What's with the name of the site?
The site needed a name, and I couldn't really think of one that would be appropriate without giving away my real name or anything like that (information that I am not ready or comfortable divulging as of yet). I thought Zero Hour sounded cool, so I went with it.
How often can we expect an update?
Updates occur whenever I have something to add to the site. I know that a lot of sites of this nature have a set pattern, and a deadline in which to finish certain things so that they might be able to update on a weekly or biweekly basis. That will not be the case with Zero Hour. I promised myself that I would never set any definite deadlines. I can speculate when a piece will be complete all I want, but it is not going to be a deadline of any kind. In other words, if I don't finish by that speculated date, it doesn't matter, and I just keep on working until it is finished. Unlike some writers, I don't work well under deadlines and find them stressful. I don't want maintaining this site to become a stressful ordeal and don't want it to become another job, thus, it will be on my terms, and my terms dictate no deadline.
Also, check the dates on each of the stories on this site to see how long it took me to write these stories. Do you really think that
putting any kind of deadline or expectation for frequency of updates would be very practical, feasible, or reliable?
I'll try to have something to add to the site at least once a month. Sometimes I'll update more often than that. Sometimes I won't. However, I can offer no guarantees.
Have you ever had any problems with the authorities or general public in relation to your site?
The authorities have never given me any problems. This is just a few horror stories and subversive rantings, after all; its not like I'm running a kiddie porn or warez site. And lets face it, folks, there are sites whose content is hundred times worse than anything you'll ever find on Zero Hour, so I would hope that the authorities have bigger fish to fry. I have gotten a few hits from government agencies (no, I don't know which agencies—the tracker just gave me a .gov extension), so I guess the government has from time to time kept loose tabs on the site, but I haven't had any problems with them whatsoever as of yet.
As far as the general public where I live, currently, I haven't told anyone I come into contact with personally about this site, and probably won't be doing so anytime soon, so as it stands now, that isn't an issue.
Has anyone ever complained about the content of your site?
Surprisingly, no one has—as of yet—complained about any of the content on my site. When I first started building Zero Hour, I expected to get some hate mail for some of the things that I post here. Even now, I'm well aware that its only a matter of time before some self-righteous, holier-than-thou asshole starts to hassle me about my site (I'm very surprised it hasn't happened yet), and I doubt it will be a shock when it does happen.
This isn't to say that I created this site solely to piss people off. That isn't the intention at all, and I would much rather get positive feedback than some email from some stupid piece of shit bitching about how offensive he/she/it finds my site. But I refuse to be a slave to political correctness. And if this site does piss a few people off, then so be it, that's their problem, and no one is forcing them to come to my site. In other words, I'm not deleting the site just because of a few hate mails, and if a few douche bags don't like it, then I'm afraid that's just tough shit for them.
What did you use to create this site?
When I first started this site in early 2001, I used Microsoft Word to create my Webpages. It was easy enough to figure out, since at the time I knew absolutely nothing about Web development and was pretty new to the Internet in general. Looking back now, I realize that it was more of a hassle than it was worth. Incorporating images was a needless pain in the ass, and the code was a complete fucking mess, and way too bloated, making the file size of each page at least three times bigger than it needed to be. Needless to say, I am glad that I no longer use that for Web page creation, even though at the time the choice to wean myself from it wasn't my own, but rather because Word simply stopped working on my computer. I have long since cleaned up the code, so it is no longer nearly as bloated as it once was, and as much of a pain in the ass it was, it was probably worth it to reduce the download time of my pages.
After Microsoft Word, I used the Webpage editor offered by Netscape Navigator. If I remember correctly, it would have been the version 4 of Netscape (which as we all know is complete garbage), which pissed me off, even though I tolerated it for a while, until I finally decided to crank out the code by hand on NotePad.
Even NotePad pisses me off, though, because a lot of times, when the page gets big enough, it'll start complaining about there not being enough memory to add anything else, which of course is complete bullshit, but still makes editing the HTML of the Webpage nearly impossible.
