The NannyMUD Times issue 1996 October.

[Polar]

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|                                                                          |
|               The NEW NannyMUD Times, Third issue. 961001                |
|                                                                          |
|Page  2: Editorial.                                                       |
|Page  3: Interview with an Akasha.                                        |
|Page  4: Your monthly Mud Horoscope                                       |
|Page  5: How Nanny once started - Story from our god.                     |
|Page  6: Confession of a bug abuser.                                      |
|Page  7: The unofficial Nannymud PK guide.                                |
|Page  8: New highwizards - Read the comments about them.                  |
|Page  9: What is Sweden really like? - The story of an american in Sweden.|
|Page 10: Support the MPN (Male Player Network).                           |
|Page 11: Competition - Who knows most about NannyMUD?                     |
|Page 12: Mudparty in Sweden - Read all about it!                          |
|Page 13: Do you want to become a writer for the NannyMUD Times?           |
|Page 14: Ask Madame D.                                                    |
|Page 15: Aunt O's gossip column.                                          |
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Editorial.

A new month, a new issue of Nannymud times!
I must start with saying. THANKS FOR ALL COMMENTS!
I cant say anything else than that this paper have been much more appreciated
than i would have belived when i decided to start making it.
Number of sold copys of September issue where as high as 199.
Once again, thank you all for the comments, without those i would never put
this much energy into making this paper.

Now we present for you a even bigger and even better newspaper. This issue
have some nice articles. We have a competition to decide which player has the
highest knowledge about NannyMUD. We have a interview with the demoted Akasha.
We bring you all the information about the mudparty in Orebro. We let you
know what others think of the newest highwizards. We update you with the
latest gossip. We encourage you to support the MPN. Plus a lot more.

Something you might have noticed in this issue. This issue costs 100 coins,
instead of the normal 50 coins. Its because of our competition in this issue.
Read all about it on page 10.

I would like to use my little space in this editorial to comment some recent
happenings around in NannyMUD. I guess noone have missed out that Nannymud
changed machine and now runs on a Intel based computer. I must say that what
i have noticed of the new machine is just good experiences. BUT, a warning,
if you look back through times, the administration has most often succeded to
mess up a smooth gameplay with increased limits of logins, running backups,
code most unnessesary things that would lag the game to an extreme amount,
logging everything and anything. With this in mind i have a low faith that
the machine and game will stay in this 'untouched' and low lagged state.
Lets all hope the wizards dont use Nannymud as a scene for them to showoff
with their advanced programming skills, and tries to remember that this is a
mud made for playing a game not calculating experiments.
Ok, i should not draw the most pessemistic conclusions. So, lets hope this
machine will rm lag.* once and for all.

I guess most of us know that Akasha where driven away from Nannymud. But i
will not comment what i think of it more than just say that what happened was
very bad for the mud in a lot of ways.
But, what i do want to comment. Is the acting of some pity wannabe-admins

among the wizards. We have this scenario. A wizard makes a hard decision and
decides to remove all her files she have been working on for the last 3 years.
She is very sad and this is not a very easy decision. She now wants to tell
all her friends about her decision. She sits down to write a note that will
describe her thoughts and reasons, she is really sad and tries to hold back
her tears while writing that note. Now something happens which i personally
have no idea why this happens. Some of our fellow wizards sees it as their
mission to tell Akasha she is not worth shit and tell her that she is acting
like a child, using words as 'blackmail' and 'destroying the mud'.
I mean, what can possibly be the purpose?
Is it to show to Akasha that you hate her?
To show the admins that you would kiss their asses if they allowed you?
To show everybody else that you are cool and can kick on a lying girl?

Neill told me: Am i not allowed to an opinion?
Well, i should be the first one to allow everyone an opinion. Since i think
that without opinions we all become mental slaves.
But in this case i cant really see the reason for expressing that opinion in
public. Ok, compare the following to this, would you act like this:
If you where driving along the road and you saw a girl sitting beside a car
crying because she had ran over a deer. Would your first reaction be to pull
over and confront that girl just to say: "You stupid, silly bitch!
You killed this innocent animal. You are such an animalhater!"

Well i must say, i got sad that day when i read Akashas note and i got so
really really angry when i saw the replying notes. Ok, maby i overreacted,
but if Neill feels that he is allowed his opinion. The same should be the
case for me.

 /Le'Clerk - Main editor.                                               
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 leclerk@nannymud                                                     
 lick.me@plea.se  (yes, this IS my email adress)                       
 Jonas Sjoberg                                                         
 Pl 1412                                                               
 694 00  Hallsberg                                                     
 Sweden                                                               
                                                                   

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INTERVIEW WITH AN AKASHA!
=========================
Interviewer: Leclerk.

Playername:          Akasha
Realname:            Monica Kohler
Age:                 24
Born:                June 27th, 1972
Starsign:            Cancer
Lives:               Seattle, Washington, USA
Seconds:             Munchkin, Vash, Kes
First time on Nanny: Summer 1992
Total time on Nanny: 107 days.


