pain heightened her sexual pleasure, her vaginal muscles clamped tightly around Allen’s member as she attempted to slow the gushing of her release, to savor each wave as it rippled to her labia shores. She tightened her legs against Allen’s as the sensations began to slow From behind the metal wall she could hear sobbing; Elaine almost started to cry, Allen was so joyous that he had given her pleasure he was crying! What a man!

She unclamped her vaginal muscles. Elaine could fee that Allen’s stiffness hadn’t lessened, he had denied himself the ecstasy for hers, Elaine thought, that wouldn’t do; love was a partnership. She gave a small yelp as the metal that had started to freeze in the gash of her buttocks came free when she moved forward slightly to put her hands on the ground just below Allen’s knees; she could feel the pressure of his cock against her insides – this time was all for Allen. She began to grind into Allen so hard that Allen’s pubic patch tickled her anus, spurring her on with even more resolve.

Allen neared the point of madness; he could feel the weakness of the blood loss taking way his will to try to move his legs and hips to throw the fucking scank off of him, the sound of the creaking of the Wrangler’s metal as she pushed into it roared maniacally into his ears as if it was a count down to his death. There was a small popping sound to his right. He turned his eyes toward it just as another jarring of the jeep cracked the plastic top of the Jeep’s battery. The resistance of the plastic as a whole now crumbled and fell to the ground as the mass of the jeep’s bumper took the place of the battery’s contents. The curved end of the bumper was ladle-like, as the fence post resisted the Jeep’s intent to occupy its space, the bumper brought acid back up within it. The next bump against the Jeep from the other side jeered the bumper – the acid flew from its chromed cradle splattering Allen’s face.

Allen lost his voice for a second as the acid bubbled and eat through the first layers of his nose, lips, cheeks but it was found soon enough as the corrosive fluid began to devour the corners of his corneas. The acrid stench of his own burning flesh stripped the insides of his nostrils; he wanted to slam his face into the snow to get it off but the barbed metal spike in the back of his neck and forehead made it impossible to move. The last thing Allen ever saw was the sky burning up like a film caught in projector looked like on a screen. In the deepest part of what was left of his rationality Allen laughed; thank god that his tear ducts had been digested by the acid otherwise the salty tears running into the gaping chasms would have really hurt.

Elaine slowed her thrusts when the slight wind shifted and wafted over the undercarriage from where her lover’s face was. It was the scent that tipped the scales within her; she knew that smell was that of hot pleasure – she had smelled it growing up on her momma, the image of her momma’s palms with the circular pattern of the stove and her momma telling her that it was just papa’s way of saying she was his forever. Allen was screaming both vocally and aromatically at her that he would be his forever. Elaine’s face flushed as she felt her juices flow freely once more. She added her own scream to his, a duet of passion as her thrusts against Allen increased in their intensity. Elaine lost all sense of time and space. With the relentlessness of a steam locomotive quickly overheating on a hot summer’s day she rammed herself back and forth, the metal biting once again into her buttocks, each loving sting of the cold and her hot blood.

The Jeep Wrangler quacked with every collision of Elaine’s buttocks and its quarter panel; with every quake the soul wooden post that was curbing Allen’s demise creaked in protest. Allen’s shoulders were slick with the blood from the open gash at the back of his neck, he could feel the barb gouging itself deep with each push of his body by Elaine. He screamed his plea to the love of god stop but only a harder push was the response he got. The barbed pencil that was stenciling into his forehead had reached his skull, he felt the bone being scraped as the blood and severed skin and hair slid in unison around the burning pits in his face and draining into his mouth to be fill his lungs with anything but the life giving air.

“Oh fuck yes!” Elaine shouted out as she lifted her body up almost totally off Allen’s manhood, then swallowing it once again within her with primal speed. She felt Allen’s legs and cock stiffen.

Allen’s screaming stopped as the bottom barb of the wire fence sliced through his spinal cord. The desperation and anger that he was using to get the fucking psycho slut off of him disappeared just as the control of his limbs did. Without Allen’s physical defensive actions to act to as a barricade to it pain overran his mind, raping raw every synaptic nerve Allen had. The metal barb which had its cutting no long slowed by the hard neck bones ravaged upwards.