These days, I use another text editor called TextPad, which is really nice. For one thing, it never complains about there not being enough memory no matter how big the pages get. That alone makes it superior to NotePad. Another nice feature is that it highlights all of the HTML tags in blue, with the attributes in green, which makes editing tags and creating pages a lot easier. Plus it has a find and replace feature that is lacking in NotePad. So, needless to say, I will be sticking with TextPad for a long time with my WebPages.
I still use the Netscape Editor (though now I have Netscape Navigator 7.1, which is a hell of a lot better than shitty Netscape 4), to convert stories to Webpages because they're just too fucking long to code by hand.
I also code the pages in XHTML, and use CSS for layout and presentation, and utilize PHP to keep a nice, uniform look and feel; this way, I can edit only one file to change the navigation structure, etc. on all of my pages. Makes things a hell of a lot easier.
I have a short story that I've been working on and was wondering if I sent it to you if you could post it on your website?
Zero Hour was set up as a place where I could post my writings—my stories, rants, and other fucked up shit that I come up with or pull out of my ass. Its not really set up to be any kind of a webzine, nor do I plan on making it one anytime soon. I'm sorry.
Why don't you have any affiliate or sponsor links on your site?
A lot of people tend to get annoyed with advertising. Not that I'm willing to pander for anyone here; I'm not. This site always has been and always will be completely run by my terms only. At the same time, though, no point in needlessly annoying them. Especially since this site is still a relatively low traffic site (although traffic has been increasing as time goes on, thankfully), so cluttering it up with ads would only make the site look like complete and total shit, and only for mere pennies a month, probably, especially since advertisers aren't willing to pay nearly as much for ad space as they had been several years ago. In short, its just not worth.
I would also like to point out that at one time I had advertisements and affiliate links on another website that I maintain, and in all honesty, I found it nothing short of a miserable experience giving me nothing but false hope and empty promises that I would be rich, when in reality, it got me nothing, and what few sign-ups I did get, I didn't even see the money because of management and billing company changes. Rev share programs have been nothing more than a waste of time and money to me, in which I flush $50 down the toilet buying a PO Box for it, and then turn in my personal information, such as my real name and social security number, and wind up getting absolutely nothing in return except to have one of my site cluttered with advertisements. So please, don't bother me about affiliate links, whatever you do. Don't coerce me into it, don't tell me about how much money you're making, or anything else. I'm not interested, I don't care, so please just respect that and leave me alone.
Why don't you have any porn on Zero Hour?
There isn't any porn on Zero Hour because Zero Hour is not a porn site, it never was a porn site, was never intended to be a porn site, and will never become a porn site. The purpose of my site is for me to have a place for my writings, not for you to masturbate to a bunch of pictures of naked men, women, hermaphrodites, or whatever having sex, eating shit, etc.
Obviously, if I were to add a bunch of porn, it would greatly boost the traffic to Zero Hour. However, it would be the wrong kind of traffic, for the idea of a bunch of people coming to my site, draining my bandwidth just so they can masturbate, and then leave without so much as looking at any of my writings is repugnant to me, and defeats the entire purpose of this site. I'd much rather have only a few visitors who actually care about the content on Zero Hour and are die-hard fans than a whole surge of 10,000 hits a day from people who don't give a rat's ass about anything on the site.
I realize that many people enjoy porn, and I have no problem with that. However, if I have to change the way I do things on this site to pander to your needs for the purposes of keeping you coming back, then its obvious that this site wasn't geared toward you and this site isn't for you either, and you should therefore leave and search for something more to your liking. I'm not going to change things for anybody. If you enjoy what's here, then I am glad. If not, please seek whatever it is you're looking for elsewhere.
If I were to get into the porn industry, I would simply create a separate site and have all the porn on that one site. However, I have no interest in doing so at this time, and will stick with Zero Hour for the foreseeable future.
Would you be willing to post links to porn sites?
Probably not, no. I have done so in the past to a few people, but only because I knew the person behind the porn site. Would I do so again? I honestly don't know. Its not that I have a problem with pornography. While I personally don't look at it that much, I don't think that it should be made illegal.
