Back?

My last few blogs were just reviews. Why? My computer was down for over a week and I could only blog at the library. Where you get two 1-hour sessions per day.

I intended to get two podcasts out in September, but my computer issues delayed the editing of one until now. I interviewed Tommy Kovac, writer of the Royal Historian of Oz comic series, but was forced to use my brother's laptop to make the call, and I wound up forgetting to set the recording program to record at 128kbps instead of the default 64kbps. So if you find the audio quality lacking a bit, there's your answer.

Something that happened recently is that The International Wizard of Oz Club Forums has decided to close, encouraging users to discuss things on the Club's Facebook page. For me, the forums is where I learned so much about Oz and the community. I asked questions, said some dumb things and said some good things. Eventually, I started blogging about certain topics rather that posting them for discussion there. And now here I am, over 600 blog entries later. (I think we're almost at blog entry 666...)

Since not everyone likes Facebook for a message board (I don't, there's no organization and you can't edit your posts), I have been consulting with my webhost about opening up forums as part of the Royal Website of Oz. More on that as it arises.

Given that, we're also looking at setting up a proper fan fiction site, because my last attempt at one, using forum software, didn't work out so well. Again, more on that as it happens. (The site might also expose talent for future issues of the Club's Oziana.)

And we're also looking at working on an extensive library site of public domain Oz and Oz-related works. I was going to put the Oz books on my site as PDFs to be e-reader friendly, but it looks like I should've just gone with plain flowing HTML all along... Thank goodness for Calibre!

So, with a wiki, playable games, a podcast, a blog, and forums, user-submitted fan fiction, and a library in the works, we might be becoming one of the biggest Oz sites.

Also, as people keeping up to date on the Winkie Convention probably already know, I'm hosting the standard quiz next year and providing the prize. I have picked a perfectly petite Pumperdinkian prize for the prizewinner. So peruse your paperback Sky Island (or hardcover, or ebook) and put by your pay and pop up at the 2012 Winkie Convention! And who knows what else I might do?

Finally, I've been collecting issues of The Baum Bugle and Oziana for reading and research purposes. (So this means I'm counting the Best of the Baum Bugle collections along with the issues.) Right now, I'm just reading The Baum Bugle and learning so much about the Club and Oz history. There's also so many images I hadn't seen before, including photos of the Royal Historians.

Bit of trivia, the Autumn, 1972 issue permanently broke a Baum Bugle tradition that had been in place since the first issue: it was stapled together. (And yes, some members were upset about this.) Also, if you ever see it, take a good look at the cover image. If you think you recognize it and have seen it before, look again.

So there we go, just Ozzing it up. And there's a few other Ozzy things I'm working on I'm not blogging about quite yet.