Elaine could feel Allen’s limpness within her; no! She needed more; he would not deny her all of him. She slammed herself into Allen’s hips with greedy resolve, the surface of her buttocks already a blooded series of fleshy ribbons assaulted the quarter panel one last time.

The fence post felt the violence of the Wrangler against it but could no longer stand against it. The post snapped; the Jeep no longer impeded finished its descent to the snow covered ground. A metallic thunder roared as the vehicle’s top snapped the top barbed wire then the second and the third. The momentary tautness on the barbed wire was all that was needed to finish its upward slashing task through Allen’s neck. As the Wrangler settled into the snow, Allen’s head rolled down the slight incline to rest twenty feet from it.

Elaine picked herself out of the snow just below her lover’s feet where she had been pushed forcefully by the Wrangler’s small yet violent descent. Elaine’s lust quickly turned to rage.

How dare he, she thought, getting his then tossing her aside. Elaine didn’t want to look at Allen; she picked her pants from the ground, sliding them over her boots and sucking on her bottom lip as the course jean material felt like sand paper on her raw buttocks. She was now ready to face Allen; she turned. The Wrangler had swallowed Allen’s torso to the top of his navel; she let loose a kick straight into Allen’s limpness and spat. There was no response from the corpse.

How could have I have been so stupid, Elaine chastised herself, to think this piece of shit was the one. Elaine was going to show him, she marched around the front of the Jeep to spit in his face to show her disgust only to discover that she would have to walk a little farther to do so. She decided she wouldn’t do it; he wasn’t worth it, the bastard. In fact, she told herself, she didn’t want there to be anything to tell the world that she had been duped into giving herself to a player; she was better than that.

Elaine walked back to Allen’s legs. She pulled up his pants, doing up the button and zipper but not before slamming her fist several times into his lying organ of fake love. Elaine saw that a part of the quarter panel had come off so she grabbed it and began shoveling the snow around Allen’s hips which shinily proclaimed her foolishness. He would not be able to boast about his deceit, no siree, she was not going to have any of that. So intent on her eradication she never heard the vehicle that was approaching.

Damn winter, Constable Orly growled to himself as he swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. If he had been pulled away from his daily afternoon soup and sandwich at the diner for a couple of fucking teenagers stuck in the ditch after trying to be all macho and doing a over the speed limit fishtailing contest there’d be hell to pay. To top it all off, the call was on the opposite of the county which was a twenty five minute drive in the best of road conditions, but with the recent warming and then cold snap traveling was slowed an additional fifteen minutes. He turned off 678 onto 432 a kilometer from junction 865. He cursed the weather, cold but sunny which made him have to squint even through his sunglasses because of the glare of the snow. His irritation changed as he neared junction 865.

Orly could see the blackish grey of a vehicle’s undercarriage sooner than he could see the person that was throwing snow frantically around the upside down passenger side door that had been driven forcefully concave. Not good. He picked up his radio and asked Charlene the dispatcher to request an ambulance to the junction. No he didn’t know the extent of injuries – but he guaranteed her that from the looks of it there would be. The constable stopped the car just before the junction; he noticed that there had been tracks from where the wind had blown a large pile of snow into the middle of the road that twisted and turned towards the power pole on the corner; he didn’t want to disturb any evidence of what possibly could have caused this.

As he stepped out of his patrol car, Orly put his hand up to shield the top of his sunglasses from the sun to make out the figure scooping snow from around what Orly thought looked like legs, shit. He did a half trot to the vehicle, an ugly looking Jeep Wrangler: Allen Turnbull’s ride. It wasn’t until he was right beside the person that he recognized her, Elaine Morier whose place was across from here.

“Ms Morier?” Constable Orly said as he touched her shoulder.

Elaine gasped, losing her balance, falling back from her knees onto her but, emitting a squeal as she did so.

