Category: Tech

My LinkSys Nightmares

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

I don’t know if anyone else has the same issues with LinkSys routers that I do but maybe I’m not alone. Here is my problem. All of a sudden out of nowhere I get signed out of whatever IM service or website that I’m on and my router tells me that I’m not online. This happens on a monthly basis.

I have to load my router software which is the LinkSys EasyLink Advisor and it tells me that it doesn’t recognize my router and I have to run the setup. Yes, monthly basis… So I run the setup and what I end up having to do is turning off my DSL modem and unplugging my router. Turn my modem back on after 10 seconds then wait 60 seconds before I can plug the router back in then wait 30 seconds to click next.

Once I have it all set up again I’m good for at least another few weeks or month but should I have to go through that so often?

Well, that pales in comparison to what happened to me yesterday. First on Saturday I went to pay my phone bill and for some odd reason I put the wrong password in the website and I went into a full-blown panic when I couldn’t pay my bill so I emailed AT&T and I got a call yesterday. The guy told me I must be using the wrong login and password and I swore up and down that I’ve been using that same password all these years and have never had any trouble. Well, I was using the wrong user and password and due to too many failed attempts, my account was locked. Apparently, my AT&T bill, my AT&T login and my AT&T router login are all different passwords. I don’t know why but I totally forgot and thought I had the same for everything.

So here is what happened last night. When my router insisted on doing its setup, I put in the wrong password and when it was finished setting up it automatically brings up the AT&T website on Internet Explorer which is not my default browser. It’s telling me that I used the wrong password but don’t panic, we can help you change it. I went through the steps in changing it but for some reason the boxes that I type my info in weren’t working so it kept saying that I’m entering the wrong information.

Finally at 3am I figured it all out. I got my password straightened out but just couldn’t get it to login to the internet. I decided I was too sleepy to do anything else, I mean literally I couldn’t keep my eyes open at that point.

This morning when I woke up, before I did anything I turned my monitor on to get us back online. It didn’t take too long but my LinkSys EasyLink Advisor kept saying I wasn’t online despite the fact that I was online. UGH!

I don’t know how I found it but I found the new LinkSys EasyLink Advisor. They have a free version which comes with all new routers and they also have 3 different ones that cost money. Naturally I can’t afford to buy it so I downloaded the free one and installed it and it’s totally different.

I love it. It’s so much cooler than the one I had before and it actually says I’m online unlike the other one. So I’m going to burn this program to a CD and keep it with the other CD that came with my wi-fi router so that if something happens and I need to reinstall it (like if I reformat again) then I won’t have to search the internet for it, or when my internet isn’t working.

I love this new router software, I keep loading it and looking at it… oooohhhh shiny…

I’m just glad to be back online. I was really sweating over using the wrong password twice in one weekend for AT&T lol. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking to do that. I just hope that this new LinkSys EasyLink Advisor program will keep me online all month and not make me do the setup to get me back online so often.

Denny’s, Harry Potter, Sack Boy and DQ

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Food, PSP, TechLeave a comment

I’m writing this late at night, past midnight so when you read this it will probably be Friday. Oh who am I kidding, you’ll probably be reading it 6 months down the road. At any rate, we had a pretty good and long day. It all started with going to Denny’s for breakfast. I had the Grand Slam Slugger for $8 which was 2 pancakes, 2 sausage, 2 bacon, 2 scrambled eggs, hash browns and it came with coffee or juice, I chose coffee.

The scrambled eggs were the best thing about that meal. Normally I’m saying how wonderful the pancakes and hash browns are but I gotta give huge props to the eggs. They were smooth as silk. I don’t know what their secret is but I haven’t had scrambled eggs that felt that good on my tongue in my entire life. And I’m an egg lover too so it’s strange to hear me say that I’ve never had eggs that tasted that good before. They were just so awesome.

After breakfast we came home and were just going to go about our day but Darrin decided he wanted to go to the movies so I printed the schedule from Fandango. I kept telling him the only movie that was playing was Harry Potter but he just didn’t believe me. I showed him the list and he agreed that we could go see Harry Potter. YAY for me!

So we got in the car and drove to the mall, got tickets and a soda then went in. The movie was about 2 hours and 27 minutes. I really don’t like buying drinks when you go see a movie that lasts longer than 90 minute but we got one anyway. I held it for as long as I could and when a scene came up where I assumed it wouldn’t be too dramatic I shot out of my chair and ran to the mens room. I was able to enjoy the rest of the movie pain-free which is how it should be.