You say: seattle.. isnt that a really cool place?.. whats seattle like?
Akasha says: i think it is a really nice place to live ... i wouldnt live
             anywhere else Smile

You say: what makes it the best place to live in?
Akasha says: seattle is very green, lotsa mountains, diverse cultures and
             communities, rain of course (but then we wouldnt have all this
             green!), all my family live around here... its home Smile

You say: how do you live? (at parents, your own place?)
Akasha says: i live on my own Smile
Akasha says: well, i have been living here for about a year ... i live on the
             north side of Lake Washington (north Seattle) ... its a good sized
             apt (about 750 sq ft) ... quite a mess now that i am doing some
             fall cleaning and rearranging tho Wink
Akasha says: i live alone for now Wink

You say: oh.. how do you get money to pay that apt?
Akasha says: chuckle, money grows on trees donchya know? Wink
Akasha says: i have got a job that pays the bills Smile

You say: job? what do you work with? and where?
Akasha says: yea, as a ... well the best desc is a telemarketer ... altho i am
             kinda in limbo right now (dont know what it is i am exactly doing
             yet) ... i work for a resort/vacation company in Bellevue *fear*

You say: woo.. you are in limbo?
Akasha says: yea, part of the reason i am a bit stressed now ...
Akasha says: limbo -> an intermediate or transitional place or state ...
Akasha says: means i dont know what i am doing there ... just kinda hanging out
             and waiting Sad

You say: oh.. telemarketing.. you call people up and ask if they want to
         travel with you? your sitting talking in the phone all day?
Akasha says: yup, i am on the phone all day ... making appointments for ppl to
             attend the company's presentation (its not as bad as it sounds)
Akasha says: i never thought i would be able to do a job like this Smile
Akasha says: and i must brag that i am one of the best in the dept cuz i am
             honest and straightforward w/ the customers and they get exactly
             what i say (the company and product is great so that helps too Wink
Akasha says: i dont like pushy telemarketers, i know what its like when they
             call ... so i try to understand that ...

You say: what did you think you would do.. what where you planing on doing
         after you graduated?
Akasha says: laf, i wasnt planing on anything ... i went to college a few
             years, thinking i wanted to do some international business major

             (japanese mostly) ... but found out i didnt like business at
             all...

You say: oh, you speak japanese well?
Akasha says: no, not very much really ... i can understand a few things but its
             been quite some time since i took japanese in High school...
Akasha says: i guess i know the basics, but that doesnt get u very far i am
             afraid...

You say: are your origins from japan?
Akasha says: my father is Japanese, so yes Smile

You say: have you visited japan..?
Akasha says: ah, yes ... once when i was 15 (turned 16 there)
Akasha says: it was on a student exchange program for a month ... we stayed in
             Kanazawa (directly on the other side of the island from Tokyo)
Akasha says: it was quite the experience ... my first out of the country ... i
             thought i was prepared, but i had culture shock nonetheless...

You say: ok.. you visited japan.. i know you visisted sweden too.. tell me
         about your trip to sweden
Akasha says: hehe, sweden was an interesting experience too ... one that took a
             bit to get used to the differences ... but it was wonderful
             spending time w/ my sweetheart and traveling a bit Smile

You say: oh.. where did you do?
Akasha says: Stockholm, Jarvso, Hudiksvall in sweden (besides Linkoping) ...
             the netherlands: Eindhoven, Vlissinen, Amsterdam ... Austria:
             Vienna

You say: You where talking about getting used to diffrences.. what diffrences
         did you notice?
Akasha says: small things mostly ... different trees/wildlife, landscape, light
             all day, shops close early, taking the bus everywhere or walking,
             language, seeing many caucasians (sp?), not finding things i was
             used to in the grocery stores, tv, movies, etc, etc Smile
Akasha says: i really enjoyed meeting ppl there, everyone was very nice (and
             most spoke english, which helped Smile
Akasha says: what i didnt like was all the convieniences that i missed ...
             going shopping for groceries anytime of the day, shops were
             smaller and didnt have much variety ... what can i say, i am
             spoiled Smile

You say: is it true that swedes are tall, blonde and sexy? Cool
Akasha laughs.
Akasha says: in some cases ... Razz

You say: why did you go to sweden in the first place?
Akasha says: why i went to sweden? to live with my sweetie in his country and
             see what it was like ... to see where his origins/culture comes
             from ... to see if i would like sweden enuff to stay there (even
             tho we knew that was a longshot) ... to meet his family ... to see
             if we could survive living in a 20 sq meter (or something) place
             together Wink
Akasha says: my sweetie is Profezzorn in case anyone doesnt know Smile

You say: oh, how long have you been 'sweeties' with eachother?
Akasha hmms and thinks carefully.
Akasha says: hmm, its strange to put a number on it cuz it was so gradual, and
             we didnt think it would work (with the distance mostly)
Akasha says: we have known each other for over 2 years...

You say: did it work? Cool
Akasha says: most definately Smile
Akasha says: i guess we decided to try to make it work about a year and a half
             ago ... visits, talks over the net, phone calls (very few cuz they
             r expensive), etc

You say: how many days have you met in rl.. as a total?
Akasha says: hmm a few weeks xmas of '94 ... two months in early summer of '95
             ... another month xmas of '95 ... then three months in summer of
             '96 Smile

You say: ok, you say you met two years ago... how long have you played
         nannymud?
Akasha thinks carefully.
Akasha says: well i wized spring of '93 ... so prolly started playing the
             summer b4 ... wow, 4 years? *fear me*

