“Our fans have been reading about it, watching it and now they get to live it with The Walking Dead Escape,” Kirkman told the media yesterday. “We are literally transforming Petco Park into the Early days of society’s collapse and San Diego is just the first city to fall.”

There are three ways to participate in this epic adventure and history making weekend celebration. Fans of The Walking Dead, Comic Con attendees/guests/volunteers and San Diego residents can be Spectators, watching the action from the sidelines and celebrating their humanity at the Escape Party or the can dive right in and become a survivor and race their way through the zombie-infested evacuation zone. Not everyone will make it. They and those infected early are the Walkers, the undead and they are after…everyone.

The Walking Dead Escape: San Diego is unlike any other obstacle course event as it expands on the storylines of the comic book series and graphic novels.  Together, Survivors and Walkers will explore the beginning days of the coming zombie apocalypse as they climb, crawl and slide through The Walking Dead-themed obstacle course. Unlike Run for Your Life, this is not a race. Neither is it the shambling show delivered by popular zombie events like the Zombie Walk at the Phoenix Comic Con. No, this is the ultimate test of survival, because the end is near and the zombie plague is spreading.

Survivor registration is now open at www.thewalkingdeadescape.com. Once registered, would-be Survivors better start training or making offerings to the deity of their choice because they are going to have to be fast and lucky to reach The Walking Dead Escape decontamination zone where, hopefully, experts will determine they have not been infected.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Survivor, Walker or Spectator. Everyone who participates in The Walking Dead Escape: San Diego will be amazed at the interactive displays and The Walking Dead references (Easter eggs, perhaps?) along the course. In addition, all Survivors will receive a free Walking Dead #100 variant! Sign up early, as walk-up registration may not be available during Comic Con when The Walking Dead will take over Petco Park giving fans, participants and residents a front row seat to the coming end.

We Predict: This is one Comic Con event no zombie, or zombie fan, will want to miss!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years this month since we began providing news and information to role players, fictional characters and legendary creatures, not to mentions their fans and creators. What began as a blog for a single RP character covering the True Blood fandom, has grown into a true news organization covering several fandoms as well as real life information from the words of film, literature, technology, academia and much more. We’ve branched off into doing an online radio show and even have a YouTube channel. In fact, we saw 25 percent more visitors on average during the first quarter of 2012 than we averaged during all of 2011. All because of you, our readers, supporters and, dare we say it, fans keep coming back for more.

If you’re new to the Preternatural Post, allow me to give you a brief history. In May 2010 after what can only be described as a annus horribilus that included a death in the family, depression and unemployment, I stumbled onto TBRP on Twitter. I don’t know why I stayed but I did. Maybe I was just looking to be someone, anyone other than who I was, so role play appealed to me. I’d always been into reading and games and events like Ren Faires and Comic Cons and haunts. I just hadn’t done much with them since college. After all, a serious journalist and writer doesn’t write about vampires and ghosts and comic books and video games, especially not one who wrote about finance and business for a couple of decades, right?

Wrong.

It turns out that I do write about shape shifters and movies and blogging and zombies and all sorts of “fictional characters and legendary creatures”. I am a role player, a fan and a creator. And I am a serious journalist. The news I report on is important and interesting and yes, valuable, not just to me, but to all of you. You make me a “serious journalist”. It just took me a while to catch on.

Two years, to be precise.

Now that we’ve reached that milestone, something, I have to admit, no one was convinced we would, it’s time to look forward and maybe see where this long strange trip is taking us. And I mean us, not just me. You see, somewhere along the line the Preternatural Post has picked up some writers as well as readers and visitors to the web site. In the future we hope to add more as well as some artists, web developers and even filmmakers.

Our goal hasn’t changed. The Preternatural Post wants to be the news source for vampires, ghosts, shape shifters, faeries, monsters, wizards, aliens, zombies and pretty much any other type of supernatural or paranormal being that has, is or will be role played online. What makes us different from other entertainment web sites is that we are role players and gamers, readers and viewers, above all we are fans, who, just like you, enjoy stepping into the worlds of our characters. Our focus in on the characters we love or hate and the actors, writers, artists and filmmakers who bring them to life.

