BLUR is an electronic magazine made to inform and display the talents of people in the BBS scene. It covers many sections such as Articles, Reviews, Art, Captures, Interviews, and Humour. I am hoping BLUR will be an informative, funny, and impressive magazine for you. How can I join BLUR? Joining BLUR is quite simple. Simply fill in the application form (included with the magazine) and send it up to the World HeadQuarters. If you do not want to become a full BLUR member, and would simply like to submit an article or a piece of art, there is no need to fill in the application. Simply call the WHQ (Metal Edge, 613-521-7366), logon as Alias: BLUR, Password: BLUR and upload your submission. We will accept anything from anyone as long as we feal it is good enough for the magazine. BLUR is not like an art group, so do not think that by joining BLUR you will have to quit any groups you are in. In fact, we find it is almost better to have members of BLUR who are affiliated with other groups. BLUR will keep going if we get support from others. We would not like to become a magazine that releases once a year or dies after a couple issues. We would like to release at least every 2 months (or less) and have a great informative and interesting magazine each time. I thank all who have helped out BLUR and who are planning to help it out in the future. Enjoy Issue #2. - Stone Angel [Union/Bad/Blur] Wow, a lot of things have happened this month after the release of BLUR issue #1. I am glad to see it has gotten such great reviews after only one issue, and I hope you like this issue of BLUR even better. Programming Changes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The most major thing that happened to BLUR this month was that a different coder coded this issue. Terminal Entry was originally going to be coding the issue and had it close to done when he confronted some horrible problems with the article viewing, and he could not figure out what was causing it. Terminal Entry tried and tried to fix this problem, but he had no luck. Due to this, there was a very long delay for this issue, since TE took some time to try to figure out the problem. Terminal Entry then was forced to quit the scene, so he could not code the magazine at all anymore, and therefore never fixed the problems. I thank TE for everything he's done for the magazine, and for the great code he did on issue #1. After I heard that Terminal Entry had quit the scene and BLUR, I had to get another programmer. I asked Immortal Shadow and he gladly accepted, and he has coded this issue. I think he did a great job, and I'm hoping he will keep coding for BLUR in the future. Thanks goes to him for coding this magazine at the last minute. New Members ~~~~~~~~~~~ About a day after the release of issue #1, Twisted Terrorist of iCE, called and applied with new ideas for the second issue. A lot of issue #2's layout is thanks to Twisted Terrorist, and he also was able to write some articles and do some art for BLUR this month. After seeing his interest in the mag and his great help, I decided to make Twisted Terrorist a senior. So now, BLUR consists of 3 seniors: Praying Mantis, Twisted Terrorist, and me (Stone Angel). There were also many other applicants to BLUR this month. Diamond Back (BAD/SUCK) applied to be a columnist, even though he had hurt his hand and could only type with one hand :). Because of his hand problem, he was unable to do a lot for BLUR this month, but you will be seeing more from him in the future. Another great help to BLUR this month was from reknowned Union composer Future Assassin. FA has joined BLUR as a musician and has also written some excellent articles. I suggest you listen to the music by Future Assassin that has been incorporated into this issue of BLUR. Another Union member helped us out this month, Nailz. Nailz offered to help review art packs with Twisted Terrorist and I. He also drew an excellent interface. We also received a last minute article from Neurotic of Union and we thank him for giving up his precious time. Freaky Styley (CRiSiS) also joined BLUR this month. He has written some great articles for us, and will hopefully be doing some more art for BLUR in the future. Another new member to BLUR this month is Skyhigh (Imperial). Skyhigh has been able to get in contact with some great artists in his area code and has contributed greatly to the interview section of BLUR this month. He is also a VGA artist, and we hope to see some VGAs from him in future issues of BLUR. Tron of CiA contributed to BLUR again this month by giving us a couple great articles and reviewing the Union pack. Another CiA member also joined BLUR this month. Napalm (CiA Senior) submitted an excellent interface and has joined us as an artist. TechnoPhreak (BLADE) also joined BLUR this month, drawing a couple logos and writing an informative article for this issue. There were also submissions to BLUR this month from Apprentice, Qur'an (HarMoon), Black Lightning (Imperial) and Zorlak (Imperial). BLUR also picked up a great courier this month, Liquidator. He is the main courier for this issue since most of our other couriers can't call out very much anymore. The old members from BLUR issue #1 (First Degree, Black Wraith, The Lich, etc.) have continued to contribute to BLUR. I thank all the people who helped out, for if it wasn't for you, this issue of BLUR could never have been released. New Sites ~~~~~~~~~ BLUR's sites are pretty much the same this month. The major change in sites this month would be that we have dropped our former Southern HQ (Altered State) because of lack of support. The new Southern HQ is Dark Society. Revolution #9, Minor Threat's board, was also dropped as a site because MT left BLUR and no longer has time to support it. Also this month we picked up a Northern HeadQuarters (Plasma), two US Dist. Sites (Nuclear Nightmare and Red Dawn) and a Canadian Dist. Site (The Twisted Tower). There are also quite a few new BLUR member boards this month. A small change was also made to the Dark Side (US Dist. Site). Last month I made a small error, and had it down as a Canadian Dist. Site, but that has been fixed. To become a BLUR site, your affiliations don't matter very much to us. It is whether you will keep an avid interest in the mag, and you will help it to become more well known and distributed. BLUR Net? ~~~~~~~~~ My phone bills have been quite huge in the last couple of months, so I am thinking of starting a net for BLUR. I figure a net will help keep BLUR members in contact with each other, since usually the reason a magazine dies is because of a lack of communication. The net will hopefully be started up soon, and if anyone can help me set it up, it would be appreciated. Blur Vote/Application Form ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Also new to BLUR this month is a Voting form where readers can vote on their favourite artists, groups, etc.. The file is included with the mag and should be under the file BLURVOTE.ZIP. BlurVote was coded by Immortal Shadow. Ahh yes, the bug in the application form (the Shift-H thing) has been fixed, and BlurApp should now be bug-free. That about sums it all up for BLUR this month. I am very pleased with the response to BLUR issue #1, and I hope you will like the second issue even better. - Stone Angel [Union/Bad/Blur] May 1994 Blur Member/Site List ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editor: ú Stone Angel ú Magazine Coder: ú Immortal Shadow ú Application Coder: ú Immortal Shadow ú Seniors/Co-ordinators: ú Praying Mantis ú Stone Angel ú ú Twisted Terrorist ú Artists: ú Freaky Styley ú Misery Man ú Nailz ú Napalm ú ú Praying Mantis ú Skyhigh ú Stone Angel ú ú The Lich ú TechnoPhreak ú Tron ú Twisted Terrorist ú Columnists: ú Black Wraith ú Diamond Back ú First Degree ú ú Freaky Styley ú Future Assassin ú Misery Man ú Nailz ú ú Napalm ú Neurotic ú Praying Mantis ú Skyhigh ú ú Stone Angel ú TechnoPhreak ú Tron ú Twisted Terrorist ú Couriers: ú Liquidator ú Neurotic ú Praying Mantis ú Musicians: ú Future Assassin ú The Lich ú Issue #2 Submitters: ú Apprentice ú Black Lightning ú QuR'aN ú Zorlak ú May 1994 Blur Site List ----------------------- Metal Edge ú World HeadQuarters ú [613] ú Stone Angel Rash Reflection ú Canadian HeadQuarters ú [514] ú Coluche Harvest Moon ú US HeadQuarters ú [216] ú QuR'aN Plasma ú Northern HeadQuarters ú [514] ú Twisted Terrorist The Amber ú Eastern HeadQuarters ú [914] ú Corwin Channel Zero ú Western HeadQuarters ú [714] ú Beastie Dark Society ú Southern HeadQuarters ú [408] ú Sharp The Twisted Tower ú Canadian Dist. Site ú [905] ú Elminster Chasm of Doom ú US Distribution Site ú [904] ú Black Knight Red Dawn ú US Distribution Site ú [408] ú Midnight Shadow Nuclear