Vigil StarGazer

A Classic piece of Literature! MUST READ for all avid readers and aspiring writers. An extremely entertaining and enjoyable read for any person. It has been described as "one of the genre's most beloved pieces of appalling prose", and has subsequently been used as part of a common science fiction convention party game. There's no other words in the english vocabulary that can describe what a rare gem this is, You'll just have to read it all yourselves. http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon

Another literature classic is going onto the silver screen! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged_(film) For all those penites out there, at least read the novel. It's a monumental literary achievement and an ageless work destined to outlast its time.

Best of luck Wyvern, for whatever you are trying to do. You are one of the best elders we have in the Pen. You'll be missed.

Avatar 2: The United Earth Directorate Strikes Back! I traveled here from the year 2012 to say this.... SPOILER ALERT! The Na'vi send those sky people back to their spaceship and send them home. However there was a traitor on board. He killed everyone and self-destructed the ship. Meanwhile people back on earth had no clue what happened. RDA managed to convinced the current government to get involved for a cut of the profit and/or a portion of the unobtainium. The Terran Military, made up mostly of criminals in an overcrowed Prison institution, arrived in Alpha Centuri after 6 years of travel and did some satellite recon on Pandora's orbit. After seeing the wreckage of those helicopters and the cargo ship they figured that the the natives are part of some powerful forces killed all the humans that was sent to mine this place... Meanwhile Jake became addicted to connecting his USB port to the tree of souls. He realized that this isn't the first time such crisis happened by going through genetic memories of the tree of souls. He also found some dark and sinister origins about the Na'vi and Ewya. However it was all just mental flashes and the constant connection has taken a toll on his psyche. There were signs of the "Last of the Great sorrows" and "The end times in Pandora." and the Fortelling of an ancient enemy even before the time of Na'vi. Back in the human base, sensors began to pick up strange gravitational occurrence. Also there seems to be some discrepancy about the messages received from earth. Norm managed to locate and hacked into the military channel. After decrypting the transmission, the scientists realized that the humans are back and this time they bought in the artillery. A huge fleet of battle cruisers are in Pandora's orbit and are ready to release a newly developed biological weapon of mass destruction into the atmosphere designed to infect and killed off every organism on the alien planet. Admiral DeGalle wanted intelligence on those natives first, suspecting that no way that a professional Security force such as Sec-OP would be wiped out by some primitive savages with bows and arrows. He encountered Samir Duran, a mercenary who claimed that he deserted when things went bad and was stranded on the alien planet. Duran also look excately like Colonel Quaritch. Duran offered strategic advice, set up human base camp on Pandora's soil once again and scored a few victories against the planet itself by directly attacking the territorial neural connection. Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov was wary of Duran. He had his staff secretly ran profile on him but just when he realized some horrible truth Duran literally stabbed him in the back and threw his corpse into outer space. Norm managed to tell Jake this and he consoled the tree of souls again. Ewya told Jake that he was was not ready, but the stubborn and risk-hearty Jake ignored the advise and took it upon himself to save the the planet again. They hatched a plan to use the remaining shuttle to get a few Na'vi to the battle cruiser, from there they'll try to stop the orbital bombardment or negotiate something. As always Jake really doesn't have a clear plan and just try to make it up on the fly. They did managed to stealthy docked onto the capital ship. The Na'vi are not used to the air humans normally breaths and are having trouble coping. The humans, shocked to see alien blue people on their ship, thought they are under attack and a lot of fighting ensured. Neytiri got killed and Jake managed to made it to the bridge and face off with the Duran ala John Woo style gun battle. Jake shot Duran, but he managed to shrugged off the grievous wounds, revealed himself to be strange alien entity and told Jake that he killed his brother, and that there's powerful forces at work here beyond his comprehension. He sliced Jake's hand off and left Jake bleeding from multiple bullet wound as he made an eloquent evil nemesis speech and launched the nukes... Meanwhile Norm got captured, and the body of Neytiri was cryogenically frozen and both were shipped back to earth... Samir Duran ripped off the human flesh on his face, revealing a dark insectivore feature and a trio of black, lidless eyes. Samir Duran "Hissss... Jake...... Hssss.... I killed your brother." Jake Scully: "Noooooooooooooooo!!!!"

A new word of the day... Horribad: (Horrible + Bad) Ajd. It's so horrible, it's bad.

