You remember Goozex right? If not, read up on them on one of my previous posts at this link. Well, great news, I’ve been brought on as an associate writer for their member-run blog The Goozex Report. I’m very excited to be an even bigger part of their community, and wanted to share my first article with you. Give it a spin here, and let me know what you think.

Thanks everyone!

I recently wrote a nice little paper for my college English 2010 writing course, and decided that I would share it with you. Note that this work contains a full Bibliography, along with in text citations. That means that you could, in theory, reference this for one of your very own papers! Wow. A paper which we can call academic; how exciting. If you like serial killers, a bit of psychology, criminal justice, or just don’t have anything better to do, please have a read. You’re welcome to use this work for your own endeavors, but please give credit where credit is due (that would be to me of course). If you would like something with a more friendly reading format, I’ve been so kind as to include a PDF at the included link.

Link to PDF: http://www.thesparklingwiggles.com/uploads/ted-bundy-final.pdf

Jason Trent
Mr. Bjork
English 2010
March 02, 2008
Ted Bundy: Creating the Perfect Killer
America: the home of the brave and sensationalism. From the tallest buildings to the most luxurious automobiles, Americans pride themselves in having the biggest and best of everything, and having an unusual talent for producing the worst the world has to offer, they delight in being able to produce the most violent of media, the most explicit of music, and the most dangerous of killers.
Serial killers are organized killers who choose their target, location, and the method, all prior to committing the actual act of murder. Another definitive characteristic of a serial killer, is that they kill in “three of more separate locations with an emotional cooling-off period between homicides” (Schechter 7). This particular category of killer is of special interest to our culture as they represent something especially exotic and dangerous; part sick interest, and part innocent curiosity, society strives to understand what it is that drives those who compulsively slay others in order to satisfy their own needs.
One of the most prolific serial killers of American history, “Ted Bundy is almost universally hailed as the killer who represented the all-American boy, the boy next door who did not marry but, rather, killed the girl next door” (Caputi 444). Killers are often portrayed to be socially inept and mentally unstable, but Bundy did not fit into the preconception of who a killer should be. A product of his environment, personality, and habits, Ted Bundy conditioned himself to become the perfect serial killer.
In order to begin to understand a person, steps must be taken to understand the environment in which their character was molded. “As the serial offender develops or evolves through life, he/she experiences a number of developmental events and incorporates these internally through the mind-body process” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 13). Born Theodore Robert Cowell, Bundy grew up in an instable environment. Once Ted was born, his actual mother Louise, age 24, left to Philadelphia for three months. During this time, Louise’s parents adopted Ted as their own, and from that time on, Ted knew Louise as his sister, and his actual grandparents as his mother and father. In his book Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, Peter Vronsky explains that Ted’s grandfather had an “explosive temper” and on occasion struck Ted’s grandmother, exposing young Theodore to abuse at a young age (106). Because “traumatized children remain fixated on [the events where they were subjected to trauma]” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 13) it is possible that this early exposure to violence provided Bundy an example to emulate. Seeing an authority figure hit another was an event which could have trained young Bundy that violence was acceptable, or perhaps even appropriate.
One of Ted’s cousins stated that both he and Ted, at a young age (this had to have been while Ted was age 4 or younger, as at age 4, Ted and his real birth mother left his grandparents), were exposed to their grandfather’s pornography collection. He recalled that after stumbling upon this discovery, he and Bundy “pored over the images” (Vronsky 106). Being subjected to sexually explicit images at such a young age may have also led to an eventual problem with pornography. An FBI study found that 81% of serial killers were exposed to pornography at a young age (Vronsky 107).
“Offenders often experienced childhoods of physical and emotional abuse, caretaker instability, and perceptions of unfair treatment within the family” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 3). At the age of four, Louise, Ted’s mother took Ted from his grandparents whom he believed to be his actual mother and father, and moved to Tacoma Washington. In describing the effect of a change of parents in a child’s life, Schechter says, “the belief (usually fully justified) that they have been rejected by their birth parents contributes to a sense of worthlessness and shame that typically afflicts budding psychopaths” (258). This move placed Bundy into the category of serial killers from single parent homes which makes up 43% of serial killers Vronsky 103). Due to conflicting accounts from Bundy himself, it is not entirely clear when he found that Louise, rather than his grandmother, was his biological mother. It is plausible that this particular discovery gave Ted a feeling of instability, and led to the inability to form meaningful and trusting relationships with others as his life progressed. Carich, Fisher, and Kohut in describing this impact on young Ted’s life reason that “when Bundy discovered that his “sister” was in reality his mother, and that he was born illegitimate, this event had traumatic impact upon his ability to form genuine, empathetic relationships later in life. This may be viewed as the etiology of his violent behavior” (18).
As Ted moved from elementary school to high school, he seemed to move from a popular person among his peers, to someone with difficulty in fitting in with those around him. He recalls feeling out of place, and isolated from others (Vronsky 107). Being a part of the baby boomer generation, this feeling was compounded by the large student body, where anonymity was more prominent than it would have been during other years. A study conducted by the FBI found that 77% of serial killers have expressed feelings of seclusion (Vronsky 107).