Skittish, Constable Orly thought, must be the shock of seeing something like this, poor girl. He took a quick peek over the undercarriage and saw a head lying off in the snow, a trail of blood showing it had originated from the other side of the Wrangler. The woman had been trying to help a dead man.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, ma’am,” Orly apologized as he offered his hand to help her up. God, he thought to himself, she’s been really working at rescuing; her face was red, the sweat her efforts had generated had wet even the hair sticking out of her pink toque and frozen it in sharp angles. She didn’t release the hold she had on the metal she had been using as a makeshift shovel. “You can stop now.”

Orly could see confusion in her eyes; she was in shock. He asked her to go warm herself in the back of his car and he would drive her up to her place once he had secured the area. She nodded and began to walk away. Orly gently took the piece of metal from her hand and patted her shoulder reassuredly. He watched her make her way wobbly towards the car; she must have really exerted herself was his only thought. Once she had gotten in and closed the back door, Orly turned his attention to circumstances of Allen Turnbull’s death.

Constable Orly walked around the Wrangler, quickly stepping over where the headless torso was, stopping only once to bend over to peer at where the metal and Allen’s flesh met. Orly gave the metal a small short push, quickly retreating when the Wrangler started to groan. He jumped back. There was a loud snapping sound, the driveshaft come loose, one end slide off the slightly angled undercarriage and jabbed into where the Constable had seen Elaine kneeling digging only a minute before. Orly wiped his brow with his grayish tan sleeve then took one last look at the scene behind him. If that poor woman had bumped that deathtrap in her attempt to dig out Turnbull…Orly would have had two meat sacks on his hands instead of one.

She was one lucky woman that Elaine Morier was, he thought to himself. She had earned it – the last couple of years had been bad ones for her; the disappearance of her father, her mother so heartbroken that she committed suicide, the school being closed, and now trying to save the life of a dead man; it was amazing she wasn’t in some loony bin. He felt guilty that he hadn’t made the time to stop by her farm to see how she was doing; he had seen her occasionally sitting on the bench outside the local bar – he supposed it was her way of having some sort of human contact in the only manner she knew how to.

Elaine had been a year behind him at the all grades school in town. He remembered how she was always sitting alone in some corner. He had once gone up to her to talk to her, admittedly on a dare by his friends to, but all Elaine did was try to shrink into those over sized sweaters she always wore as she twirled a strand of her greasy looking straight hair attempting to become invisible. Orly had been surprised when she had come back five years later to teach; she hadn’t lost her adolescent shyness – the times he would come into the school for pr days she still sat in the corner by herself while the other teachers carried on animated conversations around her.

Constable Orly came back to his squad car to grab the small digital camera he had in the glove compartment; he had decided that he should take the accident pictures while he waited for the meat wagon to arrive. He opened the passenger side door, turned his head to smile at Elaine. Poor woman, Orly thought to himself, she looks so sad, so…

“Mother fucker, cock sucking whore,” he screamed as his forehead crunched into the top of the car’s roof and bounced back. Orly’s left hand rubbed the fledgling goose egg forming directly in the middle of his forehead as his right hand instinctively punched the offending roof with loud thudding sounds as he continued to curse. It was by chance that through his rage that he caught sight of Elaine’s shocked expression staring at him. He stopped hitting the car as his face reddened. Damn, first seeing a man dying in front of her and now me going off like an asshole, that poor woman. Orly cleared his throat, bent down into the car again and apologized to Elaine for his behavior.

Elaine smiled back at the constable and assured him it was quite alright. Orly told her no it was not alright and it wouldn’t happen again, that was a promise. The constable excused himself as he grabbed the camera, telling Elaine that he would run her home soon as the someone from the next county showed up to secure the site, which should be any minute.

