Random Plug for my Random Blog

"Some Questions For Michael Ian Black, Pt. 1."

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting brief Q & A sessions between me and Michael Ian Black in my personal weblog, Random Lunatic News. The link at the top of this message goes to part 1, where I was happy to find that my questions and my prep surprised him. It's really just a kind of slow-motion interview, in part because I want to be sure I don't ask the guy the same stupid questions everyone else does. So far, so good.

A short break...

I'm going to take a brief summer break from updating this blog. I will still provide commentary for the duration of the Entwistle Case, and you'll be able to find that here.

Random Lunatic News will still be updated every day, likely more than once a day. The Anomaly Report is going well, so far -- it's only been live for 6 days or so, and already receives 2-3 submissions a day and more than 200 hits a day. The quantity and quality of submissions received has surprised me -- I hope folks keep it up. I only edit what I get, but it's some of the most bloggy fun I've had -- in relation to a blog I've created -- in ages. Professional work will continue, of course, and I'll post about that at Random Lunatic News. If I have any "announcements" to make about a new article or a new gig, you will read about it there.

I'll still track comments here and respond in the comments on various entries whenever necessary. I may come off hiatus for this blog if something really interesting or intense comes up, but for the moment I want to pare down my unpaid blogging duties; the very nature of Tumblr's set-up makes both my Tumblr-hosted sites, Random Lunatic News and Anomaly Report, exceptionally easy to maintain and update.

If I am not updating those sites or doing professional work, I will be reading. Already this summer I've finished Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box and Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman, just to name a couple of recently acquired books on my buckling shelves.

If you have questions or comments, you can always contact me through this page, if needed.

The Anomaly Report (non-crime post)

Okay, so the other day I wrote this and published it on my tumblelog, Random Lunatic News: "An idea." In that post I said the following:

My idea is for a Tumblelog with a design similar to I am Neurotic, with an e-mail address and form for submissions from readers, but ask instead for stories of the strange. Not regurgitated urban legends, but family stories of the strange and unexplained: your granny’s tale of the lady in the hoopskirt; your grandpa’s encounter with the orange flying thing. Most families have these. Sometimes they are b.s. — but some families treasure these tales.

Well, dammit, I went ahead and did it: The Anomaly Report.

I won't be writing the entries for that site -- you will. I will be the site editor. The Anomaly Report will be a repository, a compendium of peoples' spooky campfire stories, sleepover tales, family ghost stories, family mysteries. Like posts found on PostSecret or I am Neurotic, the contributions will be anonymous. A legal disclaimer will be placed on the site just to make that is clear.

Check out and spread it around, if you find it interesting. Use either the submission form or the e-mail I've set aside to use there; be assured if you use the latter your name and e-mail address will remain confidential.

Make your story as brief as possible, but make it fun. If it is truly spooky, make readers feel that.

I won't pretend that every single submission will make it -- especially if it gets popular (who knows if that will happen or not), but most will, especially at first. I'll also vet submissions to see if they're just variations on urban legends or cut & paste jobs from another site.

Readers of this blog need to know that this isn't an alternative to anything else I write, and certainly not a replacement. It's really not like blogging at all, especially since I will be more editor than writer. You can disregard it completely and stick to what you're used to, if you like.

I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of spooky things may haunt you all. It should be fun.

Not remotely true crime related, just cool

(There was a longer entry up here, but it was too long for what it was, so I decided to post a modified version of what I first published at Random Lunatic News.)

I have good reason to pimp Michael Ian Black's blog, even to readers of this site. The screenwriter/actor/comedian is a very funny man, but he also shows excellent judgment; I now assist Mr. Black in occasionally putting shit up on said blog. He'd recently posted an entry asking for someone to volunteer to do that, and I responded. (Okay, I'm kidding a little on his judgment. I had to go read even more of his online writing to see if there was any sign of substance abuse or mental defect after he e-mailed me in answer to my comment on his blog post, offering my ninja blogging skills. He's clean.)

I had to re-learn some stuff I'd forgotten about the Typepad blog publishing program, but it wasn't too hard once I got the overall lay of the land. I have created 3 banners for Mr. Black's book, My Custom Van, which goes on sale in bookstores everywhere July 15, 2008. The least cluttered, hopefully final version of the banner is what you see there now.

Whatever you do, visit Michael Ian Black's blog and enjoy, if you dare. We all need a break from the crime stories, sometimes.

(To clarify -- Michael said he was fine with me letting people know I was helping him out. Just to be sure I didn't overstep, I asked him if he wanted me to keep any assistance on his blog confidential, and he said no. I'm pretty sure one reason he asked his readers for volunteers for this occasional help is the fact that the guy is on the road a lot, doing his stand-up routine. In July he'll be on the road promoting his book. Only so many hours in the day.)

Downtime

I didn't intend to put this blog on a brief hiatus, but it kind of happened anyway. I've been dealing with a health issue (nothing I can't handle) and it's made it difficult for me to do paying work or just plain, everyday blogging.

I have been updating my tumblelogs:

• RandomLunaticNews.com
• CrimeTumblog.com
  

Tumblelogs (also called tumblogs, even tlogs -- how you pronounce the last one is a mystery to me) look like a relatively new thing, but they really harken back to what blogging was like when barely anyone even knew what a weblog was -- no sidebars, no long-form, magazine-style articles. Just links, brief comments, etc. Matt Drudge has never liked the term blog, but his site is a great example of what blogs once looked like. (I'm surprised I've been on the Web long enough to know this. Weird.)

Think of this blog as music composed on staff paper, crafted by hand at the piano, and the tumblelogs as improvisations, riffing. Tumblelogs don't even have to have comment sections. I chose to add commenting to the Crime Tumblelog, but for the moment I'm leaving it off the RandomLunaticNews log -- not too many readers, and they can just e-mail me if they have something to say.

