# 2104

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2104^th Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3552, September 8, 2005.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Michael Burlake took me to last week's LASFS meeting. We arrived early enough to get a good parking space at the curb on Burbank Blvd. A chocolate cake that Greg Bilan brought to celebrate his birthday disappeared before the meeting started, I think, so it can't be called the highlight of the meeting. The meeting was run by Registrar Mike Korp in the absence of the President & Treasurer who were at the NASFiC in Seattle, and the V.P. who had to work that evening. Nothing worth noting happened.

On Saturday, Darrel Exline & Kris Bauer took me to the September Estrogen Zone meeting at the LASFS. The program was all 13 episodes of Firefly. I saw the first 9 of them before I had to return to Golden State Hospital for its 10:00 p.m. curfew; Exline & Tadao Tomomatsu brought me back. This was the first time that I had seen Firefly, which I enjoyed exceedingly; it is very much like two of my favorite anime space opera series, Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop, not to mention Star Wars and lots of Westerns. There were three birthday cakes (two chocolate & one lemon; very tasty) & lots of hot dogs; I had seven. My thanks to Exline for buying me a kung pao beef Chinese dinner, and to Karl Lembke for giving me the Alderson parking space he had bought for my LASFS meetings for the rest of September.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Cover - (Unknown) This is much more colorful than the usual covers that Greg Bilan provides. It is too bad that the actual artist cannot be given credit for it.

Vanamonde #642 - (Hertz) Lloyd Penney says that the first Timber Tom (the Canadian version of Howdy Doody's Buffalo Bob) was played by James Doohan. Does he have any information as to whether or not Robert Goulet ever played this role? That is one of those often-cited bits of TV trivia that many information sources list as fact and which others dismiss as a false urban legend.

Summer Has Returned - (Cantor) According to numerous Pointing With Alarm articles, the New Madrid area is hardly the only one outside of California which may be susceptible to earthquakes. There was a severe earthquake in South Carolina in 1886. Fault lines reportedly underlie much of New York. These will undoubtedly be cited when a Big One does eventually strike somewhere, just as the current Hurricane Katrina disaster has everyone pointing out how New Orleans' attempts to improve its flood-control levee system have been sabotaged by budget cutting for years. To steal from one site: "A couple days ago on GOOD MORNING, AMERICA, President Bush said, 'I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breach of the levees.' Not true. Even animated cartoon characters knew the levees were vulnerable. The disaster currently unfolding in New Orleans was the subject of a 2004 public service announcement starring the perennially imperiled clay-character Mr. Bill (of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE fame)." There is an illustration and a weblink to the announcement at http://cartoonbrew.com/ under September 3, headlined "Even Mr. Bill Knew The Levees Wouldn't Hold". Of course, there have probably been even more warnings that California, which should know better, is still underprepared for its coming Big One, although I do not know if Mr. Bill starred in any of them.

De Jueves #1442 - (Moffatt) A blind assurance in one's right to meddle in/dictate the lives of others is one of the traits of a Typical Liberal, in Nip and Tuck. Fortunately, Hayes seems to have laid off bashing Liberals and returned to straight humor in his strip's latest story sequence. ## Utility over Art, huh? It should be possible to artistically integrate a shelf into an Apa L Dutch door.

Long Time, No C #34 - (Zeff) Congratulations on cutting your synopsis to under one page, even if it is by someone other than you. Since the purpose of the synopsis is to sell your manuscript to an agent or a publisher, rather than to ever be published itself, it should not matter who wrote the synopsis; especially as you are not trying to claim it as your own work. If the synopsis is as good as you state, maybe you should submit it as is without meddling with it further; maybe with a note that you also have a 5+-page synopsis if the editor wants to read something longer than the recommended one-page synopsis. ## Writing TV series without a conclusion is apparently normal practice. Mark Evanier, who was one of the creators of the CBS three-season Dungeons & Dragons Saturday-morning TV cartoon series in the 1980s about a group of children who are mysteriously transported to a fantasy world, says that he is constantly asked about the mythical final episode where All Is Explained and they Finally Return Home. The reason this rumor got started is that the last one or two episodes were preempted for World Series baseball or some similar TV specials so the program's fans missed them. CBS started a new animation series the next week, and the D&D fans assumed that there must have been a final resolution in the unaired episodes. But the way the TV industry works, the program was sold to CBS both a season and an episode at a time. That is, while the second season was in progress the creators had to sell CBS on buying a third series. This was done. The creators then had to create rough outlines for all the proposed episodes and get them approved, which was also done. Since nobody knew at this point that the third season would be the last, and since the creators hoped to sell a fourth season the next year, nobody thought about writing a Final Episode as the third season's last episode. When CBS decided against renewing D&D for a fourth season because its ratings were falling, that was it. Nobody saw any reason to invest money & work into throwing together a one-shot valedictory episode for a program that was losing its audience anyway. This sounds a lot like the reason why Dave McDaniel's The Final Affair was never published. Probably the same thing happened to Blake's 7.

Merrie Maladies #24 - (Castora) Ozy (in Ozy and Millie) is short for Ozymandias. To quote his website's biog: "Ozy: Ozymandias J. Llewellyn. Our hero, more or less. Young gray fox child; serene, philosophical and an easy target. His name is from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." Millie's full name is Millicent Mudd. Now, how is Ozymandias supposed to be pronounced; with a long or a short O?

Fish Out of Water #134 - (Helgesen) Thanks for the recommendation of http://www.wfuv.org/streamfull.html. Unfortunately, the program seems to work only with Windows Media Player, which seems to be incompatible with my eMac.

Ululation & The Art Of Lamentation - (Gold) Do old PDAs and cell phones bring in much money? I know that there are (or were) collectors of telephone cards, but I have not heard yet about any collectability of old cell phones. ## There has been no sign as of today of MK Medical to fix my wheelchair. I am reluctant to spend new money on adjustments which MK Medical was paid for in the first place. ## Well, if that is your definition of roaming, then horses were roaming the streets of New York into the 1910s. One of the touted advantages of the new automobiles was that they were so much healthier for the urban environment than the horses which covered the streets with urine and manure which attracted flies and disease. imagine that breathing smog is indeed healthier than that, despite the medical problems it brings on its own.