I think they should install a bathroom in every theater right near the stairs with tv’s above the urinals or above the toilets for the ladies so you don’t miss a thing, especially when movies are 2.5 – 3 hours long or longer. It’s not fair to sell so much drink and then make us miss a few minutes of our movie or suffer the pain.

I thought it was a pretty good movie considering they usually don’t match the movies with the books. I was just expecting some of the basics but they were pretty good with this one. I loved the movie but I don’t think my movie companion wasn’t into it. He didn’t read the books so he doesn’t really care. It’s a futile effort to have to explain it to him when he probably isn’t listening anyway.

I really wanted to see it and knew I wouldn’t get another chance until it came out on DVD and I hate being the last one to see a Harry Potter movie.

When we left the movies we went into the mall and I bought a new PSP game with my $25 gift card for Game Stop from doing surveys at E-Rewards. They moved all of the PSP games so it took me several minutes to find them. Considering that store is about the size of our living room, you’d think that I would’ve found them right away but I didn’t. I did eventually find them right near the cash registers.

They had them on a display instead of on the wall and so I had to crouch carefully so I didn’t fall and also so I could let people look at the video games on the wall behind me. It’s not an easy thing to do in such small spaces but I managed to find a game that I wanted which was Little Big Planet.

I’ve actually wanted Little Big Planet since it came out but it was too expensive and I didn’t have a gift card for it so I went without. Poor me lol. I did download the demo and thought it was fun. A friend of mine brags to me every chance that she gets that she has it for her PS3 because she knew I didn’t have it for my PSP. I have it now Sue so what are you gonna say now? Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah :p.

I played it for a few hours on my HDTV instead of the tiny PSP screen only because my eyes are getting worse every day. I had a little trouble adjusting to the way the game is played but once you figure things out it becomes easy.

I went to look in the online section and it said I needed a system update first before I could access anything online and they added something new to the PSP but they haven’t really given us the ability to use it yet. It’s called Qriocity in the music section. All it says is coming soon. I looked at the video section (on their website) for it and I think that will only work on the PS3 but it appears to be a streaming video rental service like Netflix. So I can only assume the music one is the same thing but… you know… music. Meh, if that’s a monthly service then I’m not interested. I can just as easily turn my radio on to listen to new music.

When we left Game Stop we went to the Dairy Queen and got 2 medium Blizzards because I had an anniversary BOGO coupon. I ordered the new peppermint one but then changed my mind because I figured if it has hard candy in it I might not enjoy it as much so I got Pumpkin Pie. Darrin got the same but after a few bites he realized he didn’t really like it that much. I loved it so I ate his lol. I had 2 blizzards. No wonder I can’t lose weight LOL.

I think that we had a wonderful day, although at times boring for him but fun for me. Tomorrow (or today if you are reading this on Friday, or in 6 months then 6 months ago) I will start putting the tree up. My back has been really killing me but I really want to do it. Christmas is my favorite time of year even though I’m not a Christian. People have told me I have no right celebrating it but you know what I say to those people. Shush and mind your own beeswax.

I’m not celebrating the birth of Jesus, I’m celebrating the giving and receiving of presents. Mainly giving because I’m embroidering those Christmas stockings as a gift for the children. Plus I like the look of the trees and the lights and the ornaments on the tree. I celebrated Christmas my entire life since I was a baby so I think I have every right to continue celebrating it until the day I die if I wish to do so. Just because my religious beliefs change doesn’t mean I have to change my mind about the holidays. So to those who say I have no right to celebrate it, you can suck it because it’s a free country, I can celebrate it any way I want to. When you pay my bills then you can tell me what I can and can’t do with my life. Until then, shush.

Wow is it after 3am? Ok well I gotta get up at like 8 so goodnight all or if you are just waking up then Good morning. And if this is 6 months into the future and you are reading it with your brain implants well, I don’t know what greetings you future cyborg people so good 0101011010100101101 to you.

My Computer is Back to Normal

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

I have finally finished installing all the useful programs back on my computer. I decided against some programs that were too slow and not very helpful and downloaded some free programs that seem to be more help than the others.

I am not going to use Adobe Photoshop Elements v1 anymore which I got it for free with my camera many years ago. I found a new program that has way more features called Gimp. Gimp is free and it has so many cool things in it so I’ll be using that from now on. I went to the Adobe website to find out what the new version of PhotoShop is and it’s CS5 and it’s $600 so um… no thanks. $600 is a lot of money to be able to fix the red eye in my pictures lol.

