Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Nicky On VampireFreaks

This is a thread on VampireFreaks where Nicky makes an ass of himself after someone posts a link he doesn't like (that would be a link to Tabloid Purposes):

Monday, March 29, 2010

Nicky's Lack of Reading Comprehension

I get another mention in Nicky's latest blogger post here. As usual, Nicky has read something on my blog and at the same time, *not* read it. He says:
"...some cunt named HorrorGal bought the e-book of the anthology I appear in -- she's going around offering pirated copies of the book too."
Assuming he is talking about the Withersin Birth Issue, it was made available by Withersin. I only linked to the page put up by Withersin.

If he's talking about any of the first four Tabloid Purposes, then he's really off his rocker. I am not now sending -- nor have I ever sent -- anyone a copy of those files. Nicky is full of BS, as usual.

This isn't the first time he's shot off his mouth and made false statements about something I've posted. He has previously accused me of linking from my Tabloid Purposes website to the new Ethereal Gazette site. He was wrong, of course, but I have yet to receive an apology after pointing out that error.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Nicky on Withersin

Nicky has crowed many places about his story, "Apt.#2W", appearing in the inaugural issue of Withersin magazine.

Withersin recently made that issue available as a free PDF, so out of curiousity, I downloaded it. I've read the version of "Apt. #2W" that appeared in More Frightening Than Fiction, one of my free Nicky downloads from Lulu, and I wanted to see what an editor had done to it. When Nicky's "Observations of an Abandoned Seminary" appeared in Tales of the Talisman, the editor of TofT went over it pretty thoroughly and turned Nicky's dreck into passable, if still rambling and boring, prose.

The answer here is...nothing.

To my vast amusement, the following disclaimer appears in a box at the top of the first page of the story:
"The following autobiographical account has been left completely unedited in order to retain the author's original voice, intention, and mood. Withersin accepts no responsibility for the content."
In other words, the poor editor couldn't figure out how to salvage the writing so she didn't even try. I still wonder why she published it at all.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Nicky Revisits WritingForums

You all know by now that Nicky revisited WritingForums.com, a place where he was previously handed his ass for being an ass.

After having his thread from yesterday locked by a moderator, he visited the moderator's profile and left this tidbit:
"The Blood of Barbara Malenky is on your hands because what your friends did to Lake Fossil Press in 2008. If you really want to hear what I'm about to say -- just read the damn memoir. You wanted me to tell my side -- I guess you're too forcefed the lies and in that you contributed to the book burnings by your actions."
Nicky was on the site again this morning re-reading through his first flameout and private messaging folks. He also left this on the profile of a user named S.W.A.T.:
"Kiss my ass you electronic pirating faggot. I have the book out there, now what cocksucker. I am not done in this business of publishing, and I will be publishing authors more controversial than myself. Saying I'm done -- well where's your fucking publishing history asshole?"
Click here to see S.W.A.T.'s one and only post in the "AVOID Nicky" thread. This is presumably what Nicky was responding to.

The funniest part: S.W.A.T. hasn't even logged onto WritingForums since August 20, 2007.

UPDATE:

Last night, Nicky went back to WritingForums and left a message for the moderator who closed the 2008 thread:
Have fun being blind to what's being forcefed to you.
What on earth are you talking about?
Any bets on how much longer before Nicky is banned from WritingForums?

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Nicky on Shocklines

Nicky's been a busy boy on Shocklines today. Some of the amusement includes a post on this page from this morning:
I've been writing opuses these days and one troll leaked parts of one opus. I've been writing metalhead characters for awhile. That little troll's been living under a rock and created a fake domain for Tabloid Purposes. So I am working on the true site as I speak. I won't have the full site live yet. I am fleshing out the GLS for my anthologies planned. The Twins. I planned Tabloid Purposes 5 and 6 as the twins but I am going to do it with the next two. A little joker by the name of HorrorSkank stealing my beloved anthology series and creating a domain misleading the readers -- that's a scumbag.
Let's take that apart, shall we.
  • "leaked parts of one opus" --> No, I only repeated what Nicky had posted elsewhere.
  • "created a fake domain for Tabloid Purposes" --> No, the domain is very real. There's text and images there to prove it.
  • "joker by the name of HorrorSkank" --> I've come up in Nicky's world. He's given me a nickname.
A little further upthread, Nicky says:
I have a new article up on Helium which I talk about some of my 13 year history of being online.
Nicky hasn't checked his Helium account today because I get this when I try the link for the article and this when I search for "Pacione" on the site. Ooops.