You say: if you look back upon your nanny experience.. what you consider the
         most fun..  when you played as a mortal or when you played as a
         wizard?
Akasha says: as a mortal, i remember the old mages guild and how helpful and
             friendly everyone was ... and i remember the original damned guild
             and how much fun it was to be evil (i never PKed, but the whole
             atmosphere of the guild rocked)
Akasha says: being in the damed guild was very theraputic (sorry my spelling
             sux) ... i got out a lot of my agreessions from college life Smile
Akasha says: as a wizard, i would hafta say learning how to code (even tho i
             resisted a lot) ... i had many wonderful people to help me start
             out Smile

You say: such as?
Akasha says: hehe, they all had special bonsai trees Smile
Akasha says: Ramses, Cohen, Ppannion, Cashimor to name the ones that come to
             mind Smile
Akasha says: i am sure there were others, but my memory sux Sad

You say: you said you played damned.. but you never pked.. .. whats your
         opinion of pk in nanny?
Akasha shrugs.
Akasha says: i think its okie ... ppl should PK if they _want_ to PK ... but i
             dont like it when ppl take advantage of it or take it too far ...
             the combat should be mutal and it can get great fun (or so i hear
             Smile

You say: ok, wizlife.. during your 2 years as a wiz what is your impression of
         wizlife?  how has it developed? (wizlife in general i mean, not your
         personally)
Akasha says: btw, its 3 years Razz
Akasha says: wizlife eh? well, i remember things being much more freeer or
             relaxed when i first started ...
Akasha says: it was  great fun to be a wiz ... wizwars were pretty fun too ...
             now (maybe its just me) there doesnt seem to be as fun anymore ...
             more rules, more nitpicking, more hoops to go thru, etc ...

You say: what do you think is the reason it became like that?
Akasha says: well, maybe it was a bit out of control in my early days as a wiz
             ... and some ppl saw the need to tone it down ... but i also think
             that the 'control' in the mud went unchecked and the need to keep
             track of everything and balancing got out of control
Akasha says: there is too much parinoia to have fun anymore (or as much fun as
             one should have ... hell, its a game and an escape from reality
             ... we dont need reality on the mud)

You say: ok.. everybody knows you removed your area.. but not many knows of
         the real reasons for this.. how this this quarrel all start?
Akasha chuckles.
Akasha says: well the 'real' reasons arent easily explained, but i will try Smile
Akasha thinks carefully.
Akasha says: i guess it really started when some of the admin decided to make
             some changes to the south coast ... as u may know, i maintained             
Akilles' area which was part of the south coast
Akasha says: well, one day i logged in and had a typo report somewhere in that
             area which surprised me a bit since i havent worked on it since i
             first recoded it (but not too much because even major typos go
             unreported/unnoticed)
Akasha says: only, when i looked at the file, i didnt recognize any of the
             code!
Akasha says: i did some more investigating and saw that the entire section of
             akilles area that had to do with the south coast had been recoded
             and rearranged
Akasha says: and it was done _months_ b4 i noticed the changes

[Polar]

You say: recoded and rearranged..?...
Akasha nods solemnly.
Akasha says: new /std code (which was just being introduced and i had not yet
             learned) ... and extra rooms inserted ... new descs etc
Akasha says: hmm, well there were no comments in the code, nor any mail telling
             me of the changes ... i guess u could say that i was mad Wink
Akasha says: well, there were only two ppl that could have done the changes,
             and Brom was the first to login Wink
Akasha says: basically, i found out that he had some sort of resentment for the
             way i took care of Akilles area and that was prolly the reason i
             was never informed (he didnt actually do the changes)
Akasha says: and if i didnt like it then i could rm my code...

You say: oh.. i dont think most people knows this.. that Brom was the one to
         put you in the situation where you should choose.. remove or accept..
         am i right?
Akasha says: rite...
Akasha says: i admit i was pretty pissed, but i just wanted an appology (which
             Brom claims to have given me many times)
Akasha says: it didnt help that the files that were changed were done so poorly
             and with many typos ... i knew if they had just told me, that i
             could have done a MUCH better job

You say: do you feel that you have got any apologie for the changes?
Akasha says: i got an apology from Rohan (thank u again) ... but not from Brom
             ... he seems to think an apology is saying that they r only human
             and humans make mistakes (basically avoiding and dealing with the
             situation)

You say: but where you here when the changes where made? was it possible for
         them to reach you and ask you to change it?
Akasha says: i log on every day practically, very active ... there was no
             reason for them NOT to inform me...
Akasha says: afterwards i spent many hours w/ Rohan going step by step
             correcting all the things that were wrong (i ended up recoding
             most of what he recoded)

You say: what if the person changing the files didnt know that you where
         responsible for akilles area?
Akasha says: how can u not be? the files were all under /players/akasha/akilles

You say: ok.. but lets step back.. in time.. when was it brom told you :
         Remove your files or accept the changes?
Akasha says: when i asked him who did the changes and why...
Akasha hmms.
Akasha says: sometime earlier this year? spring?

You say: ok.. howcome this actions occured now?
You say: have something else happened the last weeks?
You say: what pushed you over the edge?
Akasha says: well, many small things happened ...
Akasha says: there were still changes to my files w/o my notification (all
             Akilles' area)
Akasha says: i had tried many times b4 to stress to the admin that they
             needed to put more effort into informing wizards when they
             change their code... so, when it still continued every single
             time, i got frustrated ...
Akasha says: which i dealt w/ by uploading the old code and ignoring the new
             code (until someone actually TOLD me it was changed, it wasnt)
Akasha says: so, finally i started getting mails from Banshee (and she was
             quite nice about it at first, even if it seemed a bit forced)

You say: was this recently?
Akasha says: yes, this happened up until very recently
Akasha says: Banshee asked me to change the bathhouses cuz she felt they were
             too good, and also addding weapon restrictions to a few weapons
Akasha says: oh and in approving my coffee shop, she wanted even more
             restrictions than what the RULES stated...