While enrolled in his post high school studies, Bundy fell for the love of his life Stephanie Brooks (a pseudonym). Being the first woman he was sexually involved with, he became very emotionally attached. At first she found him charming and charismatic, however as their relationship progressed, Ted’s boyish nature began to irritate Stephanie, and to the shock and dismay of Bundy, he soon ended their relationship. Although this may sound like a small event, this event seemed to leave a hole in Ted’s soul which never recovered. It seems that he used Stephanie’s physical characteristics for a pattern of who he would later choose his victims to be. They all had the following features which Stephanie also had: long hair parted down the middle, Caucasian with a fair complexion, smart, and slender.
Without knowing of the crimes Bundy was to commit the unsuspecting onlooker would probably notice that he was handsome, well mannered, clean cut, and well dressed. He appeared and acted normal in every respect. He has been referred to an everyday, all American young man, with “an uncanny ability to blend into society” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 6). We picture serial criminals as secluded and socially challenged. Ted was not. Described by Schechter, a common quality of a serial killer is intelligence (28). It obviously takes a certain degree of intellect to be able to kill relatively without being caught, and Bundy was no exception to this. A college graduate with a degree in psychology, one of his professors said:
It is clear that other students use him as a standard to emulate… His personal characteristics are all of the highest standards. Ted is a mature young man who is very responsible and emotionally stable (but not emotionally flat as many students appear—he
does get excited or upset appropriately in various situations) … I am at a loss to delineate any real weaknesses he has. (Vronsky 114)
Although he appeared average, seeming to have the same dreams and aspirations of his peers, Ted’s mind was a far darker place than anyone could have imagined prior to his incarceration and eventual conviction. At age three, Ted demonstrated a strange act of violence to his fifteen year old aunt while she was napping. Lifting her bed sheets, he placed three large kitchen knives beside her. She recalls, “He just stood there and grinned. I shooed him out of the room and took the implements back down to the kitchen and told my mother about it. I remember thinking at the time that I was the only one who though it was strange. Nobody did anything” (Vronsky 107).
In addition to his early patterns of violence, there was also a history of mental illness in the family. A history of mental illness within a family means that family members down the line are far more likely to exhibit some of these same attributes. Some of these mental problems likely found their way through heredity into Bundy’s personality as well. An example of mental instability within the family can be seen with his grandmother. Late in her life she expressed symptoms of psychosis, and in order to treat this, she underwent shock therapy. It is likely that the abuse she endured through her marriage, and that which Bundy was exposed to, contributed to these problems.
While in college, Bundy recalls having walked past an open window where a young woman was undressing. Taken with this event, he began deliberately seeking out such events in order to satisfy his growing sexual desires. Once this was no longer sufficient to arouse him, he then began viewing pornography regularly. This soon led to compulsive masturbation with the assistance of this pornographic material. As he spiraled further and further out of control, Bundy’s interests shifted from traditional pornography, to pornography more violent in nature. In this brand of material, women were portrayed in situations where they were bound and battered, a new twist on the typical sexual images normally depicted. Shortly before his death, Michaud and Aynesworth interviewed Bundy, and reported
He told me that long before there was a need to kill, there were juvenile fantasies fed by photos of women in skin magazines, suntan oil advertisements, or jiggly starlets on talk shows. He was transfixed by the sight of women’s bodies on provocative display… Crime stories fascinated him. He read pulp detective magazines and gradually developed a store of knowledge about criminal techniques – what worked, and what didn’t. That learning remained incidental to the central thrill of reading about abuse of female images, but nonetheless he was schooling himself. (Caputi 447)
Along with pornography, Bundy was very interested in true crime detective books. In these books characters, often women, were captured and held against their will. Bundy found this to be a stimulating act of vicariously living out his fantasies through reading, while at the same time training himself on the methods commonly used to kidnap and hold a person against their will.
Through his childhood, Bundy had a preoccupation with feeling poor. He envied the things which people of prestige and wealth had, and these feelings led to habitual theft of these things. Stealing proved to both be a practical although dishonest way to obtain goods. An easy thrill and a way for him to exercise his budding deviance, Ted found himself stealing the things which he desired as a child. Expensive clothing, books, and other forms of media were common targets. Interestingly enough, he didn’t choose to steal things which he had no use for. The items which he stole were always put to use. As his theft became more and more of a problem, he turned to alcohol in order to further dampen his inhibitions, while at the same time allowing him to appear more calm then he could have normally expressed. As he began to rely more and more upon alcohol for courage, his theft turned to burglary, and he found himself breaking into homes in order to satisfy his desires.
Why did he do what he did? Although Bundy may have had some oddities in his environment and personality, these things alone could not have led to this sick and warped mind. Everyone grows up with varying amounts of adversity to overcome. Everyone has been exposed to things which have been unpleasant, and everyone has had bouts of selfish desires, however the key differences in how personalities develop lie in how people react to these events and desires. A habit is a trained and routine behavior. We train our habits, whether they are good or bad.