My problem lies usually with the people behind the porn sites. I just don't trust them. I'm not saying that all porno sites are guilty of this, but many of them bombard their visitors with pop-up storms upon entering or exiting the site, and many of those pop-ups can be looped together infinitely, so the only way to close them would be to reboot the computer, or they make the pop-ups impossible to close, or otherwise find ways of fucking up your computers with their bombardments of pop-ups. One thing I can't stand on the Internet is pop-ups, and porn sites are notorious for using them and a lot of them. Along with that, they sometimes use cookies and other nasty shit that could be hazardous to one's privacy (then again, so do a lot of other sites that have nothing to do with porn—but then, I'm not going to link or associate myself with those sites either). Porn sites are also notorious for spamming. And sometimes porn sites will charge money to be allowed access, and I don't want anything to do with that shit either.
Look, if you really want to find some good porn, go to Google, or another search engine of your choice, and run a search on "sex", "porn," "xxx" or any of those other keywords, and chances are, you'll get more porn than you'll know what to do with. See how easy it is? You really don't need me at all.
Could you give me Johnny Bastard's email address?
Unfortunately, I can't do that. You see, Johnny Bastard does not exist, and therefore, he does not have an email address. Johnny Bastard is a fictional character that I made up. As I explained earlier, most of the stuff in his installments are a bunch of bullshit that I pulled out of my ass just to be weird, freak people out, disturb them, or amuse them. Its all just for laughs, really. What can I say? I have a sick sense of humor. Perhaps in some ways, Johnny Bastard might be a bit of a reflection of that, if you look at it a certain way. I don't know. In any case, however, Johnny Bastard exists only within the confines of my sick and twisted imagination. Sorry to disappoint you.
Are you going to create your own forum for Zero Hour?
I have absolutely no plans to create a forum for Zero Hour at anytime in the future and very little desire to do so either. I post on a number of other forums throughout the Internet, with a wide variety of atmospheres and users, and I might even agree to help moderate a forum if someone asks me to. However, while I could install a forum script on Zero Hour, I just don't want to be bothered with it right now. I'm sorry.
Why is your layout so plain?
The layout might be "plain" or "bland" to you, but the truth is the layout is the way it is because I like it this way.
If I wanted a shit load of animated GIFs, flash banners or other shit that requires a plug-in, falling objects, scrolling text, background music, or other cheap special effects, then I could have easily implemented it into the site. Since I don't have any of that stuff, it should be apparent that I don't want it. Most of that crap is annoying, and slows down the load time anyway, which is generally something to be avoided when making a decent site.
The only time I ever use java in any of my sites is if there is a valid reason for the java script, such as a script to break my site out of someone else's frames if I am caught up in them. I don't give a shit about sparkling stars that follow your mouse icon around on the screen, and shit like that pisses me off most of the time anyway. Flash banners are pointless—just use a simple graphic in the format of GIF or JPEG. The only valid use for flash I can see is for cartoons or games, and since I can't do any of that stuff, there won't be any flash on it. Flash banners are not only pointless, they're huge and increase the load time, and I know that I personally don't like a page that loads slowly (and I have a fast connection, so if your page loads slowly for me, you've got some serious problems).
I'd rather focus on providing content than bother with lame special effects and bells and whistles, which are completely unnecessary most of the time.
A lot of successful sites like Google have what some might call a bland layout, but people still like them anyway, because they are useful, and they do what they have to do. Nobody gives a shit about bells and whistles—they care about the content of the site, and what the purpose of the site is supposed to be.
The layout of the site is white text on a black background because of the material of the site; in other words, to reflect the dark and eerie atmosphere I'm trying to convey through my stories.
What is the official policy on censorship for Zero Hour?
Obviously I am against all forms of government censorship and despise political correctness in all its heinous incarnations. I don't try to force these policies on privately owned message boards that I post on, and will always try to respect the rules there and won't argue with them. If I find that I would be unable to comply with the rules, I would leave peacefully without causing a scene.
Here at Zero Hour, I'd say that I would allow all comments—positive and negative and outright flames against me—to go unhindered, though there are a few policies and guidelines to keep in mind before posting in the guestbook:
- Keep guestbook entries relevant to the material on Zero Hour.
