Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume II, Issue 3, Year AD MCMXCVII Monday, January 20th, 1997 ------------------------------------------- "It's never too late for an unhappy childhood." ------------------------------------------- "I would not bet everything I own or my home on it, but I would be willing to bet my car... and it's a very good car". Astrophysicist Ramesh Narayan, in a news conference where black holes were considered almost certain. - The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, January 14th, 1997 ------------------------------------------- 1. Reader's Letters A. MMF Spams B. Don Fitch writes to Don Leo C. CompuNotes writes back 2. News Peak 3. Girlfriends. 4. Review -Bruce Jenner's World Class Decathlon ------------------------------------------- 1. Reader's Letters A. MMF Spams Date sent: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 13:22:52 +0000 To: Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro From: Gard Eggesboe Abrahamsen Subject: MMF spams >> fact 4) It is legal since you are paying for a service.... >And exactly what service are you paying for, again? Someone posts this >MMF spam. You send them money. And they do -- what? Post it again on Actually, I was thinking of starting to write to these spammers, asking for my money back for services not rendered. I may claim that I asked to be put on their mailing list. Since they have not done so (would they keep all the requests, you think? Naaaah!) by now, I do no long want to be on their stupid mailing list, and want my $1 back (which I never sent in the first place). If enough people did this, the Get Rich Fast schemes would soon become Get Poor Fast schemes. Sounds just fair to me. __________________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer: These are my opinions only. All mine. Mine mine mine! Gard E Abrahamsen, 2350 Dundas St W, Suite #1611, Toronto Ontario, M6P 4B1 Home: 416 531-6738 gard@scriba.org Toronto Freenet Work: 416 408-4778 ext 309 http://www.scriba.org/ Board of Directors - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - B. Don Fitch writes to Don Leo Date sent: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 03:45:54 -0500 From: FitchDonS@aol.com To: leandro@ifront.com Subject: Re: _Capital... #28 Hi, Leandro: I've just encountered, for the first time, and downloaded, an issue of _Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine_ (# 28 (I generally condense Roman numerals, for computer-related convenience)) and find it particularly delightful. Casual & informal without being sloppy, amiable without being smarmy, sometimes-serious without being self-conscious or pretentious, personal without being overly-egocentric, concise without being cryptic, stimulating (& even sometimes controversial) without being obnoxious. About the best balance I've seen in a 'Zine (electronic or on- paper) in months; I'm hoping to turn up some back issues, and to obtain future ones of Vol. 2. Thanks for Posting it to alt.ezines, and Best Wishes for the New Year. Don Fitch (fitchdons@aol.com) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - C. CompuNotes writes back. > "CompuNotes" http://users.aol.com/CompNote/ > Published by: Patrick Grote (pgrote@inlink.com) > > I thought they dealt with computers in a hacker's way. > Instead they are nothing more then a poorly done computer magazine. > They take software and review it, and examine sites on the WWW. > I lost all respect for them when I read their review on "Bruce > Jenner's World Class Decathlon", which they described it as a > wonderful tactical challenge. For those that don't know what this > is all about, let me warn you. It is supposed to be a game, and > in the end it can't even stand as a tutorial on Jenner's hair. > Watch out in future issues for my review on Bruce Jenner's game. > > subs: Write to the editor and ask for a subscription. > ----- concerning CompuNotes are based on one whole review. That's it. Get with it. A magazine is more than just one review. We've consistently hit one more than one cylinder since we've been up, but you nail us for a slip. As for subscribing it is: COMPUNOTES-L on LISTSERV@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM CompuNotes-L [because of lenght, the rest of CompuNotes propagandistic material that was attached to the message was cut. -Editor] ------------------------------------------- 2. News Peak Toronto cities vote to hold nonbinding referenda by Colin Barrett (egress@interlog.com) The seven municipalities that makeup Metropolitan Toronto have resolved to hold referenda on the whether the Province of Ontario should amalgamate the seven cities into one megacity despite the fact that such referenda are not binding on the Province's decision. While Party appointed trustees who will oversee the transition from small towns to megacity will not interfere with the referenda, the trustees did say that the funds for the referenda should come out of the current budgets. As a result, various municipal programs shall suffer because of the costly and futile referenda staged by the cities. To counter such actions, the Ontario Government is waging a highly cost-effective advertising campaign in support of amalgamation. Amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto will reduce costs, improve government efficiency and make local government more accessible to its citizens. ------------------------------------------- 3. Girlfriends. courtesy of Betty Kwan Last year, my friend upgraded his GirlFriend 3.1 to GirlFriendPlus 1.0 (marketing name: Fiancee 1.0). Recently he upgraded Fiancee 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and it's a memory hogger, it has taken all his space; and Wife 1.0 must be running before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw and BrotherInLaw. Some features I'd like to see in the Upcoming GirlFriend 4.0... - A "Don't remind me again" button - Minimize button - Shutdown feature - An install shield feature so that