Edited to add: I can get straight to his profile using a link I had previously saved. So maybe he hasn't been completely kicked off the site. Time will tell.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Tabloid Purposes - Out on the Web

I decided that my little parody project - "Tabloid Purposes: A Road Trip" -- needed wider exposure. Since I happened to have a spare $13.76 laying around, and little Nicky hasn't bothered to register any of the domain names associated with his badly written, badly edited anthology projects, I bring you:

Tabloid Purposes

Now...I am a complete novice when it comes to web sites and html, and I am using the free web site designer provided by the web host. It's going to be a while before I've got things all bright and shiny. I've got more lulz to come, too, as soon as I figure out how to let folks download PDFs directly from the web site.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Nicky's Latest Opus

I'm not usually in on the best gossip, but...Nicky's latest opus "When Angels Wept Blood" is now out in circulation. For example, Black Bed Sheet Books, a company started by Nicholas Grabowsky and/or Downwarden (I'm a little unclear on the relationship there), has a copy. Downwarden is the place that posted Nicky's awful "Insect", so it's no surprise Nicky tried them with this novella. [Edited to clarify: Nicky submitted to BBSB. I don't know if he got accepted or not, just that BBSB has -- or had -- a copy sitting in an Inbox somewhere.]

We all know that Nicky's stories are littered with Gary Stu's. "Passenger" from Tabloid Purposes IV tops them all with no fewer than three, all of whom interact with each other. WAWB continues that tradition. Nicky's latest obsession has been metal music, and guess what...one of his characters is a "metalhead".

Of course, there's the obligatory Goth character. A girl.

Nicky also butchers history and religion by mixing Christian mythology (angels) with Greek mythology (Charon), nevermind that the heydey of Greek culture and mythology was about five centuries before Christianity was even a twinge in Mary's womb.

All in all, it's the usual mess.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Nicky Loses Another Writer

Back around the beginning of February, the Table of Contents for the Ethereal Gazette, Issue 10, included a story called "Caravan of Souls" by Andrew Hook. Sometime in the last few days. Nicky tinkered with EG 10. When I looked at the new TOC, "Caravan of Souls" was gone and the book was eight pages shorter.

(BTW, I knew Nicky had tinkered with EG10 because one can now leave ratings and reviews on the book, which is Lulu's default setting. Have fun, kids...)

Even better, Andrew Hook has removed any mention of selling "Caravan of Souls" to Nicky from his web site. His cache from February 27, 2010, mentions the sale. The current page does not.

I wonder if Mr. Hook found out Nicky's reputation or if Nicky "black-balled" him for some imagined slight. Anyone want to e-mail Mr. Hook and ask? Enquiring minds want to know.

UPDATED: Nicky previously mentioned that he had had to take a writer out of EG10, so this news is sort of late - except for who it was. Nicky had this to say:

"I had to go and take a writer out of the magazine after the thing was published. So I had to go in to Open Office and pull his story out, he was lucky that I have the original files the stories was in."

Apparently Nicky is *still* challenged when it comes to making backups. Most people make back-ups regularly so that luck has nothing to do with it.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Nicky Revises History in His Latest Blog Post

Over breakfast this morning, I found that Nicky has a new blog post up. It's almost tl;dr, but I did manage to slog through, fueled by some excellent coffee (the corner coffee shop is trying a new house brand that absolutely rocks).

I get a mention this time, but dear Nicky has revised history, as he usually does, to make himself look better. He says, "...such as HorrorGal who tried to con me out of $100.00 for backups of Tabloid Purposes II". What? Hold it, Nicky, I didn't try to con you out of anything. You screwed up, and I offered to help you out.

Let's look at what really happened. I blogged about it at the time (copied here verbatim):

*****

Nicky's latest post on Blogger says in part, "Jaen you're way out of line with this one, and since you pissed on a dead authors grave with your act that is personal. I didn't even have a chance to get the files to fix the mistake of publishing you."

Since I am a kind and generous person, I e-mailed Nicky today with an offer to help him out:

"Nicky,

I see on your latest Blogspot entry that you "...didn't even have a chance to get the files to fix the mistake of publishing you." I assume "you" is Jane.

I happen to have PDF copies of all four TP's, bought straight from Lulu. I'd be happy to e-mail you a copy...for a price. How about $100 per issue. What do you say? It would have to be cash, though. No screwing around with Paypal
.

Jenny"
Nicky responded within about 90 minutes:

"Fuck you bitch. Just give me the master copy of Tabloid Purposes II."
and

"You're stealing my money for a project I worked hard to create. You're a bitch."
(bonus points to Nicky for using the correct form of "you're") and

"You're willing to steal my book and my money -- I would rather off you."
That last is rather close to a death threat, but...Nicky isn't really capable of hurting me. I -emailed him back:

"Nicky,

I didn't steal anything. I bought that little CD-ROM you put together and posted for sale on Lulu. It's not my fault that you didn't back-up your files. Here's a tip for the future: flash drives are inexpensive and reliable methods of backing up files. So is burning a CD.

Most places that retrieve non-backed-up data from failed hard drives can charge a couple grand or more (depending upon what caused the hard drvie to fail.) I'd say $100 per file is a bargain.

