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Two Weeks Before The Full Horror....

Late last night, I was doing a little thinking...

It's two weeks until Halloween is upon us once again, and in between all the rampant pumpkin destruction, sugar consumption, belly aches, drunkenness and diabolical Bela Lugosi impressions... what music will people be listening to?

That's when I decided to try and come up with a play list for my own imaginary Halloween party. The tunes I've selected aren't in any particular order, but they are all tunes that I have heard and liked, and have a certain 'something' about them that fits in with the spirit of the occasion. A lot of them are probably pretty obvious, others less so... but what the heck!?

My Halloween Music Extravaganza

Spellbound - Siouxsie & The Banshees

The Torture Never Stops - Frank Zappa

Angel Of Death - Slayer

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Voodoo People - The Prodigy

Miss Lucifer - Primal Scream

Goblin Girl - Frank Zappa

Number Of The Beast - Iron Maiden

Nasty - The Damned

Riders On The Storm - The Doors

Welcome To My Nightmare - Alice Cooper

Creeping Death - Metallica

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

Murderer - Helloween

The Four Horsemen - Aphrodite's Child

Big Black Witchcraft Rock - The Cramps

Haunted - Disturbed

Shadowplay - Joy Division

Scarecrow - Ministry

Paint It Black - Rolling Stones

We Who Are Not As Others - Sepultura

Black Illusion - Ozzy Osborne

Sold My Soul - Nazareth

Welcome Home (Sanitarium) - Metallica

Fixit Girl - Chris Morris (Not a song, but still a very creepy piece of audio from the creator of Blue Jam)

Those of you who have got this far, will probably now be thinking stuff like, "He's forgotten about (songname)... the fool!"

Well, I haven't... I'm asking you to make further good Halloweeny suggestions in the comments section... 8-)  BUT, I do have two rules about that

1) No "Anything by (bandname)..." type suggestions. I want you to actually THINK about this.

2) You may NOT suggest Thriller by Michael Jackson, because it's just a massive cliché.

So dear readers, I urge you to have a good old root about in the back of your m inds and your music collections for other stuff we can put on this list, stuff that will keep all your Halloweens good and ghostly...

I'll try and remember to post responses to some of the more intriguing suggestions that come through before October 31st, and you can have a read of those on Halloween night. 

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Stuff what I done on my summer holidays, and that...

Wouldn't you know it? I've come back to bother you all with my witterings once again.

It's been an eventful month or so...

Not a great deal to report for the first part of it, but things have picked up more recently.

My major bugbear at the beginning of my absence was the lack of cash to stay online.  I've tried getting help from government agencies, all to no avail as yet.  Quite honestly I'd probably have more luck trying to teach a salad to speak ancient Greek. The left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing with these people... and despite the fact that they don't appear to have any clear idea how the system works, they expect me to be able to navigate my way around. I can barely bring myself to even think about this because it's gets me so frustrated. I'll just have to persevere.

On a rather happier note, I've had some good days. Especially getting out and about with my nephews for walks and talks.  I've done a night ascent on Skiddaw and camped there overnight in order to get photos of the early dawn. That didn't quite work out, as the weather forecast didn't pan out and we woke up to find ourselves in a cloud, that obscured pretty much everything. Still, it was a bit of an adventure. And a hearty cooked out meal and plenty of tea kept us warm and toasty through the night.

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We also had a good day collecting fruit from the hedgerows hereabouts in order to make booze. There's currently a batch of elderberry wine brewing in the airing cupboard, a bucketful of crab-apple cider fuming away by the kitch en radiator, and a whole bagful of sloes that will soon be getting turned into wine or something.

My hair was becoming a bit unruly and so I finally decided to chop it off and start again. It was at that difficult stage where it's too long to be left to it's own devices, and too short to tie it back without half of it coming loose and flopping about in front of the eyes. I was also too impatient to wait for it grow sufficiently long to get past that.

http://twitpic.com/laseo  http://twitpic.com/lc8gw (Links to twitpics of me with short hair)

And most recently, just a couple of days ago in fact, I took a bunch of junk along to a car boot sale and managed to get a few quid that way. Not sure it's something I could do regularly, but every once in a while I reckon it could be fun.

I've also begun to exercise again. Just a little gentle exercise each day until I get used to it again. But I intend to lose some of this gut and firm everything up somewhat. Should look rather better by around Christmas, and will, I hope, be able to start the new year with a more positive outlook.

 While I'm here, I also like too say a big 'thank you' to those of you who offered your kind words on my return to the virtual world... it's nice to know I was missed, and I missed all of you as well...

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Return of the Sickkid...

"Hey, y'know that guy?"

"Which guy?"