Elaine watched the constable walk back to the Wrangler. Those meaty fists, the raw emotion in his voice, the violence, the apology, and the promise replayed themselves in her mind; papa…

Elaine strained to keep the laugh in, lest Constable Orly would see it and wonder why. The ironic smile that crossed her face she could not stop though. Two months ago when she had seen Allen Turnbull hit that slut Wanda Berhois until she was lying on in the snow berm in front of the bar then help her up she had thought she had thought she had finally found a man just like momma married. Elaine watched Allen closely after that for a month, watching him go from woman to woman; she over heard him talking with his friends about how he wished there were some real women in town that measured up to his standards, complaining how while those whores said they hated him for his methods of keeping them in line, he knew they actually enjoyed his manly strength. She knew that their special kind of love couldn’t be found by simply walking up and introducing herself to him; she knew that she would have to earn that love. It had been a challenge, one that he would appreciate; the midnight visits to his house and measuring the wheels and wheel base of the Wrangler, convincing her neighbor that she needed a handy man for that day, making sure that Allen would be busy there for a couple of hours at least while she prepared to show him Elaine’s worthiness by loosening the propane hose just enough that the spot of the leak wouldn’t be found immediately; the forming of the ice and frozen gravel that would throw the Wrangler into the post when she stepped out in front of Allen’s path as he was driving home, tired and dirty Almost being spotted as she was underneath his vehicle puncturing the heater hose so that his windows wouldn’t defrost completely when he came out to get something from it. All that effort to find out in the end to find out that he wasn’t half the man papa had been.

When momma pulled out that frying pan, bashing into papa’s face, papa laughed as he tried to pick himself off the floor, asking momma if that was all she had. Papa didn’t cry out when momma’s knitting needles were jabbed into his eyes; papa just used those lover’s words “you bitch” as he cradled momma tightly in his arms. Papa even called Elaine her special name when she used the butcher knife like momma showed her – he had looked down at her with his eye-less face and whispered, “you’re an useless cunt just like your mother, slit”. Papa had died knowing that he had told her how much he loved her, not sobbing and whining like Allen had. Papa was right, Elaine was like her momma and she deserved a man just as good as her momma had.

Elaine’s smile widened as she watched Constable Orly trip over a piece of metal sticking out of the ground and his turning around to kick and stomp on it. To think of the weeks of watching the constable’s daily route, the mapping of when he would be the farthest distance, how long it would take for him to get here, the time she had wasted when her true love had been in her binoculars as she had fixated on a poser like Allen Turnbull. She had forgotten how kind papa was when momma and he were in the outside world, that quiet façade that barely contained the passionate storm within. Elaine closed her eyes as she felt a warm moistness spread between her legs. She imagined her momma was looking down and smiling, her little girl had found a man just like the man dear old mom had married…

WTF with Pretty Wild Thing??

Let me explain…

I have transferred my “BART” face to my New York “Subway” face. It is the face I make to appear unapproachable, irritable and generally unfriendly. Every once in a while there is a breech of said Subway Face… and when that happens, it’s worth writing about. So I’m on the Bx09 bus wearing my headphones and my subway face whilst minding my own business. Staring blankly forward I notice a large and drunken man board the bus. One of the reasons that I noticed him was because the kneeling bus wasn’t kneeling on purpose, he had literally shifted the weight of the vehicle. As he passed by, I felt the burn in my chest like I had just taken a shot of really bad tequila. He absolutely reeked of alcohol.

Mistake #1- I made peripheral eye contact

He smiled at me… HUGE. I looked away quickly but I had already lost a defense. I thought that maybe my headphones would hold the silence; I was wrong. In a raspy and slightly slurred voice, I heard from behind and to my right, “Hey pretty wild thing…” Mortified, I wore my subway face strongly and faced forward trying to pretend I hadn’t heard him. (He was wise to my plan) About 12 awkward seconds later I hear him mutter, “Married?”. Okay, now I’m looking for a real way to cut this tie. I hope he might get the hint if I start staring blankly out of the window. I turn up the music (attempting to draw attention to the fact that I AM wearing headphones) and look to my left out the window of the bus. Thinking this is working, I relax a bit and move on from the trauma.

Mistake #2- utilize the glass reflection to ensure safety

This was a disaster- I make another peripheral and amateur move only to find that he is attempting to make eye contact with me through the reflection of the window! With a neck squishing wide-eyed creepy face, he does a child-like wave at me.

I pull the string. I exit the bus.

