From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V4 #174 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Thursday, June 17 1999 Volume 04 : Number 174 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: the FAQ [RThurF@aol.com] Alloy: rarity [Monya De ] Alloy: That Bio Thing ["Melissa Jordan" ] Alloy: News & Surprise Meeting of the Northern England/Finnish Contingent. ["I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" Subject: Alloy: rarity Ok guys, last chance to bid on the EuropaLeipzigTherapyGrowth record. just to remind you: spoooky cover, long version of Europa, great condition. tell me soon if I should get it... ****************************************************************** Monya De Stanford Programme in Oxford 65 High Street Oxford OX1 4EL England ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 15:05:07 -0400 From: "Melissa Jordan" Subject: Alloy: That Bio Thing Hi, folks, Recently, I rejoined Alloy, but in a very quiet way. I'm in a really stressful work environment (not full of Evil Trolls like Goodwill, just enough work for 4 people), and I missed the sense of community I had here. When I left, it was because I was really shocked at the cruelty I encountered at the hands of a stranger here - trust me, it was really hurtful stuff. It left me pretty appalled. However, I have received some very friendly messages from members of Alloy'ed, assuring me that the resident sherrif had done some serious butt-kicking and order had been restored. Sad that it had to be done, but glad to know chaos doesn't reign. So, I'm tentatively dipping my feet back in the Alloy pool (maybe I'm in the inflatable wading pool at this point.) I know that there are a couple of new people on the group, and Robin has called for bio info. I know I did this once before, but it was a long time ago. So, here goes: My name is Melissa Jordan, and I'm 33 years old. No spouse, no kids, no pets (although my kitchen currently has mice. Yuck) I live in a cramped apartment full of Russian kitsch and Star Wars & '80's cult film memorabilia in the 'burbs of Washington, DC. After a painful stint in the non-profit sector, I now work as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Commerce, designing training programs for "strategic industry" experts from across the former Soviet Union. I'm a Eurasian Area specialist by education (we used to be Sovietologists, but that's a dead concept.) I've lived in Russia (had - literally - a front row seat at the 1992 Moscow coup) and the U.K., and have spent the last ten years traveling to strange locales around the globe for work and pleasure. I write travel stories and short fiction, and I create textile art (see my web page: http://www.erols.com/jamesq/crs/welcome.htm), and my first effort at submission to a magazine (a piece on a 1998 trip to Thailand) will be published next spring in a small, but funky No.Cal-based women's magazine. I'm the youngest of nine kids. My mom was a pilot in WWII; she's my hero, and I think of her and her wild aviation stories whenever I hear "Flying North". I first heard Our Fearless Leader in high school when my friend Mary Brodd made me a tape of TGAOW from her scratchy old turntable in 1983 (the flip side of that tape, which I still have, featured the renaissance music of Michael Praetorious). I was immediately smitten. The sound of TMDR's music floating out a dorm room doorway was responsible for me meeting someone in college who would remain my closest friend for almost 15 years. Thomas Dolby's music has accompanied me all around the world. Astoundingly enough, I first heard music from "Astronauts and Heretics" on Moscow radio. The most bizarre part of that is that I was wearing silky (but synthetic, sadly) pjs and a pith helmet when "Silk Pyjamas" came on the radio. (Yes, I sometimes wore a pith helmet at home in Moscow - I worked night shifts for the communications office, and, when I got bored, I'd use the ambassador's satellite hotline to order odd things I found in the back of Smithsonian magazine, including an inflatable emperor penguin and, yes, a pith helmet.) Most recent TMDR coincidence was about two years ago, when some weasel in a bright red Ferrarri cut me off and nearly killed me while I was listening to "Key To Her Ferrari". Well, that's that. Not much else that is particularly remarkable... It's pouring down rain here, and I keep thinking that a beach in Thailand would be mahvelous right now. Eh, can't do that, so I guess an evening communing with the Jedi at the nifty new stadium theater up the street will have to do... Cheers, Melissa (MacSuirtain) Jordan - --------------------------------------------- Melissa R. Jordan SABIT Standards Program Coordinator U.S. Department of Commerce (202) 482-2086 (202) 482-2443 (fax) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 00:05:17 +0100 From: "I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" Subject: Alloy: News & Surprise Meeting of the Northern England/Finnish Contingent. Alloy: News & Surprise Meeting of the Northern England/Finnish Contingent. I have grave news to report. Lissu is currently moving around on crutches following an 'accident' last weekend. Apparently she and her husband Max were walking home from a Midsummer Night's office party, through a park in Turku, when some drunken dingbat rolled a bolder down a hill which bowled Lissu over, causing three hair-line fractures in her foot, a deep cut requiring stitches and severe bruising and grazing to her leg. How do *I* know this? Read on and all will be revealed. Around November last year, as some of you will remember, I lashed out and bought a new bike. Not long after this, I received an e-mail from a lady I didn't know, asking me how I was getting on with it. She gave certain clues which made me think she was an Alloy lurker, but she vigorously denied this. I received a message each day for a week, each giving more clues, but I still couldn't work out who it could be, though she obviously knew quite a lot about me. The only other group I was involved with on the net was the Terry Pratchett newsgroup, and I hadn't mentioned my new bike