>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WELCOME TO <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ___ ___ __ __ _____ ___ / __| ___ / _ \ ____ \ \ / / _ _ | __ | ___ ___ / __| | (__ | _ \ | _ | |_ / \ V / | \| | | __| \ \/\/ / \__ \ \___| | / |_| |_| / / |_| | .` | |_____| \ /\ / |___/ |_|_\ /___| |_|\_| \/ \/ --- * Issue 14 * --- --- * C R A Z Y N E W S ! ! * --- Welcome to the 14th Issue of CrazyNews: --- * Contents * --- * Introduction * The News! * Impressions of a Toronto Spodmeet * 69 Reasons * Admin Admissions! * Osy's Travel Tips * Residents Homepages Competition * Big Al's Woodworking Tips * CrazyStats * Corrections * Submit Stuff * Mailing Information --- * Introduction * --- Welcome to the 14th issue of Crazynews. You're probably wondering what happened to the last issue... or maybe you're not. Either way, it was the issue that comes between issue 12 and this one... so maybe it got eaten by the strange mystical forces surrounding the number of issue... *cue strange eerie music* The some quite big news this month, concerning how CrazyNews will be coming to you, reports about the spodmeet a couple of weeks ago in Toronto, new articles and so on. Read on! For those that celebrate Easter for religious reasons and for those that just see it as a holiday - we hope you had a great Easter! Hope you didn't eat *too* much chocolate (well not without saving some for Ostrich anyway!). Take care all! ~Raist and the CrazyNews staff --- * The News! * --- * Half the Spam * CrazyNews will only be arriving in your mail box once every two months from now on. The editorial staff feel they can get a better issue to you if we send it half as often - makes sense right? It should also mean you get twice as much and hopefully twice as much quality! * Gladys Travels Again! * For any Gladys fans out there there's a new Gladys page out 7th April! Gladys gets Abducted... Also, we understand the page has undergone somewhat of a revamp and has some more postcards for the tank tour! * CrazyAir * For those who want a laugh, check out CrazyAir, written by Pumbaa at: http://www.phlegm.demon.co.uk/crazyair/ ...really funny stuff, nice one Pumbaa! Maybe we can host it on the CrazyLands web site soon... ? * Spodmeet * The spodmeet was a great success and everyone who could make it had a great time. Check out 'Impressions of a Toronto Spodmeet' and this months 69 reasons for more info! * Another domain?! * You can now telnet to your favourite talker (CrazyLands, remember?!) by telneting to 6969.org 6969! That's right, we have another domain. At the moment it won't work for the web page or for email, but that's soon to change! * 69 Things? * CrazyWeb is always being updated thanks to the new maintainers and to commemorate the new 6969.org domain, we're going to be adding a new slot. We're looking for people to send in pictures of anything with the number 69 on (or even the words Sixty Nine). They should be scanned in of course and emailed to crazynews@crazylands.org or crazyweb@crazylands.org). Things like price labels, photos of signs, leaflets or anything you can think of would be great... let your imagination wild! [Not _too_ wild of course - Ed] * CrazyNews Staff Change * The editorial staff of CrazyNews is changing. We're saying goodbye to Raist from now on, and his position as head editor is currently vacant. Swiff is filling in for now, and Skid will probably be taking over sometime soon - though nothings definite yet - stay tuned! Goodbye Raist, and thanks for all the fish. * Work it out... * Unfortunately there won't be any more tutorials in CrazyNews - possibly ever. Good luck in finding stuff out. CrazyLands should have a help files project starting soon to revamp our help files and also get them on the web. As usual staff would be pleased to help out, either on the talker or by asking for help by email at crazy@crazylands.org. * T-Shirt Vendor Change * Enquiries for the purchase of TShirts are now being handled by different people, so if anyone still wants a CrazyLands shirt, they can get information from the standard email address: crazy@crazylands.org * EWToo services * EWToo.org is a computer that hosts many services for the EW talker community. These include Grim's talker list (where you can post and read talker reviews): http://list.ewtoo.org/ ...the 'SpodFind' service, where you can register your character name: http://spodfind.ewtoo.org/ ...the Angel mailing list for talker staff and coders and much much more. EWToo also specialises in selling talker and MUD accounts for those that might be interested, though we hope you're not gonna leave CL behind! Mail info@ewtoo.org for more information about any of the services (or catch Grim on the talker sometime!). * Telnet Clients * The search for good telnet clients goes on. Despite the fact we stopped our review