Nightmare ú US Distribution Site ú [805] ú Diamond Back The Dark Side ú US Distribution Site ú [609] ú Physical Solution Burning Sanctuary ú Member Board ú [713] ú Misery Man Programmed Illusion ú Member Board ú [613] ú Neurotic Dazed and Confused ú Member Board ú [908] ú TechnoPhreak Dreamscape ú Member Board ú [214] ú Freaky Styley Flatlined Reality ú Member Board ú [613] ú Nailz The Greeets!!!!! Okay.. Nothing that is ever released cannot be released with out the Greets section. Since I did them last month I was nominated to do them again this month. I would just like to thank all of our members in general before I go into individuals. Here is BLUR. This is what you made. Thanks so much, it would be nothing without you guys. And without futher ado, here's the GREETZ! And a heck of a lot of em! Terminal Entry - Yer the best man, thanks for all your help. Stone Angel -  Big Boobs Landing on the Moon  :) Black Wraith - Garry, your so cool, even to cool to watch Gettysburg.. :) Future Assasin - Wow, a greet for you? Could this be happening? :) The Lich - Heya Big Mak.. When are you going to release Mystical Edge? :) Immortal Shadow - Blocked! Great code, thanks for everything. Twisted Terrorist - Thanks for the help, welcome to BLUR. SkyHigh - Thanks for the interviews they're really snappy. First Degree - You Suck Dan! (You hear that coyote last night?) Zorlak - Thanks for the article, maybe more next issue? Nailz - ASTAR!!! yer DRuNK PlumBum. :) Napalm - Spiffy Art, thanks for the interface. Qur'An - Where's my ARTICLE?!?!? Neurotic - Neurotic, Neurotic, put your hands all over my body.. :) Tron - Thanks for helping out again this month. Diamond Back - How's the hand feeling? Okay.. there they are. SA and I worked long and hard on these so don't think that I got them done in 2 seconds or nuthin.. Anywho, I had a lot of fun doing these, and I hate having to say good bye, so if you have anything you want to rag on me for, call Metal Egde and yell at me... I live there so if you page i'll probably be there. Umm.. I dunno. I guess I hvae to wrap this up. One final work to the wise. Want not, Waste not. OB. Praying Mantis Ever since the birth of the PC Speaker, people have been listening to the sounds of computer music. Unfortunately a lot of people have taken music for granted ever since. I just thought I'd write up an article to display my concern for the lack of interest when it comes to the MUSIC scene. Although music really doesn't have a scene of it's own, it's a vital part of the demo, art, and wares scene. A good question to start off with would be this: The last time you looked at an art pack loader, did you remember the name of the musician who actually composed the music?? Was it even displayed on the screen? Would it be easier for you to remember the coder, and the VGA/Ansi artist? Most likely it would be the latter. I don't speak against EVERYONE when I say this, there ARE a select few who respect the work reqired to be a musician, but most people take for granted just how important it is to ALL scenes. If you doubt me on this, I want you to do me a favour. IF you have a soundcard, Load up "Second Reality" by FC. First, I want you to listen to the musical score along with the demo, and the SECOND time you view it, turn off the sound. Chances are you'll be bored out of your mind without the music. The point being, people HEAR the music and would be at a loss without it, but they don't acknowledge the importance it has. If you're wondering just WHERE music fits in to all three scenes, I'll give you a few examples for each The ART Scene: Music is displayed both in independant, and loader formats. New ansi and VGA/RIP viewers have been released, or are in the process of being coded, which allow the use of background music while you view the art. Art Diskmags also use background music while the user reads through the articles. The DEMO scene: Music is widely used as a background fill-in which helps glorify the visual effects you see. Lately a lot of the code has been revolved around the music. and different visual effects act to the beat of the music... diskmags also play a part here. The WARES scene: You might not think of music as being a big part of the wares scene, but in a way, more emphasis has been placed on THIS group than in the other two... What good is a game without having any sound?? Usually if I was to have a game on my HD, and I was to find out it had little or no sound, I'd get bored rather quickly. Also, different courriering/cracking groups use music in their loaders, etc... In all, I ask that those of you who haven't put much thought into this please do so, since it IS a rather large portion of those art packs you look through, and the games you leech. Try to respect the people who made the music possible since without it, the PC wouldn't be as exciting as it is. - Future Assassin Censorship ~~~~~~~~~~ In my opinion, censorship and the banning of products has gone way over the limit. People are over-reacting, and taking things the wrong way. Although we live in a free country, I am starting to believe that freedom is decreasing, and soon enough people will not be able to do some thing because it will get banned, censored, or taken the wrong way. Censorship doesn't work either. It just increases crime and contreband. People are getting too critical and sensitive, and are trying to find every single thing that is wrong or is "not-appropriate for the public". A perfect example of this would be an event that recently happened at my school. For months, our drama director had been planning to have a drama presentation this year of 6 bizarre one-act plays. I was at the plays on opening night, and I found them to be extremely well done and very powerful. The plays showed us how racism is wrong, and it also had quite a bit of comedy in it. The "big" play was called "Confession" and it was a police interview with a psycho kid killer. These plays were extremely well done, and expressed some great views on life and aspects of life. I found the plays to be very symbolic and very meaningful. The last night of the plays was scheduled to be Saturday the 14th. I went to it on this night, and when I arrived at the school, I waited in line to get in. While I was waiting in line, a girl (around 17) passed around a piece of paper. When I first got this paper, I thought it was going to be a compliment on the plays, or it was going to tell us something that was happening with the plays. The truth was, the letter was a complete insult. In the letter, there included things saying that the plays were racist and that it was portraying "dumb black bitches". The truth being, most of the plays were against racism, and were not against black women. In the note, it said that the play "Confession" (which has a white cop, white psycho killer, and a black stenographer) was racist. The note said that it portrayed the black stenographer as "evil". In truth, the stenographer was not picked to act in the play because she was black, it is because she is a wonderful actress. In truth, I think the person who wrote the note is being more racist, since they are basically saying that blacks can't act in plays anymore because they will always be portrayed as "evil". There were also many other plays that were insulted, such as one that portrayed a dumb woman who wanted a better life. The note said that it was showing how dumb women are, but in the play, the woman's husband is dumber than her. I think people should lighten up a bit. Too many people are taking things the wrong way, and are trying to find every little thing that is wrong with something. This incident that happened at my school is only one of many that has occured in the last few years. Wonderful books have been banned because they were said to be "racist", when in reality these books are against racism. The book "To Kill a Mockingbird" was banned because it was said to be racist. Wasn't this book supposed to be against racism? I guess some people didn't get the point, and banned it because the book contained words such as "nigger". The reason those words were put in the book, was to show how racism is horrible, and how some people acted towards Blacks. There is no way you can portray racism without using racist words. Many other great books have been banned because they were taken the wrong way. It seems that no one is going to have the freedom to do anything anymore, because people are always finding things that are racist or awful, even if the main point of it all was against racism. Blacks won't be able to play the part of evil people, because people will think it is portraying Blacks as being evil. If we want to stop racism, we have to be equal. Censorship is not the way out. If