Have you ever heard of new words in your friend's volcabulary that's completely made up of two words, but when put together it creates another word in such a unique way that it almost becomes an entirely new concept? Well, put there here and share it with your other pen-friends! You never know when it'll turn up to be the next new word in the english dictionary! Gignormous -[ Gi-norm.mussss. ] (combination of gigantic & enormous) - Adjective 1. greatly exceeding the common size, extent, etc.; huge: 2. exaggerated size. Peter North stick his gignormous *beep* into Carmen Electrica's wet and swollen *beep* as they began to excitedly *beep* *beep*. Patheisad - [ Ppppa-featha-s.ad ] (combination of pathetic & sad) - Adjective 1. miserably or contemptibly pitiful inadequacy. 2. deplorably bad to the point of sympathetic affection. What? You mean her poetry book didn't even sell a single copy? That's Patheisad. Stupidstitious - [ stoo-pid-stish-uhsssss ] (combination of stupid & superstitious) - Adjective 1. believing in, full of, or influenced by senseless superstition. 2. pertaining to or connected with foolish superstition. His stupidstitious beliefs made him into a scientologist; letting the leaders of that church take turns on his hot wife. From urban dictionary : redonkulous re.donk'u.lous adj. 1. significantly more absurd than ridiculous to an almost impossible extreme; without possibility of serious consideration. 2. fitted to excite absolute ridicule; intentionally crazy and silly; completely absurd and laughable. "redonkulous" - as first popularized by the fictional character Seth Cohen on FOX's The O.C. George W. Bush is the most redonkulous person in the world. The first Bush administration was ridiculous. This second one is just redonkulous.

Welcome back Rae rae! Sorry I used your tree as firewood.

http://swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/51-fra.html Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress (1745). June 25, 1745 My dear Friend, I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient. But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these: i. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable. 2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman. 3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience. 4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes. 5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement. 6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy. 7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy. 8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!! Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

I've always wanted to write a few reviews about movies I've watched in recent years, but haven't gotten around to it since I was addicted to WoW. I figure I should voice my opinion on some movies while I was in my break from WoW. I picked Girls gone Wild: Mardi Gras out of all the Girls gone wild series because it's the most realistic one of the whole GGW franchise. It's also most believable because many fine female members of our species do celebate this festival in such frolicking nature. My first and strongest complain about this movie and, in-extension, films of this nature is the total lack of plot. Much like our instantaneous gratification nature of our society, everything was strip bare to our base needs and course satification. I mean, when was the last time anyone see an explicited film with an actual decent plot? The filmography is ... strangely ironic. The film claim to be amaturish and a candid shot of girls in their 'wild' state. Yet the camera was uncanny professional. There was a definatively lack of jerky movement, awdwark lighting and focus, and evanencent zoom-in that was the basic charactistics of all amature films. It's completely ironic that the filming techniques are so well practiced on unsuspecting girls that it was suited for its predatory, unscrupulous nature of this particular film. In regards to those credulous actresses, I found them to be truely geniune making it one huge redeaming quality. The lack of silcone was definately refreshing, and for once the argument that this genera of film making unrealistic expectation of the female body went flat. Perhapse to better understand this film, one must place aside the sterotypes of the opposite gender and unclad our armor of psychological vunerability to cardinally know the truth between men and women. One must really dig deep for that and I'll leave the audacious truth to the audience. One more interesting point to note. One of the "star" (and may I dare say the best looking one) is actually not of age at the time. (and yes, that would actually deem having an actual copy of this film to be illegal {and no, I do not actually posess a copy}) However her performance was away from the crowd at night between two archway at a gate. I would say that actually a low point of the film as it went against the general theme. She was half decent thou. one and a half lawsuits out of five. P.S. I was probably expected to answear this question "How would you feel if it was your signifiant other in that film?" and the question quitely possibily go along with an angry tone. I do not have a significant other, however, my answear would be... "the same way as she would feel." It a pretty good answear if you come to think about it.

Watch Premise: Relating the 4 hormones to related the 4 hormone types Dopamine & Serotoini: Popular Sanguine, Testosterone: Power Choleric,, and Estrogen & oxytocin: Peaceful phylamatic to the 4 main personalities. Perfect Melancholy: Something else that causes depression. Now we all need to do is to analyze if the time of the year people are born into have anything to do with the level of each type of chemical in your brain.. to determine if the personality described in horoscopes have anything to do with a person's personality. P.S I'm a negoitator... yes I'm a doormat.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/p...egook-poll.aspx George W. Bush tops English gobbledegook poll Posted: September 09, 2009, 4:02 PM by Karen Hawthorne World, U.S. Politics Agence France Presse LONDON—Former U.S. president George W. Bush topped a poll of the worst examples of mangled English released Wednesday, followed closely by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Rumsfeld. Former French football star Eric Cantona and former U.S. president Bill Clinton also produced prime examples of gobbledegook, according to the online poll of 4,000 people inspired by the Plain English Campaign. Bush romped to the top accolade for his: “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” Second came Hollywood star-turned-California governor Schwarzenegger, who during an election campaign in 2003 declared: “I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.” The rest of the top 10 in the poll, commissioned by an insurance company after it won an award from the Plain English Campaign, were: - 3. Rumsfeld, in February, 2002: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” - 4. Murray Walker, motor racing commentator: “The lead car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind it which is identical.” - 5. John Motson, football commentator: “For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are playing in yellow.” - 6. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, explaing budget plans to lawmakers in July this year: “Total spending will continue to rise and it will be a zero percent rise in 2013-14.” - 7. Clinton, in 1998 grand jury testimony about Monica Lewinsky: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If ‘is’ means ‘is and never has been’ that’s one thing — if it means ‘there is none’, that was a completely true statement.” - 8. Cantona, 1995: “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.” - 9. Bush, July, 2001: “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right.” - 10. London mayor Boris Johnson, on British satirical gameshow “Have I Got News for You” in 2003: “I could not fail to disagree with you less.” George W. Bush headed back to Canada (Photo: George W. Bush. Credit: Tim Sloan, AFP/Getty Images)

so.. that's the last we've ever heard of Snypiuer?