You say: and you could not accept that?.. you felt that you HAD to fight for
         your coffeeshop to get the restrictions the rules stated?
Akasha says: no, i just asked for a clarification on the RULES ... it seemed
             quite confusing to have the RULES state one thing and her to state
             another...

You say: did you ask for it or did you demand it?
Akasha says: laf, no i just quoted the RULES and stated my opinions why i
             thought otherwise (if she insisted then of course i have no choice
             ... i was just pointing out a difference in interpretations of the
             RULES)
Akasha says: if i didnt do what she said, then no coffee shop Smile
Akasha says: i just happened to question her i guess...
Akasha says: i did the same thing with the bathhouses ... i asked what was
             wrong and what needed to be changed ... and i just stated why i
             thought that was a bit overboard and asked for proff that the
             bathhouses gave out too much healing and too often...

You say: when the admins say that you could never accept a no for an answer..
         do feel any understanding for that statement?
Akasha says: yes, i can see where they get that ... it is their perception ...
             i just wanted to clarify what they asked of me and evaluated if it
             made sense or not
Akasha says: if they still felt the same after i expressed how i saw things,
             then i would have done what they asked ...

You say: dont you think they would have been more nice to you if you once had
         just let them go without an discussion about every single change?
Akasha says: sure they would have been more 'nice' to me ... i would have been
             another mindless drone doing as they bid ... i wasnt purposefully
             trying to be difficult ... i wanted to make sure everything made
             sense...
Akasha says: they asked what i thought... and so i did Smile

You say: ok.. what do you feel about these wizards that do exactly what the
         admin tells them without even blinking?
Akasha says: intimidated Smile ... really, we all do it at some point (yes, even
             me) ... it certainly is easier that way Smile
Akasha says: i have nothing against ppl who do everything they are told ... as
             long as they feel ok about it ... i didnt ...

You say: ok.. now we know why you removed your area and what actions caused
         it..
You say: ok.. you decide to remove it.. and you post a note on the board..
         where you say that it is your most sad day on nannymud.. i think you
         even wrote that you almost cried..
You say: and you try to explain it...
Akasha nods solemnly.
You say: what i wanna know.. what did you feel about the response you got from
         others after you posted that note?
Akasha says: chuckle, there r always gonna be ppl u dont get along with ...
             it wasnt so bad cuz i knew i did what needed to be done ...
             besides, i got _many_ responses of support and comfort (most of
             the public ones got rm'ed)
Akasha says: u know who your friends are in times like this Smile ... the ppl i
             care about agreed/understood what i did ... and that was all that
             mattered really

You say: do you know why the public supportive notes got removed by the admin?
Akasha says: well, i can only speculate ... but Brom is afraid of what ppl will
             think if all sides are heard?

You say: from what you know today.. is there anything you would have done
         diffrently in this matter?
Akasha says: well, i have the tendancy to let things build up and then i get
             PISSED Wink ... so maybe take time out from the situation ... but i
             had already thought about doing this since the time Brom made his
             statement 'deal w/ the reality here or rm your code' ... it was
             enevitable since i have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the
             changes (or the extent of the changes) on the mud

You say: how do you feel when you see brom talk about on the wizboard he feels
         that you 'blackmailed' him when you said you would remove your code..
         when he said 6 months ago 'accept or remove'
You say: dont you care.. or does it get to you that people are telling lies
         about you?
Akasha says: shrug, its his interpretation of the situation ... i didnt think
             it was blackmail (i just happened to state my opinons about the
             mud and what it would take for me to return as an active wiz... i
             dont expect those changes)
Akasha says: i have no control about what ppl think about me ... i just hope
             they take the time to look at the situation objectively (which is
             VERY hard to do) and make up their minds on their own (and not
             what certain ppl WANT them to think)

You say: what is the truth about what you actually said when you removed your
         area?
Akasha says: the truth? oh boy, is that a matter of perspective Razz ...
Akasha thinks carefully.
Akasha says: i think i have caught a few mistakes of theirs and they dont like
             being proven wrong ... i think we just have too different opinions
             of what makes a good mud that doesnt allow us to work together any
             longer Sad

You say: ok.. but now.. what DID you say to Brom when you said you was about
         to remove your area.. was it blackmail?
Akasha says: i never told anyone... other that what was on the boards...
Akasha says: i had a conversation w/ Banshee and had the impression i wasnt
             wanted or didnt matter much ... so, if i didnt matter then why is
             my stuff here is what i thought

You say: ok.. im going to write a name/word.. and you tell me a short line of
         the first thing you come to think of.. wordassosiation
Akasha nods solemnly.

You say: Neill?
Akasha chuckles.
Akasha says: mouse
You say: Oriole?
Akasha says: arrogant
You say: Banshee?
Akasha says: narrow-minded
You say: Profezzorn?
Akasha says: reserved
You say: Traste?
Akasha says: sockish
You say: Earendil?