people keep taking things the wrong way, and making it sound like everything is racist just because a minority plays an evil part in a play, racism will definitely continue. Equality is the solution, and the way you look should not mean anything. - Stone Angel Formations of new groups and group merges ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've noticed that in the past couple of months there has been an irregular number of art group merges and formations of new art groups. We saw (in the last 2 months alone) 3 major merges, the formation of 2 more major groups, and the rise and fall of a major group. The first merge that occured was that of GRiP/AD and NWA, which formed the new group iMPERiAL. iMPERiAL seems to be a well constructed group now, since NWA and GRiP/AD were two groups that had quite a bit of talent. I would have to say that iMPERiAL is now close to being one of the top 5 groups out there right now. They have good leadership from the Night Prowler and The Narccissist, and they have an array of talent. I look forward to seeing the new iMPERiAL packs, and I think that this merge was for the better for both of the groups involved (NWA and GRiP/AD). The second major merge that occured in the last couple of months was that of UNiON and EMPiRE. Although the name was kept as UNiON, it was still a merge. The merge did not seem to work out as well as that of the NWA/GRiP-AD merge, but it still helped out UNiON quite a bit. UNiON is now a well established group, after they picked up some great artists from EMPiRE. Unfortunately a few members were lost because they no longer wanted to be a part of the scene, but there are still some EMPiRE members helping out UNiON. This merge was, in my opinion, a good one for UNiON, since the group will now have quite a few members producing quality art, and it will bring UNiON closer to being one of the best art groups out there today. The major merge that occurred would have to be that of Gothic and ACiD. I really was not pleased with this merge. I thought Gothic was an excellent group, and did not need to merge with another group. They were already quite big, and were releasing exceptionally good packs. When I first heard that Gothic was merging with ACiD, I thought it might be cool since ACiD would become an even better group. The merge might have worked out better if it was a FULL merge. I don't even think I can consider it a merge, I think it was just the break-up of Gothic. So far (after seeing the 05/94 ACiD and iCE packs) it seems that there are more Gothic members in iCE now, and there are only a few in ACiD. The rest of the Gothic members have most likely gone to Maestro's new group Nation, or to UNiON. This merge should never have happened and I think it would've been just as good if Gothic had just stayed together and kept producing excellent art. The only good thing about the Gothic break-up is that we will now see a new group (Nation) that has a lot of talent. I don't know if Nation will be able to replace Gothic, but it seems this group will have an impact on the art scene. Another major thing that happened this month was the apparent death of TRiBE. Because of some misunderstanding in the group, TRiBE died for the period of about 2 days. They then reformed and have gone under a new system called TRiBE PRiDE. It means that TRiBE's art will be of better quality in the future. After all the difficulties TRiBE was still able to release their 11th pack this month. Although most of the members were gone, it was still a nice pack, and TribeView was is an excellent viewer. Oh yes, another group formed this month. The name of the group is Siva, and is being run by Stile (former iCE/Gothic). I do not know much about this group, but it seems to have potential, and I am eager to see some art from this group in the future. The result of all the merges, deaths, and formations of the groups in the past 2 months has been quite interesting. The addition of Gothic members to iCE has made iCE (in my opinion) very close to being the best group right now, if not the best. The Gothic break-up did not (from the 05/94 ACiD pack) improve ACiD very much, but ACiD is still the best or close to the best group right now. The Gothic break-up was definitely a good one for the new group Nation, since most of the left over Gothic members went to this group. UNiON is now a large well-established group from the EMPiRE/UNiON merge. TRiBE was on the edge of survival, but now seems to be back on track and will hopefully be releasing more in the future. iMPERiAL has a lot of potential and should be a great group to see in the future. So from what we can see above, right now we have 2 groups battling for 1st place (iCE and ACiD), a new group that might take the 3rd place spot (Nation), 2 strong groups from merges (UNiON and iMPERiAL), another new group that has some potential (Siva), and a group that has survived through some difficulties (TRiBE). There are also many smaller new art groups that formed in the last month that have quite a bit of talent. The art scene is becoming quite interesting now, and I am curious to see what will happen next. Good luck to all artists. Stone Angel [Union/Bad/Blur] Greets to my favourite artists - Tempus Thales, Lord Jazz, Aphex Twin, Maestro, Nailz, and Somms. " Da' Comic Book Scene " By TechnoPhreaK More and more artists are copying comic book art, so I thought it a relative topic to review, as I am a devout comic book collecter. First, a quick review thru the comic companies, and their hottest titles. iMAGE - By far the most popular company of ANSi artists, they are quickly destroying the monopoly of Marvel and DC. They started out as a rebel group of some of Marvel's elite, who just wanted to have some fun doing comics. However, because of lack of discipline and leadership, most of their titles arrived late or didn't arrive at all at the comic book stores. Fans and owners alike lost faith, and things looked bad for iMAGE. But, they revamped their company and kicked all the artists asses, and the comics came out on time, and lookin great. Now they sport titles like Spawn, Pitt, Cyber Force, WildC.A.T.S, YoungBlood, GEN 13, among many other fine titles. Their stuff is beautiful, and worth the cover price. Look for Wetworks, and some nice Cyber Force mini series in the near future. Hot picks: 1. Spawn #1-4 2 Gen 13 #1 3. The Kindred #1 4. WildC.A.T.S #1, #2 5. Cyber Force #1 6. Prophet #4 (S. Platt cover only) Marvel - Declining, although still the biggest seller, they rely on the strong selling X-Men and Spidey titles to keep them on top. Branching off from Spider Man are Venom and the new guy Night Watch. Also, New Warriors and X-Force, which are decent comics. Then you have all the veteran Super Heroes like Silver Surfer, Punisher, Iron Man, and the others, which don't seem popu- lar on the ANSi seen at all. Wolverine does have limited popularity on the scene, and look for Night Watch and War Machine to pop up soon. Some more humerous titles released recently are the notorius Beavis and Butthead, and Ren and Stimpy. Hot Picks: 1. Web of Spider Man #99 (1st appearance of Night Watch) 2. Iron Man #281 (1st appearance of War Machine) 3. War Machine #1 4. Night Watch #1 DC - Still carried by Batman, Super Man, and related titles, they are in dire need of a shake up. Thus starting in Oct., is Zero Month, where many of their titles will start back at zero, to revive interest. They have some nice stuff including Bat Man, Super Man, Bat Girl, Super Boy, and the new Ray. Also, some hot titles from Vertigo, such as Sand Man, which seems to be drawing more and more fans. The ANSi scene seems to ignore DC titles, as do I. Hot Picks: 1. The Ray #1 2. Sand Man #10-32 Not so Hot: 1. DC Spawn/Batman cross-over, it sux dick. Noteworthy: Harris - Vampirella AXiS - TRiBE Valiant - Ninjak Dark Horse - Next Men Malibu - Prime Most popular on the ANSi scene: 1. Pitt 2. Zealot 3. Grifter 4. Spartan 5. Spawn 6. Zoyvod 7. Rip Claw 8. Batman 9. Prophet 10. Vampirella That concludes this month's Comic book scene, hope you enjoyed this. If you are interested in comics, and if I get good feedback on this article, I might do it again in the future. To a serious collector, this may seem a little shallow, but oh well...:) Singapore Flagging...: by Twisted Terrorist Well, there has been a big commotion about that young boy, Michael was his name and he had just moved into Singapore (south of the orients). This teenager had grown up under the rules of the united-states, he did not know of the customs and traditions of his new hometown, in Singapore. As any young teenager, Michael had that crave to be rebellious and like everybody around here and there, did some grafiti. Everything was going