Tumblelogs are ridiculously easy to use, and that's another reason I've been updating those sites -- I can do it quickly. I can update from my phone and pretty much as I surf the Web. I've just about made the Random Lunatic tlog my main personal, non-crime blog, but I won't do that with the Crime Tumblelog.

I've been able to develop new ideas with the tumblelog format, which has been pleasing, because I've had some days recently when I felt like my brain wasn't working all that well. If you check out the archives of the Crime Tumblelog, you'll see what I mean -- I did a whole series of riffs on mugshots last month. It may have been silly, but I enjoyed the heck out of it. At least one post here on The True Crime Weblog was first created on the Crime Tumblelog. Then I realized it was better suited to this site -- I deleted the Tumblelog entry and re-posted it here. I may do that a lot, so if you want to get some idea as to my editorial process, check both.

The pace should pick up here shortly. I'm not considering any changes to this blog's appearance, but I must admit I'm growing frustrated with the Haloscan commenting system. This is very difficult to deal with, because reader feedback on comment functionality means a lot, and I am fully aware that many readers love Haloscan. It is much more stable than it used to be (I first tried Haloscan years ago, and it was pretty terrible) and very straightforward.

It isn't half as good as the commenting system that comes bundled with Wordpress, though, and that's caused me some headaches. I hate trolling, and on some blog entries, I get a ton of it. If I continue to get a lot of trolling, I may have to institute a new commenting system that gives me much more control over who can and cannot leave a comment on a post.

I didn't intend to write this much, so let me just say again that the posting frequency will go back up in the coming days. Thank you, as always, for reading and participating.

TrueCrimeMagazine.com: What do I do?

All the content that was formerly at CrimeBlog.US -- including comments from readers -- is now at TrueCrimeMagazine.com. There's a couple of extra posts there, made since I began using that URL, detailing a couple of my favorite historic true crime stories, too.

As some regular readers might know, that site is currently not being updated, partly because I don't usually have the time. This nags at me, because I own the space, and because even without my paying the site much attention, it still can get up to 1,000 visitors a day. Bloggers and webmasters can tell you that typically, a site that's not updated is a site that loses visitors. TrueCrimeMagzine/CrimeBlog.US simply didn't lose that many, which does make me kind of proud.

Today one idea for further use of TrueCrimeMagazine.com occurred to me -- I would make the site a repository from here on out for only what I thought was the best stuff I or any contributor had to offer. With the writers' permission, for instance, I might post Seamus McGraw's recent, stunning guest entry, "The Executioners' Song." I'd also add Larkin Vonalt's excellent piece published earlier today, "The End of the World." I'd add entries of my own that I feel really live up to the standards I set for myself.

In addition to that, I might put out a new call for submissions -- from journalists who want to flex some crime writing muscle but can't find a paying taker for the story, for instance.

Those are just stubs of ideas, though. This post is to ask for reader recommendations, suggestions. Leave them in the comments, or send me a brief message through the contact form, including your correct e-mail address (brief for the first message because there is a character limit in the contact form's text box). I'll write you back and you can give me your feedback via regular e-mail, then.

New Stuff -- The True Crime Weblog Board and Tumblr

I wanted to introduce readers to some works in progress. It's important that I make it clear that the following two features are experiments and not stuff I've set in stone. There are several reasons I'm calling them experiments at the moment -- one is my own ability to keep up with them, depending on my health and/or professional workload.

Another reason it's important to note the 'work in progress' nature of these sites is reader confusion. Whenever I do something new, there are inevitably a number of people who react with something like panic, or at least confusion. I know this is mostly my fault, but to some degree it's a problem with people just not liking change.

I have to admit, that's always confused me, and at first, it annoyed me. Then I realized that for some folks, this site is a daily destination, and when I muck with it, it messes with their groove. That's a nice thing for a blogger, though -- realizing you have regulars.

Anyway, because the sites I'm about to link are experiments, you must NOT consider them new destinations in lieu of reading The True Crime Weblog. If there is ever a new destination where my energies will be focused, I'll let readers know in no uncertain terms.

You should still come to this site for in-depth treatments of crimes in the news. Especially now, because I'm adding some excellent new contributors.

Okay -- the new stuff.

1. http://truecrimeweblog.freeforums.org/ -- The True Crime Weblog Message Board. I set up this classic forum/message board/what have you with a particular set of readers in mind -- those who like to utterly dissect a subject, chew the fat about it, parse each detail. I also think a message board presents a nice opportunity for some folks to do something like blog about a particular issue themselves. Because when you leave a comment on a blog post on any weblog anywhere, you are NOT BLOGGING. A message board, however, can provide a somewhat blog-like environment. I consider forums/boards to be more like a community than a weblog (there are notable exceptions, the left-wing Daily Kos, a weblog, also functions like a chaotic message board). If we keep the board, I can see it morphing into a platform for generating story ideas for this blog, as well as research and discussion. One forum I set up as soon as I got the thing is already fairly active. If interest and membership grows, we'll add more forums devoted solely to one case. For now, if you want to use it, you need to register. Then, if there is a crime in the news you want to discuss, you can start here. Ideas for permanent forums on the board can be generated from the "general" crime news thread. Any simple questions about the board, you can post 'em in the comments on this entry. I am the admin for the board -- I've already made a steady, stalwart poster from open threads here about Meredith Kercher, Skeptical Bystander, a moderator.
   
2. http://truecrime.tumblr.com/ -- The True Crime Tumblr. Okay, my new true crime tumbleblog is bound to confuse people, because it basically looks just like a blog. A really stripped-down blog. No sidebar. No links to other blogs. But if you really examine tumbleblogs, they aren't like a classic weblog at all. One key way a tumbleblog may differ from a site like the one you're reading now is not obvious to the reader at all -- tumbleblogs are designed to be published on the fly. I can basically publish links, posts, photos, audio, whatever, as I surf. That's not the case with the blog you're reading right now -- when I sit down to do something for this blog, or for my professional work at Radar, it's a project, and my main focus. An in-depth entry can take hours to create. Still, why the tumbleblog? Well, when I realized how easy it is to use, I began using it as a kind of online notepad. What you'll read there are short, quick takes by me on crimes in the news today, yesterday, whenever. I don't edit much, and I try to cover a lot. While I try to use a more formal voice when I blog here, you're getting a straight shot at the True Crime Tumblr. I've added a comment function to the tumbleblog as well. Look at the difference between this blog and the tumbleblog as being the difference between a composed piece of music and a riff. I'm just riffing with the tumblr. It's pretty fun for me as a blogger, incredibly easy to do, and surprisingly non-time-consuming.
   