Killers kill in order to satisfy a need to cope with events in their formative lives “Coping strategies are the methods used by the offender to manage or regulate his behavior in relation to his needs. At some point, the cycle or pathway of deviance and offending is initiated, reinforced when needs are met, and maintained” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 16). Taking a look into Bundy’s past, it is fairly easy to ‘connect the dots’ in a sense to see how one event led to another. We see that at a young age, Bundy had an unstable home environment, specifically with the issue of distinction between his parents and grandparents. The discovery that the woman he believed to be his sister was actually his mother led to a feeling of detachment and the inability to form lasting and meaningful relationships with others. Seeing that the parent child relationship is the first relationship in one’s life, it is not difficult to see why the violation of such a relationship could lead someone to these feelings. This event is something that he perceived as an inability to control the events surrounding his life. As he progressed through life, he was exposed to both violence and pornography at a young age, making the first four years of his life toxic to his personality. Due to these events in his formative years, Bundy found an interest in these very things later in life. The problem is that he pursued these interests. These interests led to habits, which led to addictions. As we take a look back on his life, there is a very distinct path from normal to abnormal. When initially seeing pornography at the age of four, he was shown that it was acceptable to objectify women. At that time this event was probably nothing more than a passing interest soon forgotten. As he was subject to seeing his grandmother being abused, he was taught that this behavior was also acceptable. It is also important to note that the very person who took him away from who he perceived his real parents to be, also caused a great deal of uncertainty and confusion for young Ted. As years passed he began involvement with pornography which Bundy details as a major contribution to his eventual behavior:
The most damaging kind of pornography—and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience—is that that involves violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two forces—as I know only too well—brings about behavior that is too terrible to describe. Before going on any further, it is important to me that people believe what I’m saying. I’m not blaming pornography. I’m not saying it caused me to go out and do certain things. I take full responsibility for all the things that I’ve done. That’s not the question here. The issue is how this kind of literature contributed and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behavior. (Schechter 267)
It is apparent that by bringing both violence and sex into one complete bundle, Bundy taught his mind and body, that in order to be sexually satisfied, he needed to have both of those things at once. This is perhaps the most dangerous link in Bundy’s life, as these are the very things which he was satisfying while killing his victims, then later performing acts of necrophilia upon them. “Sexual serial killers have significant intimacy defects and most are unable to form “connected” relationships” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 8), and as such, Bundy had to find another way to meet his needs of relationships in his life. As his inhibitions with his actions began to loosen, so did those of his fantasies. He began taking steps to make his fantasies become a reality. It began with small things such as viewing pornography, and soon escalated. He would take steps to plan out every facet of his crime, selecting the time, place, and means. Bundy was not a sadist, that is he did not take his victims for the reason of torture. Upon capture, he would quickly take his victim, and bludgeon her over the head to make her lose consciousness. He would then rape the victim, and leave her for dead. As with the pattern of escalation with pornography, his murders also escalated in nature. He began mutilating the genitals of his victims, and after the initial rape, would return to the grave site to perform acts of necrophilia, the “ultimate form of power and control” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 6).
Having very little control in his young life, he felt he was unable to truly be happy. He dealt by this by committing crimes for the sake of having control. Any one of his crimes could be said to have helped satisfy this need. He stole so that he could take something from someone else. He partook of violent media (specifically pornography) in order to begin acting out his fantasies, and in the end practiced the ultimate control over another, murder. After all, choosing between allowing someone to live or die is truly the definitive level of control which one person can have over another. Speaking in relation to control and dominance, Schechter says, “[The pleasure] has to do with the assertion of power – the lust to dominate, to reduce a victim to a state of total submission” (216). In the end, Bundy was as selfish as one could get. In response to the question as to whether or not he felt guilty for his actions, Bundy replied, “Guilt is an illusionary mechanism to control people and is unhealthy and does terrible things to one’s body (Vronsky 141).
Although contributors to his eventual actions, pornography, alcohol, environmental factors, and habitual factors cannot be held accountable for Bundy’s actions. Obviously they were factors, however ultimately, it was his decision to pursue these interests and to eventually let these interests take hold of his inhibitions. “The typical sexual killer does not randomly simply decide to rape and murder; this decision requires a developmental process” (Carich, Fisher, and Kohut 12). The pattern we see in Ted’s life was that of self service. Everything he did, he did for himself. He wanted nothing else other than to satisfy his own desires, and it is this mentality which led to his uncontrollable urges of murder and rape. Bundy lacked the very thing which separates man from animal. That is an ability to empathize and sympathize with others; the ability to put other’s needs before your own. Bundy, “a man who himself was portrayed as a paradigmatic American son, the “handsome,” “intelligent,” and “charming,” (Caputi 17) will go down in history. He appeared to be the very essence of normal. He had looks, education, and charisma, but sadly due to a combination of his environment, personality, habits and most of all choices, he let himself become preoccupied with the carnal desires of his soul which he allowed to compromise his very humanity.