Akasha says: Dill pickle
You say: Lysator?
Akasha says: smelly
You shake hands with Akasha.
You say: i thank you for your time.. and for answering honest on all my
         questions
Akasha says: hope it comes out well Smile
Akasha smiles happily at you.
Akasha shakes hands with you.

[Polar]

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Your monthly horoscope.

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ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 20) BEFORE you can run a bath, you must have the
plug in place. A shower's no fun at all without a good supply of hot
water! Something that should, by rights, now be a source of comfort and
inspiration in your life seems to be turning, in the aftermath of the
eclipse in your sign, into a cause of frustration. If the expectation
wasn't so high, the disappointment wouldn't be so deep. But should you
really need to lower your sights and abandon your hopes just to make
yourself feel OK? This may prove temporarily necessary in the coming month
but only till Jupiter's effect kicks in. You'll get that refreshment yet!.

Your lucky monster this month: Kobold
Monster to beware this month:  Hurshag
Your lucky number this month:  4
Your lucky day of this month:  11th

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TAURUS (Apr 21 - May 21) YOU need more information. Saturn's link
to your ruler insists that without that this month, you will make
choices which sound sensible until you realise, with hindsight,
that they were based on a false assumption. How will you find out
what you need to know? By bravely admitting that there are certain
things you aren't so sure of. For as long as you're determined to
play the expert, you will be creating a barrier through which vital
news cannot pass. People who have something they should tell you will
take one look and decide it's wiser to keep their silent. Be ready to
listen and fear not. If you're being spun a line, you will know.

Your lucky monster this month: Servant
Monster to beware this month:  Spider Queen
Your lucky number this month:  12
Your lucky day of this month:  24th

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GEMINI (May 22 - June 22) IT'S yet another month during which you find
yourself feeling as if you must work hard in order to feel relaxed.
Is this really necessary? Will everything truly go terribly wrong if
you stop being so tense? Perhaps not but it's a risk you don't yet feel
inclined to take. Like someone waiting for glue to dry or a graft to
take, you want to keep the pressure up, for the time being at least.
Only towards the end of the month, once your ruler begins to move forward
in the sky once more, will you gain sufficient natural confidence to
experiment with the strength of a recent acheivement. You'll gauge the
right moment easily if you trust your judgement. .

Your lucky monster this month: Hulk
Monster to beware this month:  Juggernaut
Your lucky number this month:  11
Your lucky day of this month:  30th

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CANCER (Jun 23 - Jul 23) BACK in the days before BSE, cattle used to
suffer from foot and mouth disease. Humans still do! You, indeed, seem
to have a bad case of it right now. It appears that every time you open
your mouth, you put your foot in it! There comes a point where the best
way to resolve a particular debate or explain a certain factor, is to say

nothing at all. You have a right, this month, to remain silent. If you
take the emotional equivalent of the fifth amendment, the response will
speak volumes. You'll see in an instant who feels inclined to take this
as a tacit admission of guilt and who feels prepared to trust that your
silence is golden.

Your lucky monster this month: Nellie's Cat
Monster to beware this month:  Knatul
Your lucky number this month:  3
Your lucky day of this month:  21th

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LEO (Jul 24 - Aug 23) You are being assisted by an excellent cosmic
climate. Despite this advantage though, you feel bemused and confused.
You cannot see how to prevent what you suspect is an imminent disaster
from occuring. This is because, working 'against' the presence of Mars
and Venus in Leo, you have Saturn opposing your ruler, the Sun. It in
turn, is trying to shine its light on the Moon but, due to the position
of the earth, creating an eclipse instead. The celestial symbolism says
it all. Your way forward is being blocked but only temporarily. Let
each negative experience this month merely redouble your determination

to succeed and, in the end, you will. .

Your lucky monster this month: Pixie
Monster to beware this month:  Kobayashi
Your lucky number this month:  14
Your lucky day of this month:  19th

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VIRGO (Aug 24 - Sep 23) I trust atheists will not object if, for the
sake of creating a helpful analogy, we postulate the following. It is
the dawn of time. The universe is under construction and a team of
accountants are giving advice. "Must the earth really rotate? Think
what you will save by keeping it static. And why so many species? The
budget will only allow trees, not flowers." We must be thankful, not
only for the creation but for the creator's refusal to be bound by the
laws of profit and loss! Mercury, your ruler, changes direction in your
sign this month. If you are similarly determined to pursue your priorities,
in defiance of all petty criticism, you will be vindicated! .

Your lucky monster this month: Harry
Monster to beware this month:  Merlins Dragon

Your lucky number this month:  8
Your lucky day of this month:  4th

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LIBRA (Sep 24 - Oct 23) I was, I think, about eight when the BBC first
started transmitting pictures in colour. I still remember the
disappointment I felt after eagerly watching the first few programs. I
must have been nine before I realised that, to get a colour picture, you
need a colour set! Why am I telling you this? Because Neptune is currently
firing your imagination while Jupiter is awakening your enthusiasm. You
can sense that something exciting is possible. You're quite right. Saturn
however, is gently trying to point out that, if you want it to happen, you
can't just sit around hoping. You've actually got to change something and
do something.