If any of the above has confused you, befuddled you, well -- don't worry about it. Just stick with this site. I should note though -- if you check out TrueCrimeMagazine.com -- the site that now holds all the content from CrimeBlog.US -- you will see that the main page is a feed-through of the True Crime Tumblr. To find entries you've read in the past at True Crime Magazine, just use that site's search page, which is powered by Google. Everything that was on CrimeBlog.US is still there, as is the content I've added since I changed URLs.

Wanna Blog About Crime?

(NOTE, 4/11/08: I'm going to keep this post at the top of the blog's main page for a few days. Scroll down to see any new entries.)

For a lot of reasons, most of them positive, I would like to have some co-bloggers on this site.

There are already a few other folks listed as authors for The True Crime Weblog, but they are friends who have access if they need it, and they all have their own fish to fry elsewhere. I've never expected any blogging from them in this space, and have rarely asked them to do anything here.

So I'm putting out a call for contributors to this blog, but this call for new writers is very different from any I've made before.

Here's much of what I'm seeking in bullet list format:

• First and foremost, you must write well. Excellent spelling, subject-verb agreement, good grammar in general -- they matter. So do pacing, voice, and cadence.
  
• That said, you will need to set your ego aside to some degree and understand that I always reserve the right to edit submissions to this blog. I don't care if you've got 5 books on the market, I still may tweak what you give me. Part of me hates to be this way, but when I had contributors to my blog in the past I didn't make this explicit and regretted that.
  
• You need to understand that this isn't a paying gig. Most blogging isn't, unless it's supported by a media company or publisher.
• I really want a contributor who understands that sometimes the mainstream media gets basic facts about a case wrong. Be ready to fact-check your mainstream sources.
  
• Know how to dig deeper. Be able to fact-check yourself. Sometimes that's as simple as using basic logic and strong web research techniques.
• About web research techniques -- if you think Google is the only search engine and the AP is the only wire service out there, don't bother looking into becoming a contributor here.
  
• If you trust everything you find via Google, don't bother.
• If you have no idea what Google Groups or the Usenet are, don't bother seeking a spot as a contributor to this blog.
• If your interest in true crime has more to do with the horror and gore aspect of the subject, we probably won't get along.
• I shouldn't have to put this here, but I've learned that people can have surprising holes in their knowledge -- so, please have some basic knowledge of html. Know how to link other sites.
  
• If your interest in true crime is somehow bound up with a political agenda, I don't want to hear from you. I don't mind if you vote Democrat or Republican -- I've voted both since I turned 18. I do mind if you constantly seek out stories that slant towards one set of beliefs or another and want to post them here. A true crime blog is a terrible place to try and create a bully pulpit, so don't even bother. If you think you know my politics from reading this blog, consider the following -- a little judicious searching of the blogosphere will reveal right wing blogs who have labeled me a loony liberal for something I posted here and at least one left-wing feminist blog that was convinced I was some sort of pocket Hitler. I'm proud of the fact that no one really knows my politics.
  
• I really don't mind if you have a blog of your own and think contributing to this one may be a good way to promote that blog. That's fine. But please be on the up-and-up.
  
• Pursuant to the preceding bullet point: YOU MUST BE WILLING TO USE YOUR OWN NAME OR A PSEUDONYM THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REAL NAME. I won't post any entries here from 'happypuppy69' or 'ferretwarrior5000.' I really prefer real names, but completely understand the need for some anonymity, on occasion.
  
• But -- and this is a big one -- you must be willing to let me know your real name. It's a trust issue, and I won't budge on it.
• To contribute to this blog, you must be willing to post 3-5 entries a week. Think about that -- it's more work than you may realize.
• You must be willing to interact with the people who leave comments on this site. I used to hesitate to leave comments on my own posts, but now I just dive right in. I'd like contributors to be okay with doing the same.
• Another imperative -- I admit this is a pet peeve, but I think it's a logical one -- KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTUAL BLOGGING AND LEAVING COMMENTS ON A BLOG. I'm not going to take up space listing the differences here, but they are many. Leaving a comment on a post is not blogging. I like all the 'usual suspects' who make comments on various posts here, but they aren't contributors. They can write 10,000 word screeds on anything they like in a comments section -- they're still not writing a blog entry.
  

Just so we're totally clear, here's a list of some of the things I would find unacceptable from a contributor to this blog:

• Plagiarism -- PLEASE understand what this is. This is a good overview. The blogosphere is full of it. It's sometimes done by accident, but not often.
  
• This is related to plagiarism -- I find quoting entire news articles from traditional media sources thoroughly unacceptable. I used to be much more loose about this, but I think doing work as a paid journalist has changed how I feel about it. It isn't precisely plagiarism because bloggers who will quote entire articles from newspapers may often link to the source. But it may well be copyright infringement. It's pointless, to me. Either quote a paragraph and give a link or summarize and add in your own research.
• Excessive Snark -- Some crime stories invite sarcasm and dark humor. To me, those are usually as plain as the nose on my face. Most crime stories are a million miles from funny, though. If you want to post here, I need to be sure you know when it's appropriate to snicker at what you're discussing, and when it's not. A big flaw I've found in some other parts of the blogosphere is how some people don't seem to get that it just isn't right to take a humorous stance towards certain stories. To see an example of a blog that's nailed incorporating humor into a true-crime discussion, just check out CrimeRant.com. If you can't do it like Gregg and Matt do it, then don't even try.
  