Bibliography
Caputi, Jane. “The Sexual Politics of Murder.” Gender and Society 3 (1989): 437-456. JSTOR. Utah Valley State College Lib., Orem, UT. 5 Feb. 2008 <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0891-2432%28198912%293%3A4%3C437%3ATSPOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3/>.
White, John B. “Irresistible Impulse and Criminal Liability.” Michigan Law Review 23 (1925): 443-474. JSTOR. Utah Valley State College Lib., Orem, UT. 5 Feb. 2008 <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-2234%28192503%2923%3A5%3C443%3AIIACL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W>
Schechter, Harold. The Serial Killer Files. 1st ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Ted Bundy: the FBI Files. FBI. Washington D.C.: Filiquarian, 2007.
Vronsky, Peter. Serial Killers: the Method and Madness of Monsters. New York: Berkley Books, 2004.
Carich, Mark S., Dawn Fisher, and Margaret R. Kohut. “Sexual Murder and Sexual Serial Killers: Towards a Mind-Body Developmental Theory.” Rocky Mountain Way Freelance Writing. 2006. 2 Mar. 2008 <http://www.rockymountainwaywriting.com/PDF/SEXUAL%20MURDERS%20AND%20SEXUAL%20SERIAL%20KILLERS.pdf>.

I tried to love it. I really did. I’ve always been an early adopter of new technology, and with that comes inherent risks I am fully aware of, and willingly submit myself to. I picked up, and paid $250.00 for Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition. I installed it and was very pleased with the driver support available for such a new system. It automatically saw my raid 5 I had setup, and installation was a breeze. I was also taken back by the good looks and functional alternative to the alt tab solution we’d been living with for so long. I was infatuated. I was blinded.

From there I decided to count my losses. Jumping through hoops to install even recent applications was fine by me. I had to learn sometime. After a while I had things the way I liked them. I had completely switched to Vista. Months went by and I was plagued by random video card crashes, sata hard drive disconnects, and eventually a complete loss of my raid 5 due to all drives falling out of the array at once. The technician and computer nerd in my head began working together. What could cause this? I was running 5 hard drives (one of which was 10,000 RPM), an 8800 GTX superclocked, dual core processor, x-fi sound card, and 2 optical drives. This was one power thirsty system, and considering I was running a lower end 680 W power supply, I figured that when my system was under a heavy load, my PSU couldn’t keep up, and from there random components would shut off and turn back on. This would explain the video card lockups and hard drive disconnects while gaming. So what did I do? I went with the best! I picked up a thermaltake 1200 watt power supply capable of a stable 100A output across 4 rails. This was Satan in PSU form. I installed and it (the power supply) worked great, but guess what didn’t change? Still frequent lockups and hard drive issues. That was $400.00 I probably didn’t need to spend.