I’m going to be using Google Picasa to download the pictures off of my SD card via my printer where I can straighten the picture, fix the lighting etc but I will use Gimp for other daunting tasks like creating banners for my blog or whatever it is I feel the need to do that doesn’t cost $600 lol.

Before I reformatted my computer, I discovered a bunch of new free programs like Gimp that I could download to replace all my old software. But there were some programs that I didn’t have and now I do.

There are a couple of video programs that I am finding useful now such as WinFX Video Converter which does what it’s name suggests. You can convert videos to different formats like for your PSP, cell phone or mp3 player. That helps for me because I like to put my edited home videos on my PSP because sometimes when I play them for people on their DVD player, the DVD doesn’t play right and they can’t see it. They can see it on my PSP if the DVD doesn’t work.

When I turn my edited home videos into DVD files in the past, I had to use a program that added watermarks to my videos because I couldn’t afford to pay the $50 for the software but then I found Free DVD Creator. I haven’t used it yet so I’m not completely sure it’s what I want but it makes menu’s and turns my videos to DVD files for free and that’s all I can afford. Since I haven’t used it yet, my worst fear is that it will put my videos out of sync but I will have to do a test soon to see how it works out. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

I’ve been using Wordpad for years to type letters, not that I type many letters but it’s the only word processor that comes with Windows for free. But, I found Open Office has a bunch more options than Wordpad and it’s free. I’ve actually known about it for quite some time but I never really tried it until now. I love it! I will definitely be using this from now on. Especially for my book. I’ve written a few chapters so far and now that I have Open Office, I can finally write them with a good spell check since I downloaded the add on called “After the Deadline” which is actually a plugin I use here on my blog.

Look, I’m not a cheap skate who refuses to spend money on software, I just can’t afford the high prices that these companies charge. Like take Adobe for example. They keep coming out with upgrades for their software that costs $600. Who can afford to keep buying the upgrades at $150 a pop every time they have a new version? Not me! Even a $50 program is out of my price range. If I have $50 it’s going towards groceries, you can bet on that.

Anyway, I didn’t install everything that I used to have because it’s too much on my computer and it was making everything so slow. Why have all this useless software on my computer that I never even use? So… it’s gone. Finally. Now I can go on with my life with a faster computer again.

My Newly Reformatted Computer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

I reformatted my computer yesterday and it went better than I thought it would.

I typed out my check list in Open Office and printed it out so that I could check things off as I went which was a very good idea because I think I would’ve been lost without it. My checklist was files/folders to back up, drivers, programs and my browser extensions to install etc.

I had a few video DVD’s that I had to burn to get off my computer first before I could burn all the backups. The backups were about 4 dvd’s worth which were my home movie files that were still in mpg format, all my documents, pictures, mp3′s… you know, the basics.

One of the things that was very important to me was my Microsoft Money file. I did a backup in my Documents folder and put that on a dvd but after I reformatted the computer and installed MS Money and restored the file, it came up with nothing. I did it wrong. I’ve done it before in the past when I had to reformat and never had that problem so I don’t know what went wrong.

But that’s ok because when have I really ever needed to use that old information? Never that’s when. So, I can start fresh from my current balance and continue from there. The only reason I use it is so I always know my balance so I don’t overdraft.

One of the reasons I wanted to reformat was because my computer was so slow to load so I just left it running 24/7 to avoid having to wait to read my email. Also, when I load TweetDeck it can take up to 20-25 minutes for the columns to load. Now it’s instantaneous like it should be.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting was the Georgia font to be missing from my browser. For some reason, whenever I load my blog admin area, it forces me to type using the Georgia font. I don’t know why, it won’t allow me to change it, or at least I can’t figure out how to change it so I just had to deal with it. That’s why I liked Windows Live Writer, it used a default font like Arial which is easy to read. Georgia is very difficult to read, especially when you have eye problems like I do. You get used to it after a while but still. I just checked and Georgia is installed but I’m seeing something else, it’s not Arial but it’s easier to read than Georgia.

I have only installed half of my programs that I wanted to install so I still have work to do today but I’m sure it won’t take too much longer to get it all done and over with. I’m pretty sure all the Windows updates are complete. It’s been a few hours since it did any updates so I think it’s done for now.

I have a love/hate relationship with reformatting. I love how fast my computer is when I reformat but I hate all the work that goes into it and the risk of losing certain information. But you know what? When your computer is as slow as mine was, it’s worth the headache. I’m glad it’s finally done and over with.