The bullet lists above could go on quite a bit, but in the interest of brevity I'm stopping here.

I fear I've set the bar pretty high, but I'm searching for someone who will be committed to the blog and be able to bring in original, interesting content. I don't think I need to be casual about that.

If you are interested, if you have further questions, please contact me via this page.

To be considered, you need only send me a link your own blog or send me a sample post via e-mail. Please don't try to send the sample through my contact form -- there is a character limit in the text box. Wait till you've heard back from me and send the sample post via e-mail.

I've disabled comments for this entry only to encourage communication via the contact form.

The True Crime Weblog in the Chicago Tribune

A few days ago I spoke with Chicago Tribune Internet Critic Steve Johnson about web sleuthing, specifically as it related to Steven Kazmierczak, the young man who killed several people on the campus of Northern Illinois University before committing suicide on February 14.

Click the following link to read Steve Johnson's article:

"Web sleuths track killer online."

One thing I said when I spoke with Steve bears repeating:

Although much of the Web sleuthing that goes on is very good, Huff raises an important point.

"For a magazine like I write for now, we've got fact checkers," he said. "As annoying as the fact checking is, it's saving your butt. Bloggers don't have fact checkers."

And another characteristic of the Web is that once bad information is out there, it, too, tends to stay out there, believed by at least some proportion of the people who miss subsequent attempts to correct it...

If you aren't prepared to be wrong, to screw it up every now and then, you probably shouldn't publish your sleuthing online -- at least not under your own name. I still do it because I've learned how to get it right, 98% of the time. I have my screw-ups when it comes to blogging here, but they are usually minor and rare. And at Radar, I'm not the only one vetting my work.

I'm just saying that if you think this is interesting, you're right. But be aware that it is rarely as simple as churning up interesting stuff on Google and posting that willy-nilly. Learn to be your own fact-checker, as best you can. I've built connections with other bloggers and some folks who are just plain old web sleuths, and we tend to keep each other in check, but I didn't have that when I began -- so the fact that I had a lot of good info to post about various stories when I began publishing a true crime blog was in part pure, dumb luck. I'd also made my worst boo-boos (linking a blog that was simply written by someone sharing a name with an accused killer, for example) before more than 80 people a day read my blog.

Steve Johnson also interviewed author Loren Coleman for the article. Coleman's take on the piece and the subject at hand can be read here: "Websleuths & NIU."

Some Random Things

MY OWN ANGLE ON THE ALLEGED McCAIN SCANDAL

I've got a short item up at Radar's "Fresh Intelligence" documenting mysterious online posts made well in advance of the New York Times article that first hit the Web last night:

"Anonymous Web Poster Had Goods on McCain, Times."

It all may be much ado about nothing, these allegations of improprieties on McCain's part, but I do have to wonder how someone cottoned onto the more prurient aspect of the story well in advance of the biggest paper in the nation. Inside information, perhaps?

If you like any piece posted at RadarOnline.com, please click "Recommend it" at the bottom of the post.

THANK YOU, AGAIN

I am so grateful to everyone who has responded to this post, both with donations and in the comments. I just don't think I can say that enough. You are helping more than you know.

THIS HAS BOTHERED ME FOR A WHILE

This is an appropriate question to ask on a crime blog, I think.

A few years ago I was singing at a large, wealthy Catholic church in Buckhead. It was a paying gig for me and a tenor friend of mine, and a good one. The music director, though, was kind of demented. Just plain, old-fashioned crazy. One example -- he seemed to completely improvise his pre-service music on the organ. And we're not talking about brilliant improvisation, either. Just noodling. No one noticed.

Anyway, one Saturday (Saturday evening mass) something very strange happened. While we were in service, someone took dumps in the stairwell leading from the ground floor up to the balcony, where the organ and choir were located. The phantom crapper dropped loads on two landings, if I recall correctly.

To any psychologists, profilers, or psychiatrists out there: what could possibly be the psychology behind that? I only encountered such strange behavior one other time in my life, when I worked at a large department store in Knoxville. Shortly after a police crackdown on guys trysting in a bathroom on the second floor of that store, somebody took a dump in a stall in a mens' changing room.

What the heck is going through the mind of a phantom crapper? I can figure out a lot of things, but that one mystifies and bothers me to this very day.

MY VISIT TO THE ER

I had to go to the ER yesterday, but not for myself. Read this post at my personal weblog to see why. And remember to do the Pirate Dance.

OTHER STUFF

I'm behind in posting a couple of entries I'd planned for this blog, but I'm still welcoming suggestions for current, unsolved serial cases to cover in a post. Leave links and info in the comments below -- and thank you to those of you who have already done this on a previous post.

Tuesday Morning Note, 2/19/08

I only have a moment, but I wanted to plug this Radar story I submitted last night:

Randy Jackson Using American Idol to Push His Failed Artists?

The title tells you a lot. Click and read to find out some details. If you like the piece, be sure to click "recommend it" at the bottom of the post. Other Radar contributors might appreciate it if you do that for anything you read there.

And VoteFortheWorst.com would really appreciate some credit from other journalists out there who take their cues from what that site turns up. There's some real buzz in the mainstream media lately about the possibility that Idol is basically rigged by placing bona fide professional singers in the "top 24," and VFTW is the site that's been ahead of the curve in covering that angle all along.

I am planning on a post for this blog sometime today or tomorrow about the alarming number of unsolved serial murder cases currently in the news. I'm keeping track of most of them, but I welcome suggestions in the comments below for current unsolved serial sprees to cover in the next blog entry. In a similar vein, you may want to check out this blog by former Crime Library scribe David Lohr: Serial Killer News Briefs.

