20131031 - Spooky Matter (Thanks, Steelbot.)

[FallenSeraph]

So I interpreted this was my departed cat saying goodbye for the last time... and it was just a nice feeling.   Sappy, but true.

This has also happened to me, Remley, although not in the same way, of course. My cat of 19 years passed away last year. It was devastating. One night a month or so after it happened, I had a horrible nightmare (I don't remember now what it was about). I woke up from that dream in the middle of the night feeling terrified â€" but then I felt my cat curled up against my side, purring (that's how she used to sleep) and felt relieved that I wasn't alone and she was there, as always . . . and then about a minute later my head cleared and I remembered she had passed away. I laid there for a few minutes trying not to move because I didn't want that feeling (her?) to go away. It was a very, very physical sensation. I finally opened my eyes and looked (I don't know if I was expecting to see a ghost cat or what  ) and of course I was alone.

But I felt like I had just been given the most awesome gift ever. Blah, in fact now I'm getting kinda teary. She was a good cat. I hope I see her again someday, as cheesy as that sounds.

[Uncle Duke]

The lady who told the story about her granddaughter seeing the two black beings playing with the babies, anyone remember where she was calling from?  That may have been the best ghost story I ever heard on any of the Ghost2Ghost shows.  Only way it could have been better would have been if granny had seen one of them at the window as she drove off.

[b_dubb]

i would have liked to have joined in but if i don't sleep  i am useless at work.  and since i get paid to think not sleeping is a bad idea.  '

i'll be listening tonight. me and a six pack of Dale's Pale Ale.  should be a hoot

[FallenSeraph]

announcement: Art is a cocaine addict.

sniff

I loved that Art did that to make fun of those final two (I think) callers who wouldn't stop sniffing after every three words. It was driving me slightly insane, per my ALL CAPS OUTBURST earlier on this thread. 

[FallenSeraph]

I hope Art was just playing hard ball when he mentioned the current situation with the show 'might not be viable going forward'. It almost sounded like a ultimatum of retirement. I so hope that is not the case.

Just looking at it from a business perspective though, how would this scenario work to Sirius' benefit? If Art streams live from his site, people like me â€" who only subscribe to Sirius to hear him â€" will most likely cancel our subscriptions. And then Sirius would lose a sh*tload of money.

He did have a good point, however, in that people who listen to his website stream wouldn't be able to hear older shows on demand like on Sirius, so Sirius could still keep an edge that way. That said, I **might** keep my Sirius subscription in that instance because sometimes I can't listen to the shows until the next day, and sometimes I like to listen to them again just for the hell of it or to catch things I might have missed.

But I still can't see how Sirius would go for this. We don't know how many new subscribers they got because of Art (do we?), but I imagine it's substantial. They don't want to lose that revenue. Did Art sign a contract with them? If so, for how long? Maybe he DID give them an ultimatum, as in, let me do this or I'm out of here. And maybe he made it feasible for them by saying "Let me do this and you can have the rights to the on-demand shows and you can also keep all the advertising revenue from the live stream."

I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Sheezus I'm kind of tl;dr tonight. I think it's the Xanax. I just took one when I looked at my bank account balance. ($12 - YEEEEEHAW!!!!!)

[FallenSeraph]

lol I wonder if the ghost photo winner is happy that the day they get a new radio and a year subscription Art announces that he will try to get the show streaming live through artbell.com

This made me laugh out loud. YOU'RE RIGHT!! 

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Truth is hard to argue against.

It's too easy to argue against. A big problem with our society.

Art mentioned that free streaming would expand his audience, so I'm thinking that perhaps he does not have the following that he expected on Sirius.

Also, free streaming would broaden his audience considerably.  That would mean more advertising revenue for Sirius and more money for Art, because he gets a percentage, no?  He said it would be a new business model. 

Art also mentioned that people using Sirius in the car was a problem-he didn't want callers on cell phones with bad connections or possibly driving distracted while on the phone.

[FallenSeraph]

The lady who told the story about her granddaughter seeing the two black beings playing with the babies, anyone remember where she was calling from?  That may have been the best ghost story I ever heard on any of the Ghost2Ghost shows.  Only way it could have been better would have been if granny had seen one of them at the window as she drove off.

