Mutter mutter mutter...
Can't tell talk from mutter.
more moans from D!ck
Why is it that people only seem to tell you stuff when it's far too late
for you to do anything about it? Almost everyone must have at some time
bought something, only to be told "You could have got it cheaper at such
and such". Why? Why do some people take such a perverse interest in
upsetting people in this manner?
Another more recent one was about my scene days on the Amiga, I got some
E-Mail basically saying "oh yeah, you were dead popular, everyone knows
you" and so on, fat lot of good it is telling me this AFTER I've quit
the bloody scene innit? If people had actually said something to me
while I was thinking of getting the PC then I might not have bothered
and I might just have kept my old A1200.
I wonder if a lot of this is because people are a bit timid where making
suggestions is concerned? Sometimes if you're up to something, people
do not like to say anything in case you consider them nosey, and tell
them where to get off. In most situations a little bit of thought is
all you need to decide whether to speak up or not, if you have some
information and you think it would be useful, tell someone!
Of course, it would help if the person doing the buying, programming or
whatever made sure that other people around them actually knew what was
going on! That way there would be a lot less of this sort of thing! Us
lads up here in Lincolnshire *always* discuss stuff first so that this
sort of thing doesn't usually happen, if someone is going to buy
something for their computer, car, office or home or whatever, they make
sure that other people know about it, just in case!
Does that qualify as a rant? Possibly...
Have you seen that Lynx advert on the telly with whatsername from
friends? Isn't it a corker? "Do you have to go out tonight?" she asks,
tilting her head to one side and smiling sweetly into the camera, I
think that ad is a corker, best I've seen in a long time!
And what about that Lucozade NRG one that looks like the Firestarter
video as well? Nomination for the funniest advert ever? You betcha!
But one thing that still get me is those Always Ultra ads, you'll see
them tip some blue stuff onto one of these pads to demonstrate how
absorbant it is, but if you look closely the message "5 minutes later"
appears at the bottom of the screen. Does this mean then that, when a
woman feels she has soiled her pad, she has to take it off for five
minutes to allow the liquid to soak into the material, before putting it
back on? Urgh! No thank YOU missus!
And if I see one more woman stroke a baby's bum!
What about that one with the two birds getting ready to go out? "I
don't have many men in my bathroom" one of 'em says, plus loads of other
stuff about how men are totally useless. If a bloke said something like
that then they'd be slated to hell and back for being sexist, why is it
okay for women to say it though? I blame the Spice Girls, me.
What's that you say? Losy me marbles?
Let's look objectively at this, the Spice Girls are pushing the ideology
of "Girl Power", nothing more than a trendy Women's Lib movement. While
I and just about every other bloke I know, has no objection to women
being treated as quals and all that, I firmly object to the way the
Spice Girls are promoting active independance, "Girls! Throw off your
bras and be load and crude all you like!" That seems to be the Spice
Girls message!
Fine, right, you want to be treated like that? The next time a woman in
Spicesque garb gives me any lip I'm gonna smack her in the teeth, she
wants to act like a bloke, I'll treat her like a bloke! Thankfully a
lot of the girls my age around here still know the meaning of the word
"femininity" and don't go round looking like averts for Smarties, they
still wear bras and have some sense of decency, but the younger
generation are becoming unruly and you can trace that straight back to
the Spice Girls.
The Spice Girls have already been banned in at least one school, the
head was concerned about the conduct of the younger pupils since they
appeared on the scene, and quite rightly has banned anything to do with
them from is school.
HIS SCHOOL you notice, a resposible attitude from a BLOKE! Spice Girls
fans don't seem to know how to be responsible! My sister for one, and
all her friends, they all have this "newer new woman" attitude promoted
by the Spice Girls, they all give lip, they all think they're it. How
often did you see girl gangs roaming the streets at night when you were
13 or 14 years old? Never? Right! now they're all over the bloody
place, it's bad enough with young lads getting up to all sorts of
mischief without girls doing it as well.
Phew! You wanted more articles, remember, Kei?
