Skyhigh 20 Shuze and Socks
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Shuze and Socks The shoe-man returns. Sounds like a cheap 60's horror movie, right? Well, you're close to what it is, if you think that. Phew, its been a long hard struggle for me these past few weeks to stay in the scene, as I had many thoughts of quitting, mainly due to the fact that I could no longer face writing notes to people, as I usually scribble 10 or 20 pages, yet it was getting a bit much. But, whilst thinking of quitting, a few things came to my mind. If I didn't have my C64, what would I do. Luckily, I am not the complete stereotypical computer nerd, and I do have a life, unlike so many sceners out there, but I was thinking. What happens when my friends are not around. Do I just play my guitar for a while? What could I do? I ended up finding a lot of things I could do instead of my C64, so that was not a reason to stay. Then I thought some more. How would I be able to tell all my scene-friends that I was quitting the scene? Could I easily split from the scene? I came up with the answer that I could not. I could not just tell people have known for more than two years, which is longer than people I would call my best real friends. It isn't that easy. I am sure it takes a lot of willpower to quit the scene. Or one hell of a lot of boredom of it. Luckily, since my main "role" in the scene is as a mail trader, I do not get bored easily, but if for example, all I did was code, then I think it would be far too easy to quit the scene. Just on a personal note, I would like to thank: CRUZE/TRC+SCS/LITHIUM CRUZE/TRC+SCS/LITHIUM For contacting me, as he is my 100th contact. Thanks a lot! So, I guess that means I am a megaswapper, eh? Or if you side with Calypso, I am not. Yes, I'm referring to those few sentences in Calypso's dropping note where he referred to megaswappers, and how people get 100 contacts, then claim to be a megaswapper. I think Terry hit the nail right on the head. Too often these days, guys are popping up and claiming to be megaswappers. The worst case is in Poland these days, where any old Tom, Dick, or Harry can claim to be a megaswapper. "Yes", they say, "I have 250 contacts! I am a megaswapper". Oh, so if you are a megaswapper, how come I have never heard of you? If you are a megaswapper, who do you swap with? Most will reply "I swap with 249 Polish guys". Surely that cannot qualify as megaswapping! It just doesn't sit with me that a guy with 250 contacts can call himself a megaswapper if in the course of his megaswapping, he never spreads his groups wares to the rest of the world! It is so stupid! To put it down to basics, mail traders (I dislike the term "swapper") are recruited into groups to spread that group's wares by means of trading disks with other sceners. Surely if a guy is only spreading his groups wares to a limited audience, no matter how many people, he cannot be a megaswapper. It just doesn't sit right. If I swapped with 200 UK lamers (by that, I mean the "new breed" of UK so called "sceners" that are just after whatever cracked games they can get their hands on) and all of them were unheard of. No group would ask me to join if they saw my contacts list! Many Polish guys run around saying "I am a great mail trader" although half of them do not even have a contact outside of Poland. That is just wrong. And as for the term "megaswapper", I have my own personal opinions as to what that is. My definition is as follows: Calypso. He is the definitive megaswapper, combining speed, quality, and friendship. Some people are just fast, some just spread real quality, some are very friendly, and some just have hundreds of contacts they hardly ever send to. I think a mix of speed, quality, and a big amount of contacts is the thing people should be aiming to. If you don't think you can handle having 200 contacts without being slow, then don't even try it! That was a lecture. I'll expect your homework in on Monday, class.... --------------------------------------------- One of the (many) things which has annoyed me a lot for quite a while now is the continued use of the phrase "The Polish Scene". What exactly is it? Some people will say: "Ha, Shuze, you are lame, it means the scene in Poland, did you not know that?" Well, why should it mean the scene in Poland? Why is it that the Polish get their own seperate scene from the rest of us? The same applies to the Aussies. I always thought (silly me) that the scene was the scene, no matter which way you look at it. In these days of trouble for the scene, why are we dividing the scene up. When the C64 is resold in China and so on, are we all going to say "You are the Chinese scene, so bugger off" or are they going to tell us to do the same? It annoys me to see people so often referring to the Polish scene, and people so often producing wares only for the Polish sceners. Many things get made in Poland that people such as myself never get to see, simply because they are Polish! Surely we should stop all this division, and just get together. I think that is one reason why you can always tell if there are a lot of Polish voters in a magazine's charts, simply because relatively unknown magazines and groups put forward their productions, to nowhere but Poland. An example is the cracking group Faith. From what I have seen, they do some real quality cracking, but I have only seen their stuff once or twice. With the opening up of some Polish boards, then I think the scene will take the Polish guys in a bit more, but the thing is, the Polish are still too seperated. Look at it: Cruise is the Polish champion, and so is Hain. Nearly all sceners see it that way. Its like, wow, Cruise is Polish, so all Polish guys MUST vote for him, as a source of pride. He is probably one of the greatest artists around, but Polish guys seem to deliberately vote for him just because he is Polish! It is so stupid if you think about it! Can you imagine what would happen if it was like that with Electric? Three votes from Finland later..... I am not sure how this problem can be overcome, but maybe if Polish guys could find someone to translate their stuff, instead of just producing all Polish wares. I know I have mentioned this before, but it is true. Like come on, Polish guys, what do you do when you get a utility that has its instructions in German? You panic, like me, as it means you cannot use it, even if it is great! But, if it is in English, most people have a vague idea what it is on about. So, I appeal to you, join the rest of the scene, and leave your self made title of "The Polish Scene" behind! --------------------------------------------- Well, I