Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode... Walpurgis Night was when according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked when all evil things of earth and air and water held revel. Bram Stoker from Dracula's Guest Walpurgis Night is something most English-speaking listeners won't even know about, probably because we're too busy celebrating Halfway to Halloween or Half-Owen for short while Walpurgis Night is being celebrated in Germany. There they celebrate not Halfway to Halloween but a kind of second Halloween which they call Walpurgis Nacht or Walpurgis Night. Plus, later in the show, I'll share a story that was intended specifically to be read on Walpurgis Night. It's called The Black Bargain from PJ Hodg. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, Twitter contests to connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.  There is a mountain very high and bare, whereon it is given out that witches hold their dance on Walpurgis Night. 1. Jacob Grimm, 1883 In the Germanic countries of Central Europe, there is what is essentially a second Halloween, Walpurgis Night, or as it is often referred to in its German form, Walpurgis Nacht, falling exactly six months from All Hallows Eve or Sauen. Many of the ancient cultures divided the year into just two seasons, summer and winter. The dividing line between the two seasons were Beltane and Sauen, with Beltane being one of eight solar subots in the pagan calendar, its date based on the sun. In Britain, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Beltane often begins at sunset on April 30th and continues through May Day or May 1st. Since the medieval era at least, it was believed that the veil between the world of the living and the dead is thinnest on both the night of Halloween and the night before Beltane. As a result, not just the ghosts of the dead but fairies, shapeshifters and in regards to Walpurgis, witches were at their most powerful and could most easily cross between the two worlds. Despite sharing the same date and many customs, there is a distinct difference though between Walpurgis and Beltane. At its most basic, Beltane is primarily Gaelic and celebrated on May 1st, whereas Walpurgis is Germanic and often celebrated the night before Beltane or April 30th. If you were able to go back in time, however, you'd realize you're dealing with rural customs and areas quite often cut off from much contact with the outside world. From that perspective, you'd likely see very little difference between the two holidays. The primary difference between the ancient times and more modern history is Walpurgis has developed a distinctly witchy flavor. Walpurgis in the Middle Ages concerned itself with protecting yourself from or driving away witches. Today, as the fear of the craft fades slowly into the past, it's all about celebrating witches. Walpurgis celebrations have continued unabated throughout Europe, in its homeland of Germany, as well as the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Estonia. Germanic folklore is ripe with tales of witches and there is the holiday also known as Hexnot, which means witch's night. In Sweden, which has a particularly vibrant association with the holiday, it's known as Valborg and heavily tied to a celebration of the end of winter and the beginning of spring. It has very little to do with religion and everything to do with the arrival of spring. In Sweden, typical holiday activities include the singing of traditional spring folk songs and the lighting of bonfires. The first May is a great popular festival in the more Midland and Southern parts of Sweden. On the eve of the festival, huge bonfires, which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all the hills and knolls. Sir James George Frazier, The Golden Bough. There is a practical reason, as well as religious or reasons dealing with folklore, for celebrating on this day. During the Middle Ages, the legal or administrative year ended the last day of April. As a result, it was treated as a community-wide holiday, celebrated with bonfires, trick-or-treating for the children, as well as traditional dances and songs relating to the beginning of spring. In Sweden, the bonfires can only be traced back to the early 18th century, but they are in all likelihood a continuation of ancient ceremonies, the original purpose long since forgotten. Both Beltane and Salon relate to agriculture, but these two specifically deal with herding rather than growing crops. It was at this time that the animals were let out for grazing or brought closer to home for the winter. Bonfires were then added as a benefit of frightening away predators. Trick-or-treating in a fashion was once celebrated on Valborg in southern Sweden. Though no longer popular, children went to the woods and collected branches of greenery to decorate the village houses when they were paid in eggs. In Finland, Walberg is referred to as Vapu or Vappen and borrows the Germanic tradition of celebrating witches. It is one of the four biggest Finnish holidays and is the biggest carnival day of the year celebrated in no small part by excessive intake of alcohol. Estonia, too, once looked on while purchase as the date when witches gathered and referred to it as Volbryu. It proceeded the day of Kavadpua, which was celebrated as the arrival of spring, and I am sure that I am butchering these names. Then again, I am not Estonian or Swedish, but you get the idea. Anyway, Volbryu still sees carnivals celebrating and drinking, often by people dressed as traditional witches. It is worth noting that unlike many of today's modern witches and pagans, there is no desire to pretty up the witches. Instead, the tendency is to go with the old stereotype witch as the hag. These are countries where witches were once feared after all. In the Czech Republic, winter is brought to an end on May 30 and a festival whose name translates to burning of the witches. Witches made of rags and straw are burned, sometimes just a broomstick, though in the modern era it is more of an excuse to get drunk around the fire. When a burst of black smoke is emitted from the blaze, a cheer goes up as the witch is said to fly away. As the fire dies down and midnight approaches, it is off to the woods to search for cherry blossoms. It is thought that a young woman kissed under a cherry tree that night and ideally, through the next day, if one has the stamina, will keep both the tree and the young lady from drying up. To Czechs, it is a day all about love. The first known mention of S. Walpurgisnaught or S. Walpurgisabend is to be found in the Caledarium perpetuum of Johann Kohler from 1603. It was also mentioned in the writings of Johann's Pretorius in 1668. Translated into English and stripped of its Catholic connotation, S. Walpurgisnaught becomes Walpurgisnight. If you want to get technical, the holiday is called Walpurgisnaught, which is used in both the Dutch and German language. In English it is translated to Walpurgisnight, as it is the eve of the feast day of S. Walpurgia. S. Walpurgisnaught, I am sure you are wondering who was that? Well, S. Walpurgisnaught was an English nun born in Devonshire in 710, sent as a missionary to Germany to start churches. She died in Heidenheim on February 25, 777, as best as we can tell. As Walpurgis' feast was held on May 1st, she became associated with May Day, especially in the Finnish and Swedish calendars. The eve of May Day, traditionally celebrated with dancing, came to be known as Walpurgisnaught. She is the patron saint of Eichstadt, Odenarda, Ferns, Antwerp, Ronogen, Weilberg, and Zutphen. She also might be of assistance against hydrophobia and in storms and also by sailors, if you are into that kind of thing. She first seemed to have landed on the European continent in Mainz under the care of her uncle, St. Boniface. Named the best of Heidenheim, she was aided by her brother, St. Winnibald, who governed an abbey in the same town. I think you have trouble living up to the expectations of your family. Try competing with your brother, who is a saint. When Winnibald died, she took over the monastery that he governed as well. How does a Catholic saint become the namesake of a holiday dedicated to witches? Well, it is in part because of the name Heidenheim. The abbey itself was called Heidenheimer Kloster, which translates to heathen home cloister. Heidenheim, it seems, was named after a holy spring there, Heidenruinen, which was famous for having been where many heathen or pagans, as they like to call themselves now, were baptized. The name stuck, even if the meaning for the name was lost to time. She became associated with May 1st because she was canonized as a saint on that day. The reason she became a saint was in no small part due to a strange occurrence on her burial. Her rock tomb began oozing a healing oil and it was declared a miracle, so much so that her body was chopped up and sent all over France and Germany to spread the miracle. People still clinging to their pagan traditions were already celebrating May 1st in their heathen manner. This was of course frowned upon by the Church, but under the auspices of celebrating St. Walburge's feast day, the celebrations were able to continue. If one inspects the stone carvings found in chapels dedicated to Walburge, you'll find certain recurring symbols, typically a bundle of grain and a dog. Nine nights before 1st of May is Walburge in flight, unceasingly chased by wild ghosts and seeking a hiding place from village to village. People leave their windows open so she can be safe behind the cross-shaped window pane struts from her roaring enemies. For this, she lays a little gold piece on the windowsill and flees further.  