I'll ask my sources and get back to you on that later. My source tells me that that's why the two ppl in the above example limit the area using rock salt. Less places for the doll to run off (if it ever did). The rule of the ritual states that you do not sleep and you do not leave until you find the doll and spray salt water over it, declare 3 times that you won, and burn the thing soon after. Others you don't sleep or leave the premise until you find it. Or else this might happen. I don't really know how to do this. All I know is that I want this damned thing out of my house. I'll start from the beginning: When I was a young child, I had a large stuffed toy bear, and named him "Baron". Baron was the one I always blamed for stolen candy and broken dishes, dressed in a button up shirt to imitate Calvin dressing up Hobbes, that kind of best imaginary friend who I would talk out loud to. I don't remember a whole lot about what went on, but some things (which they will not discuss with me) happened to make them get rid of Baron and take me for counseling, and then to several religious figures in the local community. This didn't last long, and I turned into (according to everyone else) a healthy, well adjusted young man. Two weeks ago, I was in Cleveland on business. There was a small antique shop on the other side of the street where I was parked, and after finishing what I was there for, I walked up to the door for a quick peek. "Merryweather Curiosities" was not only closed but in a severe state of disrepair, and very dim inside, but I could swear that back in the shadows I saw movement once or twice. As my eyes adjusted to peering through the glass into the darkness, shielded by my hands, I saw a stuffed bear that looked very much like Baron tucked away in one of the corners. Nothing of note happened and I went home, only to come back the next day to retrieve my clip-on sunglasses that I had accidentally left in the waiting room of the office. Baron, and it was indeed my childhood friend, was on the sidewalk outside the shop, a McDonald's hamburger wrapper plastered around his leg by the wind. There was no pricetag. On closer inspection, his fur was ragged and worn in some places, mostly on the extremities of the forepaws, and most oddly, his eyes were gone. I looked up and down the street and put him in the back of my Isuzu Trooper. At home, I hurried in to check my email and phone messages. I forgot to bring Baron in, which I sometimes do with groceries if I don't need them right away. In the morning, I went out to the car. Opening the door, I was practically bowled over by a very powerful stench of rust, mold, and what can only be described as the scent of a filthy wet dog. A dead filthy wet dog. The back lining of my trooper had been torn out after it started to mold from being used as a work truck (hauling firewood in the winter got it wet and dirty), so I figured that maybe the carpet up between the seats needed cleaning, and that some of the smell might be coming from Baron who if I remembered properly from the tag, was machine washable. I pulled him out, put him on the porch, stuck my bike in the back of the trooper, and drove down to the local carwash and auto detailing place to have the interior steamcleaned to see if that would help. My seat was slightly misadjusted and some of the controls were sticky for no apparent reason. The cycling ride home was uneventful. The bear was still in the same position where I left him. Once I got home, I stuffed Baron into my Staber washing machine, which is an expensive high quality washer, and ran him as a light cold water load. Afterwards, I spread him over a laundry rack outside to dry because it was such a nice sunny day. Right after coming inside, the phone started ringing. It was the auto detailer, and they wanted me to pick up my car (this was much earlier than expected). On arriving, I found the Trooper to be only partly cleaned but the smell was greatly diminished. None of the college students who worked there would look me in the eye or give me more than a monosyllablic reply. The manager pulled me aside, told me that he wanted me to take my car and leave, that he wasn't willing to discuss anything about it, and that there would be no charge. This made me feel very uncomfortable and embarrassed, and I tried to think of what might have happened. The Trooper had the windows rolled up tightly while sitting in the sun and was very warm, so I put on the air conditioning on the drive back. There was almost no airflow, and then a few dried feathers started to spiral out of the vents, followed by a shaking rustle and a dead baby bird dropping onto the carpet from the under-dash air vent. I immediately pulled into the Target parking lot, locked my car, and spent an hour pacing and then looking underneath the car. I decided that the source of the stench and problems with the carwash had been birds nesting in the air conditioning ducts, which then died. I finally scooped up the dead hatchling with a plastic bag, dropped it in one of the errant shopping carts and got back in my car. