In the cutthroat world of business you have to be ruthless to survive, especially with the credit crunch and other companies falling down around you. If you need low skilled, low cost employees why not contact Reapmore? Our undead employees have a range of useful skills from touch typing to manual labour. Requiring little maintenance, our reanimination process can successfully return any staff lost to you by fatalities at a competitive cost. The return on investment in retraining alone is often enough for the newly undead employee to pay for his or herself.

If you require any further information please visit our website or ring our sales desk where our dedicated staff will be happy to help.

Please note: any escape attempts or fatalities caused by undead employees due to improper use of safety equipment or refusal to follow correct reanimation procedures will render the warrantee null and void and may lead to fatalities among the living workforce.

'Reap more profits! Reap more benefits! Trust Reapmore!'

Prologue

Chapter One - Desperately Seeking Management Approval

Chapter Two - Meetings and Other Forms of Torture

Interlude A - In Memoriam

Chapter Three - Death of an Accountant

Chapter Four - A Change of Business Plan

Chapter Five - The End of the Financial World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Interlude B - Community News

Chapter Six - Of Fractals And Pentagrams
.

Woohoo!

Possibly with manual updates too, because the NaNo servers were a bit tempermental at high volume times...

15/11/09 Twenty two thousand...

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.


( Chapter Four - A Change of Business Plan )

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

( Chapter Three - Death of an Accountant )

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

( Interlude A - In Memoriam )

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

( Chapter Two - Meetings and Other Forms of Torture )

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.

( Prologue )

 

Title: You Don't Have to be Crazy Dead to Work Here (But It Helps).
Author: Jashyr
Genre: Horror/Black Comedy
Word Count: 50,000
Disclaimer: These characters are mine. They live in my head and make me do crazy things like entering NaNoWriMo...
Rating: PG-13? Probably.
Warnings: Some gore. Written for NaNoWriMo last year and while it has been re-edited the punctuation police are still looking at it suspiciously.


To keep myself going during NaNo2009 (and to give myself an adequate distraction from going insane due to constant writing) I'm pushing myself to finish editing last year's NaNo novel and actually post it, one chapter at a time, during November. Now everyone I beta for can laugh at my misuse of commas and report me to the punctuation police.

Before we get to the story here's the pic for the hypothetical front cover:




Feel free to poke me with sharp pointy objects if I stop updating.

Yep I'm signed on again, masochist that I am. This time it's superheroes. And gorillas. And possibly superhero gorillas.

Now I just have to make sure I finish editing last year's novel before November.

(Not that kind of dating - get your minds out of the gutter :-) )

The absolute jewel of the entire festival. It would have worth the twelve hour drive to Guildford and back by itself.

Starting with Philip Aston's talk on dendrochronology and the discrepancies between tree rings and carbon dating, this was an informative and well structured look as to why carbon dating isn't totally accurate after about 3000 years - and why tree rings in ancient wood have helped figure in recalibration.

This talk would have been fairly stellar by itself but was eclipsed by Dr Moira Wilson's talk charting her voyage into the dating of pottery by reversing moisture expansion. While the science was stunning the real meat of the talk was just how she, and her team, had found the procedure (by complete accident while researching microfractures in brickwork) and the many trials the lab had gone through to make a working theory out of all the research. It was funny, insightful and threw a light onto the resourcefulness of the scientists involved against all odds (and the perils of funding grants) - this was definitely my lecture of the year.

A wonderful look into the world of fakes and frauds in the world of archaeology including a hands-on 'which of these items is a fake' quiz! (I didn't get any of the correct ones. I'm a scientist, not an archaeologist but I'm still kicking myself for missing the obvious signs.) The proliferation of the internet and ebay as a means of ripping off collectors was actually praised for bringing the standard of fakes down to such a level that most of them are easily spotted.

It also included a talk by an antique restorer which begged the question - if something is restored to it's original glory by modern technology does that mean that its actually a fraud?

Rounded off with a thorough scientific debunking of crystal skulls and a good laugh at Time Team this was a really enjoyable afternoon.

An informative, if not particularly interesting talk on peer review in scientific journals, how it works, how it should catch plagiarism or fraud and why it might not be absolutely perfect at it but most people in the scientific community believe it's the best way to go forward.

I'd never realised how important peer review was to scientific journals and now have a much greater respect for the scientists who freely give up their own time to ensure that other researchers' works are ready for publication. Kinda like beta readers for experimental results!

This group of talks was a study in both extremely interesting science and incredible rudeness from one of the speakers which just spoiled the whole afternoon. Starting with an overview of nuclear physics as well as the current bleeding edge research from Professors William Gelletly and Patrick Regan. While interesting it wasn't quite as cool as the talk that came next - Paul Stevenson's Field Guide To Isotopes. This was a really fun (and occasionally rpg plot point inducing) look at some of the isotopes of Hydrogen. From the uses of heavy water during the second world war to fun with tritium lighting. My only problem with this talk was that it was far too short to start with and was cut even shorter so that the people who wanted to could go to the BSA event that was happening at 5:00pm.

The next talk, by a sociologist about the changing perceptions of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons over the years was interesting - to a point. However, Gwilym Thear's talk was full of far too much repetition and when asked to wrap up, didn't. Despite the previous talk being wrapped up early this one ran on over time, then over the time that it would have if the previous talk had been completed. While the talk itself was quite good based on its own merits the sheer rudeness in ignoring the chairperson really grated. It did come across as a slap in the face to Paul Stevenson who's lecture I could have happily listened to for another hour or two.

A series of good talks totally ruined by one human element.

Better late than never - a quick rundown of my highlights of the British Science Festival

On Monday morning Dr Jim al Khalili, Dr Rim Turkmani and Dr Salim al Hassani explored the legacies of Islamic science on the western astronomers of the Renaissance. Nowhere near as confrontational as the title made out, this quick series mostly acknowledged not only Islamic influences but Indian, Chinese, Greek and Egyptian sciences' contributions to western astronomy. Highly entertaining (especially with Dr al Khalili showing outtakes of his television series when the experiment he was trying to recreate failed spectacularly!) It served to remind us all that the Dark Ages weren't all that dark after all.

Off to the British Science Festival and won't be online for a week - probably just enough for the fanfic withdrawal to set in but short enough that I can catch up after I'm back.

Knowing my luck this'll be the week that everyone goes into writing overdrive...