Girlfriend 4.0 can be completely uninstalled if so desired (so you don't lose cache and other objects) - "Abort" button (O.K. that one's pretty bad - but had to say it) I tried running GirlFriend 2.0 with GirlFriend 1.0 still installed, but they tried using the same i/o port and conflicted. Then I tried to unistall GirlFriend 1.0 but it didn't have an uninstall program. I tried to uninstall it by hand, but it put files in my system directory. Another problem with all versions of GirlFriend that I've used is that it is totally object oriented and only supports hardware with gold plated contacts. ***** BUG WARNING ******** Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources. ------------------------------------------- 4. The Review on Bruce Jenner's Decathlon. Just do it!.. but why bother? I'm just terribly hurt. I keep on getting games that really have nothing interesting into them. Fifty-nine bucks (Reads 59$) spent on basically a computer manual more then a game that allows you to be just like your all-favorite star Bruce Jenner when he was young and athletic. He must've really needed the money to accept such a job, and what was the computer company thinking when they published this one? If I want to find information about the Decathlon I can either go to the library, or check on the Internet, where the information is absolutely free. Just one search brought me screens and screens of information. I did another search on Bruce Jenner, the information was low, but I guess so it's his popularity this days. There have been a lot of sport games coming up, but nothing in which the toughest thing you do is press the space bar or click the left mouse button to make the player do something, like jumping. You train him to build his endurance, which at the beginning will be very low (and buddy Brucie will taunt you). You can play single or multiplayer all the season events, if say, you got tired of playing Quake against your friends, you can challenge them at throwing the discus. 2/10 Review by Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro (ordnael@freenet.hut.fi) Storyline/Performance: There is no story to this game. (Is it a game? What the fuck is this shit?) The Introduction leaves a bit to be desired, but at least it's not one of those games were the intro is everything, and ooops, we forgot about making the game any good. In Decathlon it sucks from the moment you install it. There are a lot of videos of buddy Brucie who will tell you plenty of information about the decathlon, which will help you along the way. Strategy/Tips: Don't buy the game. If you did, read the manual, which will explain the most important parts of the game, while creating your new player and how to train him to be perfectly fit. Also, listen to what Brucie says in the Coach Room, because, according to the manual "some of his tips may help you become a better Decathlon player!" . The "may" part leaves me pondering. On a good side, there are no complicated key commands, like in NHL Powerplay 96 were you had a combination of keys to press depending on what you wanted the player to do. Here you press space. So keep your eyes peeled when you play, and when you feel the time is right, press that space bar. Train yourself, so you can become perfect. Also your player has a certain amount of endurance. Try not to use it all for just one event, or you'll do (like shit) poorly on the next ones. Audio/Video: Bruce is the star of the game. You can turn the volume of his voice off, but he will still make sense since he moves his arms constantly (is he trying to fly?), or turn Bruce off completely (that should teach the fucker a lesson). The AVI in which he is on, he looks at you to give you a brief introduction of what you are going to (painfully) endure. In the Coach Room, he talks, but he is looking elsewhere, perhaps towards some imaginary person that is interviewing him. (poor sad sack of shit). The videos are crisp, the images are not slowing down, that's probably because the game screen takes about half the monitor and whatever buddy Brucie says to you takes 1/4 of that. You can still make out his face though and that annoying hand movements of his. The game's sound are below any quality standard made. The crowd cheers, but it sounds more like wind blowing against a microphone, whoever created the music has the worse taste, and the voice of the "judge" that screams "FOUL!" sounds like it's coming from someone's stomach. The graphics are nothing special either, with athletes that look like they have been inflated with helium, with all their happy round arms and legs. Playability: What's there to play? You create your athlete, select his skin color, nationality, how long he has been playing, change his skills around to improve his endurance and then you train him. Or actually, you train yourself in understanding when to slam that space key so your player does his best. There is no real point to the game, no plot, and after you raced against other players (may this be real or virtual) you can do it all over again for your own personal glory, and see if you can break and records. Compare to: Compare? You mean there is other stuff as bad as this one out there? Nice Touches: HAHAAHAHHAHA! Not-so-nice-Touches: The game is an insult to the word game itself. There is no concept of making the player interested in playing more. Unless you are a secret devoted fan of Bruce Jenner and find Decathlon incredibly exciting, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT buy this game. The list of negative things about this game could go on and on, but I don't want to get insulting. Hintbook/Manual: The manual is well done, (at least they got one right) with a description of all the events you will be involved with, what the showers actually do (you'll loooooove this one), and of course, a brief (not his underwear) history of the great Brucie (I'm already sick and tired of this loser). System Requirements: 486DX-2, 8 MB of RAM, SVGA, 2x CD-ROM and Windows 95.