Your lucky monster this month: Bailiff
Monster to beware this month:  Zuboff
Your lucky number this month:  4
Your lucky day of this month:  21th

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SCORPIO (Oct 24 - Nov 22) Habit, ritual and tradition shape our lives
much more than we realise. When we are not Versatility is rarely applauded
in this modern world. People, it seems, like to categorise other people,
as narrowly as possible. Those who display an impressive ability to turn
their hands to many tasks are curtly dismissed as 'jacks of all trades'.
Those who try to judge each situation on its merit - rather than by some
set of rigid, preconceived standards, are accused of being inconsistent.
If you want to be admired this month, all you have to do is what's expected
of you. If, however, you want to be proud of yourself, you have to do
what's right. Pluto's link to the Sun is urging you to find the confidence
to 'try an alternative approach'. .

Your lucky monster this month: Ogre
Monster to beware this month:  Terminator
Your lucky number this month:  14
Your lucky day of this month:  26th

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov 23 - Dec 21) For the third month in succession, money
is the hottest topic of the month. Or is it? Technically, the awkward
link between your ruler and Mars suggests pressure on your wristwatch
not your wallet. They say however, that 'time is money' and certainly,
at the moment, you are tending to see these two resources as synonymous.
Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe if you felt more able to pace
your life sensibly, you would not be quite so disturbed by the deficit
in your financial department. You can't create cash from thin air this
month but you can give yourself more time by refusing to worry about an
artifical deadline. .

Your lucky monster this month: Sprite
Monster to beware this month:  Ant Queen
Your lucky number this month:  12
Your lucky day of this month:  25th

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CAPRICORN (Dec 22 - Jan 20) IF you want to get it right this month, stop
trying so hard to get it right! Allow yourself, for a moment at least,
to contemplate the possibility that, with Venus and the Sun both forming
sharp links to your ruler, you cannot win! As a matter of fact, this is
definitely untrue. You can. But to do it, you must follow Dr. Cainer's
patent prescription. This involves swallowing the medicine of potential
defeat. Take it until not only are you used to the taste, you almost
relish it. Fantasise about failure. Cover the topic so thoroughly that
you no longer fear it. Then stride out into a month during which your
biggest disappointment turns out to be... success! .

Your lucky monster this month: Madame X
Monster to beware this month:  Yogul
Your lucky number this month:  8
Your lucky day of this month:  11th

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AQUARIUS (Jan 21 - Feb 19) COMPUTER boffins tell us that, when we are
surfing the internet, we are effectively in several places at once.
Psychics insist the same applies when we use our intuition. We use our
subconscious mind as a modem to hook us up to 'shared, spiritual
cyberspace'. It all sounds very impressive. To all practical intents and
purposes however, our thoughts can only focus on one idea at a time. This
month's link from Uranus to the Sun is urging you to focus on those
practical intents and purposes. Never mind clever theories or vague
suspicions. Deal with what's real and what's right in front of you.
You'll yet make a brilliant breakthrough. .

Your lucky monster this month: St. Peter
Monster to beware this month:  Anubis
Your lucky number this month:  11
Your lucky day of this month:  6th

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PISCES (Feb 20 - Mar 20) IF we were put on the earth to enjoy each others
company, how come most of us find this so hard? If we were created to
make money, why are there miserable millionaires? If our purpose is to
work, why are we so keen to clock off? If art, beauty and music are meant
to bring contentment, why are Oasis so angry? There must be more to life.
Or, maybe, less. Maybe there's too much strife in your life because you're
giving yourself to the wrong kind of living. Neptune's alignments this
month suggest you can find fulfilment but only if you let go of your
current expectation of where it is to be found. Look in your heart, not
your diary.

Your lucky monster this month: Jennifer
Monster to beware this month:  Beast of Nurgle
Your lucky number this month:  11
Your lucky day of this month:  9th

[Polar]

Posts: 36


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   The NannyMUD Times issue 1996 October. page 5 6 7
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How Nanny was once created. Written by Mats.

The Beginning

This is the history of NannyMUD as Mats the God remembers it, with
some weight on what was before NannyMUD and the very early days.
Now, here is the Voice of God:

Pre-History: Before the Light

The first time I tried an adventure game was sometime around 1980.
I wasn't too excited playing it. I was much more curious about how
it really worked internally. How do they program these things, I
thought. I tried to write my own adventure game in BASIC and it had
some kind of simple description language. It never worked, and the
search for an adventure building tool started.

Around 1986 I heard about Projekt Asgård. It was a mud-like game
written in LISP and it was very slow. It seemed interesting, but
unfortunately I didn't try it.

1989 I found ADVSYS, which had a objectoriented LISP language, suitable
for building adventures. But it was slow and I didn't like LISP so I
throwed it away.

Out of the Mists of Time, a Game is Born

In the spring of 1990 I heard about a Multi User Dungeon game, where
several players could play at the same time. I telnet-ed to Genesis
and played a couple of hours. I struggled hard and slowly advanced to
level 8. Then I was killed by some other player, and it wasn't fun
anymore. Then I saw that the source-code, LPMUD version 1.1.2, was
available, and I thought I must try this at home. This was 20th April
1990. After a few hours of compiling it was ready and history was about
to begin.

The Early Days

It was in the last days of April 1990, I think it was around 23 April.
I was logged in from a small terminal connected to Majestix, a SUN-3/280
at the Department of Computer Science at Linköping University, and I
started the MUD on Majestix. And it crashed and coredumped. After an hour
I found the bug and started again. It said "What is your name:" and I
was excited and couldn't think of a cool name so I used my own. And it
crashed again. During the first days of this MUD there were lots of crashes
and restarts, but it got stable after a while and I announced it's
existence at a local BBS. The first players dropped in: Angmar, Noppe,
Inge, Cauchy, Guru and a few more.

