moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

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(and my Wish List)

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A United Kingdom police site which describes various frauds. Includes current email scams,, "phishing" and so forth: www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/

www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?show=119
A strange story from Blue's News about Clive Barker's encounter with an unusual fan at a booksigning

The Incredible But True Story of Christopher Robin Incubus
February 17, 2001
by jason "loonyboi" bergman

(As told to Jason "loonyboi" Bergman by Clive Barker)

   loonyboi: There's a story about you that I've been trying to find out the truth behind for about ten years now. Every time I've heard it, it's been one of those "friend of a friend" type things, so I've started to think it's an urban legend. There's a story that says you were at a signing in New York, and one of your fans sliced open their hand, held it out to you and you signed your book in his blood.

   Clive Barker: Here's what happened. It's important you get the facts right. I was at Forbidden Planet [a comic book, sci-fi and horror store in New York city], it was raining very hard, and I had a huge crowd. [The signing was for] a Simon & Schuster book, so it was perhaps the Damnation Game...no, it was a Putnam book. A fellow comes up to me, a very good looking young man, so I noticed him. And he was very wet. He was wearing a T-shirt soaked to the skin, and he had beautiful tattoos on his arms. And I said, "those are beautiful." Oh, I know what the book was, it was Cabal - and he gave me Cabal, so it was Simon & Schuster. And he passed it over to me and said, "could you sign this" and I said "yes" and "who should I sign it to?" He said, "would you sign it to Christopher Robin Incubus." Which should have given me a clue right there.

   Anyway, I looked up at him and said, "those really are wonderful tattoos." He looked down as I signed and said, "this is for you." I looked up and he took a straight razor and he cut open his tattoos. And my security men had already gone because we'd been signing for four hours. And my loving fans...fled. I was sitting here at the table and Christopher Robin Incubus was standing with a razor and blood pouring out of his arm. I said, "do you want that in your book?" He said, "yes." So I took his arm, and I put my hand [on it]. There was blood right there, and I gave him a huge Clive Barker hand print in his book. I signed it, and the medics took him away.

   There is a follow-up: he appeared again at another signing, even more tattooed than he had ever been before. He came up, he didn't have a book, looking a little older, but still looking good. And took my hand, and kissed the inside of my palm and left. And that's the true story.

This site, www.ryano.net/iraq/
Where you can add your own text to Iraqi child's cardboard sign (seen originally in two contradictory versions).

Leads thoughts to earlier manipulation of photographs, of which this shows some earlier examples:
Hoax Photo Gallery
www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/thumb1.html

(there's a bunch of discussion about the effect seen in these photos of aeroplanes & vapour effects)
www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/images/imageair16.html

[permalink] posted by Mez at 3:16 pm