on different clients, we're always no the watch out for the residents of our talker. As such, you may be interested in checking out the following web page for some client reviews! This is the web page of a Mud and despite the fact that CrazyLands doesn't currently support compression, there's some interesting comments. Check it out: http://www.abandoned.org/text/clients.shtml --- * Impressions of a Toronto Spodmeet * --- It's kinda difficult to do an impression of a spodmeet in text - although I'm sure that's not what's meant by the title of this article. But if I had to do a text impression, I guess it would be *WOOSH*, or *OOOF, WOW* ... or something along those lines. Spodmeets usually go past too fast, and really tire you out - and this in Toronto which started on April 9th was no exception. If course, *WHEEE!* and *GRIN* would also be other good impressions of most spodmeets - and yet again, this spodmeet certainly met these criterion. Over all I think those that made it in the end had a great time. We packed quite a few activities into the Friday evening and weekend. It certainly wasn't like the spodmeets that we've had in Colchester the last few times - this time we actually left the protective shelter of a room full of computers and ventured out into restaurants, desert places, museums, shops, film theaters and at one stage you could even catch CrazyLands spods walking along the beach of Lake Ontario. I'm not going to go over the memorable moments of the weekend, 69 reasons this month does that quite well! I will say though that I hope you'll see some of the photo's on the web site for this spodmeet and you'll see from some of those that it was as wacky and as fun as ever. As usual for spodmeets, it was a great weekend to for some people to meet, or be with others they've not seen in ages - and that certainly applied in Toronto for a group of friends that goes back a number of years through CrazyLands history. I'm sure everyone who was there would like to thank those in Toronto that helped get things together, put up visiting spods and provided transport for those who were around. Thanks guys! I know some people were disappointed that they couldn't make it - and you were all missed. You'll be sorry to hear that you missed a fun time, but hopefully next time we all get together (wherever that may be) you'll all be there. I've heard rumours of Colchester 2000 at CrazyLands house... interesting, we'll have to see where that leads - watch out for announcements in CrazyNews as usual. Happy spodmeeting all, wherever you may meet! - Written by Swiff --- * 69 Reasons * --- As a tribute to the fun at the spodmeet, I thought I would dedicate this 69 Reasons to all of those who made it to the spodmeet in Toronto or tried to make it and couldn't! :) Plus I am calling this... * 69 Memories from the Toronto Easter Spodmeet 1999 * 1. Mulder being bombarded by teeny boppers at laser quest who thought she was Ostrich. 2. The "grope" photo! 3. Lots of Dessert at Under the Sun. 4. Seeing Ralph Benmurghi at Laser Quest with a birthday party of kids. 5. The swings! 6. Seeing Grimm. (note the two m's) 7. Dax and Pumbaa being so adorably cute holding hands... 8. Wheezie drinking water and getting drunk. 9. Laughing at the idea of Zettl being a legend that newbies fear. 10. Recalling all the previous spodmeets and the fun they produced. 11. Breakfast at Ted's. 12. Nexus realizing after an hour that Westerngirl is sitting two seats away from him. 13. Seeing Padre in his brand new glasses. 14. Swiss Chalet... 'nuff said. 15. Nexus using a London Underground map as an alligator mouth. 16. Wynne showing up cuz she really does exist! 17. Sonnyk coming second in laser quest. 18. Hearing Ostrich's stories that only involved alcohol. 19. Walking along the Beaches in sub-tropical weather. 20. Driving home in a blizzard the following day. 21. Drinks, appetizers, dinner and more at Kelsey's. 22. Missing all those who could not make it. *sniff* 23. Dreaming up some very interesting sucomments that will come out of the adventures of this weekend. 24. Swiff losing his sense of adventure. 25. Gallo having the strangest looking perogies at Swiss Chalet. 26. Reminding Duke of the time when... wait, we can't mention that anymore. 27. The lack of experience at The Rainforest Cafe. 28. Sugar Mountain. 29. Things I did not see in Canada. 30. "Cosmic Voyage" at the Omnimax. 31. Buying Crazylands T-shirts. (which are still available!) 32. Getting a snack at the Tim Horton and Wendy's then realizing dinner was still another four hours away. 33. Eating WAY too much food! 34. Watching The Simpson's and X Files on Sunday night. 35. Missing Insight's birthday party. :( 36. JohnnyQ getting milk instead of a mocha. 37. Magenta's nifty nail polish. 38. Rolling up the rim and not winning. 