Her shoes were fiery gold and in her hands she carried a three-cornered mirror that showed all the future and a spindle as does Berkda. A troop of white riders exerted themselves to capture her, so also another farmer saw her, whom she begged to hide her in a shock of grain. No sooner was she hidden than the riders rushed by overhead. The next morning, the farmer found grains of gold instead of rye in his grain stock. Therefore, the saint is portrayed with a bundle of grain. E. L. Ruchels, 1870 This is, of course, less like a matriarchal Catholic saint and more like the tale of a Germanic goddess. The connection grows when one looks at the dog symbol in relation to Walburge. German goddesses were often associated with dogs. The Hilster, which is something quite like a witch's familiar, was thought that speaking the name Walperge could tame an angry dog. The wind hound is frequently tied to fertility and abundance in the homin' fields and in some places is called the Nourishment Hound or Narangshund. The wind hound also rears its canine head, particularly during the spring fertility festivals. The spindle and the grain noted in Ruchels' writings are both associated with Germanic gods and the celebration of the coming of spring. This miracle reminded men of the fruitful dew which fell from the mains of the Valkyrie's horses, and when one of the days sacred to her came on May 1, the wedding day of Frau Holda and the sun god, the people thought of her as a Valkyrie and identified her with Holda. Like a Valkyrie, she rode armed on her steed. She scattered, like Holda, spring flowers and fruitful dew upon the fields and veils. Even the sly musing from her tomb becomes an association with pagan goddesses, as it tended to remind people of the dew which dripped from the mains of the Valkyrie's horses. May 1 was also the birth date of Holda, whom Jacob Grimm claimed was a Germanic goddess, though that might be a bit of a stretch. There is no denying Holda's connection to the supernatural. Her art was spinning and weaving, which formed another connection to Valperja and the spindle. Spindles and thread were often thought to be essential ingredients for love spells cast during the heathen May celebrations when love and fertility seemed to be on everyone's mind. Holda also rode through the knights, albeit on distaffs, which was much like a witch's broom. She was believed to have presided over all female spirits, who became known as Holden. According to the canon Episcopi, the Holden would slip out through closed doors in the silence of the knight, leaving their sleeping husbands behind. They would travel vast distances through the sky to great feasts or to battle amongst the clouds. The Catholic Church, of course, frowned on such behavior and made it known that flying through the knight on broomsticks was not only forbidden but punishable by penance of a year. The 9th century canon Episcopi came down on ladies who claimed to consort with a crowd of demons. In the later De Arta Magica, the Church went even farther.  To go even farther down this path, farmers who had yet to plow their field by May 1st were often given a straw doll called a Walperja. This was an identical practice connected to not only Holda but another goddess as well, Birchda. Only theirs were given out during Yuletide and women. And so it seems that Walperja became merged with Holda, which isn't all that surprising, and the B in her name, Walperja, was changed to P, Walperja. Germanic goddesses were often known by different names in different places. The Catholic Church even went as far as to associate Holda with Diana. On Walperja's night, as on Halloween, strange things may happen to one. Joki tells a story of a Walperja's night dream that is more a vision than a dream. Led to be unfaithful to his wife, a man murders the husband of a former sweetheart. To escape capture, he fires a haystack, from which a whole village is kindled. In his flight, he enters an empty carriage and drives away madly, crushing the owner under the wheels. He finds that the dead man is his own brother. Faced by the person whom he believes to be the devil responsible for his misfortunes, the wretched man is ready to worship him if he will protect him. He finds that the seeming devil is a reality, his guardian angel, who sent him this dream that he might learn the depths of wickedness lying unfathomed in his heart, waiting an opportunity to burst out. For you see, pastor, within every one of us, a spark of paganism is glowing. It has outlasted the thousand years since the old Teutonic times. Once a year is flames up high and we call it Saint John's Fire. Once a year comes free night. Yes, truly, free night. Then the witches, laughing scornfully, ride to Blocksburg, upon the mountaintop on their broomsticks, the same broomsticks with which at other times their witchcraft is whipped out of them, then the whole wild company skims along the forest way and then the wild desires awaken in our hearts which life has not fulfilled. Sutterman, Saint John's Fire In our pagan past, there were certain days and nights where the normal restraints of society were loosened and people were freed to revert back to nature. Some celebrations loosened the libido. Some broke down social barriers that separated the various classes of society, such as the Roman setranalia, Walpurgis night, and Beltane was such a time as well. Is it now? Certainly in some quarters, yes. And perhaps that's how it's always been, for Walpurgis, though a night celebrated together, was also a night celebrated in isolation and secrecy. Is it any wonder that sexual fascination has taken hold with these holidays for nothing is known of the facts of the past? Just whispered rumors that might have never been anything more than suppressed Victorian sexuality run amuck in the mind. It was common practice for the church to attempt to plaster over society's pagan roots, so Beltane became a feast day for Walperja, a Christian saint. In the same vein, pagan sites were rededicated to Walpurgis. There are a wealth of sites in the Netherlands, Belgium, Saxony and other regions of northern Germany dedicated to her. Temples, wells and springs, features of the landscape like mountains and hills, as well as trees associated with heathen worship. But rather than the saint making these days and sites more Christian, Walperja became more pagan. According to Roshals, the greatest number of the oldest churches in lower Germany are dedicated to this same saint. Jacob Grimm wrote, The witches invariably resort to places where formerly justice was administered, or sacrifices were offered. Almost all the witch mountains were once hills of sacrifice, boundary hills or salt hills. The witches excursion takes place on the first night in May. They ride up Blocksburg on the first of May, and in 12 days must dance the snow away, then spring begins. Here they appear as elf-like, god-like maids. In the book of A Har's Journey, Heinrich Hein wrote in 1826, The mountain somehow appears so dramatically stoical, so understanding, so tolerant, just because it affords a view so high and wide and clear, and should such mountain open its giant eyes, it may well see more than we, who like dwarfs just trample on it, staring from stupid eyes. The Har's Mountains lie between the rivers Wesser and Elba in the center of Germany. Of those wooded hills, the tallest peak, standing at just over 1,140 meters tall, is Blocksburg. How it came to be called the geographic epicenter of Walperja's Nacht is a tangled tail. Witches were associated with Blocksburg since Charlemagne was emperor, though in truth, they were likely just people celebrating the old religion, worshiping the pagan gods which held sway before the coming of Christianity. The remote, rugged location afforded privacy, which was important during the years when worshiping the gods of your choice could get you burned at the stake. Blocksburg is snow-covered for much of the year, melting off in May. It is perpetually shrouded in mist and fog, up to 300 days out of the year. With frigid temperatures, it is not a hospitable place. Today, trails wind through the forest and up the mountain. The winds have caused the trees to twist and grow gnarled and moss-covered. Strange rock formations break through the forest and have such poetic names as the Devil's Pulpit and the Witch's Altar. And then there is the specter of the Brocken. Walking on the mountain, when the sun begins to set, your shadow becomes magnified and is projected onto the low-lying clouds or mist with a rainbow or halo around the head. The first victim was a climber who lost his balance when he became frightened of a haloed figure coming towards him from the mist. He literally died from being afraid of his own shadow, falling to the rocks far below. Old pagan myths say that on the night of April 30th, a devil named Wotan married his love Freya on the Brocken in Shirk, on the slopes of the Brocken on the night before Beltane. This myth and others became the seeds of scenes from the musical drama Faust, written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Through Goethe's poetic use and incorporation of these myths into his famous play, this myth remains today. There are two scenes of interest here, in Faust, part one, while purgis knocked and in part two, classical while purgis knocked. Now to the Brocken, the witch's ride. The stubble is gold and the corn is green. There is the carnival crew to be seen, and Squire Urianus will come to preside, so over the valleys our company floats, with witches affording on stinking old goats. Goethe may have gained inspiration from two rock formations on the Mountain Summit, the Devil's Pulpit and the Witch's Altar. Goethe was drawing on folklore and legends for these scenes, and they give us a glimpse into a world where witches and demons were feared by everyday people. His sources spoke of a bevy of witches who came by night to the top of the Brocken to celebrate and show their devotion to Satan in ways incredibly sexual, which culminated in each kissing the ass of a goat. Goethe tempered the legends quite a bit in the end, downplaying the sexuality considerably, and Goethe wasn't the only writer of the age to tell the mysteries of while purgis night. Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula, the book that spawned a zillion films, also wrote a short story along the same theme, Dracula's Guest. In the story, an Englishman en route to Transylvania arrives in Munich on while purgis night. The owner of the inn where he stays warns him against going out in the evening, advice the gentleman ignores. He abandons his carriage and sets off on foot toward an abandoned village, believed to be unholy. While purgis night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad, when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked, when all evil things of earth and air and water held revel. It took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright. Bram Stoker, Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales Like Mayday celebrations, dancing or even leaping about, particularly in conjunction with fire, is one of the staples of while purgis night. The lady of the house would customarily leap over her broom. Grain would grow as high as the farmer could jump on while purgis night. In addition to leaping over or dancing around, while purgis night fires had other uses, it was considered good luck to burn anything that had worn out over the previous year in that night's fires. Straw men were made and endowed with things like illness and disease, melancholy, even downright bad luck and burned in the fires as well. If you want to avoid bad weather and ensure good crops, you might put out bread with honey and butter tonight, or the Anken Schnitt or the Windhound. There were many things thought to go bump on this night, in addition to witches. To keep them at bay, children would gather greenery from ash, hawthorn, juniper and elder, which was then hung around the house and barns. Ironic that this was once done to appease the goddess, then later to scare away the witches. On while purgis night, precaution must be taken against witches who may harm cattle. Blast bells were hung from cows' necks. The stable doors are locked and sealed with three crosses. Not everyone wants to miss out on the witches though, but on your clothes wrong side out and walking backwards to a crossroads might make them visible to you. So would wearing a wild radish around your neck or on your person. Love potions were thought to be exceptionally potent on wall purgis night. Divination worked better as well. Sleeping with one stocking on, you checked it the next morning and if you found a single hair, the color would indicate the hair color of your eventual spouse. Keep a linen thread near a statue of the Virgin Mary on wall purgis night and at midnight unravel it and recite the following. Thread I pull thee, while purge I pray thee, that thou show to me what my husbands like to be. They judge of his disposition by the threads being strong or easily broken, soft or tightly woven. Due, on the morning of May 1st, makes girls who wash in it beautiful. The fair maid who on the 1st of May goes to the fields at break of day and washes in dew from the Hawthorne tree will ever after handsome be. Encyclopedia of Superstitions Speaking of garments and material, clothes worn on May day made from threads spun on wall purgis night would bring luck in the next day's shooting competitions. To those he holds in high regards, the devil turns his ammunition to free kugelen, which are bullets that always hit their mark. Now George was a good straight boy to begin with, but there was bad blood in him. Someway he got into the magic bullets and that leads straight to devil's work, just like marijuana leads to heroin. You think you can take them bullets or leave them, do ya? Just save a few for your bad days?  The more of the magics you use, the more bad days you have without them. So it comes down finally to all your days being bad without the bullets. It's magics or nothing.  Heavy is lead. And that's where old George found himself. Out there at the crossroads, molding the devil's bullets. Now a man figures it's his bullets, so it'll hit what he wants to hit. But it don't always work that way. You see, some bullets is special for a single aim, a certain stag or a certain person, and no matter where you are, that's where the bullet will end up. And at the moment of aiming, the gun turns into a douser's wand and points where the bullet wants to go.  But something kept pulling him on, and now he's picking up the skulls and making the circle. I guess old George didn't rightly know what he was getting himself into. The fit was on him, and it carried him right to the crossroads. Crossroads from the Black Rider, written by Tom Waits and William Burroughs. What does this all mean? In days of old, winter was a damned hard season to survive. A good crop or the goodwill of your neighbors was essential. If you had neither, less work in the fields and pastures during the snows left you working to stay alive. It's no wonder people went a bit bonkers come the arrival of spring. While Purgeous Night was the kissing away of all of that in preparation for the celebrations of Beltane, it was the last gasp of darkness over the land before the light started shining a bit more bright. Both while Purgeous Night and Beltane contained an element of raw, unbridled sexuality. It was the ideal time to mate, after all. A woman who found herself with child conceived during this time would only be five months along at the beginning of October, when the crops were brought in, which meant you didn't have to struggle through a summer's worth of work laden with child. Fertility celebrations are often thought of as a time for licentiousness of all sorts. Excessive drink goes along well with unbridled sexuality and so, even if the sexual overtones are downplayed, while Purgeous Night is still celebrated in many places as a time for drinking. Goddesses revered for their abilities to aid in fertility were celebrated at this time. The fertility of the crops were magically transferred to people or perhaps it was the other way around. The arts of the cunning women or wise women of the forest were especially potent during this time. Their magic often revolved around love, sexuality and fertility and this is the ideal time for it as seeds begin to sprout, animals started to mate, and the world around them passed from the darkness of winter into the light of spring. One of the drawbacks of having an illiterate populace is that people tend to learn by oral tradition. Storytellers in other words, as anyone who has studied the history of oral tradition or even had a grandfather who was fond of tall tales can attest that while poetic in a sense, oral tradition begets a range of themes. We see the importance of an event in different ways, based on our own loves, fears and prejudices, and so depending on who tells the story, we can get the same story told in a variety of ways, which should parts a variety of meanings. As the old gods faded into the background, the collective memory of the people called out by nature for substitutes. The church provided these in the forms of saints and their holy days, and so on a day once celebrated in the name of a goddess, we find the same attributes of that deity transferred onto a Catholic saint, mainly because their holy day shared the same date. We find that Saint Walburga takes on the mantle of an ancient deity, be it Nehalenia, Nerthus, Holda, Birchta, and over time becomes along with Walperge's night the celebration of the witch. The woman behind the saint is forgotten, except for a handful of anecdotes and historical records lost to time. When the pagan goddesses were shoved back even farther and to disrepute, those who still worshiped the old ways had to go further afield to celebrate. And Walperge, an English woman who went to Germany to do God's work, takes on the memory of Holga, a Germanic goddess, and is branded as a witch. Up next, I'll share a short story from PJ Hodge called The Black Bargain. It's a dark tale specifically written for Walperge's night, when Weird Darkness returns. Please drop me an email with the subject line Hope and tell me about it. Feel free to remain anonymous if you wish. I want to know if the Hope in the Darkness page is making a positive impact on you or someone you know. Just drop me an email at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N and please put the word Hope as your subject line so I'll recognize it when it comes in. Thanks. There was something evil about the house. To the young man in the gray suit standing at the end of the circular drive, it towered gaunt and unfriendly against the darkening sky. He fingered the crumpled letter in his pocket and slowly made his way up the gravel path through the tangled mockery of a garden. Wonder if the old girl was having me on? He almost spoke the words aloud. No lights, no curtains at the gaping windows. Why, the whole place seemed derelict. Yet this was the address and that name of hers had sounded kind of familiar, but where had he heard it before? The thoughts darted uneasily through his mind as he moved along the drive. Must have known me, though, but who doesn't? The newspaper saw to that, all right. Strange how the dusk made such weird shapes of the overgrown hedges and bushes. Not that he was the nervous type. She probably lives around the back. What was it she said in the letter? Come to the house? Last day in April? Perhaps we can be of mutual assistance to each other? Why should she want to help him? And why the end of April? Still, what did he have to lose? She replaced the telephone receiver and sat back in the wing chair, listening. It was quiet in the front room and dark, but that helped her to hear better. Yes, he was coming. Mr. Freddy Jacks, last address, Wandsworth Prison. She smiled to herself as she thought how simple it had been to trace him. The newspaper reports of his favorite haunts, the pictures of him, she would have known him anywhere. The same thinning hair, the neat mustache that hid the full pink mouth, the pale, lashless eyes and pointed chin. The resemblance was remarkable and so fortunate. It dispelled any little qualms she might have had. The bell jangled through the silence. Let him wait. Leisurely she rose and lit the gas brackets above the mantelpiece. Then she crossed to the desk and made sure that the envelope was in the drawer, also the box of sleeping pills. Satisfied, she absentmindedly fondled the ring on her finger. Seemed ashamed to waste it on him, but it wasn't for long. It wouldn't do if he went away. Ms. Carla Friends. He found it hard to distinguish the small figure on the dim doorway. Good evening, Mr. Jacks. I've called about your letter. Awkwardly he fished in his pocket and produced the scrap of paper. Yes, won't you come in? She led the way into the cluttered, oppressive living room. You live here alone? He glanced around at the strange muddle of furniture. It looked as though she ate, slept and cooked in the same room. I have done so for many years.  I didn't see any lights as I came along. I like to light up as late as I can. It saves fuel, but you can't be interested in an old spinster's economies. Her face wrinkled into a grin and he thought with a start how unreal everything was. Even this old crone with her thick raven hair and garish makeup gave him the willies. How did you hear about me? He spoke truckinately to disguise the queasy feeling at the pit of his stomach. Why hadn't he gone round to see Harry instead of following up this old shrew's crazy letter?  Take a pic. It's old history. He shifted uncomfortably under her bright gaze. How long did they give you? Was it six or ten years for fraud and the intimidation charges? Why ask me? You seem to know all the answers. It's just that I want to be sure of my facts. Now I'm certain in your present circumstances that a little financial aid wouldn't come amiss, would it? She watched the greed and then fear flickering his eyes. Why pick on me? There are plenty of kids songs for your charity. But it wouldn't be charity. Oh no. You see, a long time ago, your father and I were known to each other. He may even have told you about me and my family. He used to call me Sinti. So you were in old flame and my father's? Relief flooded through him at the normality of the thing. Not that he could remember anything about the old hag.  