right until he got caught. At first, nobody thought much of it (what's a couple of hours in the pen eh?).. well much more awaited the young man for punishement. In Singapore, they establish severe beatings on the convicts. The beatings are done by the help of a wooden stick similar to a "Kendo" used in martial arts or a "practice katana blade".. it is by a special way of handling the so called "blade" of the stick which makes the beating more effective. One single hit of such a stick is told to cause hard and excruciating pain which can easily cause lack of blood pressure and the victim faints. The cruel thing about this is that when the victim faints, the beaters wait until he reaches conscience and continue the flagging until all hits are effectuated. The more hits are sentected for tougher crimes such as: 12 for shoplifting, 12 for robery, etc.. etc.. Our great Michael WILL receive his flagging of 6 hits. It is told by interview (from a person who was accused of robbery and lived through 12 hits... he of course pleaded not guilty to the media) that the beating takes place like this: First, they strap a piece of cloth over your eyes and make you wait in line for about 15mins, listening to others getting the cane.., then, when its your turn, they tie your wrists and nuckles down to a pole and take down your pants and start hitting. The pain after the 12 beatings was explained to be so crucial that the victim could not walk for 3 days and the pain wasn't fully gone until a month passed by. Is this punishement good or bad? Well the US thinks its barbaric but the whole population of Singapore agrees to the laws. This beating does in fact stop you psychologicaly of even thinking about crime so it is a way.. but would the citizens of USA be ready for something like this? And are we a wuss country where we "let" criminals escape with minor punishement? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves... "The Challeger"... by: Twisted Terrorist A few years ago, a space fleet lead by Michael Smith was sent for a satellite mission in a space craft we know as "The Challenger".. The craft blew in flames in mid-air, but did you know that apparently, the crew of the space craft did not die at the explosion, but only when the actual shuttle hit the ground.. this is due to the fact that a space craft is built to resist to really hot temperature which enabled the crew to maintain alive a little while longer than we thought. Thanks to the miracle of radio communication, the conversation aboard the space craft CHALLENGER was recorded and found in some information group on INTERNET. Now, thanks to Praxis Sacrifist and Krugan, I present the actual conversation after the explosion, in mid-air, in the space craft CHALLENGER: T = (Time of takeoff + "...mins"). T+1:15 (H) What happened? What happened? Oh God, no - no! T+1:17 (F) Oh dear God. T+1:18 (H) Turn on your air pack! Turn on your air... T+1:20 (H) Can't breathe... choking... T+1:21 (H) Lift up your visor! T+1:22 (H/F) (Screams.) It's hot. (Sobs.) I can't. Don't tell me... God! Do it...now... T+1:24 (H) I told them... I told them... Dammit! Resnik don't... T+1:27 (H) Take it easy! Move (unintelligible)... T+1:28 (F) Don't let me die like this. Not now. Not here... T+1:31 (H) Your arm... no... I (extended garble, static) T+1:36 (F) I'm... passing... out... T+1:37 (H) We're not dead yet. T+1:40 (H) If you ever wanted (unintelligible) me a miracle... (unintelligible)... (screams) T+1:41 (H) She's... she's... (garble) ... damn! T+1:50 (H) Can't breathe... T+1:51 (H/F) (screams) Jesus Christ! No! T+2:11 (H) Ditch procedure... T+2:14 (H) No way! T+2:17 (H) Give me your hand... T+2:19 (H) You awake in there? I... I... T+2:29 (H) Our Father... (unintelligible)... T+2:42 (H) ...hallowed be Thy name... (unintelligible). T+2:57 (H) You...over there? T+2:58 (H) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall...not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures... though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil... I will dwell in the house... T+3:15 to end. None. Static, silence. "Violence is action which intrudes painfully or harmfully into the physical or psychological or social well-being of persons or groups. It's effects may range from trivial to catastrophic, obvious or subtle. It may take place against persons or against property. It may be justified, or unjustified , or justified by some standards and not by others." -Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry Violence in the Entertainment Industry Is it a Necessary Concern? While looking at the paper on any given day, I can see a story of a teen, one who's name can't be released, who has committed a crime. These crimes are not the simple stealing candy of days of old. These are crimes, that in my earlier years I would seldom imagine being performed by anyone under 25. I also have to wonder what events could have led up to the acceptance by my peers of the recent stabbing at our school. Years before anyone would have been afraid to go to school after such an event. So why this huge change all of a sudden? Poverty? Sure that could be the reason, but why would the youth crime rate not jump incredibly in The Depression? The family structure, and the way it's falling apart? It could be, but what would fill children's minds with visions of murder? What about the availability of weapons? That could be the reason, but people could almost always get a knife in their kitchen if they wanted one....So what could possibly be the cause of all this 2000% + percent increase in youth crime in the last 40 years? There is one thing whose time of invention was directly related to this jump. Since its invention television has become more and more common place, and as it became more common, it became filled with glamorized violence and death. While not usually associated with evil, television brings evil with it. I believe television, along with the avenues of entertainment it brings with it, is a major factor in the increase in youth violence. The effects of this TV violence on youths are what seem to be focused on in most studies but not wrongfully so. Some children watch over eleven hours of TV a day, most watch at least four or five. One might ask where do they find the time, but that is not the problem, the problem is that they do. And these five hours are not filled with pleasant Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights anymore. Much worse these hours are filled with an average of over 33 acts of violence each. These acts seen multiply out to a staggering 165 acts witnessed per average child. These statistics are not surprising. From Bugs dropping a safe on Daffy, to the Power Rangers using kung-fu dinosaur power, television is no longer a safe past time for children. This violence is believed to not only cause extra aggression, but also desensitize children to violence. Television all to often depicts superheroes getting shot in the arm, getting back up, and using the same arm to hold on to a moving train. The desensitization is feared to be causing a new generation of young adults who are not aware of the effects of their actions, thus leading to an increase in real violence. The reason behind the growing concern of parents towards the visual entertainment industry and violence is that the link between the two is becoming more and more evident. Countless numbers of cases have been reported where children have imitated scenes from television. In Ohio, a child killed his little sister after setting his house on fire with a cigarette lighter. His parents claim Beavis and Butt-Head (sic) was the major catalyst behind the tragedy. This show is the subject of major controversy concerning the two paint- thinner sniffing main characters, who encourage children to play with fire with choruses of " Heh-heh, fire's cool !" Another example of life imitating art, is the thousands of cases reported each year where children are seriously or fatally injured while playing G.I. Joe Commando or cops and robbers by error, with real weapons. In Canada just recently has an attempt been made to resolve these problems. Television violence has supposedly been toned down by all the networks. Any excessive violence has "been eliminated" and shows with any "violent material" must now carry a tag claiming "The following show contains scenes of violence which may not be suitable for younger audiences. Viewer discretion is advised."