As a lazy blogger, I really have to thank Cyndi, my imaginary stalker for helping me stay on task.  I realize that life does get in the way of my blog and I don’t contribute to it as much as I should.  Sadly, this punishes the people who need my wise and amusing words more than anyone else..YOU my dear reader.  So please accept my deepest apologizes when I say I’m sorry for not being able to write as much as I should.

Do I sound like a whiny little complainer?  Oh, my life is so tough and so hard…whine, whine, and more whine.  Actually, if the blog was truly important I’d write in it everyday with my two followers hanging on to every word I managed to spill forth from my humble keyboard.

Hmm, narcissism approaches…or is it the fear that my blog is one of the millions out there that is deadly boring.  Really, what do I have to offer to the average reader besides my charming and sarcastic wit and humor?

I observe that at least Cyndi is a true die-hard reader (even if she is imaginary).  And boy, is she good for the old ego!  She never complains about my work (of course, it would be helpful if she offered a bit of advice once in a while).  Perhaps, I can expand on Cyndi’s life to bring her into more of an active role as a stalker and give her some background in which my other two readers can feel like they know Cyndi.  I think Cyndi deserves a little background and to become a little more human.

I would say Cyndi is in her mid-thirties (hey, she’s my stalker..I can make her into my imagine), she has two children, and a good husband.  She lives in the suburbs and dreams about living in the big city.  She doesn’t want to live in the big city but she dreams about it due to watching too many love stories set in New York City.

Perhaps if I had a novel or something publish, Cyndi could come to a reading…pen in hand.

Ah, enough of building our imaginary stalker Cyndi for one evening.

da enorme janela do sexto andar, vejo três outras janelas do prédio vizinho.
devem ser somente 10 metros de distância, então, dá para ver os detalhes.
no logo acima do meu, a senhora com mais de 60 anos e mau gosto para tapetes está arrumando a mudança.
logo em frente, fecharam a cortina para um pouco mais de privacidade, mas a luz ainda está acesa.
abaixo, uma garota de short passa da sala para o quarto e um garoto magro de bermuda acompanha.
será que a cada objeto que a vizinha coloca nas caixas aparece uma lembrança? ela demora muito para terminar. e parece cuidadosa, pega uma coisa por vez, coloca no saco plástico e reservas em um canto.
são três andares acesos.
do lado de cá tudo apagado. apenas a luz do monitor refletindo no meu rosto.
eu achava que estava no escuro e eis que olhos surgem entre os tecidos da cortina, estão me vendo também.
a garota de baixo passou em direção à cozinha. acho que moram sozinhos. poucos móveis, coisas espalhadas por todos os lados, um ventilador no chão. todas as luzes da casa acesas e já são quase 1h da manhã.
ninguém dorme. a impressão que é tenho é que são paulo inteira é assim: insone.
e foi só falar isso que apagaram a luz do andar de baixo.
será que o pessoal do 6º andar de lá tem medo de escuro?
e a mudança do pessoal do 7º, que não chega nunca? faz duas semanas que estão a empacotar.
vejo os cabelos brancos e a senhora com as caixas para lá e para cá. o que será que aconteceu para mudarem desse apartamento?
.
.
.
parece que levo a vida a stalkear.
ao vivo os que moram ao lado e virtualmente os que não estão por perto.

Paper & Co. in a playful mood on Saturday afternoon

FOXHUNTING is on hiatus for now while the deer hunters are abroad in the countryside, and that gave us a chance to check in at the Iroquois kennels to see how the puppies are doing.

Paper, of course, has been out hunting now and is gradually maturing into an adult pack member. He’s had important lessons all summer and fall, and now the real education starts on the hunt field. There, he has to confront new situations and work professionally with the hunting pack. I guess to put it in human terms, he’s getting his university degree, and by next year he should be a full-time contributing member of the working world.

But what about our youngest puppies, Baffle’s litter and Dragonfly’s huge son Driver? They’re still in elementary school, but the lessons they’re learning now are critical to their future development.

These puppies were born in the spring, and for the last couple of months they’ve been getting their first exposure to working in a group, to pack manners, and to coming when called, Iroquois kennel manager Michael Edwards explained to us on Saturday.

