Ray's X-Blog

If you're not a blog fan you can read my posts in zine format at  https://sites.google.com/site/rayxzone/ .  With each PDF file you can view an issue online or print it out and read it later.

Image: http://bit.ly/1obARkP (C) 2014 Ray X I've always been lousy at conformity. In a previous post I mentioned that I don't like the works of Shakespeare.  To most writers that's outright heresy. I also don't like professional sports.  "Did you see the game last night?" No, I have an active independent mind. I've seen attempts to make sports palatable to sci fi nerds.  One experiment was a 1960s comic book series called Strange Sports Stories .  It featured plots like this: a wimpy kid eats a mysterious berry and becomes a super high school athlete; a man playing golf on Mars who stops an alien invasion; a future society where playing sports is outlawed because it's too dangerous.  That last one involved some rebel athletes who save the day and have sports legalized again.  A very depressing ending. My anti-pro-sports viewpoint doesn't mean I'm against exercise or anyone going out and playing a friendly game of softball.  The ...

By Ray X After bingeing during my younger years I hardly read comics books, especially those way overpriced floppies from the Big Two.  It's the same stuff recycled ad nauseum.  How many more times will Galactus threaten to pig out on planet Earth after promising never to do it again? I find reading about the business of comic books and related media more entertaining. Disney owns Marvel, Warner Brothers owns DC.  And between the two corporate competitors WB is the worst. Let's face it: too many corporations have idiots in key positions.  As in know-nothing idiots.  They make decisions without taking the time to learn the product or service they're providing. Ergo, crap reigns. Like the time a comic book fan/film director was pitching a Superman movie plot to the guy who made the final decision.  The fan/director was going on about how he would tell Kal-El's story. The studio exec was puzzled.  He asked: "Who's this Kal-El character?"...

(C) 2014  Ray X "Did you see Star Trek last night?  Spock was horny!" Standing in line, waiting for lunch outside the junior high school cafeteria, when I hear one of my adolescent "peers" give his erudite review of the episode, "Amok Time," from the original ST TV series. For those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek in any of its incarnations Spock is the half-earthling/half-alien science officer aboard the starship Enterprise in the 23rd Century (Earth time).  He struggles with his human side which at times is in conflict with his logical Vulcan upbringing.  Vulcans value unemotional rational thought above all else. But as the episode "Amok Time" reveals even Vulcans deal with irrational and violent impulses when it comes to mating time - pon farr.  Every seven years Vulcans have to knock boots or eventually die like a female ferret with intact virginity at mating season's end. I knew one woman who liked the character of Spock...

(C) 2014  Ray X And another paper zinester drops the dead tree format. In the case of Dale Speirs and his zine, Opuntia , it was the jump with postage rates, in his case Canada.  I was surprised when his final print edition appeared in my snail mail box with its announcement that future issues would only be available through www.eFanzines.com . Opuntia has always been an interesting read, a mix of SF book reviews, short examinations of scientific articles, personal stories, whatever interests Dale.  Unlike me Dale would always create a packed edition each month, 16 pages of material. I understand why Dale has decided to abandon paper for photons, especially with the drastic increase with Canadian postage.  With my very short list of paperzine traders - no subscribers - my expenses with postage and printing aren't that onerous.  Also, there's not that many pages with each edition. Some papernetters are loathe to abandon snail mail distribution: they ...