39. Saying good bye. *sniff* 40. Simba trying to hold back her laughter while drinking tea. 41. Ordering Tea, Earl Gray, HOT. 42. Zettl and Amyth showing up for lunch on Sunday. 43. Zettl's rendition of "plane" fries. 44. Padre's special sound effects. 45. Westerngirl's hair style that makes her unrecognizable. 46. Goober's idea of a $1 movie for a date. 47. Shark keeping an eye on those wacky gals Ossie and Wheezie (you know what kind of trouble that THEY can cause!). 48. Sugar and Milk. 49. Shark actually remembering the Fross Centre from sixth grade. 50. A drink at Darby's. 51. The lava lamp... mmmmm, lava lamps. 52. All calling up Nexus during dinner. 53. Nexus calling up Simba so they could talk from WAY across the table. 54. The cell phones... 55. All the nifty toys at the Science Centre gift shop. 56. The lack of a modem on a table. 57. Seeing the South Park/Star Wars preview on Nex's laptop. 58. Depeche Mode on the car radio on the way to Ostrich's house at midnight. 59. Duke being mistaken for Steve Page of BNL. 60. The X Files event that we did not know we were involved in... 61. Contemplating buying a rubber spider for Grim. 62. The Museum. 63. Air hockey during laser quest. 64. Yet another telling of the time when Wheezie was traded for garbage... don't ask. 65. Yet another telling of the Pink Ostrich Milk story. 66. The definition of Nexus speed for driving and Ostrich speed for driving. (Ostrich's are supposed to be the land's fastest running birds...). 67. Polar bears having clear fur. [WHITE FUR! - Ed] 68. Toonies. 69. It was just all so much fun, count in all the other memories as being said right here. :) - Written by Simba Any ideas for a '69 reasons' theme ? - send them to CrazyNews and we'll get our resident '69' woman to do it for you ! ;P Oooers... --- * Admin Admissions! * --- Hi everyone. Not much to 'admit' this month again, except of course we've had our staff review and a few changes were made. Al and Seldon have both left the staff this month, I hope everyone appreciates the work they did whilst they were around, but other commitments have taken up their time recently. Snowman has come on board as our newest (and therefore brightest - right?) staff member, congrats to him (I think!). Mahi recently resigned from staff, so we're saying goodbye to him this month after a long spell as an SU. I suppose that's about it. Sooner or later the latest version of CrazyLands will be released, and it'll be a separate code base in it's own right. Nevyn has almost totally re-written massive section, so expect changes!! It even has a new name. Your favourite talker will be powered by the 'Twocan' code base sooner or later, so look out for the announcement of the new web site and release. As always, the most interesting news reaches you first through CrazyNews. Hope you enjoyed this months issue! I'd also like to say goodbye to Raist as the chief editor of CrazyNews and thank him big time for all the work he's put in. Without his contributions we'd never have had a talker newsletter, so thanks Raist!! Raist is going to be spending most of his spare computer time trying to run a company (www.netview.co.uk) and hopefully spodding away on CrazyLands as usual of course. Good luck dude! Anyhow, I'm off, talk to you again in two months this time, ~Swiff --- * Osy's Travel Tips * --- * Hostel Etiquitte * I am passionate about hostel etiquette, simply because I had the misfortune of occasionally being the victim of a lack of it. There are a few easy, common-sense things to remember if you're hostelling which will make your stay and that of the people sharing with you far more pleasant. Most of these rules also apply to just sharing accommodation in general. 1) Don't rummage through other people's stuff. 'Nuff said. 2) If someone else is sleeping in the room, quietly get what you need, and get out. Even if it's the middle of the day, remember that these people are fellow travellers and may be recovering from jetlag, a cold or flu, homesickness, or similar afflictions. Think how you would feel if you'd just flown 1/2 way across the world (which it's reasonable to assume they may have) and be considerate. If you absolutely must talk to someone, keep it in a whisper, and keep it brief. It's easy enough to talk out in the hall or in a common area. Oh - and keep the light off. It's just plain rude to turn the light on when someone else is sleeping. 3) Plastic bags are evil. Think it's a great idea to keep all of your leakable toiletries in a plastic bag? Think again. Plastic bags are VERY noisy and will disturb other people if you wake up to shower before they do. Consider a ziploc bag if you must, or check out what the local wilderness equipment store has for such things. 