From there it came to me. I had only began seeing these issues since Vista replaced XP on my machine. All my drivers were up to date, every update had been applied OS wise. There was no excuse for these problems. I finally bit the bullet, and installed XP again. It was immediately clear that my system was incredibly more responsive. Not only that, but my system halved itself on memory consumption within Windows. It was like I upgraded my system, when I had merely downgraded it. From here I installed my games again. Bioshock, the game that was locking up the most was of course the natural test. This game never ran so silky. I was running at 50 – 60 FPS constantly with no lockups, where with vista I could game for sometimes only 5 minutes at a time prior to a crash, at 35 – 40 FPS. That shouldn’t happen.

This entire time I was fooled into believing that hardware was to blame when it was just a poorly written and bloated OS. Lesson learned. Do not use Vista. At least not yet. Maybe when SP 1 comes out, some of these issues will be addressed, but for now, use XP. Everything is greener on this side.

I found a really awesome article on how you can obtain any information the FBI might have on you. Check out http://www.getmyfbifile.com. This site, after you enter in a little bit of your contact information, will generate a complete letter which you can send to the FBI to obtain records pertaining to yourself. In addition to getting any records which are undoubtedly stacking up at the central FBI offices, send this letter will likely also encourage the FBI to look into you even further. After all, who, not involved in something shady, would ask the FBI for such information? I’ll be sending this letter off to both the main offices and the Salt Lake City offices as they may have different records available. Check out an example of the generated letter I made below.

0000 N 000 W
Provo, Ut 00000

October 18, 2007

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Records/Information Dissemination Section
170 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT / PRIVACY ACT REQUEST

Dear Sir or Madam:

This is a request for records under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. Please process this request under both statutes to release the maximum number of records.

I request copies of all files, correspondence, or other records concerning myself. To assist you with this search I am providing the following information about myself:

My full name: Manson

Other names used: ________________________

My date of birth: ________________________

My place of birth: Sandy, Utah

My Social Security number: _________________

I am enclosing a copy of my driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Please search both your automated indices and the older general (manual) indices.

This is an individual request for research and study purposes, and I agree that I will pay up to $30 for fees, if necessary. Please notify me in advance if fees are expected to exceed that amount. If the file is likely to result in more than 250 pages, I would appreciate receiving a digital copy of the file on a CD-ROM rather than in paper form.

If you have any questions, please call me at 000-000-0000.

Under penalty of perjury, I hereby declare that I am the person named above and I understand that any falsification of this statement is punishable under the provisions of Title 18, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 1001 by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment of not more than five years, or both; and that requesting or obtaining any record(s) under false pretenses is punishable under the provisions of Title 5, U.S.C., Section 552a(i)(3) as a misdemeanor and by a fine of not more than $5,000.

Sincerely,

Manson

My friend is taking a class where he was required to make an audio file with at least 10 different layers which would act as a soundtrack to a scene. We, being Silent Hill fans, decided that we would take a couple songs from Silent Hill 2, make a little bit of a merge, then proceed to use items around my desk to record sound effects to make the audio more than just a couple of songs merged. We were limited to a 1 minute track, so we were forced to cram in a lot into a small amount of playtime. Some of the sounds we recorded and included were a creaking chair, ratchet screwdriver, foot steps, and guitar riffs. Others we found on the net such as the siren, dogs, and alarm clock. Check it out and note that this wasn’t the most serious of projects. We had some really interesting ways of getting good sound such as taking a background noise sample, then forcing our recording app to compare that sample to the entire track, and pull out all audio which met the criteria of that sample. Considering all sounds effects were taken with a headset, I think we did pretty good.

The story behind the clip is someone is walking through an empty park, stumbles into silent hill where he find some unpleasant things, then wakes up from the ‘nightmare’.

Check it out.

One of the bigger problems when voting for a new president is choosing who best reflects your values. Great news! Problems solved. Please kindly direct yourself to this link, and take a little test to see who you are on the same page with, and to what extent. Mine is a little silly because I have a large mix of ideas, so the most I agree with any one candidate is 66%. That is probably because I have a lot of conflicting values. It looks like in the end though, I’ll be going with Ron Paul, even though it doesn’t look like he supports abortion or gay marriage. I suppose that’s the problem of trying to be independent from any one political party; you can wind up with views from both side. All in all I’ll live. Check it out and see if you agree with who you suspected.