Room to roam: all the hounds--puppies, current working pack members, and retirees--get plenty of free exercise in the two-acre field adjacent to the kennel

After breakfast each day, the 10 young puppies spend about three hours out in the kennel’s two-acre exercise field, one of the best tools the Iroquois staff has for the young hounds’ education.

“They stay out here while we’re getting stuff done in the kennel, and they play and play,” Michael said. “I try to get them out twice a day, once at the end of the day, too, so that they get four to five hours outside.

“Right now, the girls in this litter seem a little more rebellious than the boys,” Michael said of Baffle’s puppies. “The two bigger girls, Bangle and Bandstand, they’ll be the ones that won’t want to go in their kennel. But they’re all very lovable and want attention all the time.”

Assistant kennel manager Alan Foy (seen in the photo above with Baffle’s puppies) has also been working with the youngsters to start developing their sense of pack identity and cooperation.

“Alan’s been taking them out back here, just trying to teach them to stick together and respond when he calls them, and they’ve done really well at that,” Michael said, adding that it’s too early for most of the puppies to have learned their individual names yet. The kennel staff is trying to learn the puppies’ names, too! Many of them look so similar it can be hard to distinguish them, with a few exceptions. Bagshot is the woolly male of the litter; Bashful and Banknote are easy to pick out because they are the two smallest; and Driver, well, he’ll always stand out in a crowd due to his size and dark coloring.

Driver back in July.

Driver today with kennel manager Michael Edwards. A VERY big difference!

“Driver is the biggest baby out here,” Michael said, meaning both the biggest baby and the biggest baby. Recently, Michael set a five-gallon bucket out in the kennel yard, spooking Driver.

“He would not come out here on this concrete while that bucket was sitting there,” Michael said. “I had to get it and move it all the way out by the far gate before he would even come in here, and even then he came in looking at it real carefully. So we’re going to do something we did that worked well with the ST litter (Stam, Stax, Star, Stanza, etc., born in 2007). We’re going to put a windsock in their kennel, something that’s moving all the time so they get used to it. It made a big difference with them.”

In addition to their mini-houndwalks around the property, the puppies also have ventured farther afield with Iroquois joint-Master Jerry Miller and huntsman Lilla Mason. On those, they rode in the hound truck to the old point-to-point course, the same place the older hounds have their early summer walks and pond exercise. Like the older hounds, the puppies got to practice sticking together in a wide open space–their first formal exposure to that critical lesson in the company of the people who will actually hunt them someday.

“All that is important,” Michael said, “because they’re learning how to be a pack.”

The hunt and kennel staff have found it’s useful to start building the pack sense early with puppies.

“With the PA litter (including Panda, Parish, Parody, etc., born in 2005), Lilla and I would take them all through the area together,” Michael said. “By the time we incorporated them into the pack, they already had an idea what was going on, so they just blended right in.”

The puppies don’t yet have the attention span of the older hounds, but already they are focusing on people when they are out on walk, said Alan.

Baffle's litter, shown here with Michael, seem all grown up at seven months of age, but their lessons are just beginning. "I'd say they're like teenagers now," kennel manager Michael Edwards says. "They're just kind of lanky, but they're getting well-balanced."

In the case of Baffle’s puppies, it helps that they are part of a nine-hound litter–a ready-made pack, in a way. For Driver, a singleton, it was especially important that he learn group dynamics as early as possible.

“He lets the little girls chew on his ears,” Alan said. “He’s just a big, goofy puppy. But he’s fit in really well. I agree with Michael that he’s a little passive in the group, but I think it’s because when we first mixed him in with the other puppies he was so much bigger than they were. Now, he’s not quite as much bigger. Barwick and Backfire are getting pretty close to him in size. I think he knew he was bigger and couldn’t play as rough.”

“That all started when they were all at the lower kennel,” Michael said. “He was so much bigger at first that I monitored him closely. If he would be rough, I’d kind of get on him about it and growl at him.”

That lesson seems to have stuck. As Driver romped around with Baffle’s puppies, he was a perfect gentleman with his smaller playmates.