Agreed

[FallenSeraph]

I think it's the Xanax. I just took one when I looked at my bank account balance. ($12 - YEEEEEHAW!!!!!)

OOPS - sorry - should have saved that last line for the Personal Finances Sob Stories thread.

[steelbot]

there's a few more out there, but yeah.. tsk tsk 

It would take some server horsepower to stream to thousands of listeners. I'd say if you were streaming 32kbps (perfectly fine for talk radio, what alex jones streams at), you could stream to 2700-2800 listeners per server. A dedicated server from a quality host could easily handle that load, and could be obtained for less than $70 per month, probably cheaper. With a cluster of 5 machines @ a total of $350 per month, that's 14000 slots.

Better yet they could use amazon's cloud (which they're already using for artbell.com), and pay for what they need, when they need it. Spool up a cluster of vms each night 30 minutes before the show, broadcast till the show is over, and shut them back down. 4 hours of streaming to 16800 listeners would use around 1100 gigabytes, which isn't bad at all. I don't know how much amazon charges for bulk network usage, but i can't imagine it'd be cost prohibitive.

All i'm trying to say is that streaming to tens of thousands of listeners is much cheaper and simpler than people realize. Scaling that up to millions presents actual challenges, but I can't imagine art's free stream would grow to anything more than 10,000-20,000 per night. But then again, i have no idea what kind of ratings he's actually getting.

Lets Get a Drink Ran Ran, cause I finally found someone I Can drink with again! =P that is by far a best case explanation for folks inquiring into the logistics of it.  Having worked on 13-14million dollar networks, switches, backends and storage capacities - It's not difficult nor really expensive to operate.  I think they could even push 50,000 guests and continue their current stuff on sirius for those wanting a "better" feed.  May very well be an easy sell for them.

[popple]

For me that is when Dorch really jumped the shark. Who was his sidekick that night? The numbers lady or Rosemary Ellen Guilley? I remember her being like "it's safe. it's fine. it's your intention. I'm here to guide you. it's safe". And then when George chickened out she was like "good idea. you did the right thing." What a suck up.

ARG!!! That had me so mad. I had anticipated it and then he just wimps out.

[Foodlion]

Could you guys please drop the attacks and the subject ?
Its not only off topic but kind of silly.
I made a mistake and I'm getting way too much grief over it.
Enough allready !
I'm done with it if you are.
And I've gotten dozens of those Nigerian and Indian emails over the years.
I just forward them to the FBIs unit that investigates online scams.

Just send them my way. I never pass an opportunity to strike it rich!

[bateman]

Oh my god, this picture is a GEM, where did this come from??

[shell88]

That pic is a real gem.

[jazmunda]

Oh my god, this picture is a GEM, where did this come from??

I put "George Noory Ouija Board Experiment" into google and the following link came up:

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2007/07/25

There is a link to that cartoon at the bottoms. The wording in the text bubble is my own.

[Falkie2013]

Remember ... it's a new audience listening to Sirius now. Maybe it will take a few years to produce the quality callers we all remember from the old "Ghost to Ghost" shows.

The one that creeped me out was the one where the shadow people were heading for some woman's car and she bugged out big time.

[Falkie2013]

Oh my god, this picture is a GEM, where did this come from??

I kept hoping he'd lock onto some demon's personal realm and would be sucked down into some  infernal abyss never to be seen or heard of again.
It was such a disappointment for him to wimp out. I was at least expecting a pissed off demon to show up, but knowing $noory, a pissed ON demon would have showed up and then all hell would have broken out.

[Falkie2013]

Certainly.  A lot of posts here might be described as rantings of 'troubled youth'. 
I certainly believe most people who call in with these stories are reporting their truth.

I never heard of black salt, but found this:
http://happyherbivore.com/2012/02/types-black-salt/

RE: black salt


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_Namak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_lava_salt


http://www.spellsofmagic.com/spells/spiritual_spells/protection_spells/5287/page.html

http://www.herb-magic.com/black-witches-salt.html

http://www.wiccanway.com/Black-Salt_p_540.html#.UnSMsShEbAY

[zeebo]

Does anyone remember the time Jorch teased everyone for a week saying he was going to use the Ouija board live on air, and then of course on the night of the show he chickened out and said his listeners had "talked him out of it"? (Sorry - I should probably have posted that in the GNS thread.)