As some of you may know, I work in the internet field providing support for a popular hosting company. From time to time I will speak with customers whose sites have been hacked, and they, believing this is due to the security of our servers like to blame us. That is not the case. These sites are hacked through common security holes found in PHP based scripts. Today I am telling you the 2 easiest ways to secure your PHP based sites. Performing these things will take only minutes, and can save you a great deal of potential pain resulting from a hacked site.

First: and foremost. KEEP YOUR SCRIPTS UPDATED! Most open source projects are updated very frequently, and most of these updates address known security issues. Check the home page of your script frequently for updates, and as soon as possible, patch your scripts to latest versions. This is the most important thing you can do to be secure. I cannot stress this enough.

Second: Add the following things to your .htaccess file to prevent users from seeing your php.ini file.

<Files php.ini>
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

This simple addition to your .htaccess file will prevent those from viewing your php.ini settings while visiting. No one needs to see this file, and allowing people to see this will only allow them to know specifics about your PHP setup which will help them break in.

Note that this is not going to prevent every person with bad intentions from gaining access to your site, but these two things will prevent most common issues.

Same note as previous post. Before I get going here, please realize that this is intended for comedic purposes, and in no way represents my actual views on terrorism, illegal activities, or our government.

While we are having fun playing with that silly ol’ government of ours, let’s take a look at one more thing being monitored that most people are not aware of. I am referring to your library record of books being checked out which might flag you as a terrorist suspect. Oh boy, this just happens to be another section of the beloved USA PATRIOT Act.The next time you find yourself at your local library, try checking out the following books, or books on the following topics.

1. Helter Skelter.
2. Mein Kampf.
3. The Communist Manifesto.
4. Books on the chemical composition of explosives.
5. Books on religious extremists.

The rest is up to your experimentation. For more fun, try creating the ideal terrorist you would like to create, and check out books according to his or her personality. Mix it up a bit, and most importantly, have fun! If you are one of those who has internet in your local library, make sure to abuse Google. Because you don’t have to rely on books being held, you can really go nuts! Search for things such as the Anarchist Cookbook, and other educational materials not typically found in book for at your library. Remember, the internet use is also being monitored by our government.

Before I get going here, please realize that this is intended for comedic purposes, and in no way represents my actual views on terrorism, illegal activities, or our government.

Alright, now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk. The USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to monitor phone calls in order to help locate terrorists. Without getting into the logistics of said act, I have decided that I would implement a new practice into my everyday phone conversations. The plan is to wedge into these conversations, words or phrases which might set off red flags to anyone who might be listening. Note that this does not mean I will be talking about these things, but rather, they will be randomly inserted into unusual places.

An example conversation:

Me: Hey there! Good to hear from you!
Other Participant: Why thank you! You are so handsome!
Me: Well thank you for your kind words.
Other Participant: I only say what I observe.
Me: I enjoy making bombs in my spare time!
Other Participant: What?
Me: Nothing. So do you want to hang out?Conversation continues as though nothing happened.

Additional words or phrases to put into my conversations:

1. I play cards with Osama Bin Laden on the weekends.
2. Timothy McVeigh has nothing on what I have planned!
3. Weapons of mass destruction.
4. I enjoy killing in the name of Allah.

I think you all get the point. Experiment and have fun. Perhaps if more people did this kind of thing, the government would realize how much time they are wasting.

Hello all! I just wanted to take a moment to invite those of you interested in publishing your thoughts and opinions, much like I do, a chance to do just that, here on The Sparkling Wiggles home page. What kind of content am I looking for? Things similar to what I write about. The original idea for this site was to eventually make this a community based site, and the best way to do that would be to introduce more writers which would offer our readers a more varied experience than currently available with only myself writing. So what’s in it for you?

• Warm Fuzzies.
• Your very own email address with The Sparking Wiggles.
• Maybe an Otterpop.
• And best of all, a chance to have your material read by those interested in what you have to say.

If interested, throw an email over to manson@thesparklingwiggles.com. If able, include a link or document containing previous work done.

In addition to normal authors for the site, we are also looking for editors to help proofread and make format corrections. To apply for that, please follow the same steps as for the author position.

Thank you all!