It would give him quite a shock if he'd lived to have seen this moth-eatin hag. Well, he was quite a lad, wasn't he? Under the well in her desk, her hands became claws, nipping at her own flesh, but she forced herself to meet his knowing leer. That's why I thought we might assist each other. Would you be interested? If so, I have a little proposition to make. Let's hear it first. I'll decide later. The expressionless voice ended. Jack stared at her in horror. What do you mean? Why not? What would it mean to a man of your caliber? No violence, just a gentle sleep induced by my sleeping pills, with a neat application by you of a soft cushion firmly applied. His mouth felt quite stiff and dry. And what's my share of the kitty? A heap of wool and old newspaper? He tried to force a laugh. What a situation to tell, Harry. Barmy wasn't the word for it. She oughtn't to be allowed out. Not if you're careful. She opened the desk drawer and laid the bulky envelope and key in front of him. Shall we say, the five hundred pounds for services anticipated, and for services rendered the key to my coal-seller where you'll find the total sum of my worldly goods? He was beginning to be convinced. How much is in the cellar? It's hard to say, but ample reward for your task. Give me some idea. Moistened his lips. Five thousand? Perhaps a little more? What do you say? Show me the contents of that. She pushed the envelope across to him and watched him thumb the notes. Five hundred, all right. All right, it's a deal. Spencer found suffocated in empty house. My person or person's unknown. Nobody saw me come here. Nobody would connect me with you. Just one thing puzzles me. What makes you want to quit this happy world? I'd like to know for the record. There are a number of reasons, but to satisfy your curiosity, I'll quote loneliness as an adequate motive, but you couldn't possibly understand. Then why not do it yourself? Why bring me into it? And risk by chance of... She fell silent for a moment and a pained look came to her eyes. Maybe I'm old-fashioned. I'd rather lead that to you. Kind of quibbling, aren't you? Well, when do you want it? A matter of fact, the words sounded. This was all so deliberate. No chance of saying it happened so quickly. None of the excitement to blunt the edges of the crime. I'm ready when you are. I shall take a normal quantity of sleeping pills just to allay suspicion. They work very quickly, and I shall be quite unaware of what you're doing. She laid the box of tablets on the desk, conely. But first, you'll burn my letter, and then perhaps you'll fetch me a glass of water from the kitchen. She listened as his retreating footsteps sounded more and more faintly, and at last died away altogether. Then she thumbed the ring, and with it came the wind. It was powerful and mercilessly cold, forcing open the pale wooden shutters. The claws were the first to go. Then the rest of her. To assure himself that he was not in the least nervous, he began to whistle, filling the glass with speed. As he returned to the living room to his surprise, he found the door wide open. I'm sure I closed it, he said to himself as he stood outside the room. Yes, I'm certain I did. He listened before entering. It was not the faintest sound from within. Stepping into the room, he became aware of a dramatic change in temperature. All at once his heart began to beat violently. Then it almost seemed to stand still, for the old lady was missing. The room empty, and now an unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps was coming from the cellar below. A few moments more, and they began to ascend the stairs. The lights flickered before the house plunged into darkness. He stood, almost paralyzed, while the footsteps came steadily on until they reached the top of the staircase. He could hear choked, uneven breathing, like that of some animal. He tried to call out, but his voice would not come. Meanwhile, the thing, whatever it was, was evidently coming in his direction. He moved noiselessly backwards, intending to slip into one of the empty rooms, but to his horror, he found no matter how hard he tried, he always found himself back in the same room, the very room he wished to avoid. For the next minute, the nameless horror had followed him, and he heard the door shut, and the key sharply turned. He heard this with a mingled sense of terror and relief. At least his unseen companion was human, surely. He hardly knew what he feared. He guided himself stealthily and silently past a small table, which seemed to occupy the center of the room, against which he had brushed when entering and squeezed himself into the furthest corner. Then he heard the thing fling itself down on the floor, where it seemed to lay for some time quite still. At last, the throbbing silence was broken by a low, nickering laugh.  He hardly dared to breathe. All at once, the things began to cry and wail, shaking the house. Presently, it began to speak again in a low, unnaturally quiet monotone, every now and then broken by a horrible laugh. Jack's crouched in his corner, disturbed by the hard leaps of his own heart, and again the loathsome voice broke into whispered words and cackles. Suddenly, it stopped and seemed to listen. Jack's listened too. In spite of himself, Jack's uttered a low, half-articulate cry. The thing made a swift movement towards him. I shall play the hurting game this time, it hissed. Jack's could hear it feeling around the walls with eager, cruel fingers, could hear its panting breaths. Noiselessly, he crept backwards as it came nearer, his arms held tightly against his sides so that his clothes might not rustle. A loud crash of glass breaking came from one of the empty rooms, then the sound of voices and footsteps. All at once, the creature uttered a terrible scream. No! Merciful Heaven! It's on me! It chokes me! It chokes me! God help! There was a sudden wild rush across the room, a rasping sound as the window was flung open, a heavy sickening thud in the court below. And silence. And after what seemed half a century, at least, someone forced open the door, lights blazed through the darkness, and the confused sound of men's voices were heard. Is this where he fell? asked the officer. Yes, I guess so, he answered briefly. For the sight in the courtyard had not been a pleasant one. And, as one of the officers had noted, his features were that of a man terrified, and his hair matted, coated with what appeared to be a great amount of cuckoo spit, still foaming and popping. It was lucky they had followed up that stray phone call half an hour previously. On Harry Jacks, they found the money. It was one of those watertight cases. But they never discovered the old lady's black box. She'd hidden it too well. If they had, they would have found that her treasure consisted of three yellowing newspaper cuttings whose headlines read, Gypsy Family Claim Harassment, Mayor Jack's Forces Eviction, Gypsy Mother's Suicide. No wonder Franz lay smiling to herself on the sofa. Her black wig had tumbled to the floor, and her old, gnarled head drooped against the cushions. But what did that matter? She had waited a long time to perfect her craft. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. And please leave a rating and a review of the show and the podcast app you listen from. You can also email me anytime with your questions or comments through the website at WeirdDarkness.com. That's also where you can find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for the email newsletter to win monthly prizes, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or somebody you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Plus, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story or call the dark line toll-free at 1-877-277-5944. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Happy All Purchased Docked, everyone, was written by Todd at gothichorrorstories.com. And the fictional tale The Black Bargain is by PJ Hodge, posted at freakyfolktales.com. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright, Weird Darkness, 2022. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Isaiah 8, verse 19, When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? And a final thought, it's okay to dislike someone, or even dislike someone for no reason whatsoever, but it's not okay to disrespect, degrade, and humiliate that person, no matter what the reason. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.


The Christian Association of Nigeria can and the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna State want Nigerians to extend hands of love to the poor and the vulnerable people in society, as well as victims of recent attacks in the state. The duo stated this in their Christmas messages as a reflect on the significance of the festive season. They lamented the incessant killings and attacks on innocent citizens, noting that several families have been displaced by bandits. Our pens shouldn't stop from extending love to somebody. And I'm calling on those who care that our brothers and sisters in Kagoro, our brothers and sisters in places where attacks have happened in Sanga and other places in Kaduna, the best we can do to celebrate this season is to extend a hand of love. They should be with their families and celebrate. Also speaking on the forthcoming general elections, the clerics challenged Nigerians to brace for their civic responsibility at the polls. Governments at all levels to create the enabling environment for citizens to exercise their civil rights and duties for the realization of the governance, which is the rightful aspiration of every nation. Similarly, I appeal to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to do all within its powers to ensure that the forthcoming general elections are conducted in a free and fair atmosphere that enables all illegible citizens to exercise their franchise. My message to Nigerians is that we should be hopeful at this part of the challenges and especially this is the Christmas we will celebrate and in few weeks after Christmas, probably in seven weeks, we will be going to the put for election. Let's be hopeful, let's be hopeful, let's be hopeful. Let's know that God is about to do something in Nigeria. See, I'm not scared at all, despite all we are seeing happening, you know, the enemy will want to discourage us from being hopeful, but let's be hopeful. Christmas brings about hope and this spirit of hope surely kindling in our minds to know that God will visit this country not in a distant time from now and will transform them, but people must be ready to play their own role and what's their own role when it is time for us to go out and vote, come out, cast your vote and let the will of people prepare.