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something looking at me from in back. Not malevolently, but accusingly. Like I had done something wrong. At home, I worked outside for a while cutting down some new brush growth and dragging it down to the ditch by the road, then went inside and out into the back yard to check on Baron drying. The rack had collapsed and he was sprawled on the ground several feet away, but completely dry. It almost felt as though there were hard objects inside him, just deep enough to be difficult to feel under the padding. There was no smell. I put most of my problems outside of my mind and carried him upstairs to be stowed away in the guest bedroom, with some of my other old stuff. For a few days, nothing happened. Then I began feeling like I wasn't alone in the house. My girlfriend came over, and started to mention seeing things out of the corner of her eye. I said they must have been my cat Harlequin, but we found her upstairs asleep on my bed. That night when we were watching The Island, we both heard a very loud banging sound coming from upstairs. Later, she swore she heard footsteps descending the basement stairs and then sounds coming from underneath us. I was still trying my best to be skeptical about the odd things happening, and made fun of her being easily spooked. Our night didn't last much longer, she went home and I stayed up listening to every single sound - and this is an old house, it DOES have some creaks from the heat making it expand and contract - with my hair slowly prickling up on the back of my neck. Some of the pieces from my chess set were missing. I went to sleep with a small light on for the first time in years, and finally drifted off around 3 am. I can't remember much from my dreams from that night, but I woke up with most of the coverings balled up on the floor and dark bags under my eyes. The one mental image that remained was the lingering sensation of being trapped deep underground in a space too small to pass through, with the knowledge that something was coming after me. Harlequin didn't show up for her breakfast, but I figured she was just out sleeping in the bushes or in a sunny spot. I realized that I hadn't seen any birds or squirrels around lately, and there hadn't been any birdcalls in the morning. Harley takes a bird now and then, but not enough to silence them all. Walking out the front door, I saw a massive puddle under the back of the trooper. It was something like motor oil but was dried and blackish brown. Test driving it showed no problems and there was no longer any smell at all. Also, the feathers were gone. At this point, I began questioning whether some of the events were just my overactive imagination running wild after a period of stress and extra work. I decided to take the car for a drive to make sure nothing was wrong, and ended up heading toward Cleveland again. The antique shop popped into my mind, and I made a beeline for it, thinking maybe I could ask where they found Baron. I was starting to put some of these strange occurences together. At the corner where I had picked up Baron, there was only brick wall at the section where the shop had been. I thought I was going nuts. It was the exact same place, but nothing was there. I walked to the next door down, a local coffeehouse. The grayhaired lady behind the counter told me that there never had been any "Merryweather" shop there. The shop was completely cleaned out, down to the cleaner area on the brick where the sign used to be. I don't know where it went and haven't had much luck in researching. Sure that I was going mad, I came back home to see the local utilities board scooping up all the brush I had been cutting over the past week. One of the orange hard-hat wearing workers flagged me over and pointed at what the backhoe claw had unearthed pulling up branches. There was a good four or five cubic feet of small bones mixed in with the twigs and saplings, drying white and brown. Feathers, fur, and scraps of flesh still clung to most of them. Among the bones was a pink flea collar exactly the same as the one Harlequin had been wearing. This incident caused me a great deal of difficulty with the city, fortunately some of the executives on the utilities board and city council members were close friends of my parents and didn't take to any wild flights of fancy as to why a small animal graveyard might have appeared in my discarded branches. I was beginning to be terrified about the possibilities. My house was rapidly taking on a very uncomfortable feeling, and no one came inside without commenting on feeling unease or even outright fear. At several times I heard low moans uttered from other parts and this happened once while a guest was over. The shuffling sounds increased in frequency, always happening on a floor I wasn't on until one day they started happening several rooms over on the same story. This set me on edge like nothing you would believe. It was worse than hearing the scraping sounds inside the walls at night had been. Sometimes I would wake up with a few scratches on my face, or feel something jump up onto my bed at night. I started to question my sanity more and more. Up to this time, I had only looked in the spare bedroom a few times, and Baron was always in his place, eyeless sockets staring into space. I looked at him that day I heard the shuffling, and caught myself starting to talk to him. This time it wasn't a pair of child friends, it was me threatening him with the evisceration of his stuffing and the fate of being stuffed into my woodchipper if he didn't stop whatever was going on, if it was related to him and I was sure it was. As I spoke, I felt chills trace up and down my spine and tears jumped into my eyes for no reason. The room felt twenty degrees colder and visibly darkened. My heart was in my throat and I felt an incredibly palpable sensation of hostility spreading through the air like waves. Shakily I backed out of the room, slammed the door, and ran downstairs to fix myself some tequila. I noticed in the kitchen that most if not nearly all of my knives