Home Page Journal Archive

ARCHIVE of older Home page Journal entries.

See home page for latest entries, now being done as a blog.

June 30/2013

1) Added Garth Spencer bio written by the Graeme under Fan History Famous Faneds.

2) Added Leslie A. Croutch article written by Harry Warner Jr. under Fan History Famous Faneds.

3) Added THE MAPLE LEAF RAG (#1) November 1983 — edited by Garth Spencer under SF Zines Garth Spencer.

4) Added ISH (V.#1) edited by Felicity Walker under SF Zines Felicity Walker.

5) Added ENTROPY BLUES (#1) June 1986 — edited by R. Graeme Cameron (my very first zine!) under SF Zines Graeme.

6) Added THE FRENETIC FANAC REVIEW (#1-2)  April, August 2012 – edited by R. Graeme Cameron under SF Zines Graeme.

7) Added CORUSCATING CONUNDRUMS (#1-2) April May 2010 — edited by R. graeme Cameron under SF Zines Graeme.

8) Added CANADIAN FANDOM (#18) September 1953 — edited by Gerald Steward under SF Zines historic.

9) Added SWILL (#1-2, 7, 11) — edited by Neil Williams under SF Zines Neil.

Many thanks to Jean Hollis Weber who is perusing this site and offering/making solutions. For instance, she streamlined the main menu to make the memory tree more efficient. (Also it looks better!) Am very pleased to receive advice and help from Jean!

Am also pleased that in the first two weeks since the 17th this site has received 21,817 hits, 633 visitors, and achieved an average of 991 pages displayed daily. Huzzah!

June 29/2013

1) Added LIGHT (#49, 51, 57) 1952-54 — Leslie A. Croutch, under SF Fanzines Historic.

2) Added VANATIONS (#1-3) 1952 — Norman G. Browne, under SF Fanzines historic.

3) Added a year by year list of Canadian SF Conventions (1948-2008) under SF Conventions.

4) Added THE VOICE (#3) Spring 1948 — Leslie A. Croutch, under SF Fanzines Historic.

Blew $88 on two “For Dummies” books. One, an 880 pager, dealing with all aspects of WordPress. The second, on web page design for WordPress. They may have been written for dummies, but they certainly weren’t written in English! I spent two hours browsing and didn’t understand a thing. I set myself the task of figuring out how to make a more efficient navigation set-up without having pop-up sub-menu ‘squares’ crowding each other off the page. In the 880 pager I found maybe four pages that hinted at how to do this, but I’m not sure. Sigh.

I ask myself, in any given hour, would I rather spend the time puzzling over HTML machine-speak? Or prefer scanning more zines to post. The latter.

After all, since I view computers as glorified typewriters, it should not surprise you I in-vision this site as a somewhat complicated filling cabinet wherein I point to a particular drawer and you pull out the zine you want to peruse. Doesn’t need to be anything more than that. The main thing is to get the WCSFA archive on line in the hope it will inspire a new generation of faneds (fanzine editors). That’s my goal. My dream…

June 28/2013

1) Added XENIUM (#1-8, 10-11, 13, 15) Mike Glicksohn. zine under SF Fanzines.

2) Added BCSFAzine (#26-30) under BCSFA.

3) Added DITTO 15 — FULL CIRCLE — Taral Wayne. Under Trip Reports.

4) Added SPEAKING THRU HIS HAT, a Mike Glickson interview conducted by Taral Wayne, under FAMOUS FANEDS.

5) Added TORONTO THE GHOOD by Taral Wayne under SF Fanzines.

June 27/2013

1) Added 1981 CUFF Trip Report by Michael Hall, 1989 Cuff Trip Report by Robert Runté, 1997 CUFF Trip Report by R. Graeme Cameron, 1998 CUFF Trip Report by Lloyd and Yvonne Penney, 1999 CUFF Trip Report by Garth Spencer, & 2010 CUFF Trip Report by Murray Moore, all under CUFF.

2) Added BCSFAzines (#’20 to 25) 1975 under BCSFA.