I remember oddly tuning into that exact show after not listening to coast for like a year and thinking how totally bizarre it was.  Didn't he have like a group of special advisors who were going to council him on whether to go through with it?  After building it up for a long time he eventually bailed out.  I actually think that was the right choice but the way he did it was so sensationalistic and a complete waste of time.

I kind of wish I could find someone else who's brave enough to give the whole Ouija Board thing a whirl with me now.

I went through two phases using it, once in my teens, once in my mid-twenties.  Both series of experiences were actually revelatory and personally meaningful in some ways.  I got the feeling that I probably had pressed my luck with it enough and should leave it lie.  Also, a message from what I believe was a benevolent energy, suggested several times that a safer/better way of tapping into the spirit world for insights was to instead focus on meditative practices and developing your intuition through that process.

[zeebo]

My thoughts too....pretty sure, it was a reference to you/our stream 

I got the feeling that Art doesn't really care that much about whatever gray-market streams are out there, but instead is just using them as a bargaining chip for something else he wants, e.g. a bigger and broader audience possibly to increase the field of available callers into the show.

[steelbot]

just letting you all know....I've been 'huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuue...cough**~ hewwwwwwwwwing away....had some good and bad ju ju (joo joo) no slur intended!

=) Go check out the politics forum if you really don't usually and the tread i laid down! 

-peace!

[CornyCrow]

The lady who told the story about her granddaughter seeing the two black beings playing with the babies, anyone remember where she was calling from?  That may have been the best ghost story I ever heard on any of the Ghost2Ghost shows.  Only way it could have been better would have been if granny had seen one of them at the window as she drove off.

I agree.  That was good one. 
Someone mentioned that maybe Art hung up on her too soon.  Maybe he didn't want to hear the rest because of his child. 
I'd like to know how the mother of the children responded, if she moved. 
I did not take the meaning to be that they were literally playing with the babies, but messing with them in some way.  I did not take it that they were acting in a friendly way with the kids.  Of course if they were doing bad things, wouldn't the kids have been crying all the time?  Wouldn't the mom have known that something was wrong a lot sooner? 

[FallenSeraph]

The one that creeped me out was the one where the shadow people were heading for some woman's car and she bugged out big time.

One of my favorite calls ever, hands down. That little girl in the car will have that lasting fond memory of her grandmother, too. 

[FallenSeraph]

I agree.  That was good one. 
Someone mentioned that maybe Art hung up on her too soon.  Maybe he didn't want to hear the rest because of his child. 
I'd like to know how the mother of the children responded, if she moved. 
I did not take the meaning to be that they were literally playing with the babies, but messing with them in some way.  I did not take it that they were acting in a friendly way with the kids.  Of course if they were doing bad things, wouldn't the kids have been crying all the time?  Wouldn't the mom have known that something was wrong a lot sooner?

Yeah, I'm the one who thought Art cut her off before she got to the end, as in, did they move, did they ever figure out what the hell was going on, etc? I need to listen to that call again. I think he ended the call when she was saying that her granddaughter made her switch to clear shower curtains and maybe sleep with the lights on or something. I felt bad for the little kid. And I too thought they were not acting in a friendly way - the little girl who saw them seemed too terrified. Maybe they were 9-feet-tall with long arms and knuckles that dragged along the ground.

[FallenSeraph]

Could you guys please drop the attacks and the subject ?
Its not only off topic but kind of silly.
I made a mistake and I'm getting way too much grief over it.
Enough allready !
I'm done with it if you are.
And I've gotten dozens of those Nigerian and Indian emails over the years.
I just forward them to the FBIs unit that investigates online scams.

I used to belong to that 419 Eater group that screws around with those Nigerian scam artists â€" some of those FBI guys are members. That group is highly entertaining and rich with tools to string those guys along for months â€" fake bank account numbers to give them, detailed instructions on how to mess with them, fake phone numbers to use with voicemails set up, anonymous email addresses, P.O. boxes, etc. I haven't been active in a while. Whenever I hooked one, I'd reply as Sera Phim â€" that's where this nickname came from, not an angelic proclivity. I have a collection of beloved "Dear Ms. Phim, WE NEED YOUR MONEY NOW" emails. Dang, those guys get angry.