Hi, I am Nathaniel Rumpeljantz, your local boss man, and today I am here to give you an episode that many of you might dislike me about by the end of it. This is my top three reasons that I am frustrated with Nintendo at the beginning of 2015. The last episode, which happened a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to be raging with eternal fire. At my frustrations with Nintendo, I've kind of reached a boiling point, a tipping point as it were, and I've had a couple weeks to sit on it now and kind of let it calm down. And obviously Majora's Mask 3D came out in that time, and I've been super excited about it. I mean, come on, like one of these bad boys. I'm still frustrated with Nintendo, no matter how much stuff they throw at me that I want, it doesn't make me any less upset with them at the beginning of 2015. So for a rare occasion here, I am actually going to be kind of mean to Nintendo and tell you the three things about them right now that frustrate me so much. Reason number one, the new Nintendo 3DS XL. This thing, right here, this thing, these, frustrated by Nintendo. The new Nintendo 3DS XL is something I actually like. As a consumer, it gives me everything that I want out of the 3DS systems. My biggest complaints about the original 3DS and the 3DS XL and the 2DS is how sluggish the operating system felt to me. It was extremely slow, just switching from a simple app to another app, switching back from a game to the internet browser, or even using things like Nevers. It felt like none of, it felt like the console was literally just built to play games, and all this extra stuff you can do in the operating system just wasn't functionally working as well as it could. And most of this has to do with the speed in which it loaded, some of the crashing errors, and the new Nintendo 3DS fixes all of that. The new Nintendo 3DS also offers like an extra C-Stake and all this stuff. You guys know about the new Nintendo 3DS XL by now, right? Why am I frustrated with Nintendo about this? Well, for starters, Nintendo of America, you could just... Why? Because you only gave us the 3DS, the new Nintendo 3DS XL. Why can't we get the one with faceplates? And this is what frustrates me about it even more, is faceplates just like amiibo were a great way. See this, this is an amiibo. An amiibo. Us in America make up 68% of the sales of amiibo worldwide. So if we make up so many of the sales of this, how many of the sales do you think we would make up I can have this bad boy a little bit smaller or have faceplates. In fact, remember the old controversy over not being able to get this and being sold out at retailers? You could have this exact same faceplate a little bit smaller for the regular new Nintendo 3DS and it would sell like gangbusters in the United States. So it's a missed sales opportunity. And what was Nintendo's excuse for all of this, or I'm sorry, Nintendo of America's excuse for all of this, they felt that it would confuse the marketplace. If the marketplace is confused, it's kind of your own fault. Let me explain this. You had the 2DS, which came out after the 3DS and after the 3DS XL. For some reason you call it the 2DS because it doesn't have 3D. I get it. That was the point. And it doesn't clamp down. It's not a clamshell design because it's made so kids can beat it up and not break it. I get it. Fine. I get why it exists. But if you think adding in the new Nintendo 3DS XL is any less confusing compared to the 3DS XL, which you still sell, then I don't get why it would matter if you put the new Nintendo 3DS, the normal edition out there. In fact, you could argue that since the new Nintendo 3DS XL costs what the 3DS XL used to cost or still costs today depending on where you go, you could argue that you could bring in the new Nintendo 3DS and you could slowly phase out the original 3DS and the 3DS XL because the new systems could cost exactly what the old systems cost. So you could bring in these new systems, stop making the old systems, and then so everyone who buys a new 3DS in the future is going to have the new Nintendo 3DS or the new Nintendo 3DS XL. And where's the confusion? It's gone because the 3DS and the 3DS XL, the original editions would no longer be available to purchase as brand new systems. You could only buy the used. So where's the confusion in that to consumers? That's what I don't get. If the new Nintendo 3DS XL isn't considered confusing in that of itself, despite the fact you're still selling the original 3DS XL, then the new Nintendo 3DS is no more confusing than what you're already trying to pander to us out here. This is just as confusing as the normal Nintendo 3DS would be. So you could have easily introduced both and phased out the old hardware. On top of that, the new Nintendo 3DS XL had issues with pre-orders, which I understand aren't 100% Nintendo's fault. There was a strike on the west coast in the United States at the harbors that chopped about 70% of the workforce off. So Nintendo had, admitted by Iowa, and Nintendo had a whole bunch of new Nintendo 3DS XL systems sitting on a boat in a crate. I get it. That's not Nintendo's fault. There was a labor issue in the United States that Nintendo doesn't control those specific laborers. So I get it. But it is Nintendo's fault that we don't have the new Nintendo 3DS, that we don't have faceplates, which Americans have proven we will buy the crap out of that kind of stuff. Just look at the sales of Miibo. Look at how fast this guy sold out. I mean, look how fast these sold out. We will buy that stuff because it's cool. It's interesting. I am very positively sure that those themes that you combine with your 3DS are selling extremely well in the United States. So why? Why don't you give us what we want? And now for the bigger, broader spectrum with the new Nintendo 3DS and my issues and my frustrations with Nintendo and how it expands beyond Nintendo of America is region locking. None of this would be an issue or it wouldn't be as big of an issue if region locking didn't exist because I, as a consumer that wanted the smaller version with the faceplates, could have imported a new Nintendo 3DS and used it locally just like I planned to import faceplates that are exclusive to Japan or exclusive to Europe. I could import those. As a consumer, it would still be an option for me. But because the region locking exists, I don't read Japanese and I'm not going to pay for games in Europe and then have games that are locked to Europe and games that are locked to this in the United States and be okay with that as a consumer. Region locking was something that Iowa has addressed on a couple occasions, saying that they were looking into alternatives to kind of get rid of it. And I thought the new Nintendo 3DS was the perfect chance to be, you know what, let's just get rid of it now. It's towards the end of the generation for the 3DS. The old 3DS hardware can be region locked. This stuff cannot be region locked and we'll just deal with the consequences from there. And I think you would have saw more sales, more game sales. And I understand, you know, there's a fear of pirating and all this stuff. That's fine. That's dandy. But you know what? We are in 2015. The PlayStation 4 isn't region locked. The Xbox One is not region locked. The PlayStation Vita isn't region locked. You are the only gaming company making hardware that is still region locked. So frustrated. Frustrated and upset with you about that. That was point one. Reason number two. YouTube policies. Okay, you have launched a beta for your Nintendo's creator program. Now, there's two sides of the coin on this argument. One, you could say you were starting to copyright videos on YouTube and taking all of the revenue. You've copyrighted some of our videos on our YouTube channel and are taking all of the revenue from it. And that's fine for us because we don't actually put ads intentionally on our videos. So if you ever see ads on our videos, that's because Nintendo or another third party person put those ads on our video through copyright claims. And that's fine. For someone like us just being able to get a kickback out of ads that we didn't want on our videos to begin with, it's fine. That works for us. But there's a lot of Nintendo content creators out there that do this stuff for a living. Imagine the game explains of the world. Or the bit blocks of the world. Or some of the let's players out there. Imagine that they are told by Nintendo that you can now get some money off these videos in which we claimed all of it. You can only get, say, 60%. And you're only going to get that 60% if you cover certain games. Any other Nintendo game you cover, we're not going to give you anything for. Or you want to go back in time and, say, play Castlevania or something. We're going to claim all the revenue and you're not going to get it because it didn't make this imaginary or this completely made up list of games that you're allowed to create content for and make money. You can still create content for any game you want, if you're going to claim the money. It doesn't fit this whitelist. And if you want to claim, try to claim your whole YouTube channel because you want to bump it that extra 10% to get 70% by having every video you submit just automatically go through Nintendo's program and make money off of it. Well, you have to conform to that whitelist. So say you have videos for Super Smash Brothers for the 3DS or Super Smash Brothers for Wii U. You are not going to get that 70% for your channel because you have videos of a game that's not on their whitelist. That's silly. That's silly. It's already silly in that Nintendo even wants a piece of this advertising pie because it's just going to hurt their brand. There are numerous videos out there. I'll put a few links down in the description of content creators that have basically sworn off Nintendo games. They were already pretty much sworn off when Nintendo took all of the money but Nintendo promised this program coming in and then this program turns out it's still keeping, you know, a 30-40% chunk of the money. You know, I think creators would have been fine if it was something like a 10% royalty fee. You know, if we were talking a 90% to the creators and then a 10% royalty fee just because the game they're playing is by Nintendo, that might have been something that I feel would have been a bit acceptable. And remember, all of this comes after YouTube and Google get their cut of the money, which it makes sense because they're the video platform owners.  