I wrote an entry yesterday, that I am not showing anybody.  Too much like a diary entry, so I have not troubled you with it, gentle reader.  I am still a bit sick, but able to go to work.  Family is better too, so the disappointment of continuum 5 quarantine is behind us.  And we have paid for C6, at the cheap $95 introductory rate somehow.  It is hard to budget for and afford these cons, with all the other demands on my wage.  Not that they are expensive compared to work related one that cost $900, but of course for most of us a Continuum is not work, but pleasure.  

Can anyone lend me a C5 program book?  I want to read it, as by the time we got to the con on sunday there were no books or con bags left for fully paid up members to collect.  Thanks.   

Snap, crackle and pop. Now that the latest Ethel the Aardvark fanzine (142, with a cool maroon and blue cover) is out, I can now say I am surprised and delighted to be offered a Life Membership by the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. I am unsure how many weekly meetings I have attended in 26 years, but I did calculate I had made 4,500 chocolate crackles when I ran the kitchen. So many good times at the club…

Fanzines wanted. After the recent Australian Natcon, I am looking for current Australian fanzines. At the business meeting I said I could ‘easily find more than three Australian fanzines”

Please tell me about your zine or better yet send me one, to Jocko, 261 Carrick Drive, Gladstone Park 3043.

Also I really need to “pub my ish” as Jophan says. I think it will be a new issue of my personalzine Kalien, as I doubt I can reasonably publish an Australian Playbeing. It has been a while, as I have been busy. A review of Conjecture would be part of the issue. It was a good con, which I enjoyed, even though my wife was ill for 2 days of it. Brilliant children’s program will be remembered and the organizers are to congratulated for making an effort for children. I came away with some new ideas about fannish web sites.

Jocko's rules for doing Fanzines

1. Write the articles.
Back in the good old days, I liked doing fanzines with a typewriter, scissors, glue and letraset (well, the cheaper deca-dry rub down letters) and a photocopier. I have already gone back and altered that first sentence more than several times and this one also. This is what you can do with a word processor, but the trick is not to keep altering, but to somehow write more and more without being distracted by the editing possibilities or by the games/housekeeping or such offered by a computer. (Does anyone ever think, “gee, I wished I had de-fragged my hard drive more often?) I spend a certain amount of time keeping stuff going , making sure my daughter and wife can access youtube and their flash games. (Jeanette loves the games on the offical Doctor Who website—be warned it is addictive) I even had the computer booting into Linux from a CD-Rom at one point, as my hard drive had died (again) and I was saving for this one, bought new at a swap meet.  But I wasn't writing much and that was a problem.

 2. computers are a tool for creating, merely a TOOL, like a biro or a brickette.
I use computers at work, all libraries do, they are great devices for controlling transactions and searching through databases, which libraries love and I use them at home for fun. I have got rid of a few old ones that no longer work—I doubt I will even get the dead ones to go again and I cannot see that I need to. Thanks to Jools Thatcher I have a working Amiga 2000 and monitor, so I can play the games I am still trying to finish. I have an old Power Mac bought from Rose that has various itunes mp3s and plays various games and there is this one, the Linux box, running xubuntu. I enjoyed the IBM golf ball typewriter and the un-altered stream of words I could produce with it. These days I spell check, sometime grammer check, although I do sometimes put stiff in just for effect. recently I have also had a bad run with hard drives, having had three die, one with four A4 pages and a fanzine cover that I had no thought to back up. I must copy this off site now--( I have just done so, to my LJ)

 3. Don't do too much to the offsite copy or you have several variations and no one true orginal.
It is sooo temtping to play with an off-site copy and improve it, then you have to re-copy the copy back.  The danger is again you are editing and procrastinating and you may have several variations on the original, which you cannot reconcile.  Bash it down, we can tart it up later.  Nick Lowe--you knew my favourite saying would turn up soon, didn't you?

4. Publish the damn thing soon.  "Art is never finished, only abandoned"  Leonardo Da Vinci.

5. Know why you are doing it and who for.
I have done incredibly complicated fanzine like invitations and a simpler version would have sufficed.  I got caught up in the fun of creating.  It is great to play at fanzines or fandom for that matter, but you need a little bit of seriousness to keep on going, just a little.  Don't start believeing your own publicity, that is why it is publicity--it is for other people to  notice and applaud.  You just bow gratefully and say Thank you.  

What the hell, gotta go, there is a zine to publish... Jocko.

I got this e-mail from LynC and am very sad to be the bearer of bad 
news.

>Clive has gone

>He passed away at 01:10 this morning.
>Tobin Bros will be arranging the funeral.
>I will let you have the details when they have been arranged.
>Please pass this to anyone else you think might be concerned.
>Thank you,

>LynC
>Wife to Clive Newall

I remember when LynC and Clive were editing the great newszine Thyme.  
It was a highlight to go to an MSFC meeting and get a new issue.  Clive will be
missed.