I had the mud on my own account and it slowly filled my quota. I asked
the systemadmin for more quota and a suitable machine to run the mud on.
I got one more megabyte quota and moved the MUD to Brutalix, another
SUN-3 which wasn't so heavily used. But the game was still growing fast
and I borrowed some quota from Eva, Ingis real-life wife, and moved the
players directory to her account.

In the beginning there wasn't many rooms and I couldn't build more rooms
fast enough. I needed a wizard who could build and I started a competition
where the winner would be instantly promoted to wizard. I created an
object named "pizza" and hid it somewhere in the MUD. Angmar found it and
became wizard. Some days later I created a mini-quest where the solver
would become wizard, and Noppe solved it first. I found two more castles,
Kantele and Morgars, at a ftp-site and installed them. I built a castle
called Mordenkainen and Angmar created his fairyland. Two more wizards
were promoted, Inge and Lpd, but the first player who actually played his
way up to level 21 was Cauchy.

One embarrasing incident happened the first days. I had a script that
started when I logged out and this script removed backup files and .o
files so they wouldn't fill my quota. I logged out and it removed all
the player files. The players wasn't happy. It was the 1 May 1990 because
I haven't changed the script since then.

The MUD is NannyMUD

Early in the morning the 3 May, after a long night of hacking on the MUD,
my grandmother died. A few weeks later when someone suggested the name
"NannyMUD" for this MUD, I thought it would be a good name, not only because
the MUD was running on the machine Nanny. I dedicate this MUD to my
grandmother who refused to understand anything about computers.

Sometime after 15 May the MUD moved to the new machine Nanny, a Sequent
Balance, at Lysator Academice Computer Society at Linköping University,
and I more or less gave the maintenance task of sourcecode and driver to
the people at Lysator.

The First Years of NannyMUD

The first rules of Nanny was very free. Wizards couldn't mess around
with mortals of course, but they could almost code whatever they wanted.
It shouldn't crash the game and should be fantasy/medieval theme. This
wasn't a real problem because most of the early wizards were programmers
in real life. Lots of code were written the first years and the number
of rooms grew steadily and around 1994 it was more than 16000 rooms.

I more or less retired late fall 1994 and a major cleanup of the areas
and rooms started. Now it is probably a better game, but not as free
and wild-grown as in the early years.

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Confessions from a bug abuser  - A column written by Emperor Hans the dark
=============================

First of all, I would like to say that I don't advocate bug abusing. Also,
I'm not claiming to have found, or even used, all of the bugs I'm going to
talk about, I'm merely telling a good story. But all these bugs actually
existed in Nanny, a long long time ago. They have been fixed, of course,
and those caught exploiting them have been dealth with properly. And I am
by no means blaming the responsible wizards, since where there is code,
there are bugs.


o The Sir Obliterator bug

  Outside Padrones castle, Sir Obliterator is constantly looking for Prince
  Violence. Sir Obliterator is fairly tough, and few newbies can kill him.
  Sir Obliterator follows players around, hoping they will lead him to Prince
  Violence. Meanwhile, in Padrones courtyard you can find Billy and Sam, the
  two giant guards of the castle. They will attack any visitor that doesn't
  have a ticket. Sir Obliteraor does not have a ticket. What happened in the
  early days of NannyMUD, was that players would go to Sir Obliterator, tell
  him to follow them and go to Billy & Sam. The giants would notice that
  Obliterator didn't have a ticket, and would start hitting him. When
  Obliterator was in bad shape, the player would tell him to follow to another
  room, where he would kill him easily. But also one of the giants would now
  be an easy kill, since Obliterator hits pretty hard as well. That was an
  easy way for a newbie to gain a few levels.


o The explode real bad bug

  The Guild of Confusion had a spell called 'explode head', which left the
  caster with one HP, and the others in the room took tremendous damage. When
  combining that spell with healing potions, you could reach nasty effects.
  Even better was the spell 'explode real bad' which did ridiculous damage to
  the people in the room, but it also killed the caster. However, there were,
  and as far as I know still are, items in the game that could prevent death
  from happening during a short period, so people could actually duel with
  'explode real bad'....

o The heal and reheal bug

  When the Tome of spell contained the good ol' 'heal others' spell, it would
  heal both HP and SP. The cost was less than it healed, so if I was at 130 SP
  and cast heal others on my friend, I would go down to, say, 125. Then he
  would cast one on me, and I would be on 140. And our HP would go up even
  faster. So, with two people, you had infinite healing. I personally went
  from level 13 to 18 by going up and down in the Vampires tower a few times,
  using this, in our opinion, feature.


o  Never getting "tired"

  When I started playing NannyMUD, a player would have both guild spells, and
  the basic spells (magic missile, shock and fireball). You could only cast
  one guild spell per round and one basic spell per round. Yes, that's right,
  one of each. This was not intended, as far as I know, but the guildspells
  did not check if you had already cast, say, a fireball. So, you could cast
  one fireball and one gfinger (and old Damned spell, very powerful) in the
  same round. Also, all playerkillers at that time had wands of lightning,
  so you could also zzap once in that round. Then Ramses coded the sentries,
  and we could get black lances to throw. So.... the problem wasn't that we
  had to wait for the next round to be able to do something, but that we
  couldn't type fast enough. The obvious solution was the recorder.
  Personally, I had an alias ',' for q1. q1 was the command for the recorder
  to play 'fireball' 'gfinger' 'zzap' 'throw lance'. All ths in one heartbeat.
  Combining that with the old demonblade that had two hits per round (and
  pretty damn hard hits, mind you), I could easily make 100+ HP damage in
  one round. In playerkilling, the damnies often teamed up, and imagine what
  a team of 3 damnies could do in one round with those recorder aliases and
  weapons like Gram, Demonblade and Stormbringer.....
  Needless to say... we killed a lot.