were missing, and that there were chunks of wood missing out of the locked cupboard under the sink, a holdover from when the previous owners had had small children to keep away from drain cleaner, almost as if a very short person had been gleefully chipping away to try to break past the latch. After drinking for a good twenty minutes, I started to rationalize everything that had happened. The feeling that washed over me had been a natural reaction, all part of my mind spooking itself and reacting on cue to my subconscious desires to find strange and scary things. Emboldened by liquor, I strode back upstairs and decided for no apparent reason to repair Barons eyes. I remembered that once, long after Baron disappeared but still in my childhood, that I had found a small box with a pair of stuffed animal type eyes in it, nestled in strips of paper with scrawled writing, and then was scolded heavily for snooping. As if my hands found it unbidden, it only took a few minutes of searching in one of the upstairs closets. The box was wooden with inlaid crucifixes and a carving of the Virgin Mary, which struck me very oddly as my parents had most definitely not been Catholic. Inside were many little strips of parchment, almost as if it had been put through a shredder. Written on each one was a latin phrase, repeated over and over from one strip to another. Underneath a wrapping of these were a pair of simple button eyes that I recognized as definitely having belonged to Baron in the past. They felt very, very cold. I took a needle and thread left over from my last shirt repair and took Baron downstairs. Slamming him onto the dining room table, I roughly stabbed the needle into the sockets, laced in the eyes, and sewed them both tight. Again, I felt as if there almost might be an actual skeletal structure under his padding, but after prodding quite hardly, found nothing. Tired of the whole thing and wondering why I had done what I did, I opened the basement door, threw him down the stairs, and locked it. Nothing happened all day and all night. Maybe I had solved the problem. Loading my week's laundry into the machine, I noticed that it was already full of liquid. Looking closer with a flashlight revealed a layer of scum floating on oily water, glinting red under the beam from my mini mag. My reflection swirled and distorted in the water, and I heard whispering, not just one voice but one main tone with a whole chorus of others in the background. I slammed the lid down and put a cinderblock on top of it, and ran the machine empty. Five minutes later all of the power to that side of my house went out and I have still not been able to find the circuit fault. I called up an electrician the next morning, after a tormented night of sounds and bumps, and then tried looking up an exorcist. Exorcists unfortunately aren't in the yellow pages. The workman came around noon and went down to the basement (where I had not gone) to check the breakers. He left shortly after going down and told me that he was never coming back and that he had a good mind to hit me with his wrench for calling him here. The shadows in the corners of the house seemed bigger than before, and I don't like shadows that shift and adjust when you aren't looking. There was a puddle forming under the washer. I went outside to pace under the sun, and started to notice odd scraps of ragged fabric stuck to some of the trees and brambles edging my property. One of them was recognizeable as part of one of my much older stuffed animals, from when I was a toddler. There must have still been a box of them tucked away somewhere. I went upstairs to look, and found only a decapitated Pooh in an otherwise empty cardboard box. Pooh's eyeless, mouthless head was on the seat of my car. The rest of the never-alive animals slowly came to view as I dug through some of the uncleared thickets, some of them with their heads seperated, some of them much worse. I saw the entrance to the crawlspace under the sideporch was open. This crawlspace leads directly to another crawlspace that goes to the basement. I saw some scraps of fur and stuffing laying in the entrance and was sure that I heard heavy, animal breathing deeper inside. Staying in the house for another night was a terrifying prospect. I was being forced to accept that some sort of evil supernatural entity was making a residence and destroying my life and my wellbeing. Looking in the downstairs bathroom mirror, my skin was almost china-pale, with dark veins showing through. The corruption that was overtaking the house was starting to get me as well. As I looked at my face in the mirror in the dim fluorescent light (I needed to change one of the pair and hadn't) the reflection slowly faded to grayish dark, and swirled into ornate patterns that gave way to a pure blackness that looked back at me through a pair of bright red eyes, the only thing I could see. I heard a horrible scream that might have been my own, as the lights went off through the entire house. The bathroom door is opposite the basement door, only a few feet to the other side and back a bit. I could hear slow shuffling sounds coming up them. My maglite was in my hand and my adrenaline was on full fight or flight mode. I chose fight. I shone the light into the door and pulled it open. I swear to god I'm not crazy, and this is what I saw. There below me on the steps was Baron slowly walking up on two legs, one of my kitchen knives in his paws, scraps of other animals hanging off him. I yelled at the top of my lungs and shut the door, but it bounced back open. I was already several yards