Issue #5, November 2004
Thanks to all those who contributed, a bit quiet this month after last months bonanza!!
Big thanks to this months new staff, Shyla, who is now my faithful help and has halved the workload so thank you very much! Hope you enjoy, and next month I want as big a Blot as we can manage!
Bouchie
Horoscopes
Items & Lotto
New Members
Member Spotlight
Poetry Contest
Psychology
4K Song
Your 4th Kingdom Horoscope
Scorpio (October 23 - November 21) - This month's astrological forecast has been cancelled due to a lack of cooperation from Jupiter.
Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21) - Why not take up an exciting new sport, like cliff-diving? Because it's dangerous and foolhardy, that's why! Shoot! Take up Parcheesi instead!
Capricorn (December 22 - January 19) - Hang a cutesy inspirational sign at work that says: "You don't have to be a heavy drug user to work here ... but it helps!"
Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) - Two words: grated cheese.
Pisces (February 19 - March 20) - Repeatedly hug everyone and everything you see this month. If anyone asksyou what's up, yell, "I gots me an overdose of the Love Drug, baby!"
Aries (March 21 - April 19) - Collect all the manhole covers you can find and drive them to the police station. Angrily state, "These were all just sitting in the middle of the street!" Evade arrest.
Taurus (April 20 - May 20) - Buy a sack of potatoes and keep them around until they're sprouting eerie eyes everywhere. Mail them to an enemy. Paranoia will follow!
Gemini (May 21 - June 20) - Take up jousting this month. Don't ask why, just do it. It will come in handy later. Maybe.
Cancer (June 21 - July 22) - Go to a McDonald's drive-thru this month and order a slice of BeefMcTongue. Angrily state, "I thought you used 100% of your All-Americanbeef!"
Leo (July 23 - August 22) - Ponder this Chinese thought: "The sun does not ask for admission to the carnival of life." Wow.
Virgo (August 23 - September 22) - A great month to take up a new hobby, like square dance calling. Later, if you get really good, you can make a career of it. Run the squaredance circuit, that sort of thing.
Libra (September 23 - October 22) - You may find it wise to save money this month. Then again, you may see that lovely cubic zirconia necklace on the Home Shopping Network, in which case you should splurge!
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Items & Lotto, by Ghost5-0
Rare Finds:0, General Store:4, Premium Store:19 and the Secret Store:5.
I have almost three times as many icons as all the stores put together. Now I have seen Four Degreez restock the stores frequently in the past months but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. So I start to wonder when Four will start to need someone to restock the stores and make icons for him? How long will it be before real jobs become available? How long before we have a government to issue restocks?
This is definitely becoming an issue for along with the other issue of the more members we get, the harder it is to get more valuable icons, hence it’s harder to get a more valuable series.
I suggest two things. The first, is to raise icon taxes. It would encourage people just not to have icons for using unless they had the series, because I need so many icons that people just want to use and don’t want to go for the series. The other thing, is raise series payouts for the rarer series‘. I have a series that only three other people can have. Now from my count there are over six hundred people on the site, that’s a mere .05%. So why not make these series pay outs more because it’s so tough to get them? The final issue which is rather off the subject I’ve been on is about the people that have valuable icons that never sign on. I went through the list and approximately 94 people were members I have EVER seen on, note that are about 630 members. That’s only 15% of the members I’ve EVER seen on.
So, someone has to develop a system that takes icons away from members that are inactive for 6 months. And if you can’t be active for six months but know you’re going to come back after that just PM Four. I think this is a necessity, however I mentioned this and people didn’t really agree with it. I’d love to hear your opinions if you’d just PM me.
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New Members Spotlight
Each month, the Blot would like to recognize some of the newest members of our community who have already made a positive difference:
tengavon
has made several posts which have been indicated on the highest post page including "Here's some clarification." on the Politics board. This post has an overall average rating of 4.60 (rated 5 times) and a brilliance rating of 4.40 (also rated 5 times). A response on the thread "Re: I'm sorta not for courts to decide what" garnered him a 4.70 rating (rated 7 times).
ggiarmo
has made a highly rated poem on the Poetry board entitled "Anger". You will also see some great contributions from this member on many boards including Current Events "actually...", Politics "I may hate Bush...", Random "Light Beer or Dark", Relationships "So I'm trying to start a relationship...", and Meeting Place "big hug that..."
Chimmi
has ignited the Debates board with the thread "Gay marriage" which had some of the longest posts in recent history. She mixes strong opinions with highly intelligent articulation and was rewarded with a 4 rating (8 times). You can also see her posts on the Holy War board, Politics, Sex, Cooking, and The Media boards.
Random
has also ignited the Debates board with the thread "The Sexes" garnering a rating average of 4.33 (6 ratings). Random has found his way onto the Random board (which could become his home away from home!!), Current Events, Literature, and Politics board.
Psycholicon
is yet another new member who has received an average rating 4.33 (9 times) for the thread "The Lies" which had 116 replies on it!! Other posts have been made on Politics, Music, Literature, and The Media boards.
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Member Spotlight on GMOW, with Shyla
S) Hello and welcome to Sitting with Shyla. I'd like to introduce our member spotlighted for this issue, GMOW. How're you doing GMOW?
G) I am doing well
S) Great, now let's get down to the busy business...what's your a/s/l?
G) 27 male florida
S) For all the lovely ladies out there....are ya single or attached?
G) I am single
S) Awesome! So tell us, how long have you been a member of 4thkingdom/4Degreez and what you brought you to the website?
G)I have been a member of the website I think since 1998 or 1999. My friend told me about it.
S) Likes/Dislikes of 4thKingdom?