"The guy on the internet... the one who went kinda AWOL for a bit?"

"Oh him!"

"That's the one!"

"No."

"You must remember! He's got the beard and the crazy name and the tea fetish..!?"

"Yeah, yeah! I recall him now... Didn't he die or something?"

"No. He like, had no money, and junk...!"

"Well what about him?"

"He's back!"

"No kidding!?!?"

"No kidding. And dig this,... he's had a haircut!"

"Whoa! For real? Are there pictures?"

"Not yet, but there will be soon. I hear he's been clearing out a lot of clutter from his inbox and stuff... so we'll have to wait for pics"

"Still... that's pretty cool!"

"Totally!"

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OK, so I cracked...

Despite my best intentions, I have crumbled and opened another acount with Twitter.

I can also now be found under the soubriquet @sickkid_pt2

I didn't want to do it, but I found that I just couldn't stay away from my tweeps, that's how more-ish they are...

Inevitably, I've missed a few off the list, but that's not intentional... and I'm sorry if that includes you...

My biggest worry right now, is that because I've followed a lot of people and sent them pretty similar tweets regarding my re-appearance, Twitter will decide that that means I'm being a spammer, and suspend me again while they investigate...

These are the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that blah, blah, blah, blah... etc.

Thanks to my true tweeps and facebook friends who have kept me from despairing these last few days... you know who you are... and I think you're wonderful because of your support... I am in your debt...

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Untitled

Message to my TwitterFriends :- I'm not going to open another twitter account. I'm going to wait this one out and keep asking them for an explanation.
I can still be found however, sickkid1972 can be located on on Facebook, Identi.ca, Posterous and Ping.fm. Come find me if you wish to...

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Shome Mishtake... Part 2

After my initial panic over being suspended by Twitter, my mind turned to other thoughts, specifically, "Did other people notice anything odd about my tweets, that might be construed as 'offensive', 'spammy' or worthy of suspension?"

I had to find out....

So off I went to Facebook, in order to ask those who are also my fellow tweeple, if they had seen anything unusual lately... all the answers I've received so far, say that they have seen nothing untoward in my tweets... >phew!<

So what have Twitter seen that no-one else appears to have spotted? Something in my usage pattern that is usually indicative of a spammer perhaps? Have I unwittingly posted a link to a site compromised by malware? I hope not. 

I genuinely had no idea what it could be... then a thought struck me... hashtags.

A couple of weeks ago I joined in with the #welovetheNHS campaign that some of you will have heard of. During this time I added the twibbon to my avatar, posted several supportive tweets, posted several links to news sources that gave unbiased opinion on the story and took issue with several of the more ridiculous opinions and news stories on offer.

I seriously began to wonder if the anti-NHS tweeters had been organising and blocking campaign against me, and perhaps others who've shown their support to #welovetheNHS. Could it be a case of sour grapes? A revenge, of sorts, for daring to hold an opinion contrary to their own?

In all likelihood, probably not... my ego isn't so fragile as to believe that everything that happens is a personal attack on myself.

I'll be submitting another request to Twitter for further information before long, and hope to get a slightly more enlightening response.

In the mean time, I've opened up the comments section so that anyone can leave a thought or two if they wish. Has this happened to you? Did you get an answer? Were you happy with the outcome? I'd like to know if I can expect a swift decision on this matter... because a minimum of 30 days suspension (for a thorough investigation) is going to be very challenging... I really like being part of the Twitterverse.

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Shome Mishtake Shurely..?

Very early this morning I received this e-mail :
 
"Hi, TrueTwit user!
Something just happened and we are unable to authenticate your account
with Twitter. We want to help resolve the issue so that you can be
active again! Here are a few possible reasons why it is not working:

 You may have revoked access to TrueTwit in Twitter. Log into Twitter,
click on settings, click the connections tab and make sure TrueTwit is
allowed access. If not, contact us at our Twitter support profile.
Your account may have been suspended. Strange, but it does happen
sometimes. Solution: log into Twitter and make sure everything is
working right.
If we find anything else, we'll let you know."
 
So off I went to Twitter to see what the heck was happening. I got
quite a shock... a banner with a big red exclamation point telling my
account has been suspended and inviting me to challenge this decision
if I didn't agree with it... I didn't agree with it and followed the
instructions to appeal the decision.
I then received, a short while later, this e-mail :
 
"Hi there, sickkid1972!

 This is an automated response to share reasons why Twitter suspends
accounts for spam/abuse investigation.

 Please visit your own profile page to make sure you're actually
suspended and not viewing another person's suspended profile page--
many people think they are suspended when they aren't. You'll know
you're suspended if you log in and see a red notice announcing your
suspension on your account.