away, running upstairs for my guns. In my bedroom, the moonlight filtered through my curtains and I quickly grabbed my 870 and prepared to charge back down. I felt prickles on my neck and turned to see the eyes outside my window. They winked out into nothing with an unearthly moan and I left the house as fast as I could. I did not see 'Baron' on the way out. The rest is too traumatic to tell, from the ordeal under the cellar to what we found in the crawlspaces. In short, with the help of a Wiccan aquaintance, my house is partially cleansed and the bear is now locked up in a box. I need to sell it, for someone to willfully accept it. There is something dreadfully wrong with this bear. I never used to believe in powers of darkness, but now I do. If you are willing to buy it, please let me know. I take no responsibility for what may happen afterwards and for God's sake don't keep it anywhere near children. The lingering presence is still in my house to some extent and I need to get the source out. Please help me. There is a large rip on the back, a small one on the belly that is sealed up with red thread. The eyes are firmly attached and for reasons I am not willing to discuss should not be removed under any circumstances. * And so the auction went and went and I wish I had been able to save the full question and answer set because it was AWESOME, but c'est la vie. Here, for the first time ever, is the ending, which I typed up and sent with the bear: I made several phonecalls from a hotel room that night, and the next day several trusted friends entered the house with me. Under the guidance of one, a complicated cleansing ritual involving burning sage was performed, and we began feeling 'resistance' to our efforts after finishing the upstairs. The air seemed to thicken. In the downstairs, the house went noisy. Doors clicked, windowframes rattled, and the television turned on. This faded as we persisted in the purification. Finally, all that was left was the basement and cellar sections under the porches. Opening the basement door let out a rush of wailing cold air that left a rank mildew odor. We turned on our maglites, and in the case of the one friend who always obsesses over having the best gear, a surefire, and descended the cellar stairs. The fluorescent lights flickered and went dead before we got to the bottom. Then, nothing. Halfway through the basement, the lights went on, and there in the middle of the floor, un-noticed with our flashlights, was the bear, sitting motionless like a puppet with slashed strings. A faint buzzing sound, angry and hot, was coming from it. The wiccan friend raised his lump of sage incense and stepped forwards while chanting, and was immediately engulfed from the face down in an impossibly large swarm of bloatflies that poured out of the slightly torn hole in Baron's fur. Screaming, he staggered into the shadows as the lights dimmed out again. My flashlight began to turn off every few seconds and would only come back through shaking. Shining it on the spot where the bear had been revealed nothing but dirty concrete floor. From this point, everything became chaos. Fluttering scaly wings seemed to fill the air and buffet my face, I couldn't tell whether the screams were from an unholy source or coming from the other people in the basement, and unhealthily fast skittering sounds circled the floors and, from the change in tone, went up the wooden walls as well. Fighting my way to the stairs, I was able to account for everyone but the man attacked by flies. By sticking close together we managed to circle the basement shouting his name, but we didn't hear a thing. When we got closer to the porch crawlspace entrance, the floor surface seemed to become like carpet, except the entire basement is done in cement. I shone my light to the ground and realized that I was an inch deep in writhing pale maggots the size of ricegrains. The only thing my mind could think to do was to jump up off the floor, onto the counter that lines the wall on that side, and from there dive head first into the crawlspace. I really wish I hadn't. Inside I felt maggots dropping from the ceiling onto my head from the animal corpses wedged up into the floorboards, which my light quickly revealed. I saw the Doc Marten of the missing man and started to crawl toward it, screaming the entire way. Writhing drops of insectile larva covered my clothes, some going down my neck or up my sleeves. I had just reached the shoe and realized that it was sitting there by itself when a low bestial growl met my face along with warm, fetid ursine breath. The bear was on all fours with teeth bared, eyes shining demonic red. It smelled like it brushed it's fangs with year old garbage, the extra juicy kind. I yanked my hand back to the Benchmade at my belt and then it all went black. They tell me I fell out from underneath the basement stairs, with the wiccan friend over my shoulder. I don't think that's possible, since there is no area underneath the stairs that isn't open and it isn't anywhere near the crawlspace. They found Baron in my bedroom upstairs, ripped and unmoving. While the house still 'crawls', it isn't as malevolent for now and I think the main reason behind the bad things has been subdued. The rest might be symptomatic or just parasitic to the main infestation. Maybe they are souls the bear claimed, forever doomed to haunt his location. I sealed up the crawlspace with bricks and listed the bear on eBay immediately. After the sale finalized, I began to come down with a horrible case of hives. Once Baron was shipped, they began to go away.