4) If someone else might be waiting for the shower, keep yours brief. There's nothing worse than nearly missing your bus because someone else decided to hog the shower for 1/2 an hour. Hostels are a great place to stay to meet other travellers and to save a bit of money. You'll also come home with hilarious stories about the showers you have to wear flip-flops in and hold the button down to get water, or the girl who talked in her sleep... It provides a perfect opportunity to swap tips about places you've been and are going, and it's a young, exciting environment. Just do yourself and everyone else a favour, and try to make everyone's stay a pleasant one. - Written by Ostrich --- * Residents Homepages Competition * --- This month we announce the first winner of the CrazyLands Homepage of the Month Award, and it goes to: -----~ WINNER ~---- Pumbaa http://www.phlegm.demon.co.uk/ -----~ WINNER ~----- An excellent page with a tour of Hong Kong among some other crazy stuff. This page is great, even without the special addition of CrazyAir thanks to it's JavaScript and amusing presentation! Well done Pumbaa! If you'd like to enter this competition all you need to do is make sure that your webpage is part of the CrazyLands webring. Check out http://www.crazylands.org to see if you're webpage is included If your site doesn't appear on the web ring email Nexus (nexus@crazylands.org), who will arrange for your link to be added. --- * Big Al's Woodworking Tips * --- This month, Big Al reminds: "I always say if a job is accurately marked out, half the battle is won. It is always good woodworking practice to mark one component from another wherever possible. The way a dovetail joint is marked from the other is a perfect example. It is not only the most precise method, but it also eliminates the possibility of misreading a tape or rule." --- * CrazyStats * --- Note: These stats are somewhat out of date, sorry! This month is the last appearance they'll be making because of Raist leaving the team. Hopefully someone will take up the updating cause, but so far there's no takers. Bye CrazyStats (?)! For the number geeks among you here is CrazyStats! Every month we'll give you a list of stats that will guarantee to kill off the most lively of conversations. The new code to produce new and interesting stats has failed to appear, but we're still hoping for it one day. This months CrazyStats effort: Longest up time ever: 22 days and 7 hours+ Current Residents: 1093 Total Online time of: 2.13M minutes +5% last 2 months Top 20 spods: 1480 days, 17 hours, 3 minutes Longest spod session by: pumbaA Their time in one session: 10 hours, 10 minutes and 51 seconds ...as of 04/04/99 at 17:00 GMT --- * Classifieds, Correspondence Section, Personals * --- * FREE SPACE FOR ALL TO USE! * Your advert here! FREE! This section is where ressies can submit info for other ressies to get in touch with them, to start (or end) a love connection, or to buy or sell goods or information! Please note that all adverts are free, and any one advert will only be run for 3 issues of CrazyNews. The editors reserve the right to remove an advert or decline to display it at anytime. --- * Corrections * --- For issue 12, the following correction is made: * In 69 Reasons * Reasons 64 and 65 were really the same! An output variable is a twinkle and visa versa, the technical editor missed that one, sorry! For the issue after 12 and before 14 the following correction is made: Where is it? *cue eerie music again* Other than that of course, we're perfect as always. =) --- * Submit Stuff * --- If you want to submit anything, use the following email addresses to send your stuff. Please remember that all the usual rules about content apply, and the editors reserve the right to change any submitted articles. Please make sure you say so if you do not wish your name and/or email address to be published!! crazynews@crazylands.org All submissions, jokes or debate topics, etc. crazy@crazylands.org Any email to admin, complaints, etc. Back Issues - Soon to be available on the web page. Currently available at: crazynews@crazylands.org --- * Mailing Information * --- This email has been sent to you because you're a resident on CrazyLands, the talker which runs at: crazylands.org 6969 See our web page at http://www.crazylands.org for more information. If you do not wish to receive this email, please log onto the talker and type: crazynews off If you do not know why you have been sent this mail, please let us know at: crazynews@crazylands.org ...send along the email address that you received this email at and any character names you may have had on the program. Your email address is never published to users or external sources. It is a rule of the talker that you must set a valid email address however, so that you may be contacted if there is a problem or with important talker information. This is not a stored mailing list. --- * The End (of issue 14)! * ---