How are we going to achieve that? Well, we’ve made a good start over the last two years. You, each and every single one of you, who reads this or follows, friends or interacts with us on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIN, WordPress or here have proven there is an audience for what we do. I can’t tell you how humbling and inspirational know that is. Know that, thanks to all of you, this isn’t some little lark to keep us busy until something else comes along. This is a growing business and we are going to continue to grow and refine both our message and our coverage with your help.

To celebrate surviving two years we’re inviting everyone to get involved with the Preternatural Post. All you have to do is post a comment to this article letting us know what fandom you would like to see more of on the Preternatural Post or share a link to your favorite Post article on your blog, Facebook page or LinkedIN profile. One lucky person in each category will be chosen at random to receive the latest book from their favorite fandom (i.e. Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 12) for the Truebies, Who Is The Doctor: The Unofficial Guide to Doctor Who-The New Series for Doctor Who fans, etc.) Oh, and if you are really ambitious and do both (comment here and share a link) you’ll be eligible to win the newest video (DVD or Blu-ray) from your favorite fandom. But hurry, anniversaries don’t last forever, so you only have until the end of May 2012 to leave your comments and share your links! Winners will be chosen at random the first week of June and announced on True Bites Online Radio on June 5, 2012.

Thank you, again for two wonderful years! We’re looking forward to many, many more and hope you are, too!

Jay C. Hammond, Publisher

“The same company that pioneered the psychic industry is back,”  Psychic Friends Network, Inc (PFNI) CEO Marc Lasky told the media when announcing the relaunch, “and we are well positioned to once again dominate the growing industry. With the same management team that generated hundreds of millions in sales, attracted more than ten million customers, and made the iconic “Psychic Friends Network” a household name, we are set to launch a new online service with 21st Century technology.”

The iconic Psychic Friends Network brand pioneered on-demand psychic advice as well as daily and weekly horoscopes in the 1990′s. In 2012 the relaunched brand utilizes a customized and state-of-the-art online platform which has integrated social networking with its own proprietary technology enabling customers to interact with live professional psychics via phone (smart, mobile or landline), computer, laptop or other handheld devices. For the first time, the new online platform will allow clients to connect with their chosen psychic by voice, text or even video.

A visit to PsychicFriendsNetwork.com reveals the various types of psychic readings available, including tarot, astrology and numerology as well as dream interpretation. Customers can obtain psychic readings that focus on love and relationships, money and career or past lives. Visitors can also browse psychic profiles, review information about their specialties and read reviews, ratings and comments from other customers.

The site also provides a Members Area where clients can set up a profile, view and manage their information, including reporting, usage and transaction history as well as purchasing minutes/credits. Clients can also disseminate information about their psychic experience through their social media accounts.

Psychics will also have profiles with a unique URL on PsychicFriendsNetwork.com which they can point to their own domain or use as their official website. When logged into their profile, psychics can connect with customers and will have full access to the PFN back offices which includes both training materials and marketing resources. The back office houses all the information about the psychic’s account including reporting, statistics, sales and commissions earned. n addition, psychic profiles can be fully integrated with social media and the psychic’s individual Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

Of course, not every psychic on Twitter is a member of PFN. Most of the RP psychics, from Sookies to witches to other being possessing psychic powers would not be eligible for membership because they utilize their gifts for entertainment purposes not in a professional manner. Still it’s kind of fun to know there are real psychics out there and, who knows, they may be watching you.

If the closest you’ve gotten to the Star Trek fandom is watching television or going to the movies, you really ought to head to Phoenix over Memorial Day weekend. Although Shatner will only be attending the 2012 Phoenix Comic Con on Saturday, May 26, 2012 he will be participating in both a panel of his own from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. and a Meet and Greet session from 4:30 -5:30 p.m. The exact topic being discussed during the panel are not known however two recent project related to Star Trek are likely candidates as is the Destination Star Trek London event scheduled For October when Shatner will be sharing the stage with the 4 other Captains from the Star Trek universe Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula.

Speaking of Captains, last year Shatner attended the San Diego Comic Con to celebrate the launch of The Captains, his documentary about what it takes to lead the crew of the starships Enterprise or Voyager or the Deep Spance Nine Space station. He is continuing the trend of celebration the premieres of new documentaries with personal appearances again this year. ThePhoenix Comic Con will be one of the few chances fans will have to hear about William Shatner’s Get a Life! an new documentary that will premiere in July 2012.