- All spam posted here will be deleted as soon as I see it, end of story. I hate that shit and will not allow any of my site to become a commercialized cesspool, especially if I'm not making money off of it. Fuck that and fuck you, too; go peddle your shit elsewhere. It should also be noted that there's a good chance that I will report you for spamming, too—for example, if you're on a rev share and you put your rev share code on the guestbook, I'll report your ID to the site you're affiliated with and get you deleted. Even if you're not on a rev share program and are spamming me with your site, I can still report it to your host and get you deleted that way. Trust me, it's not worth the risk of spamming here.
- Malicious links—as in sites that automatically install components on your system without your consent, too many pop-ups, malicious java scripts, etc.—will be removed, though there's a good chance that I might leave your comments posted.
- As per the rule above, links that lead to illegal content such as child porn, authentic rape, warez, or anything else that could get me in trouble or get this site deleted will also be removed.
- Flooding the guestbook will not be tolerated, period.
- All incoherent and nonsensical gibberish will be deleted.
- You are not to impersonate other people.
- Any personal information posted about others will be deleted. I don't care if it is posted in other places like a WHOIS database, etc., I don't want it posted here.
Those are the main rules as far as this site goes. If you can accept them, that's great. If you think I am too much of a fascist dictator, that's you're problem—I'm not too concerned. Get over it and move on.
Why don't you have too many interactive features on Zero Hour
Mainly because I do not wish to have them. I have a guestbook that people can sign and leave feedback if they want to. I also have a feature that allows people to send the URL of stories to their friends if they wish. That's good enough.
There aren't too many interactive features available that I would want. I tried having a shoutbox/tagboard for about a year, but then I got sick of all the spam that I had to delete and all the nonsensical posts that would accumulate, which would diminish the quality of a halfway decent shoutbox. I have no desire to start a message board at this point in time, nor can I program my own video games, and I don't want to use the same java and flash games that are in the public domain and used on a hundred other sites either. If people are going to come to my site, I want it to be because they like my writings, not because they are hopelessly addicted to some cheap video game that someone else programmed and allows anyone to use on their site.
Zero Hour is, always has been, and always will be a private archive for my writings to share with whoever is interested, not a cesspoole of cheesy bells and whistles and crap like that.
What are some of your sources of inspiration?
Stephen King is a major source of inspiration, I would say, as his novel,
Cujo inspired "Devil Child". Other elements of "Devil Child" were influenced from some of his other writings. I'm also an avid
X-Files fan (though don't support them going on
without Mulder and Scully, but I won't get into that here) and that has also given me some inspiration, particularly where
Out in the Cold is concerned.
Basically, I guess you could say that movies, TV, and books are my source for inspiration, as I seriously doubt that anyone would like to read about anything that goes on in my life (plus I don't like to make family members or other people I know into characters in my stories for a
variety of reasons).
That isn't to say that I copy "word-for-word" what other people do. Usually what I do is if I'm watching a movie, reading a book, etc., I might think about how I would handle such a situation; not putting myself in that situation personally, but instead thinking about how I would have written such a story line with my own characters. That's about the best way I can describe it. Often times an idea for a story might form, and then I will work with it inside my head for an extended period of time before I feel that it is fully developed, before sitting down on my computer and typing it up. After playing around with the idea, it will usually have
changed significantly; sometimes it will be an entirely different idea altogether, as is the case with The Scapegoat (finished, but not yet revised). So while my ideas and stories might not be 100% original (nothing is, really, when you think about it), they are not copycat stories either...at least I try not to be a copycat author.
Why do you write about such gruesome topics?