I Can Finally Reformat My Computer Soon

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

I bought my new DVD burner earlier this week and it arrived yesterday. I was looking at it while it was still in it’s OEM packaging and I looked at the back and all of a sudden got very upset. I bought the wrong one.

I should have known to check whether I was buying IDE or SATA but I guess it’s been too many years since I built a computer or even bought computer parts that I just forgot to pay attention to that kind of thing.

I went into a complete panic attack. Things started going through my head like “I can’t return this, they have a no return policy on OEM” and “I wonder if I can sell this on Yardsellr” and “Well, I hope someone needs a new DVD burner for Christmas.”

Then it came to me. My motherboard is from 2007, it has SATA on it. So I went to the closet and dug out the box for the motherboard, found it, opened it and the first thing I see are the SATA cables. WHEW!

I turned off my computer, unplugged everything, installed it and turned the computer on. Instead of installing the DVD burner, my stupid webcam decides it needs to be installed. After about 20 minutes of looking for the drivers, I decide I don’t have time for this so I unplug the webcam and start installing the DVD driver and software.

So far I have burned 4 dvd’s and gotten at least 16GB off my computer and deleted it all so I wouldn’t re-burn things. I still have a ton of other things to burn today, maybe another 4 dvd’s worth, who knows. I got a lot of crap on my computer.

One thing that I did notice is the whole Smart Erase thing, it only works on DVD+/-RW discs. It doesn’t work on DVD+/-R. So that was disappointing. I said I must be behind the times but I guess I was wrong because my old dvd burner did that but you know, only with RW. I just thought they must’ve upgraded their technology to erase dvd-r’s.

I’m going to Chips cousins “Celebration of Life” in a couple of hours. Darrin bought me a new dress shirt since the neck of all of his are too small for my thick neck. So I better get ready now just in case I get picked up too early. I wouldn’t want to be sitting in my PJ’s when the doorbell rings.

Lite-On Smart Erase Technology

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

Yesterday I bought a brand new dvd burner to replace the one in my tower that doesn’t work anymore. I was looking at it at the Tiger Direct website and I noticed something that slipped by before. Smart Erase.

I guess I’m behind the times once again because this is not something I’ve ever heard of. I don’t have to explain what it means for you folk that are current with technology but for those of us who have been hiding in a shell for god knows how long, I will try to explain it as best as I can.

Say you have burned some highly classified information onto a disc and you are afraid that someone might find it and use it against you. Well, if that is the case then you live a very dangerous life my friend. For those of you who just want to delete files that are obsolete and you don’t want to keep the discs but you don’t want anyone else to access them either then this is for you.

You put the disc into the drive, select quick or full erase and it makes the disc totally unreadable. Quick erase is fast and it makes the disc unreadable but it doesn’t eradicate 100% of the data. If you are that paranoid then use Full erase. It takes a lot longer to completely erase a disc but for you it’s worth the time.

How it will work for me is when I do my dvd backups for reformatting my hard drive, when I’ve put all the backups back on my computer then I can erase the discs and toss them out. I’ve made backups for reformatting in the past but ended up either keeping the discs out of fear that someone might find them or breaking them and risk cutting myself. This will make it easier to just toss them afterwards.

I’m glad that I found that in the description for my new DVD burner. I just wish I were more informed than I am about new technology. I guess since I stopped reading PC World magazine years ago I stopped learning about all the cool new things available. But, I have PC Magazine now on my Nook so that will keep me better informed. Maybe.

UPDATE: When I wrote this I was under the impression it worked on DVD+/-r’s but it doesn’t.  So if you use a RW disc then there is no reason to “toss it out” as I said 2 paragraphs ago.

New DVD Burner

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

Well I finally did it. I finally bought a new DVD burner. I don’t know what happened to mine but it won’t even read discs let alone burn them anymore.

The DVD burner that I have is a Lite-on lightscribe DVD burner that I bought in January 2007. After only a couple of years it decided that it wasn’t going to open easily anymore. When you press the button it makes these clicking sounds but doesn’t open. You had to keep pressing the button until it would open.

Eventually it got so bad that you’d have to put a paperclip into the little hole that allows you to force the door to open. Now, that doesn’t even open it anymore.

I don’t care about burning music or whatever, I just want to back up my files so that I can reformat my hard drive. My computer is so slow because of all the crap that I download. I’ve deleted more than half of what I’ve downloaded only because I knew I wouldn’t be able to back it up but that doesn’t help me if I can’t burn the rest of the stuff onto discs.