(CRTC Media Violence Kit) While this may be a great theoretical response I do not feel it is enough. In all likelihood, any child seeing these labels will only be more attracted to the show. In addition to children looking for the shows, it the decision of what can be considered violent or excessively violent. This choice can really only be made by the viewer, to one what is considered violence, can be someone eases idea of good fun. This is surely the sort of thing the networks will play on when confronted with the idea of one of their scripts being too violent. These labels just can't be enough. More must be done if society is to maintain its current level of crime. Progress is also being made in the area of personal censoring. Shows with extreme violence will soon be blocked out with a screen that says " What's the Password?" or a least something similar. New televisions will soon contain the latest technology in the war against television violence. It is called the V-Chip, The Violence Chip. Its a device soon to be a preferred feature on new TV's. What this does is allow the parents to block out shows deemed by the industry as violent. So what would stop anyone from buying such an ingenious piece of technological wizardry? Nearly everyone has a television, and while many people do buy new televisions, not enough people do to make this device common place. Many couldn't afford a television with the extra feature that enables blocking of violent shows. Would people even want one if it was going to cost them extra? Once again, the same as in any other type of censoring, someone must decide what is violent and what isn't. Violence is a term that is hard to define. To some, violence only occurs when blood and guts are present. To others, a simple statement could suggest violence. This is the main dilemma faced when the censoring of TV occurs. What decides how much is too much? I think too much is when crime on television occurs ten times more often than in real life. I think too much is when kids fight over which Power Ranger killed more bad guys in the last episode. Surely it cannot be that difficult. While it is nearly impossible to find a definition for violence that suits everyone, TOO MUCH really shouldn't be that difficult. Should it? Well take a look at the programming. Bugs Bunny and his Saturday morning pals drop 80 anvils, or at least comparable actions, every hour. Why is it that not as much as a negative statement is made when a piano is dropped 200 stories onto someone's head, but as soon as a gun or a knife enters the scene, a whole crowd of activists create a commotion? Video game violence is also increasing on a large scale, with the ever growing popularity of such games as Mortal Kombat I & II. The problem with video games is that they not only have more violence, but also include the player as part of the action. Sega's new interactive Compact Disc system is under fire , gun fire that is. This new trend in video game systems has brought with it the most realistic graphics available into the home. Games such as the controversial Night Trap, which are about the equivalent to your average horror movie, are slowly seeping their ways into the living room. These high tech horror films are diffent though. Instead of sitting back and watching, its the game player who decides the outcome and controls the butcher knife and machine gun. Movies have been around for a long time, and while the most violent acts can be seen through this media, an effective restriction system has prevented minors from viewing these acts. It works well because of its simplicity. If there is any question of age, fall back to one easy rule : No one without appropriate identification gets in. Until recently this system has worked. Hollywood quality movies were only available either in the theatres, or on video cassette where adequate supervision was provided. Now however, movies are being adapted by the hundreds for television. Any child who has access to a television can see Steven Segal's "Out for Justice" or Arnold Swarzenegger's "Terminator 2". These films are said to be "adapted for television", unfortunately all the violence stays intact, and a few minor vulgarities are eliminated. This is where the problem lies in television. Adequate screening cannot occur due to the fact that freedom of speech is fallen back upon when attempts are made to do so. The only effective way to eliminate the violent entertainment completely is to turn it off. Destroy television and video games completely, and find other methods of entertainment. This, while perhaps not a well liked solution, happens to be the only one. Screening of programs by parents or supervisors helps eliminate the problem, but only if it is a constant process. Cutting back on the violence during the initial production can also help, but only if it's unanimously decided upon what is considered violent. And rating systems and laws have proven to be effective too, until the young person finds some way around them. Violence in television and the visual media will not, and can not be stopped until the public ceases to accept and enjoy it. As with most things, if it doesn't make money, it won't be around for very long. ViSiON/2, as far as I have been involved with it, has brought me to annoyance, tears, smiles, and many phone calls. Personally, I have been involved with ViSiON/2 a bit under a year, but one of my closest friends, JabberWocky, has been supporting this software for well over two years. Thanks to his support, ViSiON/2 has expanded throughout the entire world and has become one of the most revolutionary softwares ever to be written. The original author, Crimson Blade, began work on ViSiON/2 back around the year of 1991, then being fairly unknown to the modem population. Since the history of this software is very complex and at many times truly dull, it is now time to focus on the recent history of ViSiON/2, starting with version .84 and on. The first version of ViSiON/2 .84 was released in late August, and overwhelmed the public with a tremendously powerful menu-editing system, over 200 configurable strings, and the ability to change almost anything that the user wanted via this menu-editing program. However, this first release was extremely buggy, and many current ViSiON/2 sysops at that time (.72 and earlier) were not willing to take the leap to .84, as it required a tremendous effort on the part of the sysops to change their system to this new and improved version. Immediately, bugs were being discovered, the most frustrating of which were the malfunctioning of bi-directional uploading, configuring a message or file newscan, a practically unoperational bbs list and rumors section, among others. Crimson Blade had spent so much time after releasing no new updates, but once again decided to retreat from modeming, and updates and bug fixes took place over a long period of time, if at all. Problems continued to occur, especially around January 1994, the month which I discovered a rather important bug which could be used to access any text files on the local sysop's hard drive from remote - Immediately, I decided to dial up Crimson Blade, and reported to him this bug. He seemed fairly disinterested, but agreed to take a look at it and to fix it. Acting upon his obvious state of worry and shock, I took it upon myself to release a patch for this bug, and this fixed problems for a short period of time. A week later, Crimson Blade decided to release the new, bug-free version of ViSiON/2 .84, but yet more bugs were being discovered. At this time, he becamse aware of the seriousness of this problem, and immediately fixed ViSiON/2 when a new bug of this type came up. With the new security of ViSiON/2 as a stable system, everything was to go smoothly. However, Crimson Blade decided to then drop ViSiON/2 for a while, and handed over the entire project to Net Distortion, the organizer of the official ViSiON/2 network since several months (BLiTZMail), a reknowned programmer himself. Under the leadership of Net Distortion was released a new version, mainly that of .85. This new update featured bug fixes from practically all that were reported, as well as tremendous changes on multi-tasking capabilities. With the configurability and stability that ViSiON/2 now possessed was set forth a path of domination. Many groups since early 1993 were formed to help support ViSiON/2, the largest of those being Team ViSiON/2 Utilities, ViSiON/2 Projects Team, and the ViSiONARiES. With this type of support backing ViSiON/2, it helped to remold ViSiON/2 into a respectable and stable BBS Software. With it's main competition being that of Oblivion/2, ViSiON/2 is beginning to again set the standards for BBS Softwares, with current projects such as 20 line FILE_ID.DIZ support, true Bi-Directional support, and a much more efficient QWK system as well as many others. Under the new leadership and time-consuming efforts of Net Distortion, ViSiON/2 systems should begin to overthrow the scene with