Following our discovery that the word "Lokta" actually means a plant of the cannabis family, used in Nepal to make a coarse paper not unlike twilltone, we will of course be turning ourselves in at the nearest police station in accordance with government policy.
Where next on your chameleon disguise of new issues of Plokta? Ploktible? (you will have to use very tiny type to get it all on 2 sides, and no photos); Ploktana Wings? (reverse problem of expansion to 80 pages of simulated duplicator repro. Now that would be an entirely fannish use of several thousand pounds worth of high spec superfluous technology).
I presume in your survey you have had Marianne tested for Year 2000 compliance. If not you run the risk of ending up with a 5 year old product that refuses to respond to even simple requests and commands. Best checked now.
I can vouch for the results of the cat (this model is called Enki, after a more mythic, but no less stupid, hairy hunter) as a laptop companion. There is a strong seasonal component to this, around the first week of November, where he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time curled up on my lap through the evenings. You forgot to note under Maintenance and Servicing, that this also includes the gathering of small dismembered bits and piles of feathers from under the kitchen table, and (in one case) wiping blood off the landing wall after a rather one-sided bout of arial combat with a new (and soon-broken) toy. How the hell did you weigh George?? Have the scars healed yet?
Vote Tobes for the Doc Weir, oh go on, do!
Andy Hooper has a new fanzine called The Jezail, of which I've seen the first two issues. Apparently named after a long barrelled musket used in the Afghan Wars. No I don't know either, but suspect it's in its proven use of sniping from afar. Victor Gonzalez also has a new perzine, Needlepoint (or something else -- it seemed to be masquerading under more than one title). [Squib -- Ed.]
Warm things in your lap, continuing the cover, was the best piece, but you missed out one of the best possibilities; a nice hot cup of one's favourite beverage: cheap, no running costs, no medical expenses, no battery required, etc etc. [But do you want a hot cup of coffee in your lap?]
Joseph Major
Try to gull us with your compulsory disclaimers, eh?
Numeric values, or other things, like avocados, or differently-valued candy bars, for book reviews leave me cold. If this is a "how I liked it" it is one thing, but most reviews seem to be recommendations. The readership has become diverse enough that one has to consider that one fan's "five stars" may be another's "one and ½ avocados", and a third's "melted Hershey bar with a tooth stuck in it" all because they are interested in different things. However, thanks to Alison for her succinct (and numberless) comment on Evelyn Leeper, "careful, considered, and... utterly colourless". Evidently nothing happens to her at cons.
"Un-glamorous Velma"? I always wondered what she was like under that sweater...
I don't know whether you guys are still interested in all things Moose like [yes], but here is a recipe from the rec.food.historic newsgroup. Evidently it's a real entry from a Canadian cook book. The question that spring to my mind is, is there a recipe for jellying the rest of the moose (and if so what size jar do you need?)
JELLIED MOOSE NOSE
Ingredients:
1 upper jawbone of a moose
1 onion, sliced
1 clove garlic
1 tbs mixed pickling spice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup vinegarCut the upper jaw bone of the moose just below the eyes. Place in large kettle of scalding water and boil for 45 minutes. Remove and chill in cold water. Pull out all the hairs...
My recent visit to South Wales took me too close to a Christmas gift of particularly superfluous technology, which I expect the whole Plokta team will now want. My little brother had helpfully brought a new toy from America for our cousin's five-year-old: "The Insultinator". This ingenious plastic device conceals much misapplied computer ingenuity whereby it will deliver pre-programmed or random insults in a hideous and remarkably loud American Tannoy voice. "YOU'RE A TOTALLY -- GROSS -- NERDY -- GEEK!" "YOU'RE A COMPLETELY -- DUMB -- GEEKY -- NERD!" After the first four or five hundred permutations it does begin to get a little on the nerves. Realizing what fun life was going to be in the months to come, the kid's proud father said simply, "You... bastard."
I started typing, and an animated paper clip popped up in the lower left-hand corner of my screen, babbling at me. "It looks like you're writing a letter," it said. "Can I help, huh? Who are you writing to? Say hello for me, will you? Can I type a few sentences?" I cancelled the little monster, but you never know when these damn features are going to pop up again. Had I purchased LoCoscript, I wouldn't need to worry about this.
I now know what "guillemot" means but, like E.B. Frohvet, fail to understand how it can work as a verb. Please, do not enlighten me.