The Temporary Return of the Dreaded PayPal Button

My wife and I decided some time ago to remove me from her insurance because under her current plan, my coverage was an extra few hundred dollars a month that we could use for other things. I do earn money now as a freelance writer and circumstances are improving, but I am paid monthly, and haven't gotten to the point where I can pay for my own health insurance and still cover other bills and important outstanding debts (income tax being just one example). It's worth it to note that a ton of freelance writers, many of them much more successful than me financially -- that's gotta be most of them, at the moment -- are in the same boat.

I wouldn't be addressing any of this, but a health issue has come up in the last two weeks or so that I can't just dismiss or ignore.

Hypertension seems to practically run in my family, and everyone -- my mother, father, and 90+ year old grandmother -- lives with it just fine. I've had high blood pressure off and on since my teens, and it hasn't mattered whether I was in shape or not -- even at an optimal weight of 170 with a 31-inch waistline in 1996, I had above-normal blood pressure.

The new wrinkle, though, seems to be exclusive to me (in the family context) -- chest pains and circulation problems. My father, as far as I know, had few if any hypertension-related symptoms of note before he had a stroke 7 years ago. So at least there's the chance that my body is being nice by giving me some warnings he didn't get.

The circulation problems -- numbness and tingling -- could be a lot of things, including relapsing-remitting MS (my MS has proven somewhat benign since I was diagnosed 5 years ago). The chest pains are what bother me psychologically, as well as physically. Even if it's just a temporary, passing thing, I need to get it checked out.

So I've installed the PayPal donation button again on the right side of the page for anyone inclined to send something towards helping me with what will hopefully be a minor medical bill, maybe two. Once I'm paid at the end of February, I may be able to cover any outstanding part of the medical myself. March should be better than February earnings-wise, so I hope to remove the donation button again at that time. I hate putting it up as it is, and I really don't like talking about medical issues. My own wife doesn't even know I've had chest pains, and she'll probably kick my butt when she reads this. She does know I've had some thumping headaches, but I've always had headaches, so that wouldn't be a worry. (NOTE: She's the worrier in the family, which may explain why I've not said anything to her yet about the chest pains -- didn't want her to fret. Hell, I didn't want to fret.)

The amount you donate doesn't matter -- every little bit is appreciated, and you better believe it helps.

I won't reference this again, save to note when I take it down. I will post a semi-permanent note under the blog's header above, with a link-back to this entry.

Additionally, I'm not slowing the pace of my writing or blogging here at the moment, and hopefully won't have to.

Thank you as always for reading and participating in the comment threads. Most of you will never know how grateful I truly am for this.

UPDATE, 2/29/08

I've got a Dr's appointment made for early next week (first week of March) specifically to look into this problem, hopefully see about getting a prescription for anti-hypertensive medication, at the very least. Thank you again to everyone who has made a donation, so far.

UPDATED Notes for 2/11/08 & 2/12/08

BOBBY CUTTS LIVE

Have you been watching the hideousness that is the Bobby Cutts show? The ex-cop is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Jessie Davis, a case detailed in part in this blog in these entries:

"Mysteriously Missing: Jessie Davis."
"Bobby Cutts Jr., AKA DALAW150."

I watched large chunks of Cutts's sobfest as it aired on MSNBC, and couldn't quit thinking about how the guy was never going to win any Oscars for the nauseating show he was putting on for the court and the cameras.

He'll never sell his ludicrous story of how Jessie died, either -- that it was an accident. No sensible jury could possibly buy such a farce.

That's the hallmark of psychopaths the world over -- they don't really know, when the stress is on, that the mask has cracked. Certain that their charm and earnest manner will carry the day, they just keep trying. Or in Cutts's case, crying.

THE OBLIGATORY RADAR PLUG

Hey, I like the subjects they let me cover there. My "Fresh Intelligence" post for today:

"Randy Quaid Banned from Theater by Actors Union."

To be honest, I liked Randy Quaid. He was a character actor's character actor, a guy who could play comedy, drama, you name it, with equal ease. Then I did a little research for the post you'll read at the other end of that link above.

Basically, at the end of the 80's Quaid married a smokin' hot young limo driver named Evi, and it looks like his life has only gotten stranger (downhill might not be too accurate) ever since. Evi Quaid is Randy's manager. She's also an auteur, a photographer and model (link almost NSFW) and just maybe a scary-ass psycho in her own right. Whatever the deal is, she isn't doing her husband any favors at the moment. And no, he doesn't sound like he's screwed on all that tight, either.

Click "recommend it" on my post if you like it, but as always, poke around Radar's site for a while and recommend anything you like. There's some pretty entertaining stuff to be found there.

GROW UP, Y'ALL

A note for folks still leaving comments referencing this True Crime Weblog post: those of you who are over 18 -- and I think it's most of you -- really need to have your license to be called a grown-up revoked. I'd go in and just delete the whole shebang, but I don't have the time right now. Anyone bored enough to follow the comment link will see what I'm talking about right away.

I know the obsessives snarking uselessly at one another in that thread don't even read this blog otherwise (at least most of them don't), but for the few of you who do, let me introduce you to the very thing you embody: "John Gabriel's Greater Internet F***wad Theory." Please, if you do nothing else, follow that link, see yourself, and go get a life. For added emphasis, let me point you to another excellent illustration of the essential nature of Internet Debates.

For the record, I get all new comments in my GMail every half-hour, so yes, I get the gist of most of it. And yes, it's damned irritating, in this case.

PLUGGITY

It's not crime-related, but I may have solved a wee literary mystery. I've posted about it in my personal blog, Random Lunatic News (StevenHuff.net). I've been working on it for a while, and now some Wikipedians are weighing in.

PLUGGITY-PLUG PLUG, RADAR AGAIN ON 2/12/08

This somehow seems more appropriate to plug than a Radar post about Randy Quaid's Equity woes:

"The Mysterious Case of '90 Day Jane.'"

It's my post for "Fresh Intelligence" about a rather dark, new Internet phenomenon, 90 Day Jane. Jane says she's going to commit suicide in just a little less than 3 months, and she's documenting the effort in her blog.