new, innovative ideas, all the while being backed by hundreds of sysops, a handful of artists, and the rest of the public. ú Qur'an [HarMoon] Advanced Gravis, I hate you. Neurotic - Union Senior Yet another day, yet another demo/intro/music disk uploaded to my board. I'm feeling bored, so I figure why not check it out? I unzip the program, and lo and behold, a spiting GUS appears before me. The program so kinda tells me to screw off because I don't have one of these quality sound cards, and exits me to dos. After having about forty megabytes of these things, you start to get miffed. It seems to become ever increasingly popular to screw over the majority of sound card owners by making them download a megabyte plus file and then giving them nothing for it. I'm like a majority of people, when I first got my computer I knew nothing about the demo scene, I just wanted something that sounded somewhat better than the bleeper (see footnote #1) to play games with. I approached my dealer with this problem, and he sold me an overpriced, undersupported sound card that I'm pretty sure the company stopped supporting about ten minutes after I bought it. (see footnote #2) It's sorta understandable when a demo group does it because they're using some high end multitrack music format that only the GUS supports (although, a SB can play S3Ms, etc, quite well). But it makes me slightly peeved when all this "GUS only" demo is playing is standard four track modules, which have been around since the amiga. Mods are unbelievably outdated and there is such an extensive range of free source code out there for playing mods on PC Speakers, Sound Blasters, SB Pros, SB 16s, Gravis Ultra Sounds, Rolands, DACs, etc, etc that it isn't even funny. Why can't the demo just run with no sound if they choose not to support anything but the GUS? Sure it takes away from some of the effect of the demo, but is it better to allow your audience to see something, rather than nothing? After seeing "tHaNkS gO tO GrAvIs UlTrASoUnD fOr OuR FrEe GuSeS" (see footnote #3) for the ten millionth time on those little .NFO files that were included in the zip, and where about the only thing in it I could view, I started to clue in. I think Gravis Ultra Sound has been giving out free hardware for these budding computer programmers to support, in order that these coders support nothing else. After all, after you see "Gravis Ultra Sound not found, exiting to the OS" for the fiftieth time, you begin to consider buying one so you can see what you're missing out with. (see footnote #4) My point? I think this was a rather clever/unfair ploy by Advanced Gravis. I personally do not plan on buying one of their cards because of how they have twisted the PC demo scene, (see footnote #5) the fact that I'm a cheap bastard is only partly affecting my decision. Really. (see footnote #6) Footnote #1: I've noticed that as the 8086 series of computers has increased, the output of the PC Speaker has grown to sound worse and worse. My Tandy XT sounded a hell of a lot better than my 386-40. Of course, my Tandy came with the ultraspiffy four voice Tandy sound card, but that's beside the point. Footnote #2: Otherwise known as the ATI Stereo FX. This spiffy little sound card is made by ATI Technologies Inc, a company based out of Toronto. It has Sound Blaster and Ad Lib emulation (oooh, aaah), plus Windows support. So, provided you can find a sound player for Windows, you can play things in Stereo. It costs about twice the price a Gravis Ultra Sound retailed for at the time. The only game I have ever seen that supported it was Ambush At Sorinor, a cheesy one disk RPG, and even then I think it was just using the same drivers as the Sound Blaster. Footnote #3: I hate bouncy, "k-rad" text. Why do so many europeans use it? Footnote #4: Loading the default card up with only 256k ram, and having the demos require a GUS with 1mb of ram is yet another one of Advanced Gravis' evil plots to extort money from the general public. Footnote #5: I'll probably go back on this one day. I really would like to see (and hear) what I am missing. Footnote #6: Sorry for my overuse of footnote's here. SA wanted an article by me about four days ago, (I'm writing this about five hours before Blur #2 is supposed to be released). It's late. I want to draw ansi, not write articles. Plus my english is usually poor enough as it is. iCE, ACiD, and even ACE! ... revisited.. Article By Tron (CiA, Blur) I have always felt strongly about this article. Originally, it was planned and submitted for Iridium. I am glad the recent twist of events with Iridium made it possible for me to pass this along to my friends at Blur. Awhile back, Creators of Intense Art (CiA) talked to LTD/Dissident about a merger. It was a done deal. Then someone mentioned something about some hacking done by their president, No Carrier. When time had passed with the article sitting on the Iridium HQ, I thought it would be no big deal to let things pass. NC has not popped up anywhere under any handles that I've heard mention of, and his plans to renew his art group did not happen. But, I felt it was important that we make a bigger issue out of ansi hacking of his magnitude. So, the article goes on. I've even heard some people speculate that since No Carrier is in the same areacode as the Iridium HQ, that he may have dropped some threats against them and maybe that's why the mag never surfaced. Please understand, this is probably total and utter bullshit, and this article in no way intends to dig into any of that. Just the facts, 'maam. And, the facts of this case are undeniable. The evidence, when brought to your attention, is so unmistakable, it is absurd to even listen to his defenses against it. Why do I mention "his defenses?" He did write an article for Iridium in an attempt to refute the accusations leveled against him. But, in another fine example of his lameness, it was not made private, and is quite downloadable (I still have a copy). In a nutshell, around the early part of January we decided to merge with LTD. We all had a conference and decided to do it. I noticed one ansi that really made me think, the Metallica "Kill 'em All" hammer. Had it not been for that one ansi, I most likely would not have ever thought to look closer at his stuff, and CiA would've been ruined by his hacks getting into our packs. But, I did. That ansi bothered me. I have about 90 megs of past iCE, ACiD, Tribe, etc., ansis on my hard drive. If I get stuck shading a particular section, I go see how some- one else may have done something similar. So, I dug through all of my stuff and found it, an iCE ansi from King Pin for a board called Total Carnage. I called the other local members of CiA, and we spent the week- end seeing what else we could come up with. In HIS Iridium article, he slams Kronos (ACiD) for ruining his ansi career and says that he only hacked 1 ansi about 2 years ago and it never made it into any packs. By Monday, we had found FOURTEEN hacks. Each ansi side-by-side the original it was stolen from. One particular ansi from Speed Demon (ACiD) for Harmony Skates, had a "hide-a-sig" technique installed. If you used the attributes command in TheDraw, you could see all these little brackets hidden in EACH ansi in the same exact spots! One ansi, indeed. His article also mentioned that we only wanted his other Senior Staff member, and we dumped everyone else. The way it actually happened, was that when we asked him for the phone numbers to his members, he only had about one-third of their numbers. We had offered to take the burden off of him and contact all of the new members to tell them about the merge and welcome them into CiA. The numbers we did have were wrong, or the respective member said he had quit the scene and sold his modem (no shit, three guys gave this response). Therefore, the only member we had access to was Mandor, and he has never hacked anything (so lick my sack, NC). Again, this has been a dead issue for a few months now. Most people deep into the scene have heard of the hacks and have issued their own personal attacks on No Carrier. But, since history tends to repeat itself we hope this article and the hacked ansis included will lead new would-be artists down the path to the good side of the force. Take the quick and easy way out, and you will be discovered. Here's a list of Ansi's that No Carrier has ripped off: Original Ansi Original Artist No Carrier's Ripped Ansi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ KP-CARNG KingPin [iCE] NC-EUTHN EB-MEM ACE Members NC-GLOGO SK8ACID2 Speed Demon [ACiD] NC-UNDGR ACID-ATT Speed Demon [ACiD] NC-ATT AA-CA AADA [iCE] NC-DIGRL CE-SPLAT Cerebus [ACiD] NC-TPEMP ML-TCS1 Marshall Law [iCE] NC-TERRA FN-BS1 Fusion [ACiD] NCAE-SB