There's another problem, a lot of people are reading The Word - the
counter on the web page went up by about 50 hits in one day - but none
of them are writing articles for inclusion in future issues. A lot of
mags have died through lack of support, whatever happened to Grapevine?
No, it didn't really die because LSD did, more it died because LSD were
producing all the articles, so when they died, no more articles, simple
as that.
[I recently heard that LSD are still alive. Strange since we haven't
seen anything from them in a while. I think they are still active on
some boards and some of their productive members have started joining
other groups to show they ain't dead. Grapevine did die partly due to
support. When I talked with Fish back in 1995 at the Symposium at that
time, he told me someone had done a disappearing act with the articles
so they had to start from scratch and it was hard since everyone thought
they were dead. Nothing happened since then though. And yes, it would
be great if a greater percentage of The Word readers actually
contributed some articles. Some think they can't think of anything
worth contributing but I bet they could if they tried. Read my
editorial for some ideas. Kei]
NFA were like this at one point, if we had not gone halves with Carnage
when we did then The Word could well have gone under when myself, Phill,
WB and several others all left NFA. As it is we were able to pass the
work on to Kei of Carnage (who probably still hates me for it :) who in
turn could use his better web and Amiga connections to spread it more.
However, The Word now seems to be suffering another article drought:
Gone are Aladdin Sane, Pex, John, Deck the Ripper, Budda, DF0: and Elf,
gone are all the people who sent in the odd advert and article, gone are
all those donations of text and graphics from unknowns and Amiga
regulars.
If you look at it now The Word is filled with articles from the same few
people every issue, Myself, Carnage, bootblock of Terraform, Andy Bolt,
Dave Diamond, Mammoth, and er... is that it? Where are the legions of
workers who took it to it's peak, when Fish/LSD called it "The number
one Amiga magazine"? They've deserted us, thus we need more fresh
talent from all over the place.
The internet might actually help with this, Kei tells me that users from
a couple of European countries have pledged their support, and the HTML
version might bring articles in from the PC side of things, so if these
things take off then we'll have the support we need to keep it going.
Unfortnately, this will take the magazine away from what it once was, a
magazine for the Amiga UK scene who don't want to be up to their necks
in pure 100% scene rantings. It will be a shame, because that's what
made The Word so cool, but if it survives, maybe it'll be worth it.
More rantings in the next issue, maybe, who knows? :)
D!ck
.-------------------------------------------------.
| E-Mail: Dick@emarkt.com / UIN (ICQ): 1809384 |
|-------------------------------------------------|
| Visit D!ck's webpages, the D!crosoft Dimension, |
| http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2020 |
| and Bodyshop Central: http://www.qcs.co.uk/bsc/ |
|-------------------------------------------------|
| P133, 40Mb, 1Gb, 512vx, Nec4x4, 33.6 (@^@) |
`---------------------------------------oOO(_)OOo-'
[It's true that certain readers are regular contributors and we thank
them. When I was at the WOA and speaking to someone at the Sadeness PD
stand he told me that he had heard that The Word had died with NFA and
that he was not aware that it was still going. It has therefore been
Carnage's job since taking over this project to make everyone aware that
it is still alive and this has took time but now we feel there are
enough people who are aware of it's continuing existance. The next step
is to make these people realize that they have the power to say
something and be heard by many by typing up some articles and
posting/emailing them in to us. After doing an internet survey recently
it was discoverd that the only other Amiga disk magazine that is
distributed via the internet as much as The Word is "The Jungle" and it
is not released as often as The Word.
Another point is that we are releasing The Word monthly now instead of
every 6-8 weeks and so articles have to arrive faster and we need more
than ever. If we waited 6-8 weeks we would have no article shortage but
the articles would be old upon release.
Yes, several groups both in the UK and abroad have pledged support for
The Word. On a sad note however, my main contact and distributor, TFT
in Norway just got sent down and will be doing 6 months in jail (to
comence shortly). Any Norweigen distributors out there??? Kei]
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