3) Added SWILL issues (#3,4 & 5) 1981, plus a HISTORY of SWILL under SF Fanzines.

June 26/2013 —

1) Added BCSFAzine (#1-19) 1973-1974 under BCSFA.

2) Added complete list of AURORA AWARD WINNERS & NOMINEES 1980-2012 under CSFFA.

3) Added photo gallery containing ten pictures taken at VCON 1 in 1971. See VCON.

June 25/2013 —

1) Added Taral Wayne’s BROKEN TOYS (#18) under SF Zines.

2) Added UBC SFFEN 1969 zine STAGE ONE under BCSFA section. It was the need to hide (from the Alma Mater Society) the money surplus from the funds raised to produce this zine which led to the creation of the off-campus BC SF Association in 1970.

3) Cleaned up and reorganized menu trees.

4) Added Felicity Walker’s ISH (#2-5) & X-RAY (one-shot) under SF Zines.

5) Added Garth Spencer’s THE ROYAL SWISS NAVY GAZETTE (#11-21) under SF Zines.

6) Added Garth Spencer’s NOTES TOWARD MARITIMES FANHISTORY under Fan History.

7) Added Jeffery Boman’s THE ORIGINAL UNIVERSE (#1-12) under SF Zines.

8) Added Index of all zines uploaded to this site under SF Zines.

I note this site received 12,000 hits in my first week of operation. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I have no idea.

The proliferation of sub-menus appears to be a bad thing. Obviously there must be a more efficient way to organize this site. Have made a start, I think.

One thing I had been pondering a long time I appear to have figured out, namely how to create scan files less than humongous in size. I averaged 1,000-2,000 K per page. Not good. Finally figured out that if I treat a word document like a picture file I can reduce the average scanned page to about 100 K. Huzzah! Mind you, a 55 page fanzine came out at 5,000 K, but that’s way better than previously. On the other hand, converting it into a PDF file turned it into a 12,000 K document. Bit taken aback by that, but it is acceptable. Certainly I’m on the right track?

June 24/2013 — 

1) Added ONE SWELL FOOP by Garth Spencer (#1-9) under SF Zines.

2) Added SPACE CADET by R. Graeme Cameron (#1-6 & 11-22) under SF Zines.

3) Added I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE account of Cdn fandom from the 1930s to 1970s by Garth Spencer under Fan History.

4) Added WIERDS DID IT! THE CHRONICLES OF BCSFA 1969-1975 by R. Graeme Cameron under BCSFA. (Note old Anglo Saxon spelling of weird.)

5) Added BCSFAzine files (#430 to 481, & counting.) edited by Felicity Walker under BCSFA.

6) Added WCSFAzine newslettters (#1 to 22) by R. Graeme Cameron under ‘WCSFA.’

7) Added SWILL (#8 to 10,1217) edited by Neil Williams, under SF Zines.

8) Added Hugo-winning ENERGUMEN (#1-3, 5-16) edited by Mike Glickson and Susan Wood to SF Zines..

9) Added Diane Lacey’s 2010 CUFF TRIP REPORT under CUFF.

10) Added BROKEN TOYS  (#1  to 13, 15 to 17) edited by Taral Wayne under SF Zines.

11) NEW TOY (#1-3) & OLD TOYS (#1) edited by Taral Wayne under SF Zines.

12) Added downloadable one-shots MYSELF  and THE SLAN OF BAKER STREET edited by Taral Wayne to SF Zines.

13) Added one-shot THE BEST OF SUSAN WOOD (edited by Jerry Kaufman) under SF Zines.

14) Added ASPIDISTRA (#1-#5) edited by Susan Wood to SF Zines.

15) Added AMOR (#1-18) edited by Susan Wood under SF Zines.

June 23/2013

1) Added CSFFA Newsletter AURORAN LIGHTS (#1-8) under CSFFA.

2) Added CFFA Newsletter THE FANACTICAL FANACTIVIST (#1-10) under CFFA.

3) Added history of Cdn Fandom GREATWHITEZINE by Taral Wayner under Fan History’

4) Added trip report re Montreal Worldcon TO WALK THE MOON by Taral Wayne under Fan History.