 If you're reporting spam, we thank you! Please report spam in the
future by following @spam and sending us a direct message, and by
blocking the spam accounts you come across, as we closely monitor
blocked accounts.

 Twitter suspends accounts for Terms of Service violations or spam
investigation. Please review our policies for more detailed
information:
http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries

 If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of these reasons::

 User Abuse
* a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam complaints
* aggressive following
* imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to
number of people following
* misuse of the reply feature
* updates consist of duplicate links and/or text
* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates
* updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed
off as one's own

 Technical Abuse
* updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or
other harmful material
* a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time
* an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster

 When this happens, we suspend the account for investigation and hide
the contents from the public view in order to remove the cause of
complaint.

 It's important to us that the Twitter community receives only the
content they'd like to receive. While we do welcome feed-based
accounts, we discourage aggressive following and other tactics that
will alarm people.

 If you feel you've been suspended in error, please reply to this email
with a short explanation if you haven't already, and don't forget to
include your user name. We'll be in touch with more information soon.

 Thanks for your understanding in this matter,

 Twitter Support"
 
I re-read this several times to digest the information...
 
The line "If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of
these reasons::" stuck with me. I began to worry about what it was
that I had been doing and saying...
 
"User Abuse
* a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam
complaints" ~ Could people have been blocking me? I suppose so. As for
spam complaints, I'm sure I haven't been doing anything that would be
considered "spammy".
 
"* aggressive following" ~ Again, I'm sure I haven't done this to
anyone, but... what if I have? What is considered aggressive
following?
 
"* imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to
number of people following" ~ Definitely not this one...
 
"* misuse of the reply feature" ~ Not sure what qualifies as misuse in
this case, but I don't think that I've been misusing my ability to
reply to tweets.
 
"* updates consist of duplicate links and/or text" ~ Maybe this, as I
did, in fact, post a link to my blog a couple of times the other day.
Although it's not like I make a habit of repeating myself in such a
fashion...
 
"* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates" ~ Can't
be this. By far, the great majority of my tweets are personal updates
and responses to my followers. I have posted links in my timeline, but
by no stretch of the imagination does it consist mainly of these
links.
 
"* updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed
off as one's own" ~ I do not do this. I always give credit in my RT's
and don't like it when people do not credit properly in theirs. The
occasional miss is inevitable, I suppose, and can be forgiven, but
this term implies that it is done somewhat maliciously, and that is
definitely NOT what I'm all about.
 
"Technical Abuse
* updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or
other harmful material" ~ I'm certain I haven't done this, and if I
have, then it was most certainly not done maliciously or with any kind
of mischief aforethought. Indeed, I would be a victim myself if I
had...
 
"* a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time" ~
Definitely not this one, I only have a single account.
 
"* an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster" ~ I don't
see how this can be the case, unless I've been hacked, and someone is
tweeting in my name when I'm not active.
 
It's only been a few hours since this action came to light and I trust
Twitter to discover the truth of the matter. I just hope they can tell
me what's happening soon, because I would really like to know...
 
Until then, I shall just have to wait and wonder...

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Sometimes it's just nice to be nice....

OK, so it sounds a bit lame and corny, but it's true. It's also
something I'd forgotten until fairly recently.

 I've been using Twitter for about three months now, and I've
discovered that there are lot of really nice people out there in the
world. Yes, there's an awful lot of loonies and bores and frothing,
hate-filled maniacs as well, but I can safely keep my distance from
them if I wish to and concentrate on the decent folk that I have
found.

 It's not strictly necessary to offer helpful hints, links to
interesting articles, jokes, support or even basic pleasantries while
you're tweeting, but if you do, the response from your followers and
sometimes even random tweet readers, can be truly wonderful.

 I have probably made more friends in my brief time on Twitter, than I
ever have in real life. Why? Who knows? Maybe the complete lack of
expectations I hold every time I make a tweet allows me to be more
relaxed about being, "ignored", for want of a better word. Then when
someone does offer a reaction to whatever it was I said, that's a
bonus.

 Maybe the 140 character format of a tweet also helps because it forces
me to THINK about what I want to say without too much waffle...
mostly.

 Whatever the reason for enjoying Twitter, I really enjoy being a
tweeter, and will continue enjoying it for quite some time...

 Thank you, to all of you who have made me feel welcome and wanted on
Twitter... you know who you are...

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Just testing the water....

So here I am, wondering if this is going to work or not...

 It's just a test to see whether I can get used to doing this sort of thing...

 So there's a picture of me and a few words, just while I check this
set-up out. If it turns out to be a useful way of communicating I'll
probably do it a bit more often... but no promises.

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