Octopus's Garden Issue Twenty-One

Home
Current Issue		 Back
Back Issues		 Up
TAP		 Forward
Other stuff		 Last
Last issue		 Next
Next issue		 Search
Search site

Colophon

HELLO, good evening and welcome to issue 21 of Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own lettercolumn. An html version of this subzeen is available on the Web at http://www.manorcon.demon.co.uk/octopus/index.html

Round 2 (RR 1549 FR)

"MILLARD FILLMORE"

Railway Rivals (France)

Little Froggy FooFoo ChooChoo (LFFfCc) [orange] (Pitt Crandlemire, MA)
2a) (Paris) - E61 - F61 - F62 ; 2b) (F62) - Reims - G64 - F64 [-1 green] ; 2c) (F64) - E65 - E67 [one short].
=34-1[green]=33
French Rail Emperors And Kings (FREAK) [purple] (W. Andrew York, TX)
2a) (E63) - F63 - Reims [+6] ; (X24) - Dijon [+6] - W26 ; 2b) (W26) - U27 - T26 ; 2c) (T26) - S26 - Lyon ; (Dijon) - Z26 - Z27.
=22+12+1[green]=35
Conrad's Absurd Names Create Acronymic Nausea (CAN CAN) [green] (Conrad von Metzke, CA)
2a) Buys Le Havre ferry [-6] ; (Paris) - E61 - F61 - F62 ; 2b) (F62) - F64 [-1 purple] ; (M60) - Lille [+6] ; 2c) (Paris) - E57 - D56 - D55.
=24+6-6[ferry]+1[orange]-1[purple]=24
The Blue Nosed Special (TBNS) [blue] (John Colledge, Scotland)
2a) (T20) - T18 - S18 - S17 ; 2b) (S17) - Limoges [+6] - P15 ; 2c) (P15) - L13 - L11.
=28+6=34
Railways Asserting Very Egalitarian Lines (RAVEL) [yellow] (Berry Renken, Netherlands)
2a) (Q23) - St.Etienne [+6] ; (S24) - S25. 2b) (S25) - R25. 2c) (R25) - Lyon [+6] - P26 - O26 - N26 - M26 - L26.
=22+12=34

Nothing from Robin, so Berry Renken takes over RAVEL. Rolls for Round Three : 4, 6, 4. Orders for Round Three by 23:59:59 Greenwich Mean Time on FRIDAY, 20th FEBRUARY, 1998, to Peter Sullivan. E-mail : octopus@manorcon.demon.co.uk PGP key available for the paranoid. Players should not a Change of e-mail address for W. Andrew York ; given that his reason for getting rid of the AOL address is "excessive spam," I won't broadcast it to all and sundry, but hopefully this note here will remind me to e-mail the players seperately with details.

Yours Sincerely, Wasting Away

((A letter column of sorts))

Terence Tallman writes :

Your point about szines (the correct spelling) being attention getting devices as opposed to financial empires is correct. By the same token they are Superman suits.

The editor can slip into any persona he or she wishes and go out and massage or flog the masses in ways that delight, excite, or squeeze tears.

A side issue is the number of szines that float up out of nowhere and dissappear just as quick. For what ever reason the editors don't have any thing in their respective closets that appeals to the sort of person who reads szines.

Over the last 20 years that I have been involved in the postal gaming hobby (more than just dip) I have seen a wide array of crazies come and go. Those who succeed for any amount of time share one common trait. They think the whole thing is a bit silly but are willing to have fun with it.

Those who take it seriously or have a particular axe to grind sink early because they get mostly negative response or none at all.

On of the problems with taking the general whimsicalness of a szine onto the net is that you hit a button and it's out there. An old fashioned xerox (old fashioned??? I can remember when every thing was mimeographed...) doesn't get put to bed but once a month. You can add, edit, revise or start over until you are happy with the product.

Call me old fashioned but if Boardman had intended us to play Dip by e-mail he would have bought us all computers.

Anyway, diplomacy by mail is a lot like selling drugs-you rarely meet your "customers" face to face, you anquish a bit if you should have to and you worry about accepting anything other than cash.

Jim Burgess writes :

I'm REALLY, REALLY, REALLY glad you wrote that editorial for the issue of OG that will appear in Issue #200 (along with my own musings on similar subjects). DipDom is all about egoboo.

Search this site powered by FreeFind