Jenny"

Nicky back to me a bit later:
"Just give me Tabloid Purposes II but you're not going to con me out of my money. Give me what I want and I will go away without a dime to your name bitch. I am not giving you a red cent for my hard earned work as an editor."
And my response:
"I'm not trying to con you. I offered you a fair deal. $100 for my time in finding TP II on my portable file storage device, loading it onto my computer and e-mailing it to you. Once again, it's your own fault for not backing up your own files. If you don't like the deal, fine."
Nicky again:

"I don't deal with industry terrorists. You'll use that money to eat your breakfast on a mirror that's racketeering lady."

I'll keep updating this post as I receive more delusions and accusations.

*****

I never received any further communications from him. However, I was serious. If he had given me $100, I would have sent him a copy of the PDF I had of one of his books. That's not a con. That's just good business sense.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Bullet to Head Edit? Not So Much

Nicky claims to have posted a "bullet to the head" edit of his borderline libelous story, "The Fandom Writer".

Let's look at the differences. Below, the original text is in blue and the new is in red. Note that my version of TFW came from FictionPress, so although the name of the main female character different in the quotes below, I think Nicky actually made that change quite a while back.

She was a horror writer, but one that didn’t write of characters who weren't her own and bastardized the characters of a writer who didn’t agree with she did.

She was a horror writer, but one who didn't write of characters that belonged to her, and bastardized the characters of a writer who didn't agree with she did.


OK, here he did actually fix the double negative and changed "that" to "who", which is the correct word.

“Albert –– let me take a look at this one,” Patricia smiled, “I know.” She began laughing insanely when she started typing the next few paragraphs.

"Albert –– let me take a look at this one! Let me see what the hell I can come up with," Patricia smiled, "I know. Damn am I evil!" She began laughing insanely when her fingers raced across the keyboard as she had a dark thought emerging in her warped little mind..


Added a typo -- the double period is in the original text -- and added a few more words.

“What are you doing,” he said laughing.

"What are you doing? Oh shit, you didn't -- oh crap, you did...." he said laughing.


A few more words, including curses. Still waiting for amped-up terror.

JaneRae looked from below in Purgatory while she was being gnawed...

Alice was looking in abject horror from below in Purgatory while she was being gnawed...


Changed "looked" to "was looking" - a weakening of the verb and added a vague description. We're going backwards with this edit.

“Honestly I had no problem with aspiring writers writing fan fiction off my work but when they do the things that she is doing with my characters, that was just wrong,” Albert said...

"Honestly I had no problem with aspiring writers writing fan fiction off my work, but when they do the things that she is doing with my characters. That was just wrong -- it makes me sick to my stomach," Albert said...


*sigh* Then Nicky added a sentence in a big batch of badly stilted dialogue where Albert is talking to his wife Patricia:

"...They first freaked when you showed up wearing black clothing namly a long black hooded sweathshirt gown, since you're the one who does that kind of fiction."

As you know, Bob...

Jane Rae responded with a look of horror to her face...

Alice responded with a look of bloodcurdling terror to her face...


Preposition mis-use (abuse?). Bear with me, we're almost done. Still waiting for the awesome "bullet to the head" changes...

“Could this mean I am, “ she said with a frightened look in her eyes, “dead? God – I cannot be dead..."

"Could .......this mean.....that I am....." she said with a frightened look in her eyes, "D-d-ddead? Oh dear fucking God – I cannot be dead..."


Because pauses in the dialogue are oh-so-scary...and so is "fucking" (well, for Nicky maybe - and I mean the act, not simply the word).

The words that Albert said to her basically got to her in her sleep, that she has to spend the rest of her days within a fleshly coffin. Her death was not a psychical death but that of a spiritual one. She was thinking, I cannot be dead ...

The words that Albert said to her basically got to her in her sleep -- his chilling warning became a shadow in her darkest and most horrifying of nightmares. That she will spend the rest of her days within a fleshly coffin. Her death was not a psychical death, but that of a spiritual one. She was thinking as a cold horror grew within her soul, I cannot be dead...


Still not scary. I'm falling asleep now.

...even though her body is nothingmore than a coffin of skin.

...even though her body is nothingmore than a coffin of skin, she could hear her vitals fading; flatlined.

Wow, that hospital must some pretty crappy life support equipment.

The thing that Albert Joseph Poe said to her in that electronic email, the words he said would become the fate of her –– a damnation in hell as Charon awaits.

The thing that Albert Joseph Poe said to her in that cryptic hued warning e-mail, the words he said would become the fate of her –– a damnation in a never-ending hell as Charon awaits.

And that's it, folks. Those are the sum total of the changes little Nicky made to "The Fandom Writer". It's so much more awesome and scary now, isn't it? Just like a bullet to the head.

Oh....I get it....

My head hurts so much from re-reading this ungrammatical pile of stinking pig crap that it feels like I've been shot in the head. That must have been what Nicky meant.