strangely volunteered to do the charts from now on, and I want to use the rest of my chapter to explain a bit for you all. When I asked Biz Kid if there was any chance of me taking over the charts, he said alright, that's fine, and I thought it would be an easy job. Many people ragged on Caprice Design for occasionally getting people's groups wrong, and missing some out, and so on. Before anyone can even consider ragging, unless you have done a charts chapter of the scale of Skyhigh, you can just fuck off and die. I'm sorry, but it is true. I was one of the people who said: "Ha! So Caprice thinks Compyx is a member of Faces, does he...." So I have even more to climb down than anyone else. When you have to try and get the groups of about 500 or 600 sceners, most of whom you have never heard of, you have no chance! Many magazines just omit the groupnames of people, or just do a top ten, but Caprice's charts were always long, and after the massive amounts of work he put in, rather than rag on him, I think people should pat him on the back, and say "Well Done" for the great organisation, and the amount he got correct, instead of moaning about the occasional mistake. If you want to see what it is like, I'll send anyone who asks all the Skyhigh sheets AFTER I have done the charts, and you can try and record, organise and sort out all the groupnames of people on over 150 sheets. And as Caprice had, I will give you a deadline of only a couple of days. Try it. Anyway, now I have laid down some excuses so that when I get the charts horribly wrong, I am pretty safe (hehehe, that's me, Mr. Devious) I will get on with explaining a few things. Ok, in this issue, a few things have come back, like A votesheet spreaders chart, as well as a list of ALL voters, which will probably be in alphabetical order, if I have time, but if not, then wait for next issue for them to be sorted. One of the other new things is that there is a small list of statistics, such as where most voters came from. This is to stop the disaster last time where having a massive amount of Polish voters meant that the magazine in the Polish language, Vitality, got to number 7. Admittedly, Vitality is a very good mag, and the group Albion do a very good job on it, but it is silly that without any explanation, it could get to a high place in the charts. So look out for that. The charts are done using Doxx's Ultravoter 2.0 and a hell of a lot of time. After last issues mentioning of all the problems with Camelot getting a lot of votes in the Skyhigh sheets, I have decided that I WILL include Camelot and all its members and productions in the charts. BUT, they will not be given an official chart placing. Instead, they are given a "shadow" place, which means that if this was not a Camelot magazine, that is the place which they would have in the charts. That means, it is now alright to vote for Camelot members, and the group, and also demos and mags by them. I thought it was stupid maintaining the idea that Camelot could not be voted for, as I, Shuze, have no connections with Camelot other than through Biz Kid, so will not be swayed. Anyone who doubts my integrity is perfectly right to do so. I say that, as in case you have never edited the charts, you would not realise the temptation that is there. You know, you think: "Hmm... I think Ignorance is the best, I'll slip in a few first places for him..." And so on. I had thought about it on many occasions, but I did not. The reason is fairly simple. If I did that what is the point in having charts? Why should we ask you to vote if I am just going to falsify them?!? I spend money photocopying votesheets, and I am not going to waste that money just as a front cover for me cheating the charts. Although it would be nice to see myself at number 1 in the swapper charts, I would not do it, as then the challenge all just disappears! Its a challenge to get to the top of the charts, and I doubt Ignorance would be happy to know I had maybe put him at the top of the cracker charts, although he did not earn the place! That is the simple reason why you can trust me. I have a few more problems than Caprice Design, as he was a member of Plush, which (unfortunately) has few high profile members, whereas in Alphaflight, I could be tempted to put my two favourite crackers, Ignorance and Ream, at the top of charts, along with Calypso in the swappers, Zapotek in cover designers, and so on. But, for reference, any places that they get, if I think it right or not, is what they were voted to. Of course, my comments will betray my true thoughts on the results.... I had thought about making a whole different chapter with the charts info, like this, in but I think it is better to keep it here, so you can see that it is all my opinion. The charts are my domain, and when I have asked Biz Kid what to do on something, he has always given me the useful response of "Do what you think it best....." Thanks a lot, Jesper..... Anyway, I have gone on about the charts for some time, and I will finish here, so that you can all maybe go and read the charts, although I guess you will have already.... Shuze/Afl'70 -------------------------------------------- Actually Shuze had rewritten this chapter, and sent it to me, but something was wrong with the new one! The reason why he changed the chapter, is that he had reconsidered putting CML members and Skyhigh staff editors in the charts. Fortunately I succeeded in reading some of his new chapter, so I decided that I would link the specific text at his first attempt. So here you get the text about his mind change! (-bk!!) To you Paul: I dunno what happend with the new chap ter from you; big parts were missing! So I hope this solution will be ok to you! - bk! -------------------------------------------- OK, now I am moving onto a subject which has caused quite some controversy around me lately. I had already written this chapter completely, and I had declared that from now on Camelot would be includded in the charts, and so would all the people in the group. After much deliberation, I have reconsidered this, as have decided that Camelot will not have a place in the charts in Skyhigh, and that goes for all members. Also, from the next issue onwards none of the staff of the Skyhigh will find themselves in the charts any more. In my comments I will always tell you the position which the staff or members of Camelot achieved, but they will not have a ranking. Sorry for any confusion to anyone. Anyway, I think I will leave now, as I actually have to go and do those damned charts, and I have gone past my deadline by 3 days already. Shuze/Afl'70 ?