Moving on to the Consumer Replokta, well, I move back to Ploktaratchik, beginning to understand Hooper's complaint. You guys can all write well, and in issue 8 you all did. Good con report, good restaurant review, fascinating discussion of ducks, fine parody of Apparatchik. In issue 9, you went to press in a hurry, with most articles needing one more polishing pass to be really funny. Only the cover was up to the standard of the previous two issues. Pretty whiny of me to point this out, especially given that I don't publish a fanzine myself and you send me the product of your labor out of the goodness of your hearts. I tried several continuations of that sentence that had "but" clauses, but all of them trailed off hopelessly, as I found myself turning into a grammar school teacher exhorting you all to live up to your abilities. Well, why not?
"Treacle miners always used to talk in the indeterminate past tense... Aaaargh!"
Kudos to Patty Wells for recognizing the piano-playing creature at LoneStarCon 2 as an armadillo. (Mike Glyer thought it was an aardvark).
I had forgotten how nerve-wrecking baby crying was. Vermonter Fred Lerner in Montreal for the weekend took me kicking and screaming to the Asterix exhibit at a local museum. The crowd of screaming kids there drove me up the museum walls.
We bombed our house recently, making the roaches merely groggy, but devastating a nest of ants who had snuggled up to our clothes dryer's warmth for the winter.
The cat you tested for the Warm Things In Your Lap feature must have been either faulty or an out-of-date model, since no mention was made of the extremely useful self-install feature included with most current models of cat.
My three cats all have self-install, and can be toggled (admittedly at the cat's will not mine) between voice-activated self-install mode and fully automatic self-install mode. One particularly advanced model has fully automatic stealth self-install, virtually indistinguishable from teleportation into the lap.
I would be interested to learn whether this would affect the overall rating your testers gave to the cat. [George is in fact a faulty cat.]
Allen Baum
(Kushinagar, India, closer to Earth than Planet Giulia but not much). I have a few quibbles about Warm Things In Your Lap. You didn't test fanzines! Your weights seem a bit off (11kg cat? That is formidable. 150g book? Not Reality Disfunction).
The net isn't SF, but the speed with which it's taken over certainly is. We're keeping in touch with home on this 8 week 6 country holiday via cybercafes. Who would have thought I could check my email in Istanbul or Bangalore, or that small tour companies in Cappadocia would have a web page? (or a Japanese Buddhist temple). [Who would have thought that a small tour company in Cappadocia would have a Japanese Buddhist temple?]
Rodney Leighton
My newest house has about 33 different walls. 30 of them are bland white. I've been trying to brighten them up by tacking pictures of people I know here and there. Photographs preferred. You are invited to participate in the redecoration of my house.
I was taking a picture for someone and recalled your mention of your baby chewing on live electrical cables. I figured I would include a photograph of part of me (ever try to take a photograph of yourself?) Babes of all ages usually start to cry when they see me or a picture of me, so I figured you could make as many copies of this as necessary and fasten them to all the electrical cables, which should keep the baby from chewing on them. Then again, older babes sometimes begin to laugh hysterically. Not having ever seen a picture of you, to my knowledge, I have no idea what reaction you might have. [We tried to scan it but it broke the scanner...]
In both of the pictures I have seen of Avedon Carol, she has apparently been wearing about 14 layers of clothing. I used to wonder if she only had her picture taken while she was cold but her sofa companion in #8 doesn't appear to be wearing all the clothes she owns. Maybe Avedon is finding the British climate unbearable? Or perhaps she is so leery of the libido of male Britfen that she wears multiple layers of clothing as a protective measure?
I thank you for your definition of 'the usual' which has, as far as I can determine, about 6 different definitions. Composing a letter to Robert Lichtman recently, I realised that I have never received a fanzine from a request sent by me, with or without money, which worked out. Only one was to my satisfaction and that has vanished and caused me all sorts of trouble before it did. Most requests so far have simply been ignored; most of the zines which did arrive were not much good. All the good ones come out of the blue or as a result of me loccing a copy that someone other than the publisher has sent me.
"I'm too sexy for my glow-in-the-dark bouncing goo"
Alan Sullivan
A Live and Let Di policy, eh? Still, there is an important lesson to learn from all this: don't drive down narrow tunnels when you're pissed out of your mind. Similarly, don't drive across narrow bridges when you're pissed out of your mind (Teddy Kennedy) and don't fly unreliable experimental aircraft when your pilot's licence has been revoked for being pissed out of your mind (John Denver). Am I being tasteless yet? [What about editing fanzines when you're pissed out of your mind? -- Ed]
As the happy owner of a laptop PC, I fully agree with the results of your test. Just try word-processing with a cat or a baby (the thought of playing Worms with either of them frankly doesn't bear thinking about.)