G) I like that there will be multiple things to do other than just posting messages. I think once the government gets going..there will be lots to do. I dont like the flame board at all. Even though its suppose to be some sort of release for members....I feel it deters from the site. It seems to heavy posters of the flame board dont post any other boards.
S) I see, and on which board can we see the most traffic from you?
G) I would imagine it would be more on the debates category boards, sports, and media boards.
S) Yes, I've noticed you're a big fan of sports. Any particular sport that you just absolutely love?
G) I like baseball and college football the best. Nba basketball is quickly becoming a favorite. I think basketball and gone away from the unskilled spot it had becomes since 1998. The inclusion of European players have made basketball a skill sport once again.
S) Tell the readers a bit about yourself...your hobbies, your goals, your mottos for life..
G) I work monday through friday. I play games, socialize on the weekend, and do a lot of political readings. My goal is to simply always be ahead of things to come in life, be one step ahead. I am sure I will be more part of the political process eventually. I don't have one motto except to always be as efficient as possible.
S) Speaking of the political side of life, America just went through a Presidential Election. What were your feelings throughout the election and what are your feelings now that the President has been elected?
G) I feel that too many Americans fear change of social behavoir in this country. I feel without change; America stops progress. It regresses. I think there is too much religion being put in to politics. More people have died due to religious persection or causes than anything I have ever known. We have to be able to deal with everyone on the same level and not give special treatment to other groups. I believe the people who voted for George Bush gave them their mandate to continue a war that cannot be won. History itself can tell you..this is a never ending war Bush has brought us in too. When you battle over ridiculious things like religion ..it will never end. Honestly..that is how the islams see this war as.
S) So then I guess it's safe to say that you were disappointed with the outcome of the election?
G) Yes. I don't think i have ever been more disappointed in my life. I thought for sure, the country would realize what kind of war Bush has put us in to..and how we are no longer THE world leader. Its come to the point where I dont think he cares if we ever get Bin Ladin or not.
S) It's good to see such passion. I have one final question. Is there anything else about yourself that you'd like to share with the readers of 4thKingdom?
G)I think your readers would have to find that out on their own. I woudnt even know where to start.
S) lol. Well thank you for your time GMOW and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that I look forward to finding out more about you through your posts on 4thkingdom!
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Poetry Contest Results, by Starshyne
First of all, I would like to say thank you to everyone who submitted a poem for the poetry contest. All of the poems were great and I appreciate you taking the time to submit them. However, there can only be one winner! This person wrote a beautiful poem. In fact, this poem received an astounding 62% of your votes!! The winner of the poetry contest and the $25 prize is....
Davijai! Congratulations Davijai. :)
My Angel of Mercy-by Davijai
Two years of my life fly by without reason.
Chained to a hate in a cold wicked season.
But through the rain, the cold, and the night,
Comes something I need, from a warm tender light.
The Angel of Mercy does greet me warm.
As I kiss her soft lips, it ends the fierce storm.
But in the west there is a storm in the sky,
It has come to corrupt as I begin to cry.
She whispers "It's fine" as I hold her tight.
I fear she will ascend back into the warm light.
Stay tuned for more poetry contests in the future!!
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Psychology, with Temujin
This months psych article is more of a personal mini-essay about my feelings regarding a current affairs topic.
Hypochondria. For those of without dictionaries or who don’t know anyway, hypochondria is basically inventing or exaggerating illness or weakness in order to skive off work, get sympathy, or get attention.
Nowadays we are encouraged to share problems. Fine, fair enough, go talk to someone, if you want to. Personally, whilst in favour of occasional counselling (eg if you find you husband’s corpse nailed to the wall) this culture of always sharing always talking about everything irritates me.
I’m sure there’ll be many, possibly even a majority who dislike this view, but, as I always said, most people are stupid. If you need to talk about something you should, but if you don’t fine, it isn’t bottling something up if you can deal with it yourself. And if you’re in pain of course express it, but for God’s sake, if you’re mildly ill stop pining for sympathy, exaggerating a fictional illness and constantly telling everyone how ill you are.
This is half-ranting, half-rambling but it’s something that has been on my nerves for a while.
Psychologists specifically and people generally run around looking for problems.
“I’m too fat”
“I’m too thin”
“I find fictional problems everywhere”
etc ad nauseum.
We’re so comfortable in our rich Western lives that, bereft of lack of shelter and wont of food, we’re now inventing problems. Girls thinking they’re too fat and starving themselves to death, men working tirelessly at the gym and becoming grotesquely muscle-bound because they don’t want to look skinny.
I think the world would be much better if we removed certain comforts from people. We don’t need 2 or 3 cars per household, 5 TVs and 3 PCs, so much food we’re obese and so much drink we’re alcoholics. And, rather amusingly, whilst we’re complaining that somehow eating a diet of pure pie has made us fat, half the poor bastards in the world are starving to death.
Thus endeth today’s rant.
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4k non Hillbilly
(think Beverly Hillbillys theme song...)
"Come and listen to a story about a man named Four
The owner of a website we love and adore
Well much to his surprise and wondrous dismay
Bush won the election on that awful fated day...
How you ask?
Oil that is, black day, Texas govn'a
Well the first thing you know peeps are screaming 4 more years
Websites divided with the happy, anguished tears
Some said hit the road and find another board
But the worst was the crying that we heard from Master Four...
The man, he is. Four Degreez. Owner and proprietor.
Well, now it's time to say goodbye to Four and all his tears
And he would like to thank you folks, for listenin' to his fears
You're all invited back again to this locality
The 4thKingdom website, full of hospitality...
Liberals, that is. Nah, we got moderates. We share our shoes.
Y'all come back now, y'hear?"
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