5) Added classic 1940s zine MACBRE (#1-2) under SF Zines.

6) Placed C — Fanzine’ entry under SF Zines.

Huzzah! Obviously I figured out how to place PDFs! Excelsior!

June 22/2013 —

1) Replaced the default header photo with noted work of classic 1950s sci-fi illustration… or at least, it WAS the 1950s when I drew the original piece at the age of 8 or thereabouts. I immediately mailed it to my Grandparents (Boppy  and Gocky I called them) to be added to all the other ‘art’ I kept sending them (hence my granddad’s repeating query “What’s wrong with this boy?”)  My grandmother passed away first, then granddad. Going through his things, my parents found the entire collection in a small suitcase safely tucked away in a closet and returned them to me. Bless Boppy and Gocky for hanging on to them (as opposed to tossing them in the garbage can). Alas, few survive to this day, but the one above was always one of my favourites.

My ‘art illo’ has everything representing the sensibilities of the era: fast cruisers of the Earth Patrol, an alien flying saucer, an alien (friendly, one hopes), a satellite,  and a truly futuristic building (based on the agitator in my mother’s washing machine), all set on the airless landscape of some wandering asteroid. It reflects a truly childish ‘sensa wonda.’ And why not? Now that I am retired, I have gleefully plunged into my second childhood, thank Ghu.

I utilized the original line drawing as the cover art for my WCSFAzine issue #5. The above piece is a colourful ‘touch-up’ done with Word Paint and slightly widened to fit the available space (1000 by 288 pixels they recommended. That’s a lot of pixels!). I like it. It looks like it was drawn with various colours of fluorescent chalk on a black plasma-field chalkboard. Can’t get more futuristic then that!

Combined with the old ‘Space Cadet’ early computer clip art, the appearance of my site has a jolly ‘retro’ feel to it, don’t you think?

June 21/2013 —

1) Added more menu items.

2) Added background ‘Space Cadet‘ clip art.

3) Placed BCSFAzine Faned lists under BCSFA.

4) Placed * A *  & * B * Canadian Fancyclopedia entries under the topic of Fanspeak.

5) Placed * A * & * B * Cdn Fancyclopedia entries under the topic of  Legends & Lore.

6) Placed ‘Black Hole Awards‘ entry under Fan Awards.

7) Placed Norman G. Browne entry under Famous Faneds.

8) Placed ‘BCSFA North’ entry under SF Clubs.

9) Placed ‘BCSFA PRESS‘ under SF Fan Organizations.

10) Placed ‘Brief History of Aurora Awards‘ entry under CSFFA.

11) Placed * A * & * B * Canadian Fancyclopedia ‘APAzine’entries under SF Zines.

12) Placed * B * ‘Fanzine’ entries under SF Fan Zines.

Let me tell you a story. I was maybe 8 years old when I asked my home class grade school teacher “Do humans have meat in their bodies?” She didn’t know what to say. You see, I knew meat came from animals. But I assumed human bodies contained no meat. Drove me nuts trying to figure out what meat was. Something layered between fat and muscle? Or wrapped around bones underneath muscle? My question to the teacher was prompted by a school mate telling me about cannibals. I figured, maybe we do have meat after all. POINT IS, NO ONE TOLD ME MEAT AND MUSCLE WERE ONE AND THE SAME THING. No wonder I was confused. I wasn’t stupid, just ignorant.

Yesterday I was handicapped by similar assumptions and ignorance. I wanted to cut and paste documents into my website. Two assumptions. 1) clicking on icons is the only way to do that (I never used the control + functions despite owning home computers since 1981). and I didn’t see any such buttons in WordPress. The idea of using Control + never occurred to me because the knowledge didn’t exist in my brain. 2) It never occurred to me that something simple like cut and paste would NOT be hideously complicated in a website maintenance program. I assumed some arcane manipulation of technical jargon function was needed, and I poured anxiously over the online manuals for hours trying to make sense of the information, searching for clues that maybe something would work if I could just figure it out. Endlessly frustrating.