The funny thing is, I spent a good deal of the night last night writing this entry at Random Lunatic News: "The Strange Tale of 90 Day Jane." In that entry I said that Jane might become a new thing on the Internet, a phenomenon, but I wasn't sure, yet. Then this morning I got an e-mail from one of my editors at Radar asking me if I'd like to dig into -- what else? -- the same allegedly suicidal Jane. Guess I read that one right, after all.

Where the blog entry for Radar is short and to the point, my personal blog post is detailed and delves a little into autobiography, for I couldn't examine a blog purporting to document a suicide's descent into death without remembering my late brother.

Is 90 Day Jane real? Follow the links for yourself and see what you think. I just don't know, right now. I do know that hoax or not, I find the whole thing pretty damned disturbing.

NOTE: I've hemmed and hawed about this in the past, and I think I'd really appreciate anyone following Radar links from this blog leaving comments there instead of here. It only takes a moment to register to comment on the site, and Radar really asks for the bare minimum information necessary to let you have a posting account. Comments are always welcome here, but they make more sense when they're attached to whatever post I've had published there.

Thursday Notes: American Idol, Drew Peterson, and Corpses

I've got a true crime-related post up at RadarOnline.com:

"Win a Date with Drew Peterson."

You just can't make some things up. Drew Peterson, ex-cop and prime suspect in the disappearance of his wife, 24-year-old Stacey Peterson, is easily one of the most macabre clowns to be found in a crime story since his fellow Chicagoland resident John Gacy. And Peterson doesn't even need the makeup. After the stunt you'll read about in my Radar piece, Peterson also needs to get a new attorney, because the one he's got now seems to have a bit of a tin ear for the public perception of this case.

My most recent American Idol post for Radar is here: "American Idol Slips into a Coma." Click "Recommend It" if you like either post. You have to register to comment on a Radar article, but it only takes a second to do so, and then you can riff on any entry you read there. I suggest really browsing the site, because there's plenty of good stuff there. For example, a fellow CrimeLibrary.com alum, Seamus McGraw, has a fascinating and creepy featured article that's certainly worth a read and a recommendation:

"Confessions of a Body Snatcher."

I have to admit, I'm enjoying the fact that the magazine is letting me do some blog entries about something other than crime. I've been watching Idol since it premiered and have more opinions on the whole phenomenon than I'll ever really get out there. And yes, it isn't the heaviest writing I'll ever do.

Updates and in-depth entries here have been slow in coming because I'm getting plenty to do elsewhere, which is a very good thing. But I'm also learning how manage my time a little better than I have in the past, so the pace of posting in this blog should pick up as Winter moves into Spring.

There are still the Capote Awards, too. I'm up for a couple, but I'd be fine with it if folks voted for my blog here, and not for me, personally. My perspective on these things has changed a great deal in the past 3 years or so -- I imagine little polls like the ones Corey Mitchell created for these awards would have been 100 times more important to me in January, 2006. I feel less and less like a lone blogger toiling away lately and more like a writer, and that's a good thing -- because I'm making a living at it, slowly but surely. There are some other good things afoot, but you'll know more about those when I know more. Just keep checking this space.

I have at least two true crime stories ideal for this blog that I'm watching, but if you have any suggestions, send me an e-mail. Before you do, please be sure to search this weblog and make sure I haven't already covered the story.

UPDATE

Oh, yeah. Another Idol post for Radar:

"American Idol Contestant Questions Show's Credibility."

Imagine that.

Quick Notes, 1/17/08

In case any regular readers have wondered about the slow pace of posting here and the abbreviated nature of recent entries, please remember that I'm doing other writing (for pay, go figure) here.

Most recently, my writing for Radar Online has not been crime-related at all:

“Pranksters Invade American Idol Return.”

“American Idol, TX: Will the Pain Ever End?“

Mind you, I consider myself a fan of American Idol. For some musing from me on why the posts you'll read above are not particularly positive, read this entry in my personal weblog.

On the crime front, just check out this entry about the arrest of the alleged killer of Tori Vienneau and her baby son, Dean Springstube:

"BREAKING NEWS: Dennis Potts Arrested in San Diego."

I've never been as close to a story as I have to the story of the murders of Tori and Dean. Links from the preceding entry may illustrate why. There'll be much more to come about that case as the accused progresses through California's justice system.

NOTE ADDED 1/20/08

Corey Mitchell's In Cold Blog (I'm a former contributor) has a post up for what Corey's calling the Capote awards. I've been nominated for two. Please go check out the post and vote for me and/or this blog if you like. I personally made other choices with my votes, but I'm usually the poorest judge of this kind of thing.

NOTES, 1/14/08

Yes, the pace of posting is slow, lately. I do have a new, crime-related post up at RadarOnline.com:

"Pulp Fiction Co-writer Arrested on DUI, Manslaughter Charges."

The title tells a lot, but check out the post and recommend it, if you like.

The following True Crime Weblog post has active commentary:

"Who is Gary Michael Hilton?" -- about the alleged serial killer recently arrested here in North Georgia.

-- Check it out if you are interested in the case. I've also made a couple of new posts at my personal, infrequently-updated weblog, Random Lunatic News.

Gary Michael Hilton & Michael Scot Louis

Not so fast, AJC. Orlando Sentinel criminal justice reporter Willoughby Mariano has an interesting post up at the paper's Orlando Homicide Report weblog. It refutes the Atlanta paper's reporting on attempts to link Gary Michael Hilton with the mutiltation murder of 27-year-old Michael Scot Louis, whose dismembered remains were found in early December in the Tomoka River in Florida. Police in Ormond Beach see "no reason to link Gary Michael Hilton to the Ormond Beach case."

Also related to Hilton and his possible string of murders throughout the south: "Gary M. Hilton(,) Serial Killer??"