So they have a right to some of that income. But I mean, that means the content creators have less and then Nintendo wants to take part of that pool and then plus you have the taxes and all these other fees that go on top of the money that comes in. Really, they're just telling YouTubers that hey, don't make Nintendo content. That's not good. I have a lot of recently said that TV advertisements are, and price cuts are not a way to generate good sales anymore. And I disagree to a point but I'll get back to that. The idea here when you combine it with the YouTube is that one of the best free advertisement avenues that Nintendo has is user-generating content. And that's what YouTube is. It's user-generated content. So you can have all these YouTubers advertising your stuff for you if you would just let them. Imagine how much goodwill you could build for, say, a game like Kirby, Canvas Curse if you would allow YouTubers to have 100% of that revenue. Or even 90%. But 100% would be the best way to go. Let's say it's 90%. Imagine if, say, PewDiePie, the most popular name on YouTube with the most followers and everything was more willing to play something like Kirby, Canvas Curse, a game that probably isn't going to get a lot of attention just because now he gets all the revenue from it. And that's free advertising for that game. His followers are going to see that game because he feels compelled to use it so he gets the full revenue from that video. That's what I don't understand. If TV is not what you think is going to give you sales, if cutting prices is not what you think is going to give you sales, then what is? Really the best way to advertise is user-generated content. And this is before I get into my frustration with Iowa to say that TV doesn't matter. You know how many Xbox One and PlayStation 4 commercials I see every day? I see at least a dozen for each. And you know how many Nintendo commercials I see? They're rarely on TV and where's the Wii U commercials? These apparently don't sell consoles and I disagree with them. I'm not saying that it's because the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling better than the Wii U, that that's evidence that... What those TV commercials do is they make your brand known. No, it's not going to make people go out and buy Wii U or make people go out and buy 3DS anymore, but it is going to make your brand more known. Imagine that you were seeing 12 Wii U commercials a day. Do you think people would be confused on what the Wii U is? Heck, people that don't own it would at least be aware that the Wii U exists and that it is the next Wii. Nintendo just says, nope, TV commercials, they don't work. They're important for branding, okay? Just like these YouTube content generators. They help you with sales because they increase the brand of the product. So say at Kirby's Canvas Curse was again played by PewDiePie. PewDiePie has way more followers than copies of the game we're going to sell. So imagine that only a thousand of his followers pick up that copy because of what he did. That's a thousand more customers you weren't going to have.  And I get it, because if you put up the video and that video had say 100 million views and Nintendo gets, you know, 40% of it, that's a big cut, or you could just not do the video at all and Nintendo gets absolutely no benefit. That's what's happening. And obviously the YouTubers that exclusively do Nintendo content are really hurt. Because now, if they do content on Smash Bros, they're not going to get any money out for it. If they do content for any game not on the white list, they're not going to get any money. And for the games on the white list that they do content for, they're only going to get so much. And on top of that, these videos have to be approved by Nintendo. They're not just automatic. Like, oh, I did a video about Twilight Princess. And so now we did a Let's Play for Twilight Princess. And so our Let's Play for Twilight Princess has automatically given us money. No, Nintendo has to also approve of the video. Which means they have to approve of the content in the video. So if they don't like how you are framing the game or your language, they could say, nope, not taken it. Now, we don't have any evidence that they are doing that. That a video has been rejected because it talks negatively about a game. But that's just a natural assumption. Because if Nintendo is going through the work to control or review what these videos are saying message-wise, you figure that they're doing that because they want a certain message to be conveyed. And that means suddenly that your content and your messaging could be partially controlled. So now if you review a game in a video, Nintendo can influence you to be positive about it. And that's... that don't fly, man. That don't fly in my book. We don't know that Nintendo is throwing out videos that are negative, but why else do you have to review how the content's presented? Makes no sense to me! And my last reason, and this is a more personal reason, and it's not going to affect many of you guys, and you might think of me as a spoiled brat for this reason, I'm really, really, really upset at Nintendo's handling of review copies so far in 2015. We had no problem getting a review copy of Hyder Warriors. We had absolutely no problem getting a review copy of Smash Bros. 3DS. Nor did we have a problem getting a review copy of Super Smash Bros. 4 Wii U. Those were the three games last year that Zelda Informer wanted review copies of because there were Zelda characters involved in those games. And this year, obviously Majora's Mask 3D came and we wanted a review copy. We wanted the review copy before the review embargo came up because we wanted to be able to give you our unique perspective as veteran Zelda gamers on what we think of the changes in the game, what we think of the game in general, and be able to help inform our fans that, hey, you know, is this so worthy if you have the original 3D... if you have Majora's Mask already from the N64, if you have it in your Wii console, or if you ported it from your Wii console to your Wii U, is this worth picking up if you basically already have the game? And we wanted to tell you. We wanted to inform you on that and we couldn't. We could not do what we feel is a service to our fans. Service for you guys because Nintendo did not give enough review copies to their review firm, Golan Harris. Yeah, we're one of the largest Zelda sites in the world and I don't want to feel entitled that, to get everything we asked Nintendo for because we are Zelda informer. What frustrated me is that Golan Harris was out of the loop. They were told that they were going to get a bunch of review copies for the game and then they got a fraction of those review copies. And then Nintendo on top of that was sending out their own copies. You guys saw some of the YouTube videos and stuff that popped up. There were YouTubers that were getting this bad boy and this game and even this guy. They were getting them in the mail without even asking for them. And they weren't reviewing them or anything. It was a way, I think it was Iowa's way of advertising. We'll just give free stuff to YouTubers who will then put it up because hey, we got free stuff. And that's great. That's good for those YouTubers. That doesn't make people want to buy the game. There were YouTubers that got the stuff that actively said they do not like Zelda games and they do not play the games that Nintendo was sending them. What kind of free advertising is it if the people that are getting the stuff don't actively promote it. They just say, hey look, I'm posting a video because we got some free stuff. And the thing is I'm generally passionate about that kind of stuff. And I think we at Zelda Informer are generally passionate about that stuff. So the fact that we didn't get a review copy so we could actually help influence potential sales for Nintendo based on what we were saying. Obviously we could influence them for the negative but even if we said negative stuff we could have provided video content and streaming and asked questions and we could have done so much content for you guys. Instead we got our review copy the week the game came out and we got it not in time to do anything. To do a review to get our walkthrough ready which we feel is a vital part of our website. And now here I am two, three weeks removed from the game coming up and I'm still working on our walkthrough because hey, they decided we were not important enough to get the game or Nintendo decided we were not important enough to get the game. So I wrote a letter kind of a nasty letter to Golan Harris because at the time I was only aware of what Golan Harris had done. Golan Harris had basically promised us a review copy so we would get it on time get it on time, reviews came out I sent a couple more emails to them never got a response and then I sent a rather nasty letter about how we were one of the founders of the movement to get the game done even though that movement might not have had anything to do with it I was just kind of trying to throw some extra weight behind the email and I said we're one of the largest outlets for Zelda I think the last thing Nintendo wants to do is upset one of their major Zelda outlets I was like I don't want to say something negative about Nintendo like I'm doing right now So I kind of felt insulted and slapped in the face that we could not get a review copy of a remake when we got a review copy of Herb Warriors Smash Bros and the other Smash Bros game in plenty of time to do content and whatever else we wanted to do for it as it turns out my Golan Harris emails and becks us hey hope you know I have shipped her email off to Nintendo themselves which is great that means Nintendo's internal PR people are going to see it and magically as soon as that happened a few days later we got a review copy obviously like I said it wasn't in time it was literally just before the game came out but we did get a review copy after Nintendo read a rather nasty email from us and that makes me upset I basically had to squeeze Nintendo by the balls to get a digital code just so people know most review copies we get don't come in the form of this we don't get we usually don't get hardware we've requested hardware like when the Wii U was launched and 3DS was launched we requested the hardware but we've never gotten hardware so I did request hardware I didn't think we were going to get it so I didn't expect that but I also requested the game they used to send you physical copies of the game but since the Wii U came out it's all been digital for us so what that means is they send you an email with a download code and Nintendo could have just sent us a code a little download code to get the game in time and that takes them no time at all to generate codes to download something and for some reason they not only couldn't send golden hairs enough of those we had to twist their balls to get one that's right I had to twist Nintendo's ballsack to get a review copy code I mean come on Nintendo come on I mean YouTube the new Nintendo 3DS XL bullshit review copies Jesus next thing you're going to tell me oh guess what you guys aren't important enough to get the Wii U a week before the Zelda U comes out just because we're not going to let you know if we have a new console coming anytime soon we're just going to be see this? see this Nintendo? this is what you're going to do to me okay I'm actually not going to snap his head but that's Nintendo stop doing this to us stop doing this to me alright that's it for this week's episode join me next week I am unsure what the topic is going to be at this time I'm fumbling around with a few ideas I really know what you thought of this week's episode if you have any frustrations you want to get out of the way for Nintendo to start off 2015 and hopefully the year ends on a lot more positive note good job Nintendo see you at E3