William Shatner’s Get a Life! is an EPIX Original Documentary based on Shatner’s popular book Get a Life! (1999). It’s been 13 years since the book first chronicled the change in Shatner’s attitude toward comic con and pop culture conventions. The William Shatner’s Get a Life! documentary continues to chronicle Shatner’s adventures with fans as he delves into the Mystery, longevity and cultural phenomena that are Trekkers and Trekkies. At first blush, the film appears to be just extertaining anecdotes about the strangers Shatner meets on the con circuit. Many of whom. much like himself, have attended conventions and Star Trek events for years. What he discovers, and generously shares with viewers is the many secrets and hidden motives that drive Trekkers, Trekkies and other dedicated fans to attend these events. The resulting film may begin feeling laughable but, in the end it is a touching and totally entertaining look not just at the Star Trek fandom but also at what happens at the celebrations of fantasy and pop culture known as comic cons.

EPIX is a multiplatfor premium entertainment service. William Shatner’s Get A Life! is scheduled to premiere in July 2012. EPIX, by the way is available through several cable and satellite providers including Cox, Verizon, Dish and Charter.

If you don’t want to wait until July, you can experience the Star Trek fandom for yourself at the Pheonix Comic Con May 24 -27. 2012. Joining Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) at PHXCC will be Lt. Commander. Data (Brent Spiner), Lt.  Worf (Michael Dorn), Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Wesley Crusher (Will Wheaton) and Lt. Geordi Le Forge (LeVar Burton)  Also attending is Anthony Pascale the founder of Trekmovie.com who will be providing the Star Trek Universe Update on Friday at 10:30 a.m. That’s one early session fans won’t want to miss!

Please note: early press regarding the Phoenix Comic Con indicate that Capt Pickard (Patrick Stewart) would be attending. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts have arisen that will not permit Stewart to attend PHXCC this year.

If you aren’t able to attend the 2012 Phoenix Comic Con, you can still keep track of all the breaking Star Trek news from on site by following  @WilliamShatner,  @levarburton,  @akaWorf, @BrentSpiner, @wilw and, of course the @Pret_News on Twitter!

Shooting is underway in and around New Orleans, although the story is set in the small town of Gatlin, South Carolina. Still, at least it’s the region and should have that sultry Southern air. Produced by Erwin Stoff (who also produced I Am Legend, Constantine and The Matrix among others) and Molly Smith, Beautiful Creatures is a presentation of Alcon Entertainment and will distributed by Warner Bros Pictures.

The supernatural love story stars Ethan Wate (Aiden Ehrenreich) , tarot-reading housekeeper Amma (Viola Davis), Mrs. Lincoln (Emma Thompson), Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons) and hearse-driving Lena Duchaness (newcomer Alice Englert) under the direction of Richard LaGravenese who also wrote the screenplay adaption.

Beautiful Creatures isn’t a rehash of Romeo and Juliet no matter how much adults (and English teachers) like to think all teenage love stories are. At first glance it could be mistaken for Twilight with a Southern accent, after all it is a local boy meets new girl in town tale. But where Twilight added sparkle and civilized monsters (vampires), Beautiful Creatures delivers a darker and creepier feel as the two young lovers uncover dark secrets about their respecitve families, the town of Gatlin and even their own history.

No sneak peeks or trailers are available yet, so if you want to find out more or explore the role play possibilities you’ll need to check out the book. By the way Amazon lets you read the first few chapters for free, online, so check it out,  The reviews vary, but this is a young adult book, making it a light summer read, if not a lightgearted one.

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

“In Cyberspace, a shy person can becomeoutgoing, a non-sexual person cna be sexual, a non-assertive person can be forceful, or an aloof person can be gregarious. Dependents are able to play out parts of themselves that they fear or hate in order to consciously confront such aspects of their personalities,” said Kimberly S. Young Psy.D. back in a presentation to the American Psychological Association (APA) back in 1997.

Things haven’t changed much in 15 years. A quick survey of the responses to our article about Facebook banning role players reveals that may of us turn to RP to escape something in our lives. We want to be someone else. At first, we may just want to step out of our skin and lives for a little while. for some that “little while” turns into much more. It turns into an RP addiction. There are role players who spend hours a day online not just once in a while but for years. And, if you’re curious nearly half (42 percent) of those Young identified as Internet dependent were homemakers or students (both high school and college) with no paying jobs. Maybe that’s why there has been a noticeable jump in the number of RPers during the current economic downturn.