My DVD burner that is in there now was $50 at TigerDirect.com back in 2007 and I checked the computer store in town and they sell the same one for $46 and I went to TigerDirect.com again and they sell the same one for $19.99 now. I thought, I’d much rather spend $25 (with shipping) and wait until the end of the week for it rather than spend double and get it today.

So hopefully by the weekend my computer won’t be so slow. I can finally burn the crap I’ve been downloading as well as all of my documents and images and start fresh with a new Windows installation.

About friggin time!

Never Help Unappreciative Friends

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Friends and Family, TechLeave a comment

I have a friend who used to live next door to us.  She was, as we gay’s called them, my “fag hag“.  That is until she moved away and then I didn’t see her again for many years.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere she calls me a couple of weeks ago begging me for my help.  She broke her sisters computer and knowing that I used to build computers for a (semi) living, she begged me to come over to her sister’s house to help her.

I didn’t want to because I’m a hermit.  I don’t leave the house unless it’s to go to the store, doctors appointments or to take the dog out.  I have a huge case of Body dysmorphic disorder so I just don’t like being around people out of fear they are constantly judging me.  Not just my face, skin and hair but also because I have facial ticks.

But what could I do?  She was talking so loud and so fast on the phone, I could barely understand what she was saying so to get her to stop begging and to shut up I said ok, come get me.

Her sister pulls up to our front door in a few minutes and she brings me to her house.  She drops me off and I go upstairs, look at the computer but I can’t do anything about it, the hard drive has crashed.  I was there for a couple of hours switching hard drives since they had 3 of them but none of them worked.  They all started to load a different version of Windows but always went to blue screen which was a clear indication that the hard drive had crashed.

Her sister finally takes me home and I think that’s the end of it.

About a week ago the sister calls me to tell me she’s at the computer store I told her to go to and asks me what kind of hard drive to buy.  Naturally I told her she needs to have her crashed hard drive with her so she gets the right one.  It has to have the same configuration as her old one otherwise a new hard drive (that fits todays standards) may not work in her (I don’t know how old) motherboard.

That happened to me once, I bought a brand new 320gb hard drive in 2007 for the computer I built in 2002 and it wouldn’t work.  I ended up having to buy all new parts to build a new computer around that hard drive.

So she gets the hard drive and calls me asking if I’ll install it for her.  I begrudgingly said I’d do it.  My former BFF called to tell me that she has the mouse at work so I’ll have to bring my own.  Well, that doesn’t work because mine is wireless, it won’t work with the Windows installation.

Anyway, long story short (too late?) I’m there for 6 hours, we cleared the CMOS because it had a password that nobody knew and I had to access it to get the job done.  I install Windows and helped get her started with the windows updates.

The sister takes me home and she offers to pay me but, what do you say when someone offers to pay you money?  I’m sure most people would be like oh sure that’ll be $60 (@$10/hr) please.  I’m too embarrassed by money.  We were broke and starving and we could’ve used the money, even $10 to get us some food but I said no thanks.  She offered to buy me a pumpkin for Halloween or a Turkey for Thanksgiving.  I’m not gonna go grocery shopping with her lol.  Just take me home lol.

The next morning at 7am, the sister calls me accusing me of stealing her neighbors mouse.  Excuse me?  Are you kidding me?  She knew I had a wireless mouse and she saw me grab MY mouse.  I even watched her hand her neighbors mouse to her.  I get paid $0 for 6 hours of work and I get accused of stealing.  Uncool!

Well, it has been over a week and my so-called “fag hag” has not once called or emailed me via Facebook to thank me for getting her sisters computer working.  If anything, she owes me the money because she is the one who messed up her sisters computer in the first place.  But not even a simple “thank you” from her.

I will NEVER help another person who is not a permanent fixture in my life who I know is ungrateful and will not even thank me.  I believe in Karma and I know that my karma is in very good standing.

Update 2011-01-23:  She called me a few weeks later acting as if nothing happened and I told her I was pissed off.  I told her what her sister did and she said she knew and she thought I was pissed off at her sister but I said no, I’m pissed off at you.  She asked why and I told her because this is the first I’m hearing from her and I still haven’t heard a thank you for helping your sister out.

Then I told her that I removed her as Facebook friends but not because of this but because I am better friends with her ex who demanded that I remove her from my Facebook friends.  She understood why I removed her and we haven’t spoken since.