Welcome to MOOC course on Introduction to Proteogenomics. While it is not very difficult to generate big data sets currently using mass spectrometry or NGS platforms, but data storage, data processing, data analysis is not very easy. And in this light, cloud computing has provided some hope in which fair big data can be handled. In this light, the last lecture, Dr. Mani has given you introduction about fire cloud. From the last lecture, it was clear that fire cloud allows users to set up the data analysis using customized workflows across multiple hardware platforms. It also allows the users to use several paths for running the pipeline, which includes the direct invocation using command line or through any other pipeline service. Today, Dr. Mani is going to give you a demonstrations for using fire cloud and in which way you can analyze your data, even if it is very big data set using this platform. So, let us welcome Dr. Mani for today's demonstration session. So, if you type firecloud.org, it will go to the home page site which kind of shows the same picture that I have showed you four times, but it will also have these other. So, if you want to start using fire cloud, you click on use fire cloud, but I want to point out the other things that are on the page. So, there is a user guide. So, if you click on that, it will give you a lot of information on how to use fire cloud. There is also a user guide for WIDL, which you can access separately. And so, a lot of documentation has been reasonably well written for this. There is a blog that announces new updates or when the system is not working or there are maintenance and things like that, the blog has like updates that you can follow. But the cool thing is the forum. So, the people who actually created fire cloud and who are working on all the algorithms respond to questions if you have any. So, you go to the forum, I think to use the forum you have to log in. So, you have to create a user ID and log in. But once you log in, you can see what others have asked and what responses you have. And like David was saying yesterday, a lot of the questions that you encounter when you start using it, somebody has already encountered and then there will be an answer that you can quickly look up. But if there isn't and your question is unique to your problem and you are you are encountering some bug that you need to have them fix, then you can post on the forum and then somebody will respond usually within a few hours. Well, maybe here it might be half a day because when you post now they are all sleeping. So, when you click on use fire cloud, it goes into the it goes to the fire cloud main page, the portal page. If you type portal.firecloud.org, you would end up at this page directly. And so, you can see you have to log in to use it. You can use your Google ID to log in, I think mine is already set up. So, it just went in. And I think you have to use only a Google ID to log in. I don't think you can use anything else. So, the main page looks like this. And if you read the top red bar that comes up as a warning for me, it's saying my NIH controlled access data permission has expired. So, controlled access data has the identifiable data with genomic snips that I just mentioned previously. In order to access that data you need special permission from the NIH. So, you have to say why do I want access to it and what project am I going to use that data for.  So, when I click on this relink, it will take me to a login page where if I log in correctly, it knows I am authorized and then it will enable me to access those data. But after a month, the authorization will expire and you have to reauthorize yourself in FireCloud. The NIH authorization is usually valid for a year. So, this is the kind of security I was talking about. If you downloaded the data to your institute, then your institute is responsible for making sure that people who access the data are authorized to access it. But here, FireCloud implements a uniform process for everybody and you do not have to worry about it now. And then you can see three main tabs here. One says, so, one says workspaces, the other says data library and the third one says method repository. So, a workspace is where you are doing your analysis. So, it has a set of methods, it has your data and it has your configuration for the methods, whatever inputs you want to give for your methods. The data library has publicly available data. So, the CPTAC data is available, the genomics TCGA data is available. All those data are available in the data library and you can use it for your analysis or you can just look at it or you can download it. But if you have to download it, I think you need an account because it costs money. And then finally, there is the method repository which has methods that everybody has written. So, some methods are public, then you can see those. Some methods are shared. So, the method author will say, okay, you can look at it and they will give you permission and you can look at it. And some methods are private, only the authors can see. And whoever writes a method can control what the access privileges are for that method. So, if it is a method you are still testing and you are not sure it works very well, you would most likely keep it private. But then once it has been tested and you are using it in a project in your group, then people in your group might be might have access to that method. And ultimately when your paper is released, you will make it public. So, you can change the access anytime and you can control who has access to methods you have written. So, I will pick a workspace and we can take a look at it. So, let me see. So, you see there is this workspace that is called CPTAC, PGDAC production pipeline. So, that is our collection of pipelines for the proteogenomic data analysis, all the CPTAC projects for which we do proteogenomics. And you can see that it says restricted. That is because only people at the broad currently have access to it. So, if you click on that, this is the summary page. So, that says summary. This is the summary page for that workspace. So, you can see the workspace has data, it has analysis, it has notebooks, it has method configurations. And when a process is running, you can monitor what is happening to it. And here on the left side, it says that the last process run has completed successfully which is green. If it did not complete successfully, you will have a red triangle and the whole thing will be red. You can share the workspace with others, you can edit it, you can make a copy of it and experiment with it if you want or you can just delete it. Or let us say you have published your paper and you do not want any changes made to this workspace, you can lock it. So, if you lock it, nothing can be changed in the workspace, but people can copy it and do stuff with it. And then it says who has access, who owns it, who are authorized users. So, this is all basically access related stuff. And then here it is showing me how much it costs to run it. So, you can see, I think this one has no data in it. So, there is no monthly cost. If you had data files stored, then they will be charging you some fee for storing the data on a continual basis. And then, so this is the billing detail. If you click on this, it will show you how much how much you have used in the last whatever time frame for storage compute, you can get a lot of details there. But the thing I wanted to point out is the Google bucket. So, every workspace has a Google bucket associated with it and this is the address of the Google bucket associated with this workspace. So, if I click on it, actually fine, let me click on it. So, accessing a bucket is again based on permissions, you have to have the permissions to access the bucket. So, this is your bucket. So, basically it is saying there are no objects in this bucket. So, because this is a workspace, we set up to just store methods, so that when we need to do a real analysis, we copy the methods from here into a new workspace, put the data in the new workspace and do it. Because every time you get different data or slightly modified data.  You made some changes, you have new version of breast cancer data. You want to apply it to ovarian cancer, you have ovarian cancer data. So, usually the data changes and with that the settings used to run the methods also change. And so, we keep the methods in this workspace and then copy it to a new workspace to apply it. So, before going to our actual analysis workspace, I want to point out the methods that we have. So, here are the methods. So, each line here is one pipeline. So, you can see there is a main pipeline. So, this is the basic pipeline that runs a lot of proteogenomic analysis. And these are all the inputs to that, many of them are optional and do not have to specify anything, but some of them you have to specify as input. So, like the input data set for example, without that you can run an analysis. So, things like that you have to specify. And here the snapshot is the version of that method. If you made a modification and you uploaded the method again, the snapshot will change to 6. So, it will keep track of all the changes you have made and you can revert back to old methods if you want to. So, let us say you have made some change and then you realize that was that actually introduced a bug and you do not want to use that snapshot, you can go back to an older one. And when you click on the there is this thing called middle and if you click on expand it will show you the actual workflow for that pipeline. So, you can see there is a task called PG DAC association, it has some inputs and outputs, then there is another task called CNA correlation report, CNA copy number analysis, consensus clustering, this is for like harmonizing data, normalizing mass spec data, then a report for that. So, basically all the tasks that you would need in order to start with preprocess genomics data and preprocess proteomics data and then do like a proteogenomic analysis replicating a lot of things that was reported in the breast cancer nature paper or included in this pipeline. So, I will actually show you and then so, these are all the task descriptions and at the end of it is the workflow. So, you can see it says workflow main pipeline, those are all the inputs, some of them are optional, but others are required. And then here you say you start by parsing the spectrum table, the output of that goes into normalization, the output of that goes into report creation and so on. So, you just go in sequence in for how the workflow goes, if there is no dependence you can execute them in parallel ok. So, and the method repository has all the methods that we have generated available. So, these are all the pipelines and workflows. So, there is outlier analysis from David Fenyo and Kelly Ruggles lab that is available here. This is the main pipeline, this is the connectivity map analysis that was also reported in the paper and there are many others. So, I think Carstens PTM GSEA is also somewhere here maybe on the next page yeah SSGSEA. So, all the methods are here and you can use any of them in you can. So, this is the method repository, when you create your workspace you can import any methods you want and then put your data there and apply the methods to that data. So, let us look at one workspace where we have actually done an analysis. So, I will do the so, this is the new breast cancer data which is we call the prospective dataset and you see I have version 2, version 1 was had some differences and now we updated it. So, now here if I go to so, you can also see that I ran 20 ran this many 20 pipelines in this workspace two of them aborted due to problems 18 of them were done were finished.  