here is someone's experience of undergoing such a ritual quote: I wait outside the apartment until Sam arrives, and we agree to go for a short walk because I am full of piss and the rule is no going outside until it's day once we begin. We head down a dark block, when we hear a very brief, high pitched screaming sound from a yard up ahead. The screaming lasted about half a second or so. To me, it sounded like a bird scream. Scared, we leave the area and go home, which is only two blocks away. When we get there, Sam sprinkles rock salt along the garden wall (ashtray during winter time) and we say a prayer rubbing it between our fingers. We go inside, Dad turns in at around 12:40ish, we start making minor preparations for the ritual and then watch some Fievel Goes West until 2:30. Then, the real preparations begin. I'm not listing them in order. We chronicled most of it on camera anyways, thanks to Sam. It is worth noting, that during the preparations a feeling of unease came over both of us, and after Sam finished sewing up the doll, she began shaking. - Sam unstuffs the doll, refills it with rice. Sews it back up with red thread. - We smudge my room, the livingroom and especially the bathroom with sage(we both felt much calmer after this). This is for cleansing. - Line Dad and my room's door with rock salt, making it spiritually "off limits" for the game. - Prepare our separate water bottles with salt water (I did this. I used like 3 tbsp of salt each. We used sea salt) - Put sage in our mouths, then against the soles of our feet, kept in pace by our socks. - Prepare the hiding place with a glass of salt water underneath it. We unfolded the futon in the living room and made this our hiding spot. - Filled up the bathtub. - Put rock and sea salt in the sink, covered up the bathroom cupboard mirror by turning the cupboards away from ourselves. Smeared the mirrors with the salt water. - I decide against a few trinkets and a coat I was going to wear during the ritual, out of respect. - Put three of my nail clippings into the doll. 3 was a significant number for this ritual and so I felt it should be three clippings. - We turned off the light in my room, got our things out and put them in the living room, found an appropriate channel and shut off the TV. - My choice for the stabbing utensil was scissors. At some point, after Sam had finished sewing up the doll and we hadn't yet left my room, we heard a scuffling sound and a click of a door opening. At first I thought it was another tenant in the apartment next to us, then I blamed my cat even though we clearly heard a door open Sam was looking right at Dante but I couldn't see him from where I stood. We brushed it off and after a brief exchange were ready to bring everything outside my bedroom. I went to step outside but backed immediately into my room because the closet door near the suite entrance had opened. That was the sound we heard. After confirming to ourselves we wanted to go through with this, we closed the door to my room and began the ritual. Before the ritual could begin, we set up our cameras and Sam set the doll down on the chair near the hiding place in the living room. When I went to pick up the doll, Sam noted the doll was in a different position than when she'd set it down. We turned off all the lights in the living room, I took the doll and scissors and Sam brought the camera and I brought the TV remotes as well as my water bottle. I stabbed the doll, did the first chant and named the doll http://www.tobaccobymail.com/images/roger.jpg (call me a faggot but I'm afraid to write the name out in text myself until I've disposed of the doll properly). The lights out, we ran into the living room, flicked on the tv and after a bit of struggling managed to get under the futon. We heard sounds from the bathroom and the kitchen entrance. We took mouthfuls of salt water from the same bottle, because by mistake I left my bottle in the bathroom(which I didn't find till after we finished the game). I kept the water bottle near me the whole time. After counting to ten and confirming to ourselves it was time to go, we got up and by the light of Sam's camera screen, navigated through the kitchen into the bathroom. We both had mouthfuls of salt. I got there first, Sam got there second and I saw the door open further behind her, I assumed it was her body weight hitting the door, after talking it over with her it is unlikely. When the door opened further I heard three consecutive bangs, like the door was bouncing against a wall. I forgot at that moment the toilet was beside the door so there was no way it could hit the wall. The whole scene played out very frantically. The doll was still in the tub. I scooped it up, spat my salt water over it and Sam kind of weakly horked hers onto the doll in turn. I stabbed it and said the next chant, we hid again. The second time around, with me no longer "it", the feeling of heaviness alleviated a little. I think we both felt in less danger this time, for some weird reason. Sam also knocked over our salt water and it spilled all over the floor and my legs and Dante(cat) went under the couch with us and I'm pretty sure he was licking up some of the salt water. I counted to ten in my head with my eyes closed, tapping Sam's side for every number. We waited a much longer time for round 2 to leave the futon. This time, only I took salt water from the bottle, and Sam put rock salt in her mouth to supplement (I needed the rest of the water to finish the game). I am unsure if we should have waited longer for it to look for us or not. The doll was gratefully still in the tub, and I scooped it up, spat out my water on it, had Sam spit her rock salt on it. I stabbed it and said, "I win, I win, I fucking win," out of relief. We cleaned up a little, and cleansed the rooms the game took place in with white candles. The eczema on my face (fairly under control usually) was inflamed and agitated from the salt that dripped down my chin during the ritual. I put on some cream and moisturizer. We submerged the doll in the salt water in the sink to cleanse it and lit a candle underneath the mirror. After a few minutes we drained the water in the sink and I set the doll on a rack over the toilet to dry. We set up my Nintendo Wii, and put our SD cards in it to watch the movies we made about the ritual. Sam filmed the whole thing, and we had my camera trained on the living room during the ritual's entire duration. When I turned on my speakers(I hook my sound up to my stereo, not my TV), we heard a girl humming. She hummed four times, and it sounded like she was breathing inwardly as she did it. It may or may not have been 3:30 AM at this point. The entire ritual itself happened in less than