The link takes you to a forum at Websleuths.com set aside just to discuss this case and Gary Hilton. If you're already a member of that forum (I posted in the past as "misterallgood," and just recently decided to post as "SteveHuff"), you should join in, and if you're not, look into joining the discussion. Websleuths is one of the more troll-free true crime message boards around.

NOTE, 1/16/08

I've got another post up at RadarOnline.com. While this one isn't crime-related, it did involve a wee bit of websleuthing:

"Pranksters Invade American Idol Return."

The Bhutto Assassination

While a political assassination is murder writ large onto the world stage, it seems the wrong sort of murder to cover in this weblog. I've always tried to steer this blog clear of things political (with some notable exceptions) and I intend to keep it that way.

I do have a post up on Radar's "Fresh Intelligence" about the horrific assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto today in Rawalpindi, PK:

"After Bhutto: Pakistani Blogs Chime In."

If you wish you can click "recommend it" at the bottom of any "Fresh Intelligence" post to let others know you liked what you read. There's plenty of good stuff there to read, most of it not by me. And thank God for the editors of "FI," who make me look better than I deserve.

If you have friends or loved ones in Pakistan, or friends from that country, send good thoughts or prayers their way. Their country is embroiled in a kind of turmoil modern Americans can't possibly understand. And since Pakistan is a nuclear power, we must all pay close attention to anything going on in that country.

TrueCrimeMagazine.com

First and foremost: please DO NOT confuse TrueCrimeMagazine.com with CrimeMagazine.com. The latter site is run by J. Patrick O'Connor, and has been online for some 9 years or so. It is an excellent encyclopedia-style site and well worth a look.

No, TrueCrimeMagazine.com is essentially CrimeBlog.US by another name. It still smells as... er ... it's the same content, is what I'm saying. Read this entry, and it should explain the basics.

I should point out here, though, that I did not port the CrimeBlog.US comments over to TrueCrimeMagazine.com -- in part, bandwidth considerations made me elect not to do it. Additionally, I integrated Disqus with the new site. It should work better than it did here, but consider yourself warned if you weren't a Disqus fan. [EDIT, 12/23/07: I relented and moved the comments, too, excepting some of the open threads that were deleted. All new comments on any new posts to TrueCrimeMagazine.com will be Disqus, as will new comments on an old post that previously had none. Posts carrying comments from the CrimeBlog.US incarnation of the site will still be the Wordpress system. If that confuses you, just leave a comment or whatever there and don't worry about it.]

NOTE, 12/24/07

I made this note in the comments below, but it's worth repeating here, for clarity's sake.

I own the following sites. I do own others, but only these addresses are active:

• TrueCrimeWeblog.com;
• TrueCrimeMagazine.com;
• StevenHuff.net.
  

I'm a contributor to this site:

RadarOnline.com.

Four sites, that's it, and only the first 3 are mine. Radar is the paying gig, and there are plenty of other writers contributing to that site, too.

So if you more than 4 sites bookmarked with my name attached, you can safely delete all but the ones listed above.

I close by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

/end note: back on hiatus.

TECH NOTE: Comments -- BUMPED, REVISED, 12/17/07

NOTE, 12/17/07:

This has been bumped to the top of the blog's index page because I discovered a reason to revert to the Haloscan system.

First, I know I risk sounding argumentative to some when I say that I had no problem with the functionality of Disqus comments. As a user I immediately grasped how they worked, found them easy to follow, and I loved several key features: threading replies to various comments; pagination; making a profile by which you could follow your own path commenting on this or any blog using the same system. As a user of the comments, I didn't have a single problem, and here's the argumentative part -- I still don't understand the commentators (a vocal minority) who seemed to lose their minds over the change. I kinda understood the complaints about points, but frankly not the intensity of the complaints.

As a blogger, as the person responsible for keeping this blog up-to-date and making it usable, I discovered today some key problems that did bother me -- mainly, I went through three different templates, following the Disqus directions precisely on how to integrate the comments with the template, and Disqus didn't show up, once. Why it integrated once with no problem and then wouldn't integrate again, I don't know -- but Haloscan not only integrated fine, it re-attached all the previous Haloscan comments to their respective entries. I don't like picking through code. I like things that have push-button functionality. When it comes to integrating a third-party commenting system with your blog, Haloscan appears to still have Disqus beat.

That said, I'm still using Disqus on my personal weblog, StevenHuff.net. Disqus integrates more readily with the Wordpress publishing system than it does with Blogger -- I was able to keep all my existing comments at Random Lunatic News, but all new comments on new posts there will be Disqus comments.

For a blog that seems to attract as active a community of commentators as this one does, I truly like the idea of making the comments resemble something like a message board or forum discussion. That means avatars, if people like them. It means threaded discussions. It makes visual sense to me, personally. "Flat" comments -- one message stacked on top of another, the oldest at the top -- are a little confusing to me when it comes to tracking responses between various posters. Confusing, and when you have threads 2155 comments long, incredibly hard to pick through -- that's why paginated comments are awesome.

Those of you who campaigned (in some cases, I feel, childishly) for the Disqus system to go may be pleased, but be advised -- the moment it's out of Beta, I'm checking it out again with this blog in mind.

I can only think of a few suggestions for Disqus at the moment, though I may add more:

-- Allow the blogger to turn off the point system for their blog, if possible. In Wordpress I once tried a point system for comments, and discovered that some people use them for their own nasty little purposes. A point system can be abused, and I guess I've got some readers or lurkers who aren't above abusing it. Bloggers using Disqus should be allowed the option to have no points system at all. I understand why Disqus has it, after reviewing other sites, but it just won't mesh well with some blog audiences. Didn't with the folks who read this one, that's for sure.

-- Simplify the timestamp. Let it go ahead and just stamp the post time.

-- I'd go all the way with the profiles. Allow more customization for that. It's a clever idea that makes a ton of sense, and so far you all have done it better than Typekey. Let people really personalize those profiles.

-- Make the photo upload and editing system for avatars easier. At the moment it isn't as intuitive as some other Disqus features.