Dirty Text Message

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, Joke, TechLeave a comment

Darrin was at work the other day and his phone gave him that text message ring.  It’s 1 little ring with a vibrate so it doesn’t say “answer me” just that “you got a text”.  Unfortunately, he got it while he was helping a customer and since he is new to having a cell phone, he doesn’t know the difference in the rings.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and saw the message on the screen and pushed the appropriate button and downloaded the text.  This is what he saw:

FWD:FW: Fw: New Message

“Ricky has broken his leg and his buddy Mick comes over to see him. Mick says, “How you doin?” “Ricky says, “Okay, but do me a favor mate, run upstairs and get me slippers, me feet are freezing.” Mick goes upstairs and sees Ricky’s gorgeous 19-year-old twin daughters lying on the bed naked. He says, “Your dad sent me up here to have sex with both of you.” They say, “Prove it.” Mick shouts downstairs, “Ricky, both of em?” Ricky shouts back, “Of course both of em, What’s the point of f***in one?”

First of all, Darrin barely has a sense of humor and second, he just bought the phone so his phone number is brand new so he can kind of understand that people are going to be getting the wrong number but wouldn’t you think you would have your friends correct phone number in your contact list?

Darrin called that phone number up and when the voice mail picked up he starts screaming into the phone saying (I’m not quoting him) that this sexual lesbian pornographic text message was sent to his 10-year-old daughter blah blah blah.

The point he was trying to make was that this message could have gone to a child instead of an adult.  Basically saying, get the right number from now on or you’re gonna be in big trouble.  He threatened to call the cops but that was just to put the fear of god into them.

My point for blogging about this is that if you are going to send text messages to people, whether they are clean or not, make sure you got the right number because you could end up sending nude pictures to the wrong person, next time it could go to a FBI agent or a child.  Either way, you could end up going to jail because it is illegal to send nude images in emails and I’m sure, in text emails over the phone, especially to children.

Note that I blurred out the certain body parts and faces of the women in the image above and I cleaned up the “f-word” so it doesn’t offend.

Dreamland Crocotta by Karl Pfeiffer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

If you are a fan of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters Academy, then you are familiar with GHA season 1 winner Karl Pfeiffer.  He’s not just a famous TV personality but he’s also a writer.  He has written this short story called Dreamland Crocotta.

I didn’t know that he was a writer until he mentioned it on Twitter.  I found his book in the Nook store by searching for his name and he confirmed that this was his book.  It was only $1.99 but well worth the price for the 19 pages that it has.  It seems to only be in e-book format but sold on many different websites.

He used Smashbook to publish it but it’s sold on the Barnes & Noble website (through the Nook or the website), Kobo books (for the Kobo Reader) as well as the Diesel eBooks website.  If you have a Kindle, you might be out of luck as far as buying it through the Kindle store but you might be able to convert it to Kindle format in Calibre.

Synopsis:

“A short story. Overcome by insomnia and depression, Mitch Haloa passes his days alone in his neglected home until he begins speaking to a mysterious voice that creeps within the forest behind his house; A voice that soon haunts his every thought, that prods at the cracks in his already fragile reality; that calls for Mitch to lose himself, to leave one darkness in favor of another…”

It is listed in these categories: creature, dark, horror, insomnia, paranormal, psychological

It is pretty dark but as you read it more you will begin to understand Mitch’s plight, why he is so depressed and why he is hearing voices in the forest behind his house.  You will start to understand a little better why his life has turned in this dark direction.  It may be a short story but it is worth the read.  I applaud Karl on his efforts and look forward to more of his short (or long) stories.

(y) (y)

On a side note, Karl is who got me into wanting to learn how to make those Hemp beaded chokers.  When I first saw him on Ghost Hunters Academy I saw his choker and thought it was so cool.  It wasn’t until he was on Ghost Hunters International that I remembered his chocker.  That night I got on Google and started researching them; what they are called and where to buy them.

I found out that they were hemp and macramé so I started researching that too.  I went to several different websites with macramé patterns until I found a similar necklace.  Then we went to Michael’s where I spent nearly a fortune on hemp and beads trying to recreate his.  Although, it was nearly impossible since I had already forgotten what his looked like, I ended up making my own design.  I also learned how to make the rings and bracelets.  Pretty soon I started looking like a hippy with all my hemp jewelry on.  What I was missing was my tie dye t-shirt and my bald man hippy long hair in the back.

Anyway, I want to thank Karl for broadening my [craft] horizons by wearing his choker on Ghost Hunters lol.  If it wasn’t for him, I probably would’ve never had an interest in adding Macramé to my list of crafts that I do.