fifteen minutes. I turned off my speakers, and turned them on again. No humming. We brought a white candle from the kitchen into my room and I lit some incense. As we oriented the Wii, my speakers started getting louder on their own so I turned them down once manually and it was fine. We watched the movies, the one Sam filmed by hand was full of noises we hadn't heard during the ritual, most notably a shrieking like the one we heard on our walk, and a popping sound, like a balloon exploding or a cap gun being fired. The banging I heard before was also present, but I found out Sam never heard it once we heard it over the movie. There is a faint possibility that at the beginning of my movie, someone said, "You listen to me," but it sounds like Sam speaking and for some reason in a half-whisper. It could be an otherworldly voice, or it could be the tail-end of something else Sam was saying. I am not pretending I know if it's legitimate spookies or not. The sound on my camera was bad, and we were too scared to turn up the volume on my speakers while we watched this stuff on my Wii. (at some point, I forget when, but it was either before or after we watched the movies we filmed, we shared an exchange that she said she didn't feel anymore presences from the game, and I said I still felt some kind of trickster around that wanted to try and scare us) We decided to finish watching Fievel Goes West, and I told Sam I'd go to the bathroom first. I went into the bathroom, and the doll was in the sink. Sam didn't move it, and obviously neither did I. Spooked, Sam called Angele for advice on what to do because Angele was a total Godsend and stayed awake during the ritual at her and Sam's apartment while we went about poking the figurative ectoplasmic bear. We did a small ritual to clear what may have been lingering, and watched the rest of Fievel Goes West. (NOTABLY during Fievel Goes West, I got up to get something and when I came back it was a scene I liked, so I skittered back over to the sofa to sit and I shit you not the movie paused and when I sat back down it resumed) On my way back from walking Sam home, I think I heard a man or else Seagulls laughing, two street lamps went off and I met the cutest dog ever that looked like a bull terrier but wasn't. When I got home, the closet door was open again. I don't feel any presences in the apartment - of this I'm sure. I'm on edge, and I think when that doll is dried out and burned is when the left over weirdness will stop. The ritual isn't entirely over until the doll has been burnt. We will do this at midnight tonight. That's all that happened, minus some very insignificant details. (Sidenote: This was written the morning after it happened. The doll has been disposed of and nothing menacing has occurred since. )

The one-man hide and seek, aka the one-man tag, is a ritual for contacting the dead. The spirits which are wandering restless on the earth are always looking for bodies to possess. In this ritual you summon such a spirit by offering it a doll instead of a human body. Warning: If you have psychic abilities you may feel unwell or be prone to accidents during the ritual. Things you need: + A Stuffed Doll with limbs + Some Rice (enough to stuff the doll full) + A Needle and a Crimson Thread + A Sharp-Edged Tool (such as a Knife, a Glass Shard, or Scissors) + A Cupful of Salt (natural salt would be best) + A Hiding Place (preferably a room purified by incense and ofuda) --------------------------------------------- Preparation: 1. Take all the cotton (or whatever it is stuffed with) out of the doll, and stuff it instead with rice*1. 2. Clip a bit of your nails and put them inside the doll, and sew the opening up with the crimson thread. When you finish sewing, tie up the doll with the rest of the thread *2. 3. Pour water into a bathtub. 4. Place a cup of salt water inside the hiding place. ----------------------------------------------- How To Do It: 1.Give a name to the doll (the name could be anything but your own) 2.When it is 3 am, say to the doll "__(your name) is the first it," three times. 3.Go to the bathroom and put the doll into the water-filled bathtub. 4.Turn off all lights in the house, go back to the hiding place and switch on the TV. 5.When you have counted ten with your eyes closed, go back to the bathroom with the edged tool (a knife, etc) in your hand. 6.When you get there, say to the doll ,"I have found you, __(the doll's name)," and stab the doll with the edged tool*3. 7. Say "You are the next it, __(the doll's name)," as you put the doll back in its place. 8.As soon as you have put the doll down, run back to the hiding place and hide. ------------------------------------------ How To Finish It: 1. Pour half the cup of salt water into your mouth (don't drink it; keep it there)*4 and get out of the hiding place and start looking for the doll. The doll is not necessarily in the bathroom. Whatever happens don't spit out the salt water. 2. When you find the doll, pour the rest of the salt water which is left in the cup over it, and then spray the salt water in your mouth over it as well. 3. Say "I win," three times. This supposed to end the ritual. After this make sure you dry the doll, burn and discard it later. MOST IMPORTANT Please don't stop this ritual halfway. You must do it through to the end. This is a dangerous ritual and I will not be responsible for what happens to you if you try. --------------------------------------------- Other things to keep in mind: +Don't go out of the house until you have done the finishing ritual. +You must turn off all lights. +Keep quiet while hiding. +You don't need to put the salt water in your mouth all the time. You only need to do it during the finishing ritual. +Remember, if you are living with someone you might put them in danger too. +Don't continue this ritual for more than one or two hours. +For safety reasons, it might be best to keep all the doors in the house unlocked (including your front door) and have some friends close by so that they can come and help you at a moment's noice, if you ever need them. Keeping a mobile close at hand would be a good idea too. --------------------------------------------- NOTES: *1 - the rice represents innards and also has the role of attracting spirits. *2 - the crimson thread represents a blood vessel. It seals the spirit(s) up inside the doll. *3 - by cutting the thread off, you break the seal and release the spirit(s) you have trapped. *4 - if you go out of the hiding place without salt water, you might encounter "something wandering around" in your house which might harm you in some way. Apparently the way to feel the presence of the "something wandering around" is to watch "what happens to the TV."