Of course, not all role players are addicts or dependent on the internet in that way. We’ve compiled a list of ten behaviors that may indicate you, or someone you know, is addicted to RP:

10. Someone asks for your email address or IM users name and you give them an account associated with one of your characters because you check it more often that your real life accounts.

9. You have more than five characters and they are all active, role playing at least once a week if not once a day.

8. Your RP characters aren’t one-dimensional or limited to a single platform/service. Each of your role play characters has a blog and a profile on Twitter, Facebook, polyvore, formspring, blip, or other social network

7. You’ve had more the five profiles deleted on Facebook and have “jailed accounts” for your character on Twitter because you regularly tweet too much.

6. Every mobile device you own has twitter on it and you always have at least one device one you at any given time, even when sitting at a computer.

5.  “Check mentions, nothing….check again two minutes later”

4. You dream about your role play characters or call out their names, or the names of your RP partner in your sleep/during sex.

3. Your friends are listed under their RP names in your address book/contact file. Also more people know you by your character names than your real name. In fact, most people don’t even know your real name.

2. You run multiple twitter clients with multiple characters simultaneously so no one knows all the RP personas you have.

1. You’ve cancelled plans or stayed up all night because a storyline that night was just TOO good.

If you, or someone you know is addicted to role play, you aren’t alone. In fact, that’s one of them most addicting things about RP…you’re never alone. You always have a character around and, depending on the platform you use for role play, can usually find someone to role play with regardless of the day or hour.

Still, we urge you to keep your RP in perspective. This isn’t the real world, regardless of how much time we spend here. Our characters, while engaging and interesting, are nothing more than the facades put on by real people who are not so different from you. Keep that in mind the next time you want to lash out at someone personally for something their character did.

Role play is a hobby. It is supposed to be fun and entertaining and harmless. Let’s keep it that way.

“My mom and I are especially close — we’ve learned a lot from each other. Growing up my mom would make us oatmeal with milk, we’d spend time together as a family during breakfast which is, hands down the most important meal of the day,” Dobrev said. “Through the Like Her, Like Me program, we want to inspire moms and teens to share more special moments and healthy habits — whether they’re swapping stories over a glass of milk or bonding over breakfast.”

Together with Seventeen readers and the National Milk Mustache “got milk?” Campaign, Dobrev and her mom, Micheala, will help select three teams that most exemplify positive role modeling to appear in their very own Milk Mustache ad.

To enter, just garb a camera and in two minutes or less, show what makes you and awesome team, including tips on how milk at breakfast helps you both start the day off right. Upload your entries at Seventeen.com or TheBreakfastProject.com before 22 June 2012 to be eligible to win.

Winners will receive a trip to New York City for a Milk Mustache photo shoot. The three winning groups will be featured in an ad that will grace the pages of Seventeen magazine as the next Milk Mustache stars!

Actress Nina Dobrev and mom team up for the first time in an ad to launch search for the Next Mother-Daughter Team to star in a Milk Mustache Ad. (PRNewsFoto/MilkPEP)

Role players have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. The social networking behemoth regularly culls role player accounts leaving RPers with little choice besides creating a Facebook fan page for their character if they want to remain on FB. It’s difficult, however to trust a platform after it has zapped your account. One way to protect yourself is to mirror your role play one two platforms, say for instance, Facebook and Tumblr.

If you aren’t familiar with Tumblr, it is a very user-friendly short blogging platform. After setting up your first blog (we suggest something general, even generic because at this time all your favorites and follows will run through that first user), you can set up as many individual blogs for your characters, events or fandoms that you want. Best of all, if you have created a Facebook fan page for your character, you can connect Tumblr and Facebook so you have an automatic record of your RP.

To connect your Tumblr to your Facebook page, launch Tumblr and open the dashboard for the character blog  If you only have one Tumblog, this is the dashboard. if you have multiple Tumblrs, select the name of the blog you want to connect to Facebook from the list at the top of your general dashboard. Then select Blog Settings in the righthand column.

Scroll down until you find the Facebook section. Click the button to sign in with Facebook. You’ll need to sign in with you real account, however, once you’ve done that you can choose to cross-post stuff from your character Tumblr and you character Fan Page. Just select the right fan page for the blog from the drop down list which should contain all the fan pages related to your RL Facebook account. Be sure the Share post on your Timeline box is checked if you want to automatically share Tumblr posts on your Facebook fan Page.