-- I could be wrong, but commentators would love, love, love you if you found a way to put in a little WYSIWYG type control panel for posts, with format control buttons (b, i, blockquote, etc). I am certain that a lot of blog readers and commentators would really like the chance to format their posts with the click of a button. There are Wordpress plugins for that, but as far as I know you can't do it in Blogger, and if there's anything Blogger weblogs need, it's user-friendly comments. Disqus might get a leg up over Haloscan's reliability if this were a feature.

Sorry if that's all been asked & answered.

For the reader's reference, here is the Disqus True Crime Weblog link:

http://truecrimeweblog.disqus.com/

Since it is formatted like a type of message board, you may wish to continue discussing certain cases there. If you don't want your discussion to be fragmented, and prefer it to stay attached to the blog entry that sparked it, you may want to return to whatever thread you left.

I've already said this in a note on another entry, but my little "hiatus" will actually begin tomorrow.

Those of you who were patient with the change in comments, even liked it -- thank you. If you really liked it, you can use it at my personal weblog, should you ever read it (I get 10% the readership there that I do here). And it may be back here, once some of the administrator functions are improved.

*****

When I was a kid, a truism around my house was that if it was the weekend, then my mother was rearranging furniture. My mom's restlessness or boredom came out that way -- moving stuff around. It never bothered me, because on some level, I understood.

If you've followed any of my blogs for any length of time, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I've had a bad habit in the past of playing with my blogs when I felt restless, or simply felt a need for some sort of change. I've also done it at many turns to make the blogs more reader-friendly. Blogging I did prior to using my real name was often anything but reader-friendly; I was the king of the super-ugly, almost unreadable template there for a while. Then I learned the joys of minimalism in blogging, and never looked back.

I did make a pact with myself when I settled on this domain and this blog -- that I'd stop farting around so much with blog features, and establish a site that looked and acted the same way each time you visited. I've been doing pretty well on that score.

I've discovered a commenting system that integrates with Blogger (though it is a standalone URL, this is indeed a BlogSpot blog) that active commentators may find strongly appealing. However, before I decide to integrate the system with this blog, I need to point out a few things and get some input:

• Comments you've made under the blogger/haloscan system currently in use would still exist; however, they'd no longer be linked to blog posts here. I'd have to provide you with direct links to the old comments. I'd be glad to do that for the most popular entries (Madeleine McCann discussions, the Michigan "thrill-kill" murder, etc.).
  
• This system would be much, much more akin to a forum, or message board, even though it integrates into the blog. If you've ever left comments on a blog like DailyKos, you are familiar with threaded blog comments -- they can make for a much more readable experience than the current system I use.
• Input from readers: would you be amenable to a commenting system that resembles a forum, and allows for paged comments as well as threads marking out responses to other commentary?
  
• The new comments would load faster, from what I've seen -- an additional advantage, as it appears that haloscan sometimes slows the blog as a whole.

That's all I can think of, but it should be enough to generate some discussion. Your feedback below is greatly appreciated.

Short Hiatus and a Personal Request **UPDATED**

Just recently I have received some generous donations via PayPal, and I can't ever express how grateful I am to the folks who have donated. This post is, in part, to ask anyone inclined to donate between now and Christmas to consider sending the donation to my wife Dana, instead.

Dana is a gifted educator and edu-blogger, and well regarded in the edu-blogging community. She probably has more work to do on the computer on a daily basis than I do, and at the moment, we are sharing a single aging desktop. We also try to give my stepdaughter and our 6-year-old daughter computer time on occasion. I do tend to get dibs on the desktop because the work I do for Radar is occasionally time-sensitive and research-intensive.

I may not receive my first payment for work done for the magazine until after Christmas, so I felt like I had to note Dana's page on her edu-blog about purchasing a laptop and ask for help from anyone inclined to do so. I'd love to buy the laptop myself, but I'm sure I won't be able to.

And if you're an educator or find issues dealing with education and technology in general compelling, you should browse HuffEnglish.com and follow Dana's links. I believe she and some of her peers focusing on technology and education are at the forefront of changing the way young people learn, and for the better.

*****

I've decided that beginning this Monday I'm taking a brief hiatus from posting on this blog, barring any super-compelling crime stories. The hiatus will only be a week and a day, if complete (as in -- if something doesn't happen that I just can't help but blog about). I still may post to my personal weblog, Random Lunatic News, and will be doing research and writing for Radar the entire time. So I'm not on vacation. If I have a post at Radar that may be of interest to readers here, I'll add that link to this entry. I will also still respond to e-mails and story tips while on hiatus, so don't hesitate to contact me that way, if you need to. The hiatus is mostly just so I can focus a little more closely on some other work that fell behind while I was ill over the last 3 weeks or so.

[Edit: Back to the old system for now. Go here to take a look at the comments you've made during the interim: http://truecrimeweblog.disqus.com/.]

Do some folks a favor while I'm on hiatus, and check out the links on the right side of the page -- both The True Crime Blogroll and "Steve's Links" -- a mixed bag of sites, not all of them true-crime related.

*****

My hiatus may be delayed until tomorrow, making it simply one week long.

NOTE, 12/19/07

My life is weird.

Today, I wrote the following for Radar's "Fresh Intelligence":

"Jamie-Lynn Baby Daddy's Profile?"
"Kucinich's Bank Robber Bro is Dead."

I ain't telling you about 'em, you just have to read 'em. Remember to recommend the post if you are so inclined, but only recommend once per post, and do my fellow FI contributors a solid and see if you like other posts there and want to recommend them as well (there's a little link at the bottom of each "Fresh Intelligence" post you click to recommend that entry).

Then, after sending off one of those little bits o' delight, I drove to my daughter's school to hang out with her a bit during a Christmas-y party-ish time (the school doesn't have "parties" per se, just special dates -- it's complicated).

Following that, I came back to my church to sing a solo at a noon-hour Christmas "meditation" service.

Gotta love life in the 21st Century.