So, this is like a long set of hexadecimal characters so, that you do not have like the same file for directory name or folder name. So, it creates a unique name every time with some long set of, but you do not have to keep track of it. It will automatically know which folder was used for which task and then copy the right output to where it needs to go. So, but it will write all the outputs to the bucket that you have for the for the workspace. But the important thing to notice this thing called input here. So, that is where all the input data is. So, if I click on that it will show what input data I have. So, I have RNAseq data, I have acetylome, phosphoproteome, proteome, I have some groups that I want to look at for a look for enrichment when I do my clustering. This is for the connectivity map analysis, this is the copy number data and then if you want to change some of the configurations of the pipeline there is a configuration file you can use. The experiment design file is the most important one which associates samples with various annotations for the samples and also says which TMT run had a specific sample in which channel. And so, this is basically all the data that you would need as input is here. And in your workspace you would in the method configurations because this is one that we are using for actual analysis the methods will be configured. So, if you look at the proteome analysis pipeline you can see the optional things are not filled in but if you look at. So, look at this analysis directory. So, this actually points to data in the metadata table. So, when it says this dot whatever I think it is getting cut off because the resolution is too low, but you can see that many of these are filled in with values. And so, some of them are actual numbers or strings like this one for example, is a string, but many of them start with this. So, those are obtained from a metadata table that kind of says for the proteome what are my input data sets and what are my input files that I need to use. For the phospho proteome the table will specify what input files I need to use. So, for each of these you will have like a specification of inputs and when you run the method it will ask you ok which participant should I use the proteome, phospho proteome which one and when you pick proteome it will get the right inputs it will do the proteome analysis and the output will be also in one of these files. So, I think so, there is a output table that is written out somewhere here or you can look at go to monitor it will show you all the analyses that have been run. So, this one for example, was the proteome analysis that we did if we look at it it will tell you what all happened in the proteome analysis. So, this was the proteome analysis it will tell you what the inputs are. So, all the files and parameters that were used as input it will tell you what the outputs are. So, there is one output file which is like a zip file that has all the outputs from the various tasks that were run, but there are also reports that you have that will show you in on a web page many times in an interactive web page on some of the results that were obtained. And then these are all the tasks that were run is it is in it is not in the order they were run, but these were all the tasks that were run and you can also see the timing. So, it will show you which tasks were run when. So, you started off by doing the parsing the spectrum table normalizing and then doing the normalization report RNA protein correlation and so forth and you can see how long each one takes. The association analysis takes the longest and after that you do consensus clustering and then you are done.  And the data library basically has various data sets I will not go into that now. So, you can you can see that there is a lot of data that you can use from there. I think that is kind of all I wanted to show. In today's demonstration session you are given the concepts that in which way fire cloud could use three main tabs the work spaces data library and method repository. The work spaces let the user create their own pipeline the data library contains publicly available data that can be also used by the user the method repository it contains the methods used by different users. These methods are also available for any user using cloud computing platforms. Once you have submitted your job the user can now visualize the various steps involved including the input files and the output files. I hope it at least gives you the glimpse of in which way the big data can be handled using cloud computing platforms. Some of the shown tools and platform currently are not available for the public usage, but hopefully Broad Institute will make it available online in some time. At least you should be aware that these are the good resources in which way you can analyze your data using cloud computing. Thank you.


What's up everyone I'm Kyle from driving and vibing and you're watching Road Gear Reviews today We're gonna be talking about an app to help you find free and legal camping. So stay tuned Welcome back to the channel everyone if this is your first time here make sure you hit that subscribe button Because we're putting out new videos every week about some of the best road gear today is no exception We're gonna be talking about the u.s. Public Lands app today now This is an app that costs $299 and it's created by fellow full-time RVers Chris and Cherie of Technomadia Now they do a lot of RV park camping and mix in boondocking camping in there So after eight, I think they've been on the road for 12 years now So after all that time they really found it important to create this app to help Campers know what land they're on so in the past we've talked about Campendium and free campsites both of those resources are amazing for finding free camping now with those sites You'll be pointed exactly to the camp spot. You'll see the GPS. You'll see reviews It is a great resource But with that whenever we find sites on there whenever we show up to the site often times There are other campers there and sometimes it is even very crowded So because of those sources being so used these campsites can be you know Overflowing with people the one thing that I really like about this u.s. Public Lands app is it doesn't show you any Campsites, but it lets you know what type of land you're on so for instance if you are on a back road in You know Utah you could easily be on multiple types of government land But this app will let you know specifically if that land allows camping in undeveloped areas So let me pull up this app and show you what we're looking at because it is pretty easy to use Once you pull up the main screen You'll see a map of America with different color overlays on it all these colors represent different types of land So u.s. Public Lands maps out BLM land u.s. Forest Service Land National Park Service Land National Monuments Corps of Engineer Fish and Wildlife and a few other ones so it really has a Very broad spectrum of the type of land that it shows you you have to be adventurous Also to use this app and to find free camping with it because like I said there are no campsites on this app But if you want to go camping and you know that you're going to be on BLM or national Forest Land This will allow you to take some backcountry roads and make sure you're setting up Legally on that BLM land or on that Forest Service Land rather than someone's Property private property because quite often they these type of lands are intertwined with each other and they don't have very Visual borders when you're out there on those roads So many times in our past we could have really used this type of information But before I jump into a specific story that I have let me show you that you can view this on a standard Map of America that you're used to seeing on just the main like Google Maps screen You can also look at it on a satellite imagery and then they have a very basic Map of the u.s. Where it's just white with these color overlays So whatever your preference is for viewing, you know, it gives you that option Now as far as our experience with this whenever we were camping in the Bridger Teton National Forest right across from the Grand Teton National Park We were scouting these back roads and we set up at this spot that looked like someone had camped there before and We got all set up. It was a beautiful spot overlooking the mountains But right around sunset we had a ranger come up to our site and let us know that we were actually on National Park service land so here is it a picture of the land we were on of the map We were on and you can see how this border is so insanely Geometric obviously it's not going along with the road that we were on so all we had to do was move Literally 200 feet down the road to be on the National Forest land But at the time we did not have this app So I can see how in situations like this the app could be totally useful Because we weren't going off any specific GPS that was from Campendium or free campsites We were simply on what we thought was a National Forest road that actually weaved in and out of National Forest and National Park land So this u.s. Public Lands app Can be a huge benefit if you are really into finding your own spot where no one else will be But also having the peace of mind that you're on land That's legal to camp at and that no one will come and tell you to move So I would say check it out. It's 299 again if you're into this type of camping and you want to be very Explorative and find your own spots the 299 is well worth it. So thank you so much for watching guys Let us know what apps you use to find your free camping and I guess hit that subscribe button And you know as always we'll see y'all next week later on


Spin crossover compounds are molecules that can switch between two different magnetic states when exposed to certain conditions. These conditions include temperature, pressure and light. When these compounds are exposed to heat, they change from one magnetic state to another. This process is called spin crossover. It has been observed in many different types of compounds, including monodash, oligodash and polynuclear iron, two complexes in cages, polymeric 1D, 2D and 3D systems, nanomaterials and polyfunctional materials. These compounds have been used in various applications, such as thermal and pressure sensors, optical devices and magnetic recording media. This article was authored by Philip Dutledge, Anabee Gaspir and Jan Garcia.