Previous: Movie reviews | Picofarad #9 contents | Next: More books from the Restricted Section
Lloyd Penney
1706-24 Eva Rd.
Etobicoke, ON
CANADA M9C 2B2
May 16, 2006
Dear Petréa:
I had completely forgotten about the latest Picofarad, number 8. I'm not sure if you sent out a reminder that it was out, but my memory is a little spongy at best. Here come some comments.
Reviews are becoming popular. Books, movies, etc. cost so much these days, let someone else buy it, and see what they have to say about it, and then purchase or not. We all have to be careful shoppers these days. MST3K fanfic?
Wikipedia should never, ever be used as a reliable source of fact. It's a compendium of some fact, usually tinged with opinion. But then, we could say the same thing about any textbook or encyclopedia. I guess scholars are less opinionated than the rest of us? I doubt that, but somehow, their degrees and years in the classroom make them more a source of true fact. At least, that's what they tell us. Wikipedia makes us doubt our entire history.
Easter eggs in software and hardware have been lots of fun in the past, and they are lots of fun on DVDs. There used to be several Easter eggs in Palm software, but I think they're all gone, and none have gone into new software. Try out www.eeggs.com, and you'll see findings for Easter eggs everywhere.
Yvonne and I were at LAcon IV, and we had a marvelous time. Yet...we are finding that justifying the extreme cost of Worldcons is something we may not be able to do any more. I expect that LAcon was our last Worldcon.
The PorSFiS chocolate fundraiser reminds me of the chocolate banquet Contradiction (Niagara Falls, NY) used to have. If I recall, tickets were $10, and once you were seated banquet-style, courses of chocolate would appear. Chocolate milks and chocolate buttons for the appetizer, and then would come some of the best chocolate cakes I've ever tasted. You could stay as long as you could stand it, and few of us did...most of us would stagger away with a sugar buzz, or in some cases, mild to moderate sugar reactions. Hey, it was worth it.
My loc...we did go to Ad Astra, but gave Eeriecon a skip. We both had to work that weekend. In a few days, we will hop a jet to Dallas, Texas for the 2007 International Space Development Conference. We'll be working registration and working for our memberships. After a tour of the local air and space museum, and meeting with Texas fan John Purcell, we should have a great time there.
Geeze, Chris, stop following me around! Go to the Eaton Collection some time. I donated a copy of our CUFF trip report after LAcon. Chris for TAFF...one more time! My ophthalmologist gave me a clean bill of health for the moment, and that's one reason why I can fly to Dallas.
I am a couple of Harry Potter books behind in my reading, and the seventh and final (?) book will be here shortly. I have the Harry Potter font! It's called Parry Hotter, to avoid copyright conflict, and I will attach it to this letter. If your ISP strips it out, let me know, and I will find another way to get it to you.
Give us all a buzz when issue 9 comes out, and I will try to get you a loc a little sooner. Take care, and see you then.
Yours, Lloyd Penney.
That was probably me, forgetting to send out notifications...
MST3K fanfic: Take that spam, chain letter, or what have you, and insert comments from Joel or Mike and the 'bots. You used to also be able to go to the author of a terrible fanfic, usually something that was posted to alt.startrek.creative, and say, "May I repost your fanfic in another place with comments? I promise to keep the copyright information intact!" These days, they're a little more suspicious.
The font did not quite survive the download to my computer, but I was able to track down a copy on the Web that did survive. It was great news to know there was a font, since I'd been prepared to cut and paste bits and pieces of cover images and stuff to make the header.
As for Worldcon, never say never! Suppose Montréal wins for 2009, huh?
Previous: Movie reviews | Picofarad #9 contents | Next: More books from the Restricted Section