I know the forum isn't really a clearinghouse to discuss computer problems, but ... does anyone know if there's any danger in opening an e-mail attachment that's from someone you know?  For example, a friend of mine sent me a paper she had written as an attachment -- if her computer was infected and she doesn't know it, could a virus have attached itself to the file she sent?

I'm only slightly paranoid, can you tell? ...

 

I've been informed that the script for "The House" will not be made available for sale (nor otherwise available).

It doesn't really sound much like "our" DS from Gothick's description, and if it doesn't have any Hawthorne 7 Gables themes either, then I guess I won't feel so bad about not seeing it or being able to read it.  (Trying to console myself ...    )

OK, last post for the night, I promise (seems once I start I can't stop ...), I've looked all over the darkshadowsfestival website in vain for pansyfaye's e-mail address to ask her about this, but can't find her e-mail address there ... If her email address is available publicly, could someone kindly direct me to it?

thanks ...

Another problem to be aware of (which we've addressed before) is spyware, and a new one to me that I recently experienced -- browser hijacking.

Save yourself hours of time and heartache by looking into such preventative measures as "Ad Aware" (mostly for spyware it seems) and "HijackThis" (for help in identifying evil "helper objects" that mysteriously get installed on your computer and can take over your Internet browser).

Quote from: Miss_Winthrop on June 15, 2004, 12:48:13 AM

Awhile back I had dowloaded an audio of Joan Bennett answering an interviewer's question that yes indeed she was Victoria's mother. If it's true than it would seem that for Liz, the scandal of announcing to the family that she was indeed Vicki's mother was more than she could bear. It was very bad socially back in those days to have a baby out of wedlock.    It does seem strange that out of the blue, a request for Vicki to come up to Collinwood and be a tutor is made. Someone's not talking at the Foundling Home in addition to Collinwood!

Hmmm, that makes sense. If she was a blood relative of the Collinses, then she would be part and parcel of the curse that was placed on the family, given with all the wierd things she experienced, eh?

I won't get into details here since this topic has been discussed so extensively in the past (and some would say yours truly has discussed it to death and in minutiae), but I would submit that the matter is not definitively settled, despite Joan Bennett's comments, and, I believe, never will be unless working notes by the writers involved ever come to light.  Suffice to say that other scenarios have been worked out that attempt to take into account other evidence and clues suggested by some of the DS writers, such as Francis Swann.  Discussions on the Victoria Winters mystery can no doubt be found in the archives.  Interestingly, she could be a Collins even if Elizabeth were not her mother.

 

I am also having some major bad weather coming through but at least it is keeping those pesky cicadaas out of my hair. I am doing my best to be patient with them and have even saved a few from horrible deaths! Yesterday I came in from gardening and had 2 on my back, 1 on the front of my t-shirt and 1 in my hair. Thank the Lord they only come every 17 years. If anyone out there has not heard of these bugs. They are bigger than a horse fly and have red eyes.

You guys all crack me up, but I had to respond to the cicadas.  Are they at least hard, and crunchy?  Where I grew up there was something even worse that came in cycles like that -- "tent caterpillars" (also known as "army worms").  They are just as prolific in their cycles (I forget how many years apart, maybe 10) ... you find them on the house siding, on your car, underfoot, they drop down out of trees onto your hair -- and they're soft and mushy if you step on them.  I'd rather have the crunchy type, even if they have beady red eyes.  The caterpillars are very silent though ...

Actually, I thought we had cicadas in the summer all the time when I moved a bit further south.  At least there's a high-pitched hum, almost like an electrical wire, that typically fills the air in late summer.  Different from grasshoppers and crickets -- sort of a vibratory sound.  I enjoy all the sounds of nature in the summer, the aforesead, plus frogs and toads ... it's always relaxing to go to sleep with the windows open hearing them.  

No tornados in this area, thankfully.

This idea occurred to me this afternoon and I jotted it down, thinking I'd post it sometime in the future.  Then I logged in here and read the latest comments in the "1966" thread which basically asked the same thing or at least touched on it.  Do Stefan, Luciaphil, and I have shared ESP ... or does the question arise just out of a natural progression in thought processes from earlier comments made?

In response to my comment about the "form" fitting the "style" in the later years of DS, Stefan wrote:

Even though I hear DS was original going to be cancelled I wonder IF they had kept the original "soap opera" tone the show might have lasted longer (with some modifications) and might have been easier to manage.

And Luciaphil wrote:

What always strikes me is that if they'd kept that depth going when they'd brought in the supernatural plots in a big way, the show could have gone on to be something even better than what it was

What got me thinking about this question (without having seen the above comments) was my feeling of loss this afternoon in not having DS running on TV daily anymore.  There's something comforting and also stimulating about a continuing saga, unravelling in series format.  Many of the great 19th century novels were written that way -- Dickens, Tolstoy's Vojna i mir (War and Peace), for example.  Considering the enormous popularity of those novels at the time, and later, in our own time, of the soap opera format, it seems the 19th century writers really hit on something that tapped into people's psyches.

Then, I remembered something I had read about how some soap opera had lasted 40 years or something.

I began to wonder, somewhat wistfully, what "Dark Shadows" might have been like if it had continued running continuously into the present day.  Could it have done so?  It seems the series couldn't have continued that long if it had gone for more monsters etc.  But perhaps if it had switched tacks a little and kept with the gothic and supernatural ... there doesn't seem a good reason why this couldn't have worked (or is there?).

Actually, the last storyline might have served well for a segue into this new format ... melodrama mixed with supernatural elements in a different time period.

Just imagine if Collinwood had continued on with us in our daily lives, with many of the same actors still on the show today -- Jonathan Frid, David Selby, Nancy Barrett, Kathryn Leigh Scott ...  Those who died would have had their characters die, too.

The show could have continued with Collinwood in real time, but continued to delve into previous time periods.