Do not get me wrong, I did not think it was poorly written or read, the story simple did not appeal to me.

I do agree with Mur, it is really about friendship.

Should Mur read this, my mother liked horror too.

Jc, you should read all of the stories, i love the way you express yourself while reading…. It shows alot of emotion!

I almost had to go to the bathroom from such excitement!

Definitly a keeper!

Pseudopod, keep up the good work!

xD

This was the best possible presentation of Counting From Ten I can imagine, even better than reading the original text. . . .

j/k Loved the story! thanks!

Where were the smells? What did the girl smell like? Perfume? Sex? What did his idiot buddy smell like? Funk & fear? What did the antiseptic smell like when he was cleaning the wound? How about the hospital? What about the smells of the old house? If there were that many people there, food would have been served.

I liked the story, but I couldn’t really identify what was missing until I remembered the lack of fully sensory descriptions of place. Smell is an important one.

It also makes me wonder what the rum tasted like. Was it good, or cheap, or coconut, or..?

The characterizations were perfect, the reader was actually capable of expressing emotion, frustration, helplessness, bewilderment, etc. It was wonderful. Mur even spoke a bit, and dropped that “I swear it’s true” childish horse shit.

Mur, pay attention here. KEEP DOING THIS.

As for the stories use of cliche’ gimmicks … sure there were a few, but they were well used. I am reminded of when I first heard “Greenday” getting airplay and I commented to a friend on how much I enjoyed them. He responded derisively “They’re just doing The Clash”. “True” I responded “but I LIKE The Clash and since The Clash ISN’T doing The Clash anymore I’m glad someone else IS!”

So, as far as I’m concerned if your going to reuse stuff in creating your new story it’s A-OK with me … just as long as the end result is as good as this. :)

Certainly stuck with me this week, Keep ‘em coming!

It looks like every had a pet pieve over a different cliche in there which I suppose says more then about us readers than the writer - who was clearly using the old trick of using the cliche’s to scaffold the tension. Personally, I had trouble with the “abused mysterious old lady with a ring” cliche, I’d really have prefered another reason for the horror than a straight “curse”. Please, no mysterious gypsy wenches from the east!

Nonetheless, this one stuck with me.. Nice stuff!

I thought the balance struck by the author was just right. Gruesome enough to make you feel slightly queasy but not so much that you coudn’t listen on.

Didn’t see the son’s double-cross coming. I groaned out loud at that point - on the way from my car to the office - and got a strange look from two other employees!

Keep ‘em comin!

The best story on Pseudopod to date!

All joking aside, this is the best tale I’ve heard on Pseudopod. Nice work. I did find myself a little irritated over yet another use of an all-too-common setup, i.e.:

Bumbling, dishonest “cursed” character shows up at an apartment in middle of night to recount his woes and begin a series of horror-related events whereby he is aided by a reluctant, condescending but ultimately loyal “friend” character.

…The reason for this is it’s a staple done to death in horror. Go check out “Absolution insured” over on Variant Frequencies if you want to see what I’m talking about.

Thing is, who cares? Like “Absolution Insured”, this piece works great. And the ending is both poignant and manages to clamp down hard.

I have stolen this explaination from ?A Way With Words? from KPBS:

(http://www.kpbs.org/Radio/DynPage.php?id=218)

4.? How did the misuse of the word myself come to be? Everyone now says, “Jane, Robert, and myself are going to the movies” and “They awarded trophies to Jane, Robert, and myself.” Do people use the word myself because they don’t know whether or not to use the word I or me?

We congratulate you on your penetrating analysis of the epidemic that we have dubbed the Myself Reflex. The most succinct statement that explains why so many speakers and writers misuse, abuse, and overuse the pronoun myself was cobbled by Red Smith, the graceful New York sportswriter: “Myself is the foxhole of ignorance where cowards take refuge because they were taught that me is vulgar and I is egotistical.”

In other words, speakers and writers are often addlepated or chickenhearted about choosing the proper cases for their pronouns: the nominative case ? I — for subjects and the accusative case ? me — for objects. The only three contexts in which myself should ever appear are:

(1) as a reflexive pronoun used as an object of a verb whose subject is the same: “I hurt myself climbing the walls of my home.”

(2) as an intensifier: “I myself wouldn’t be caught dead bungee jumping.”

(3) in special idioms: “I removed the popcorn from the ceiling all by myself.”

And I’ve just listened to the episode of Small World with Mur on. I’m sorry if I offended you in previous weeks. I really liked your introduction this week. While I agree that you don’t want to do a Steve Eley I don’t think there’s anything wrong with welcoming people in.

My favorite part was the son of the decesaed ring owner using the return of the friend as an opportunity to mess with the person responsible with his mothers death.

Too many stories like this end with a forgiving and magnamous family ending the curse.

Forget that!

For those of you who are interested, I interviewed Mur about Pseudopod on my podcast, which is called Small World. You can find the interview at http://smallworldpodcast.com/?p=511 or download it directly from http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://smallworldpodcast.com/mp3/smallworld102706.mp3

JC Hutchins’ reading was great too, though after 7th Son I can’t help but think that this sounded like a conversation between John and Kilroy 2.0 (though without the messiah complex).