“One of the reasons we wanted to get him in with a group early was because an only child can sometimes have some trouble integrating,” Michael said. “When they’re on their own too long, I think they don’t get socialized with the pack. They don’t learn pack manners and how to respect other hounds. That’s why it was important to get Driver in with the other puppies as soon as we could, especially as big as he is. The longer we waited, the harder it would have been for him to understand that he is part of a pack.”

Baffle's litter in April.

“They learn how to be hounds from each other,” Alan said.

The next step, Michael said, is to start occasionally introducing older hounds to the puppies. Paper was one candidate, but evidently he felt pretty strongly that, having moved up with the big dogs in the pack, he was now too important to deal with the little kids anymore.

“He didn’t want any part of those puppies,” Michael said. “He jumped up on top of a bench and growled about it. I thought, being as young as he was, he’d adjust to it pretty quickly, but no, thank you. On the other hand, Panda went out there with them and loved it.”

“She educated them,” Alan said. “She didn’t get aggressive with them, but she let them know when they went too far and she let them know she didn’t want all of them piling on her at once. If they did that, she’d run away and hop up on the bench, and they couldn’t get up there with her. Then she’d wait until they scattered. Then she’d jump down again and play with one or two of them until all of them would pile on her again. She trained them in her way, which was very gentle.”

“Introducing older hounds to them out in that paddock is where I think they really start to learn about having manners toward other hounds,” said Michael. ”I think they learn a lot out here in this field with each other, just about how to be a pack. Look at these guys out here right now. They’ve been running and playing for almost an hour. They’ll play to the point that somebody gets a little grumpy and growls, and then they’ll stop. These guys will say, ‘That’s enough,’ and it doesn’t escalate. Then they’ll play again.”

“Nobody knows more about being a hound dog than a hound dog,” Alan said. “We can let them know what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. But those hounds know even better how to tell each other what’s acceptable and what isn’t, and they know how to tell each other how far it can go before something becomes unacceptable. You’ll see them do it on houndwalk. A puppy will go off from the group and do something goofy, and when they come back, and older hound will growl at them to chastise them. Glog is really good at chastising the younger hounds on houndwalk when they do something wrong. He gives them a little scolding, like he’s saying, ‘That’s not how we act around here.’”

Paper (right) at play. Playing is an important part of learning.

While we were at the kennel, we checked in on the new English hounds, too. Cottesmore’s Samson, Strawberry, Structure, and Hawkeye arrived about three weeks ago and are adjusting well, Michael and Alan report. Like the puppies, they are having to learn their place in a new pack, and Michael and Alan are working to figure out which clique within the pack works best for them.

“I think a lot of their ability to adjust easily has to do with Neil,” Michael said, referring to the Cottesmore huntsman, Neil Coleman, who raised and hunted the four in England.

“Look at Samson over here,” Michael said, pointing to the group just turned out in the two-acre field. “He’s in there with all those males. They’re all at the age where they’re trying to show who’s top dog: Paper, Gaelic, Hailstone. But Samson’s the type you could probably stick him in any group and he’d adjust. Because he’s not aggressive. That has a lot to do with the way Neil has raised them. And the others are the same way.”

Cottesmore Samson, the red-and-white hound closest to Michael here, has settled in well. Michael and Alan report that he is easygoing and adaptable.

Structure, Hawkeye, and Strawberry are kenneled in a run with the SA litter that includes Sassoon, Savvy, and Saracen. “They’re pretty easygoing, too,” Michael said.

One of the most important jobs Michael and Alan do is figure out which group of hounds should be kenneled together. Getting the mix right requires some experimentation, but it’s key to the hounds’ physical and mental wellbeing; getting it wrong could result in dangerous friction in the kennel.

“When I brought the English hounds up from the lower kennel (near Michael’s house, where they were quarantined before joining the rest of the pack at the upper kennel), I just started sticking them out in the field with different groups to see how they responded to each other. When they’re outside together with a lot of room, they’re more interested in what’s going on around them than they are in each other, and you can keep an eye on them. I stuck them in with the SAs and never had any issues with them, so that looks like a good fit.”

The process–the two-acre turnout paddock and essentially letting the hounds choose the clique they’re most comfortable with–is unusual, as the English imports let Michael and Alan know.