Well, as my wife pointed out once she knew what I was fretting about, highlight to select and try control c. or x, and then control V. I was amazed I’d forgotten those simple key combinations. I was even more amazed they would work in something other than a word processing program. You see? Assumptions will trip you up every time… Or at least they’ll trip ME up. I don’t know about the rest of the human race.

Well, as a kid I always wanted to become a legend in my own time, but I hadn’t envisioned becoming known as the least geeky computer user on the planet. I’m informed several website master friends of my wife had a rousing fit of laughter when she told them about my yesterday experiences. Meh. Always a good thing to make people laugh.

Meanwhile, I’m pouring content into this site as fast as possible. Trouble is, I don’t know how to upload PDF files of zines I want people to be able to download. Sort of a Canadian version of Bill Burn’s Hugo-winning ‘efanzines’ site is my intention. But WordPress doesn’t seem to support PDF files. Hmmm.

All my life I’ve depended on my own variation of Murphy’s law: “Everything that can go wrong WILL go wrong…. but in the end it will all work out.” That has been my life experience.

June 20/2013 —

1) Decided to delete Canadian Fancyclopedia Menu entry. Will distribute contents to appropriate menu items.

2) Can finally Google this site. I guess it took a number of hits to prove to Google this site exists.

3) Figured out how to work comments.

4) Improved Menu Tree.

5) Couldn’t figure out how to work Blog, so deleted it from main menu.

6) Typed in first Q/A for FAQ.

More hours of frustration. Support has tutorials about uploading material to a directory and switching material from one directory to another, but nothing about transferring text from a word file on computer to a selected blank page on the website. My main task today was to figure this out, but I’m stymied. I thought maybe the term ‘directory’ was a code word for, among other things, blank page, but I find no indication of this. Looks like I’m going to have to go out and buy any book titled “WordPress for Luddite Sub-morons.” Arrgh!

There doesn’t seem to be any sort of cut & paste function anywhere. Double arrgh!

Can’t ask Ipage because this is third party (WordPress) item.

Went to WordPress support page. Could find nothing relevant to my problem. Using their search option I asked “How do I transfer text from a word file on my computer to a blank page on my website?” and “How do I paste word text into a blank page?” Answer to both questions: “NOT FOUND.” Triple arrgh!

Guess I will have to contact a support person somehow. But I’m mentally exhausted and confused. I’ll ask someone tomorrow morning.

I have figured out how to type text into a blank page, but I’ll be buggered if I’m going to retype twenty years of research!

Every teenager on the planet knows how to do this. Trouble is, I’m not a teenager.

Just found CHROME copy/paste tool. Tried using that. Of course it didn’t work. Quadruple arrgh!

What the heck, decided to try contacting live support at WordPress. Turns out they are backlogged and are currently only responding to people who have paid for upgrades. I have the worst timing luck…

Checked out WordPress forums. Asked my ‘How do I transfer…” question on their forum search engine. Figured dozens of people must have asked same over the last few years. Nothing. Am I the ONLY computer ignoramus in this modern world?

June 19/2013 —

1) Frustrated! Can’t Google this site!

2) Finally figured out how to create menu tree.

3) Unsuccessful experiment with first note on Blog. It got published in the ether apparently.

June 18/2013 —

1) Figured out how to create pages.

2) Unsuccessful experiment installing test background art (by Taral). Must ponder this.

June 17/2013 —

1) Decided to google “Website Hosts.” Saw a “Best 15” list. Ipage number one. Services include Domain Title, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, and three different site building programs. Within 15 minutes of beginning my search I had purchased a website!

2) Set WEEBLY for my building program. It wouldn’t function. Four hours of frustration.

3) Am told by support WEEBLY doesn’t work with Windows. I should install Chrome. And given my plans for the site, I should use WORDPRESS.

4) Install WORDPRESS.

5) Install CHROME.

6) Everything seems to be connected and functioning, but I can’t figure out a bloody thing! Manual info makes no sense to me. Staring at the various tool bars renders me clueless. I give up and go to bed. Will sleep on this.