Might I also recommend...
Austin Benson: International Fan of Mystery? Simo's not going to like that -- Austin Powers is his chosen rôle model... Well, how many lecherous fops can you think of, off-hand...?
Sheryl Birkhead
Last Sunday got a call -- kitten chewed through an electrical cord -- upshot will lose 1/3-1/2 of its tongue and not sure how much permanent facial (lips & cheeks) damage. The kitten was lucky -- often the lungs and esophagus get damaged -- so far no indication of that.
Armand Dillo... hmm -- I collect armadillos (not the live variety) and he just might... no, sounded way too big.
I presume you already know, if you're interested in pushing innocent slugs down the path of degradation to death that slugs will go for (and die in) a bowl of beer. I have no idea how deep the bowl can be -- and I'm not certain how it works (now, the pouring salt on them I understand...)
I calculate my favourite zines by the level of anticipation when I see the return address on a zine envelope (i.e. -- how long am I willing to wait before rending the envelope asunder) or my level of consternation when I realise how long it has been since I've seen.... Currently Plokta has already piqued the curiosity knob (along with Twink, the Reluctant Famulus, Knarley Knews, File 770 (I'm out of any news mainstreams), MSFire, Ansible and Mimosa fit peculiar niches -- the former I"miss", but its length is so abbreviated I never seem to get involved in it -- the latter because I'm a close contributor so I help out with the last minute fillos and -- hence -- get involved with the assembly before it hits the "stands". Other zines I get are usually less frequent or on an unusual schedule -- oops -- forgot Ethel and Thyme.
At one time I worked in a clinic in a VERY rich neighborhood. A client came in with an obviously pregnant cat -- wanting to know what was wrong. I explained nothing was wrong -- she was merely "with kittens". All I got was this frustrated look -- I obviously was a mental defective -- this was a house cat which never went out (as were most of our feline patients) -- so how could she be pregnant -- check again. Hmm. Immaculate conception #2? I couldn't answer this one since he assured me there were no other cats in the household... except her brother. Uh oh. I explained -- and then got a really nasty look. Miracle explained.
Buck Coulson
Possibly the motion sensors were designed to get you out of the building before everyone else left, Alison? Personally, I'd have been inclined to let the work go, but a more conscientious person might have taken some home with her...
Gail Courtney's problem was in getting into fandom 20 years ago. Forty years ago, fanzines demanded letters of comment; if you didn't respond, you didn't get the next issue. Some of them did 20 years ago, as well; Gail just got the wrong ones.
I see that Kim Huett doesn't watch porn movies or go in for sexual organs. Dogs aren't the only animals who think their sexual organs taste good. Stay as innocent as you are, Kim; it's refreshing in this cynical age.
My current status seems to be that the doctors aren't going to amputate my left foot, after all. So I have to put up with it hurting while it heals, which it seems to be doing. But slowly; very slowly. I suspect that I'll be getting around, painfully, with a cane at home and a wheelchair at cons for some time yet.
EB Frohvet
I disagree with your conclusion that a cat has no "useful features". Any SF convention will be enlivened when the person doing the Main Program is assisted by a cat determined to play with the notes. Also, a laptop will not proudly drop a dead (sometimes not quite dead) rat at your feet. Finally, if your laptop gives off as much warmth as your cat -- you rated them equal -- I suggest there's something wrong with it. The laptop. Or the lap. The cat is fine.
We Also Heard From:
Andy Leighton
, glenn mcdonald (as it happens, I am a dedicated science fiction reader...), Teddy (I've moved in with Tom to see if we can survive in the same household without killing each other...), Vijay Bowen (Do you take photos of fannish women in weird rubber and latex clothing in trade?) [Yes], Avedon Carol (You always make Plokta seem like you're having a lot of fun. There's a lot to be said for that.), Steve and Ann Green (I wasn't so much struck by the similarity between messrs Illingworth & Nansen as that of Claire and Avedon to a certain motorbike and sidecar riding pair of cooks), John Dallman (You have left your footprints on Uphall; Diana has decided to call the room you stayed in The Scott Suite, since you made it memorable), Tommy Ferguson (http://fanac.org/fanzines/TommyWorld/index.html), Mark Leeper (I had to look up the term "curate's egg"), Jan van't Ent (sending Christmas cards in a desperate attempt to avoid culling from the mailing list) Murray Moore (Real Mail will never be superfluous), and Karen Pender-Gunn (Warm things in your lap -- I thought this is what happened when you had nice thoughts about someone you liked.)
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