TMG2VN Vindication [ACiD] NC-PAINC QS-BITU Quicksilver [iCE] NC-LANDO TT-SHAN Tempus Thales [iCE] NC-12TH ST-ILLUS Stilleto [iCE] NC-12TH IS-MAIN Israfel [iCE] NC-TRAGE HACK3 Slum-Dweller [ACiD] NC-TPEAK NW-CT-92 Cool T [iCE] NC-BIOHZ Tron (CiA, Blur) The Art Scene - Small Groups ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The smaller groups are mostly a group of friends that do ansi and slap them in a pack. They're not ACiD or anyone, but quite a few still rock. You can kind of compare them to the minors and the majors. It does get kinda annoying after a while. Not the older groups or the really good, news ones, like CiA, Union and Relic, but it just annoys me that every second, there's another group. It's like the birth-rate of babies. One is born every second. One dies every other. There's a group out there called XGA. They've barely released their latest pack. And they want to merge already. I'm not saying they suck or anything, I haven't seen their pack. I'd just stick with a "minor league" group in the beginning. Like the example in Blur #1, would you rather have a higher place in your own group or a lower one in an older, well established group? Some people can handle the reponsibility in running a group, like The Night Prowler, or Tron, or Maestro. Some can't. Starting a new group is VERY hard unless your name is well established, like Golgotha or Elminster. In the beginning, running a group is fun. But then you realize how difficult it is. You need to recruit people, make up for the people who quite, get distro sites, try to "establish" your group, and draw ansi in the same time. I've tried running a smaller group. Believe me, it's a bitch. Trying to get people to join, people start quitting, etc.... If you are considering starting a new group, weigh the gains and losses, the plusses and minuses. Compare your art to the smaller groups like CiA, BAD, Imperial, Union. And also the bigger groups like ACiD, and iCE. (Why? Cuz looking at your ansi fro about 3 hours on the Draw makes almost ANYTHING look good. :) Oh yeah, use the VGA and MCGA viewing features on your ansi viewer. It help.) Not to boost your ego, to see if your art is good enough for people to want to join you. It's kinda like drawing art for comics. [In Wizard #33] Todd McFarlane (Spawn, Batman) said to send your stories and/or art to everyone till you get accepted. I don't mean, "Pick up a copy of the draw, scribble for 2 minutes, add theDraw fonts, slap your handle on it and mail it to ACiD and iCE 50 times". I mean, practice ansi, post it around on local boards. Draw until you can get free file points on local boards and people start complimenting you and making requests. THAT's when you should consider joining a group. Work your way up. If you start a new group, the outcomes are endless. You could end up as the new Sr. Staff for iCE as far as I know. (AHEMcoughBlackIrecough. For the Sr. Staff part, I meant.) Or you can just be declared asshole of the world. That's what I suggest you do before running out and starting your own group. Think, and think hard. Compare the plusses to the negatives. Finally, if you ARE gonna start up another group, you could be starting the next ACiD or iCE, or you could be starting the next LTD, or whatever No Carrier (ansi ripper) started. C-ya. Greets to no one. Blur, Iridium, and Corruption rock! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-ROCK!!!!!!! - Black Lightning ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ( From the official CiA government files dating 05/94 )ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ßßßß²± ßß ±²ßßßß Creators of Intense Art..And, that's how it's been all ±² ßß ±² °± ܲ² month, intense! It's the 19th and I have been so busy °±Üܱ° °± ° ±° with group operations, I have only barely started on one ü¦ ansi this month. Seems like every day this month we've had to discuss something. People calling our VMB wanting to join, merge, request. It's been great but, I'm tired as hell. We've had no less than FIVE groups ask us for a merge this month! As of this writing, the only one solid and done is the CiA/Atomic merge. We officially welcome all of the Atomic members into the group. As of this writing, I still haven't finished personally calling each member. As I said, it's been a busy month. One other notable offer was from a really killer overseas group, which I won't name. They are hung up on the name, of course. I will say it here and now, and hold true to this for- ever: we will NEVER merge and change our name. Sorry, we're not dicks. We just like the name, and have had it forever. This month's pack is pack 12! Our one year! It's been a lot of fun and our growth has been great. We've made some decent friends and gained some great knowledge from others in the scene. This is the most solid group I've ever been in. We've NEVER mentioned splitting up and the most solid group members that started the group are all still in and producing nicely. Every position in our group this month, has been challenged. Every area we've thought about trying to improve upon has had a group offer to fill it. Example, we are weak in coding and VGA. One group that wanted to merge had 15 VGA guys, but only 2 ansi. Another, 10 coders, 3 ansi. We are still considering these guys and nothing is finished. But, we'll all walk away from this regardless, as decent affiliates with each other. So things are going well. Damn, this is tough. I have a lot to say but don't really want to talk until I can deliver. If things go as expected, we will have a very nice additive to our next pack. An area we are weak in just got a mega-steroid shot in the arm. But, I am reluctant to spill my guts until I can see that our new member holds up to his words. But at the very least, our operational methods have been carved in stone and seem to working fine. Also, our net is jamming! We have 3 boards polling from oversees already and many more setting up now. Besides that, there are many posting now. Okay, that's all I'll say at this time :) If you would like to become a part of the CiA FAMILY, call Illegal Embassy at 513-923-4984 NUP: UNITED. If you'd like to poll the official CiA net, Final Net, call our Net Home, Meurte, at 908-647-1194 and download the app. Oh, one more point. We are full of sites at this time. We will only be expanding our site list with MEMBER boards. That is, a member of your bbs must become an active part of CiA for you to get an affil. Saying shit like (and I quote) " I run a good board that gets a lot of calls. So if you give me a site or WHQ, you're group will do better" won't fly..But, thanks anyway.. Greets to all the CiA guys! Also, Havok, Manifest, Vi, UNiON, REM, BLADE, and the newly re-forming Magic! Tron (CiA) Mags spice up the scene. Get involved! Howdy people! I'm Zorlak of Imperial Productions. I'm here to present to you a (well written; cough, cough :>) little something on Imperial. Sorry if I get boring but that's life eh? Ok, so GRIP/AD was a group founded by The Night Prowler, and along with a few of friends (including me), GRIP/AD soon became a fairly competitive group. Listed as being in the TOP 5 in the art scene, GRIP/AD became known for it's improving artists and it's hard working (non-charging; this crack is for ACID and ICE) members. With members such as The Duellist, Deeply Disturbed, Twisted Terrorist, Magnetic M, GRIP/AD was quickly moving onwards to a long and promissing future. To everyone's surprise, The Duellist and Magnetic left GRIP/AD for ACiD (damn you Malcolm X :>). None of the members thought that the departure of both The Duellist (a composer), and Magnetic M (ansi artist) would bring the downfall of GRIP/AD. Considering that Magnetic M refused to head into iCE after Tempus Thales asked him to, we all thought that the group was full of loyal members. As you can see, the case is not so. Soon after the departure of MM and TD; Deeply Disturbed and Darkwolf (now known as Twisted Terrorist, ic iCE) left GRIP/AD for more promissing, and larger groups; namely ACID or ICE. We also acquired Nosferatu for like 1 day and soon lost him to ACID also... So here's a little list of former members: The Duellist - left for ACID Magnetic M - left for ACID, now in Nation Deeply Disturbed - left for ACID, then TRIBE, err I think back to ACID then ACID again and finally Nation now... I hope I got that list right DD :> Twisted Terrorist (or DarkWolf) - left for groups that I have no knowledge of but is now in iCE/REALITY/BLUR and that's it I think... Nosferatu - left for ACiD.. to form some kind of Frenchy division (don't ask me) As you can see... GRIP/AD had finally lost most of it's talented members. Zorlak (hey that's me :>) stayed in GRIP/AD from the time it started off on