Tumblr says you can toggle the post to Feature on and off when you post something to Tumblr. There is a Send to Facebook check box in the right hand column of the Tumblr posting page. Simply remove the check and the post will not be cross posted to Facebook.

It’s that easy. RPing on Tumblr and just having your post automatically added to you timeline might not protect you from having your account disabled if it isn’t a fan page. But at least your friends will have a means of finding you. and who knows, you may just decide Tumblr is a good alternative to role playing on Facebook.

Do you have a Tumblog? Let us know so we can follow you!

Written by Jay C. Hammond.

As a format, audiobooks offer both performance and a more strict adherence to the written word. Since there is no visual component to the performance, audiences still rely on their imaginations although the verbal clues and narrators voice may provide more information than just reading the words on a printed page or scree do. At the same time the narrator, regardless of what they are doing with their voice, is reading the printed words thus creating a performance that is more than just “based” on the book.

Turning a book into an audio book may even be a surer path to success than turning it into a film. This is especially true when it comes to children’s literature.

“My biggest concern when a children’s book is made into a movie is that the essence of what made the book a success will be lost in translation,” Anne Philips, an associate professor of English at Kansas State who teaches courses in children’s literature said in a 2011 interview.

Even when a film is a success and wonderful important details and nuances can be lost while others can be added. Ultimately how close a movie or tv series is to a book is a subjective question. Which is why audio books can be such delightful surprises for audiences and narrators as this interview with Anne Hathaway who narrates the newly released audio version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz available through Audible.com.

Audio books  offer a variety of advantages for children and adults. Along with the ease and convenience of “reading” while driving or walking there is also the fact that being read aloud to has far-reaching impact on children of all ages (including adults). It helps audience develop oral language and vocabulary. Hearing a book read can also help authors and role player learn about narrative structure and storytelling by example rather than through instruction or trial and error. By exercising your imagination in a way you may not be used to, audio books can also help expand your writing and role playing skills. Narrating a story for a child, or just for yourself can have similar effect just from a different angle.

So the next time your stuck in your role play, instead of grabbing a book or video, try picking up an audio book instead. It may just be the creative spark you need.

These and many other phrases from film and television, have not just entered our common lexicon, they have become an integral part of our communications. Just what made these lines memorable, compared to the thousands even millions of other lines we hear and read every day has remained a mystery. Or, at least it was a mystery until recently. Results from a new study conducted by researchers at Cornell University may have uncovered the secret and hold the key to writing memorable lines, whether for movies, advertising, literature or RP.

What they found, might surprise you.

The study suggests that memorable lines uses familiar sentence structure but incorporate distinctive words or phrases. They also make general statements that could apply to other situations just about anywhere. The ubiquity of such lines may be why, after a period of time, some many become standing jokes. Use the in a different context and they apply to multiple situations, including your own.

In order to arrive at this conclusion, researchers at Cornell University, in collaboration with Lillian Lee a computer science professor who specializes  applied computer analysis to a database of scripts from about 1,000 films. To determine the most memorable quotes from each film, they created a quote database using the quotes for each movie listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).  Each quote was paired with another line from the same film, spoken by the same character in the same scene and of about the same length. In this way, researchers controlled for all the possible variables except language. Once the pairs had been developed, the researchers asked a group of participants who had not seen the films to choose which of the pair of quotes was most memorable.

Two patterns emerged: Distinctiveness and Generality.

Researchers then programmed a computer with linguistic rules reflecting these concepts. for instance, if a lined contained third-person pronouns and definite articles and uses the past tense it is considered less general. Distinctive language, on the other hand can be identified by comparison with a databases of news stories. Using these rules and concepts, the computer was able to choose the memorable quote an average of 64 percent of the time.

Further analysis also found subtle differences in sound and word choice. Memorable quotes use more sounds made in the front of the mouth, words with more syllables and fewer coordinating conjunctions.

“Using movie scripts allowed us to study just the language without other factors. We needed a way of asking a question just about language, and the movies make a very nice dataset,” said Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, a graduate student and first author of a paper to be presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics being held July 8 – 14, 2012 in Jeju, South Korea.

In a further test, the researchers found the same rules applied to popular advertising slogans.

The good news for writers and role players is that teaching a computer to write memorable dialogue is probably a long way off. Applications might be developed in the nearer future that monitor works in progress by human writers and evaluate it for potential memorable lines.