“When we first turned them out, they all just stood at the gate looking at us like, ‘What’s going on?’” Michael recalled. “But after a few minutes, they sort of went, ‘Hey, look at all this room! Let’s run!’”

Once the hounds have chosen their own group of friends, how do you get each set to merge comfortably with the pack? “We turn different groups out together,” Michael explained. “There are only a few groups that have a little trouble mixing closely, and you have to know all that, especially when you are loading them up in the trailer to take them to a meet. For instance, we can keep some hounds in the back of the hound truck instead of in the trailer if we need to.”

It’s also critical to know who the dominant dog is at any given time, Michael said. At the moment, it’s Alvin.

“Stalker was the big dog before we retired him,” Michael said. Stalker, one of our most beloved hounds, is now retired under the care of the Hound Welfare Fund. You can read his story here. But now that he’s retired, he spends more time in the kennel office, where he can relax and keep warm, and suddenly he’s a mellow retiree.

“Showing his dominance doesn’t seem to concern him so much now,” Michael said. “I guess he’s old enough to realize he’s got it made in there!”

Brilliant. Time to talk about our Ten lists once more, so settle in for the long haul and try and keep up. Much discussion ensues as Sam tries to extol the virtues of Ingmar Bergman, praise the magical realism of Billy Liar and attempt to make sense of All About Lily Chou-Chou. John continues the theme, causing slight, though understandable, consternation with his uncensored views on Raging Bull and confessions of multiple tears during Schindler’s List. Tom rounds the night off in business-like fashion with praise for The 400 Blows, controversial dislike for the second half of Stalker and man-crushed love for Le Samourai.

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Remember this guy?  He gained his fame back in 1996 with his epic videotaped suicide.Ricardo Lopez mailed an acid-spraying letter bomb to Bjork, which was intercepted by police before landing its way into her hands.  The police also found 18+ hours of video footage, which was later edited down by Danish director Sami Saif into an hour and forty-five minute documentary .  Below is a link to view the unedited suicide tape.  It’s pretty disturbing, and if you listen at the end you can hear the blood pouring from his head after the gun shot.  This video is NSFW.

http://theync.com/m011108bjork.shtml

I’m afraid that i’m going to have to mention this awful subject. First of all I have read the books and seen the movie. I’ll admit when i first read then i got addicted but that happens with every book. The thing with Twilight was that the more i re-read the books the more wrongness i saw. E.g- Every page Bella says some comment about how hot Edward is, Edward WATCHES HER SLEEP, Edward breaks into her house to WATCH HER SLEEP, Edward doesn’t allow Bella to have friends he hasn’t approved, he stalks her even when they’re not together, the vampires frigging sparkle, they are constantly whining about how they love each other but Edward wants to eat Bella and Bella thinks she’s not good enough for Edward. I think that’s enough but there is more. Loads more. Dazzlingly, sparkly, greenly, yummyly, vampirely, #$%$@#%$@$%@%$@%@%@$% more. I’m not kidding when i say greenly. It’s in Twilight in the first chapter. This book could have been much better if the plot was a little less predictable (ok a whole lot), Stephanie had a good editor and her characters weren’t some half thought stupid clumsy idiots. If maybe Bella had a tumor that made her clumsy and then she meets Edward Cullen the psychotic vampire doctor who she tricks into making her  a vampire then runs away after realizing she’s fallen in love with him. That would be nice but no, this was not to be. The thing most people hate the most about Twilight are the fans. (That sentence got away from me) Before i read it a girl in my class was a true twilighter. She was always making announcements about how good it was and if anyone bagged it she’d hit them. This girl I’m going to classify as Low Level Twi-Addict because there a far worse cases. Their were reports of a girl throwing acid at her lab partner because he told her to put that stupid book down and do the work. There are other with death threats, assault, trespassing, damage to property and some i find to weird to mention. These fans give the book a bad name and so does the writing. I’m giving it till the next 10 Second Fad comes along. I’m sorry but vampires who SPARKLE are just plain gay.

Twilight- Level fourth grade reading.