to them, so I ruled them out. Finally, after a LOT of clues, pennies began to drop. I realised that the mystery correspondent's surname was vaguely familiar, so I looked back through my mail archive and the truth was finally revealed. It was Lissu's mum!!! But of course her surname is Lissu's MAIDEN name, which was why it took me so long to catch on. She was a regular reader of the Pratchett newsgroup, and when Lissu mentioned my name in passing, when talking about Alloy, they realised I must be one and the same (there is surely only ONE Slarvibarglhee, after all ). So, they decided to have a little fun at my expense. Lissu fed her the info; her mum fired the bullets. It turns out that her mum and dad live a mere 50 miles or so from me, on the other side of the Pennines. But we can still be friends. Quinciquontly I have been in fairly regular e-mail contact with Lissu's mum, and when I heard that Lissu and Max would be visiting England in June, and that they would be going to see The Matrix, I invited myself along. No one else in the Slarvi household is into sci-fi, so I usually either have to go on my own, or wait for films to be shown on cable. So this event was doubly enjoyable for me. To pay Lissu back for her little subterfuge, I arranged to meet them at the cinema, but her mum didn't tell her anything about it. When I heard she'd had an accident I was worried that she might not make it over to England, never mind the cinema, but something as trivial as a broken and plastered foot wasn't going to stop her. When I caught up with her she was sitting in a wheelchair in the foyer, using one of her crutches like some kind of laser rifle to aim at unsuspecting cinema-goers. I *think* she was pleasantly surprised to see me. We all certainly enjoyed the film. The one drawback of this was that we couldn't really have a chat in the cinema, and as I'd dropped my wife and her sister off a few miles away in deepest Yorkshire I couldn't stay for too long afterwards as I was due to pick them up when the pubs closed . (They'd gone for a walk down memory lane, as they used to stay with an aunt in Mirfield many years ago, but hadn't been back for nearly twenty years.) We cinema-goers DID have around half an hour's chat in the carpark after the film, before I set off to try to find Mirfield (I found Dewsbury THREE times, but that's another story, not unlike the lounge painting incident .... sorry, I'm digressing). I finally managed to find the wayward Mancuanians at the railway station, and we got home at just after midnight. Lissu is cheerful despite the obvious discomfort, and she very kindly showed me the nasty bruising on her lower leg. Luckily she is already married, or else I would have had to propose after seeing this part of her anatomy, as any 'English gentleman of the old school' would. She's off to France today, back in England at the end of next week, and I'm hoping we might be able to meet up for a longer chat before she heads back to the frozen north, if only at the airport, as she flies from Manchester which is a mere five miles from me. I'm sure you'll all want to send her your best wishes for a speedy recovery, but she won't actually be able to read them until she returns home in a couple of weeks, in fact she MAY have temporarily unsubscribed because of the mail box limit problems she has, in which case she'll propably ask Robin to forward a digest copy. Here endeth the report of the First Meeting Northern England/Finnish Alloy Contingent. Slarv ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 19:24:28 EDT From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Alloy: welcome back, Melissa! Melissa writes: :: Astoundingly enough, I first heard music from "Astronauts and Heretics" on Moscow radio. The most bizarre part of that is that I was wearing silky (but synthetic, sadly) pjs and a pith helmet when "Silk Pyjamas" came on the radio. (Yes, I sometimes wore a pith helmet at home in Moscow - I worked night shifts for the communications office, and, when I got bored, I'd use the ambassador's satellite hotline to order odd things I found in the back of Smithsonian magazine, including an inflatable emperor penguin and, yes, a pith helmet.) :: LOL!!! What a great story! What are the odds??! Melissa, welcome back to Alloy, it's *so* good to have you with us again :) xxxooo Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 19:29:59 EDT From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: rarity Monya writes: :: Ok guys, last chance to bid on the EuropaLeipzigTherapyGrowth record. just to remind you: spoooky cover, long version of Europa, great condition. tell me soon if I should get it... :: If it were me, and I had the cash, I would definitely get it!!! I've been wanting a copy of this very record for quite some time. My advice is... go for it! Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 19:56:10 EDT From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: News & Surprise Meeting of the Northern England/Finnish Contingent Slarvi writes: ::I have grave news to report. Lissu is currently moving around on crutches following an 'accident' last weekend. Apparently she and her husband Max were walking home from a Midsummer Night's office party, through a park in Turku, when some drunken dingbat rolled a bolder down a hill which bowled Lissu over, causing three hair-line fractures in her foot, a deep cut requiring stitches and severe bruising and grazing to her leg. :: Oh my God! Poor Lissu!!! Thanks for sending the news, Slarv. It's good to know she's still in good spirits in spite of it all (brave Lissu!) and it sounds like you all had a fun time at Matrix. I'm sure it cheered her up enormously to see you. She may not be within 'reading range' of Alloy but I'll certainly do whatever I can to make her comfortable & keep he up to date on Alloy happenings. Anything she asks! Though she hasn't unsubbed. Could she be peeking in on us at a cybercafe somewhere in England? If you're reading this, Lissu, we're thinking of you!! Get well soon dear! Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V4 #174 ***************************