I write what I write because that's what I enjoy writing, just like anyone else who has ever written any piece of fiction in the history of mankind. A hopeless romantic who enjoys reading love stories and watching those kinds of movies probably wouldn't write a piece of science fiction, now would they? Instead, they would write a love story, because that is what they enjoy, and that is the genre that they are most likely going to be very familiar with. I'm doing the same thing here; I'm writing what I know, and what interests me. Darker topics laying within the realm of the macabre draw me, insanity and subversion attracts me (no, I don't get any kind of a sexual thrill out of any of this shit, so don't even ask that), and so I write about those kinds of topics. There's really no deeper reasoning than that. I wasn't raped or abused or locked in a dark closet in a kid. I just enjoy writing dark, violent fiction where the characters get beaten up, shot, stabbed, run over, killed, mangled, etc., okay? Can you deal with that? And its not like I'd do any of that shit to anybody for real, so you really don't have much to worry about either.
Did you take lessons in writing?
No—I guess you could say that I am self-taught. I learned from reading other novels—horror novels, for the most part. I took the elements I liked and discarded those I didn't, and somehow after a great deal of practice (Out in the Cold was in many ways "training wheels" for me and my little hobby), I gradually developed my own writing style. That's about it, really.
Do you take requests?
Given the time that it takes for me to write these stories, as well as all the other shit that I have to do as well (school, work, etc.), I am going to have to say no. I'd rather not get involved in that whole racket. I'm sorry. If I like the idea, I might consider working it around in my head, and evolving and developing it into something workable, but as far as actual requests go, I'm sorry to say, but I just can't go through with them.
How can you consider your "short stories" short?
From time to time, people look at my short stories and say: "Those don't look that short!" Most of the time, they're teasing me, but I thought I'd explain my rationale for labeling them as short stories anyway.When I read the afterword to Stephen King's Different Seasons a few years ago, in that essay, King says that a short story is 20,000 words or less, a novel is 40,000 words or less, and anything in between 20,000 and 40,000 words is a novella. I haven't gotten a different opinion (other than the definition that a short story is something people can read it one sitting, but then, I don't always read them in one sitting either, so don't take that definition very seriously), so that's the one I go with. All of the stories in the short story section are under 20,000 words, except for "Bloodlust" (which goes over the limit by only a few words, so I don't care), therefore, I think of them as short stories and will treat them as such.
Sometimes people get shocked when I tell them one of my stories is sixteen pages, but in truth, that's pretty damn short for one of my stories. On average, my stories generally range from twenty to fifty pages, though some of them are longer than that, and a couple have even gone over a hundred pages. And then there's my huge 650-page novel, Out in the Cold. So as you can see, sixteen pages for is nothing for me, and for the most part, I'm not sure I could even make a story that's any good that's actually really short (like only a couple pages, like some people seem to be able to do).
Why do you call yourself The Shitter?
I first heard the term "shitter" used in Stephen King's Christine when I read it in 2000 (before I came online), as that was what Lebay calls all of the people he hates, and later Arnie Cunningham starts referring to all the people he hates as "shitters" too. I've just always loved the term, though this isn't the main reason I chose it as my online screename.
In January 2001 (around the time I was still beginning to even get a handle on the Internet) I wrote what was at the time meant as a joke page (which I had no idea what to do with), and which is now considered one of my very short experimental stories "The Shit Zone", after not having slept in 36 hours. Despite not knowing what to do with it, I felt I needed an email address, so opened up an email for theshitter2001@yahoo.com (which is now defunct and no longer exists at the time of this writing). I used that email address when I found Sickopath's Sickass Site in February 2001 to email him and tell him I liked the site, and the name pretty much stuck with me since then.
My screename is one of those things where some people love it and others don't like it as much. Some people get a kick out of saying it; someone once said that I was too sweet and nice to be a shitter. I've always loved the name myself (if I didn't, I surely would have changed it by now). I think it has a nice ring to it.
How old are you?
Since age changes, and I'd have to remember to update this question every time my birthday comes around, I'll just say that I was born on March 24, 1981 and let you do the math.
Are you some kind of sadist who thrives on the suffering of others?
I suppose it could be argued that I am a sadistic author, given what I put some of my characters through, and the way that I tear them open and beat the living shit out of them. No doubt that I am quite brutal at times in my writings. No one can dispute that.