bare limbs and is still with the same 'team' today (after a bit of conflict with the members; remember that guys ?) ok that's it for my little ego trip :> After much planning and discussions with The Narccissist (hope I spelt that right :>) a temporary group called Domination was formed. This group contained present members from GRIP/AD (which weren't many BTW) and members from NWA (or New Wave Artists). Zorlak (me again.. ego trip sickness) found that a name like Domination was not suitable for the group (and too long to make logos for) so we all decided on MY (yes MY) name.. IMPERIAL. (ahh what an ego I have :>) ok... so that's about the main story... I won't leave you guys off like this... I'll first say...: ANY, yes ANYONE who'd like to join Imperial... a group formed of very hard working, very promissing members.. please call our WHQ at 1-514-963-9965, this is The Night Prolwer's BBS called The Never Land, and just apply! We are constantly growing and getting to be quite well known. Though our goal is NOT to compete with the 'Big Guns' such as ACiD or iCE, but to prove to everyone, that a group of nice guys (yeah right) with fun in mind, can make either VGA/ANSI/LIT productions for people who demand it! We have acquired some 'new blood' these past days... These include Young (very talented ansi artist), a couple of VGA artists and more is to come. Join the team that will have NO FUTURE BREAKUPS, (like GRIP/AD didn't have any.. we just merged, but didn't die), and if you want NO PRESSURE on your back (cough cough ACID, ICE etc.. :>) while producing the art that you want distributed all over the world, just apply dudes! OK, that should be about it! I hope you enjoyed this little article on my favorite group (excuse me) Imperial. Remember: 1-514-963-9965, Never Land; The Night Prowler's board. A few shouts go to: Red Leader - my matrix you lazy bumb :> Deeply Disturbed - ummm me coolie ? Twsited Terrorist - getting kinda serious with messages ya know Annihilanus - hahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhaha... TPT - I greet the almighty ACID - I won't give you guys greets... you get too many of 'em... nice job tho! iCE - I'll show you iCE... you guys suck... yeah right... great job this month! Imperial members - ummmmm, we RuLeZ 0R N0t ? Nation - you guys are ALL rippers... n0t ! anyways, good luck ! Sniper - keep practicing Skyhigh - same as above Malcolm X - don't move to Nation... nor stay in ACID.. Imperial is great for U. Coluche - viewer ? bugs ? I hope not this month... a big SHHOUUUUT 2 U 2 man ! TNP - Imperial sux... ummmm sux the life out of the members.. :> we need $ 4 it! The Duellist - write me a Speed Metal song please? BTW: Metallica rules ! ok ok.. I said a few so.. that's it.. this is getting adictive... ok cya guys and remember.. IMPERIAL is here to stay Zorlak of Imperial Productions-. [VGA/ANSI/LIT Department]-. The Music Scene By The Lich I must admit, the art scene isn't what it used to be - and neither is the music scene. For about a year and a half now, I've had a lovely SBPro in my possesion and it introduced me to a whole new world: The world of digitized music! The Soundtracker music format in the past two years has evolved from the Amiga duped MOD format to the now, more advanced, S3M format, which many locals are still trying to rip apart. One thing I have to complain about in the music scene is the OD on heavy techno music. NiTRON describes it as "Techno-Aerobic Music". I for one agree. Although, I could never do what many of these world-wide artists do, only a handful of them, in my opinion, are really EXCEPTIONAL musicians. Of my list of favorites are (in no particular order): - Purple Motion / Future Crew - Skaven / Future Crew - Silent Mode / Pentagon - Future Assassin / UNiON - C.C. Catch / Renaissance - Tran / Renaissance I once made the TERRIBLE mistake of trying to image a MOD after some of Skaven's style of music, in which everything appears to be in a Minor key (for you musicians). Big mistake on my part :) ... If you ever see a mod by The Lich called DARK EYE, don't download it. My favorite pieces, however, in this order, are: - Second Reality (Main music) Purple Motion / Future Crew - Fishtro Purple Motion / Future Crew - Ice Frontier Skaven / Future Crew - Second Reality (Intro/Finale music) Skaven / Future Crew - Forever Silent Mode / Pentagon - Crescent Moon C.C. Catch / Renaissance - Darkness Purple Motion / Future Crew - Nocturne Silent Mode / Pentagon - Into the Maelstrom Tran / Renaissance One drawback for the famed FC music team is that their music disks are not normally their best work. This is, I believe, because they give their best music to all those world famous FC demos that we all love so much. Sometimes, I end up watching some demos just to listen to the music :) I personally can't wait until FC releases their annual megademo for the Assembly / Party compo. coming up this summer, and I also can't wait to hear the winning S3Ms of 1994. TTYL Scream Tracker III ( v3.01b) Revue by The Lich I have no idea how long I have waited for this program. Must have been since I found out that there was a new format on the scene with more than the 4 tracks that mods have, and that was about two - three years ago. Anyway, the world famous Future Crew have finally released the famous Scream Tracker III to the PC demo/art scene. For those of you who are not familiar with the name Scream Tracker, or have merely forgotten, let me enlighten you. Scream Tracker is a program created by The Future Crew in Finland (#1 Demo group in the world) to write music in .MOD (4 Channels), .669s (8 Channels), .S3M (anywhere from 1 to 32 channels) and for you people who love adlib style music , it also supports FM Adlib Music. It didn't take me very long to figure this program out, after being and experimenting around with programs like Modedit and Writer 669. Scream Tracker III is a very simple program to use and is fairly straight forward. It provides just about everything you could want in a PC music writer. I have recently been working on 'suping' up a lot of the .MODs I was going to give to the Blur Magazine because ST3 can also convert .MODs into .S3Ms and so on. It truly is a wonderful creation. Okay, requirements. This program doesn't eat up a lot of disk space or anything. It is quite compact, but here are the actual requirements: 386sx MINUMUM VGA Graphics Card AND Monitor Sound card: - Sound Blaster - Sound Blaster Pro - Gravis Ultra Sound EMS is strongly suggested because ST3 loads all of it's samples used into EMS memory. Low Memory (640K) is used to store the patterns etc. If you only have Low Memory (not recommended), you should save your work VERY often because the program gets a little unstable in low memory. FM is supported by only the SB cards, since Gravis Ultra Sounds don't have FM chips. Well, for the everyday PC Musician, this program is all that you'll ever need. This, by the way, is version 3.01beta. Psi has no actual intention of releasing a finished version, with all the bugs worked out (although I haven't seen any bugs as of yet) since he has no time what's so ever. My recommendation - Get this program ASAP, and I'll see you in the music scene... Programmers Notes -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Well after a week of hounding (Is it out yet???) from the other Blur members the mag is finally out. I would like to thank Stone Angel for giving me the assignment of writing the mag, even though he gave me like 3 days to finish it in... I would also like to thank him for agreeing to buy me a doughnut in exchange for making this. Thanks also go to Terminal Entry, the old coder, for quiting and allowing me to code it for once. :) The magazine is coded in Turbo C++ and consists of about 1200 lines of code. I tried really hard to get the article viewer to support ansi but to no avail. If anyone could help me on that I would appreciate it very much. I take no credit whatsoever for the music routines. They were done using DemoVT, an awesome sound library programmed by JCAB of VangeliSTeam/Iguana. Well I don't know what else to write, and Stone Angel is bugging me to hurry up and release the stupid thing so I am going to have to stop typing and finish this. Immortal Shadow P.S. I forgot the Greets! Greets ~~~~~~ Stone Angel - Quit bugging me... First Degree - Blocked! Praying Mantis - I hate your stupid answering machine! Apprentice - 'This is my BOOMSTICK!' Neurotic - Where did those Lebanese guys go? :) The Lich - Can I borrow your computer? Muscle - Get a real alias! Terminal Entry - Thanks for the help Black Wraith - I still have some of your disks! :) Everyone - The Man in the Moon eats cheerios for breakfast Argh, I just know I forgot someone...