Sorry - off topic. Won't happen again. Um, "ghosts are scary!"

[BattyBrooke]

With the exception of one or two, the callers' stories were child's play! The worst one was the guy who called about the DREAM he had (you know, the one where he went on and on about the elevators). You were supposed to call with your story, not your dream! I think Nucky Nolan and I should call in next year and give Art a real spooky story or two.

[Sardondi]

Wasn't able to listen live, and had to listen in three different sittings. But I had two thoughts. First - the show was very weak. The weakest of any Art-hosted Halloween show. Hell, a couple of callers talked about scary dreams! I suspect this was a function of a significantly smaller "story pool", and Art had to take a whole heapin' helpin' of sucky stories and suckier story tellers. That's because there just aren't nearly as many listeners today as 15 years ago. Art clearly felt how sucky the show was - his energy level was very low, and for the first time I felt like he would much rather have been somewhere else. It just wasn't any fun for him...of for many listeners. When the most satisfaction I get in the entire show is when Art finally cuts a guy off for refusing to get to the point, it's been a weak night. 

Which is my second point. What the hell is wrong with these people who will not get to the point, even after repeated warnings? Apparently there is no one left in America who can gather their thoughts and tell a simple story. Of the 20-30 stories we heard on the Spooky Matter show, fully 3/4 of them were seriously marred by hemming and hawing and their inability - or refusal - to get to the damn point. Art himself was frustrated by it, and said he thought his favorite story of the night was the guy who talked and talked without saying anything relevant until his time simply ran out and his connection was lost. My favorite was the guy who wanted to talk about everything but a ghostly event. Art warned him twice to get to the point, but he wouldn't do it. so Art cut him. Eeeeeeexellent.

A very disappointing night.

[nooryisawesome]

Wasn't able to listen live, and had to listen in three different sittings. But I had two thoughts. First - the show was very weak. The weakest of any Art-hosted Halloween show. Hell, a couple of callers talked about scary dreams! I suspect this was a function of a significantly smaller "story pool", and Art had to take a whole heapin' helpin' of sucky stories and suckier story tellers. That's because there just aren't nearly as many listeners today as 15 years ago. Art clearly felt how sucky the show was - his energy level was very low, and for the first time I felt like he would much rather have been somewhere else. It just wasn't any fun for him...of for many listeners. When the most satisfaction I get in the entire show is when Art finally cuts a guy off for refusing to get to the point, it's been a weak night. 

Which is my second point. What the hell is wrong with these people who will not get to the point, even after repeated warnings? Apparently there is no one left in America who can gather their thoughts and tell a simple story. Of the 20-30 stories we heard on the Spooky Matter show, fully 3/4 of them were seriously marred by hemming and hawing and their inability - or refusal - to get to the damn point. Art himself was frustrated by it, and said he thought his favorite story of the night was the guy who talked and talked without saying anything relevant until his time simply ran out and his connection was lost. My favorite was the guy who wanted to talk about everything but a ghostly event. Art warned him twice to get to the point, but he wouldn't do it. so Art cut him. Eeeeeeexellent.

A very disappointing night.

I liked the show. did you try to listen to George?

[ziznak]

I'm really not a big ghost to ghost fan.  I like to hear a good story told well but when you're taking calls like Art you can't guarantee the quality.  I enjoyed the show but really I can take it or leave it in the first place.  I like straight up open lines more... in fact I've probly heard the best ghost stories ever during just plain old open lines.  The halloween show receives too much hype and so it gets people expectations up.  Actually, most of Arts detractors I think are fans with selective memory that got overhyped about his return to radio.  He's the same ol Art to me with pretty much the same ol show that kicked ass back then and it kicks ass now.

[BattyBrooke]

...Which is my second point. What the hell is wrong with these people who will not get to the point, even after repeated warnings? Apparently there is no one left in America who can gather their thoughts and tell a simple story.

I forgot to add this to my list of the "things that annoy me" thread. It really is a pet peeve of mine. Listening to such people get reemed, then cut off, is one of the only reasons I listen to another radio show (which shall not be named here). The host, after several warnings, really rips the caller then disconnects. I love it.