First I'm going to pimp myself out a bit, before I start yammering on about why I didn't end up at the 3barons this Sunday.
DID YOU KNOW?!?!!??????

I'VE GOT A BLOG!!!!!!!!!! [link]

I'VE GOT A TWITTER!!!!!!!!!!!! [link]

I'VE GOT A WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [link]

YOU DIDN'T KNOW, DID YOU? NOW YOU DO!

Okay, here's my story:

It was a day like any other, well not really. I've actually hated that saying but just can't seem to stop using it because of other people's influence, or something. It's an irrational compulsion to use overused phases for the sake of sounding familiar I should think.
It was a day in most ways unlike any other; I had awaken early and dressed sharply in solemn honor of the occasion for I was accompanying my grandparents to a ceremony in the honor of many young men who had given their lives in Alaska during the years past. We were there to accept an award on behalf of my great-uncle Nick Ulysses Fleener and the important part of this story happens when I attempt to exit the van into the parking lot of a Circuit City and a young woman passes me a thick book. It actually happens that I did not see her as I stepped out until I was standing immediately next to her and the seven-hundred and five page book was being pushed firmly against my chest. I don't recall if I said anything at the time but I think I must have been as speechless as I was confused, only wrapping my bibliophilic arm around the book instinctively as it was given. I recall the stunning curve of the woman's body and a smile in her lips that unsettles me to this day, there was the smell of parking lot and the sensation of the pages shivering frightfully where my lusty fingers stroked at their edges in subdued desire, the wind gusted and the moment was somehow lost. The woman shoved a little bit too firmly and I was forced back into sitting in the van, and she used the time to stride swiftly away while I merely stared in a daze. Who was this girl? What was this black book that had been gifted to me in so discourteous a manner? That was more than a week ago now, the rest of the day had gone fine and I had dropped the book on my bedroom floor intent on unraveling the mystery in the morning, instead I delved into my projects and the book lay forgotten.
Today I went out to breakfast earlier than usual, so when I got back I had leisure time on my hands that I usually didn't and not wanting to go insane with updating projects for my website I decided I'd finally pick up that book I'd been handed so insistently. At first it was much like a normal book, but by the end of the first chapter things were getting strange. The book was terrifying to begin with, and written quite eccentrically, I didn't know what to make of it until it started coming off the paper into real life, I mean that I'd feel as though I was in the book, that the things going on around the characters were going on around me. I can't really explain it, but suffice to say when creatures from the darkness began to consume the characters in the book, and the light-bulb in my room bunt out moments later, I decided on a change of pace, I was shaking and simply couldn't take it any longer. The Renaissance fair would be perfect is what I thought, so I sent messages to a friend online (Roni) and set off, making it there just fine. Well, not so fine, I was exhausted and I could swear the sun kept flickering, growing dimmer and threatening to abandon me, but I made it! Of course there was no parking whatsoever near the entrance and so I had to park a distance away. I went to grab my jacket from the passenger seat and escape to the crowds (I figured being around others would be safer than being on my own) but my fingers closed around soft pages! I jerked my arm back in terror and simply stared unbelieving for a while, had I accidentally brought the book with me in my hurry to escape it or had it followed me? Either way it was there and I felt determination this time, it was a massive book but if finishing it would make the terrors stop I would do it then and there. Wave after wave of exhaustion swept over me however and I only managed an hour of reading before I slept for two. Thankfully when I woke I had an epiphany! I knew where to find the girl who had given me the book! I rushed to her house and nearly collapsed as I climbed the stairs to her door, which I found locked. I felt immeasurable despair but such feelings of doom lasted only a few seconds though as she came gracefully up those stairs, her beauty washing over me like the rising sun, chasing away the darkness that haunted me. She took me into her home and soothed the affliction caused by the book. The rest is history.


CONDRADULATIONS YOUSE GOTTA PRIZE NOW!!!
If you've read this far (or just skipped to this point, I don't care) then you're invited to a join a group wiki-style project I'm going to do called "New Life" which will be a non-linier story about a bunch of crazy people/things in the "real" world. Basically I'm going to start a free wikidot site and invite people who are interested to edit the pages. Each person creates a page about a single character (person) to start with, and fills that page with typical wiki info referencing real-world dates and places. It all has to be fake of course and there's a twist, all the characters are aware that the word is digital in nature and ruled over by a broken machine god. Once a few characters are made people will write (or draw, record, etc. I don't care about the media you use) short stories about their interactions with the machine god and other people's characters, which will lead to wiki entries about real-world places, events and dates that describe in brief the non-real occurrences there/then. Stories should be a mix of mundane and surreal, depending on the characters involved, some of whom will doubtless exploit the erroneous nature of the digital world for their own gain, (matrix style superpowers anyone?) while others will struggle to dismiss the evidence before them as some kind of hallucination. Anyway I'll let people know when I've set up the wikidot site and seeded it with articles that explain things in detail so let me know if you think this sounds cool but don't start actually doing anything yet.