Am I a sick, sadistic bastard who thrives on the suffering of real people, though? Absolutely not. No matter what I would do in my stories, or what kinds of sick sons of bitches I may create in my own little fictional universe, I am not in any way an advocate of real life violence (unless it is for defensive reasons; under those circumstances, you should do whatever it takes to survive), genocide, terrorism, or anything of that nature.
Do you think that media violence makes people go out and kill people for real?
In all honesty, I think that's a load of shit! I played violent first-person-shooter games as a kid, too, and it didn't make me walk around my high school with an AK47, blowing away anyone I saw — whether student or teacher. I honestly don't know how they could be so stupid as to assume that people are just empty receptacles taking in any stimulation, any impulse, and acting on it no matter what it might be. Its bullshit pseudo science. If someone actually does bring a weapon to school to shoot and kill their classmates, then that means that they were screwed up and had it in them to murder someone in cold blood to begin with, no matter what they might have watched. The media in Japan is a hundred times more violent than anything you'll find in the United States, and yet you don't hear about any school shootings in Japan, now do you?
The people who claim there is a correlation between media violence and real violence are nothing more than fundamentalist, politically correct, self-righteous dirt bags trying to control what you, me, and everyone else views, says, and thinks, and its nothing but bullshit. They blame and scapegoat everyone but the parties truly responsible, and it makes me sick!
Do you believe in anything you write in the Johnny Bastard Files?
When I am writing an installment of The Johnny Bastard Files, its sort of like playing the part of a character. It is not my own little online diary, nor am I using that ongoing series as an outlet to express reprehensible views or opinions that would otherwise turn the public against me. Basically, the whole series of vignettes and misanthropic rants was inspired by various psychotic, misanthropic, and subversive rants that I've read on the Internet throughout the time I've had regular online
access.
Obviously, I'd be lying if I said that I disagreed with everything that Johnny Bastard said. From time to time a few of my own ideas may leak out into whichever installment of JBF that I am writing. But the whole purpose is to write from Johnny Bastard's point of view and not make him either a reflection or contradiction of my own persona.
Would you be willing to let me interview you publicly?
Please do not email me with requests for me to appear on national TV or the radio. I am not comfortable with that kind of publicity and will therefore decline on your offer.
If you run a website of some kind that interviews other webmasters, then I might be willing to be interviewed through email or an instant messenger of some kind. Just email and ask me if you are interested in such an interview and maybe we can set something up. However, in the event that I do agree to the interview, I reserve the right to decline any question you might ask me, including, but not limited to, questions that I deem too personal.
You do realize that not all religious people are insane, don't you?
Yes, I realize this fact, and that a lot of people who believe in God and Christianity are nice people. I have friends who are religious, and I still think very highly of them.
I do realize that The Street Preacher may seem anti-religious, and I'm okay with that; however, please realize that I understand perfectly well that not everyone who is a Christian is completely fucked in the head like the Street Preacher was, and also that I understand that not all priests are pedophiles as well (though some of them are, apparently). The whole purpose of The Street Preacher was to show religious fanatics and fundamentalists for what they are, which is completely insane. While the story may seem to put down religion in general, that wasn't my intent, and if you pay close attention, you might see some very subtle references showing that not all people of faith are bad people, though these "hints" are not going to jump right out at you.
Are you a goth
Certain people have assumed that because Zero Hour is done in a black background (yeah, like this is the only non-goth site with a black background), and that a lot of the material is dark and morbid, that this is a goth site. Not many people have presumed this, but a couple have, so thought I'd address this. No, I am not a goth, nor do I know all that much about goth culture, aside from all the various stereotypes about gothics out there, which I'm sure goths probably hate. A lot of people seem to despite goths; I don't care one way or the other, myself. Not knowing all that much about them, I can't find any logical reasons to hate them at this point in time; I mostly just don't care either way. I've been to a few goth sites in the past, but never stay more than a couple of minutes since they generally bore me to tears. Just some darker version of someone's personal homepage, with photos of some stranger I know nothing about and therefore don't care about, photoes of their friends, who again, I don't give a shit about since I don't know them, and other boring crap that you'd find on the lighter version of a personal homepage. *yawn* Needless to say, I don't spend a lot of time on goth sites or goth communities.
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