¡Rábanos Radiactivos! #2143

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2143^rd Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3591, June 8, 2006.
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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Wednesday of last week, one of the hospital staff helped me to fill out my absentee ballot for the June primary elections. She said that I was the only one of the hospital's patients who was bothering to vote. Admittedly, some of the patients are so disoriented that they probably no longer comprehend what elections are.

Michael Burlake brought me to last week's LASFS meeting. We had to park around the corner since we did not get a parking space this month. Nominations were held for the club's officers for the July - December term of office. A considerable number declined nomination on the grounds that they expected to be too busy working on L.A.con IV and its aftermath during this period. Rob Powell had just returned from visiting his family in Ottawa. John Hertz said that Lee Gold was worried that she might not be able to continue helping me with my hospital & financial affairs (paying my monthly bills, etc.) since she was about to undergo surgery herself, so he offered to help me find a new "friend" until she felt able to resume - hopefully, very quickly.

On Saturday morning, Lee & Barry Gold brought me a large floor electric fan to keep me cool in the Valley's 100º+ temperatures until the hospital's new air conditioning is installed. That afternoon, Rob Powell took me to the Barnes & Noble bookstore at the Burbank Media Center, my first visit to a bookstore since my Furry! was published in February. I did not find any books to buy for myself (Rob did), but I had an enjoyable afternoon browsing with him. I was happy to note that Furry! is still on the shelves, with more copies than when it was first published in February. Hopefully this means that bookstores are able to restock the book despite the publisher's bankruptcy, rather than that the book is not selling. We (mostly Sofawolf Press) have still not been able to get any information about the progress of iBooks' bankruptcy proceedings.

The Faux Pas website this week has added an acknowledgement of its Ursa Major Award win. There seem to be subtle mistakes in many of the comments about the Awards, such as this one that the Award is for the year's best Furry "Webcomic". No, it is for the best Furry comic strip, period; newspaper comic strips like Garfield and Over the Hedge are fully eligible. My favorite interpretation is in the Wikipedia entry, which says that most of the Awards' votes came from the United States, with some from such overseas countries as Australia, Canada, Denmark ... Canada, "overseas"?

Faux Pas won an Ursa Major Award as the year's best "furry" Webcomic!
Our thanks to everyone who nominated and voted for us... click here
to visit their site, and check out all the recommended furry comics.

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¡ZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Nightmare, With Countdown - (Gold) I regret that I am unable to return all the help that you have given me since my stroke. Thanks again for the big electric fan you brought me last weekend; it has really helped me to get to sleep on sweltering nights. ## The administrators of the Ursa Major Awards have had to debate what constitutes "publication" for eligibility for the Award. Text or art on websites are published if the websites are intended for public viewing, such as the Internet comic strips and many artists' websites. Fanzines are published if they are for sale to the public. Apas are not, because apas are private clubs and their mailings are only produced in enough quantities for members. Password-protected websites seem clearly meant to be private. ## According to Wikipedia, mobile or cellular phones are known as cell phones in India, South Africa, the U.S.A., Canada, the Philippines, and New Zealand; and as cel phones in Albania. This information looks very incomplete to me, if not outdated. What about Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Australia, and the rest of the world? To animation fans, a "cel" is the sheet of transparent celluloid acetate (originally celluloid nitrate, which is highly inflammable) upon which cartoons for animation are drawn, or used to be drawn before all production got moved into computers. "Cell" phones seems to be a slightly older abbreviation than "cel" phones; both are currently popular. Language evolution in action. ## Bruce Pelz may have learned about Heyer's Regency Romances from Marsha Brown, but I am pretty sure that he read them and was a fan of them; he did not just mention them in passing. ## It is hard to miss a male Brewer's blackbird glaring at you with his golden eyes in an otherwise solid glossy black body. The dowdier females are notorious for trying to steal long hair from women's heads, and fur from dogs and cats, for their nests.

Fish Out of Water #173 - (Helgesen) I have just finished reading a murder mystery that June Moffatt loaned me last Thursday, The Redbird's Cry by Jean Hager, set in Oklahoma, in which the word "stomping" is used several times in dialogue or narrative text.

De Jueves #1481 - (Moffatt) I wonder why mockingbirds would voluntarily move out of a neighborhood? ## If I remember correctly, it was in the Los Angeles Times that I read the few Over the Hedge strips that I did. I was not favorably impressed, so I am not surprised that others may not have been, either. The strip began in 1995, and it was about a decade ago that I decided that I did not like it, so presumably the Times tried it out when it was brand-new.

Fandomonium Flowerspells - (Holt) Welcome back! To &/or from Nipomo, San Luis Obispo, or wherever.

Godzilla Verses #90 - (DeChancie) It sounds like you are enjoying yourself more in the Nevada desert this time around. Can we get a preview of the movie for the LASFS? I am looking forward to your first murder mystery, too. ## Supposedly the reason that Milton Berle was gladly paid $1,000,000 appearance fees by the Las Vegas casinos was that the casino bosses knew he would lose it all back at the gambling tables before he left.

Vanamonde #681 - (Hertz) You have a goodly balance of s-f authors, editors and artists for a set of postage stamps, although I would prefer a more genre artist such as V. Finlay or H. Bok - even E. Bergey -- rather than a comic-strip artist like A. Raymond. (And technically, despite winning a Hugo, C Bonestell was an astronomical artist, not a s-f illustrator.) Besides, there has already been a postage stamp for Flash Gordon (in the "Comic Strip Classics" series in 1995), if not one for Raymond himself. ## My left hand is doing as well as it ever has. It is my right hand that needs to regain its pre-stroke abilities.