[Polar]

How to PK - The unofficial Nannymud PK guide.
=============================================

This guide is splitted up into 3 parts.

Part 1 - Introduction to PK.
Part 2 - A study of PK techniques.
Part 3 - Usefull hints from various PK'ers to get you started.

This is part 2. The last part will be published in the next issue of
The Nannymud Times.


Part 2 - A study of PK techniques.

There are a wide selection of styles and techiniques, in this text i will
mention some styles used and some pkers techniques. This is not meant as
a 'how to do', its more meant like a 'aha, now i see the range of pk'.
*Press return for more or q to end. >
That pk is not just to type 'kill' as fast as possible.

-------------------------------------
- Some pk'ers and their techniques: -
-------------------------------------

Bally:
======
He was a really lousy pk'er until he finally got his wizchar. Then he sat
down and snooped all his enemys to learn from them what items they used and
where to get those items. After a some years of using this technique he was
now set to be able to put up with a nice fight.
[This technique is a bad example on how wizards can abuse their powers.]

Kerish:
=======
He found out a new unexpected effect of a power in a guild that was all bad
that noone ever used. The guild was the chaosguild and the power was
'explode head'. He read the guildcode and noticed that when you exploded
your head you would lose all your HP's and end up with only 1 hp. But, the
half amount of those HP's you lost, all the enemys in the same room as you
where hit with. Thus, if you stood in a room with 1 pk'er and exploded your
head. Your opponent got a hit of no less than 100 hp's.

This was not really enough for Kerish, he wanted to do more damage. Then he
used a spell to get unnatural stamina. Which caused him to get 404hps for a
short while. He would then lose 403hps but to his joy and happiness he would
hit the opponents with no less than 201hp's.

He then used the recorder to explode head and use a healing. This would be
the one of the few times the concept 'instakill' where a true concept on
nanny.
[This technique is a good way to show a good pk. A good pker sees the
 possibilities in every item and every power.]

Nymph:
======
This little girl found out a nice way to kill her opponents. She noticed that
even pk'ers do lag every now and then. She hunted her opponents and then she
walked to them and stood outside the room where the pk'er where standing.
She now used the 'idle' command to try to match when her opponent sent a
command to the mud. Just after the command from her opponent went thru she
walked into the room and started to hit her opponent. If her opponent where
lagged or idle, she would easily kill him. But if her opponent unexpectedly
started to fight back, she would ran away or statue.
Worth to mention, this girl was the worst cheater the mud have ever witnessed
in pk.
[This technique is just something that is only possible vs players. Thats the
 thing that makes pk so exciting. You can never be sure of the outcome.]

Tremere:
========
This mediocre pk'er got an idea. If he could not be the very best pk'er.
He could try to be friend with every pk'er and that way limit the risc of
getting killed. To acheive this he gathered all the great equipment he knew
in the mud. Every reset he ran of to get new equipment, and then he hid it
in his playervillage room. As soon as a playerkiller logged on he politely
asked all of them 'do you want a wand and a mirrorshield?' and the pk'ers
most often agreed to it. This technique just lead to the fact that he stayed
a mediocre pk'er and never would get to prove his real killing skills.
[This technique is a bad example of pk. This is not pk at all, this is just a
 way to avoid getting killed. Pk is about to kill, not run away from fights.]

Freddy, Stripe:
===============
This two buddies noticed that the usage of client where a nice tool in pk.
They tried to master their clients to be able to follow their opponents
around. They where actually quite successful, until one playerkiller told
Freddy. 'Knossos leaves refill 203.' Then they started to understand some
of their limits and when they stopped using their client the bodycount
quickly ended.
[This technique shows that clients can be very usefull if used in the right
 way, but if you dont master the client. You might as well play without it.]

Smittan:
========
This pk'er noticed that one new guild had a lot of nice powers specially
designed for pk. He joined the guild and started to work his way up to the
top of the guild and now he mastered all the powers that could possibly be
used in pk. He where now completely unbeatable since his powers he had.
He did not even need to get any equipment, just login and then all ready
for a fight. When he got to know that his powers should be allowed for ALL
guildmembers, he understood that the guild where soon to be closed and
from that day he have not been seen.
[This technique shows how important it is to make sure you know what powers
 there are in the game. Unless you want to start to pk with a guildless char.]

Dragonpen and a lot others:
===========================
These pk'ers know about their limits, but instead of trying to learn anything
from their fights. They get an alias 'alias q quit' and when the going get
though they simply type 'q'.
[This technique is not really the best way to learn pk skills. The only result
 you will get is that your confidence in your own skills lowers for each quit
 command you type.]

The unnamed flaps:
==================
These pk'ers stand in church and try to verbally kill their opponents. This
have as far as i know never succeeded, and im pretty sure that it will never
be able to kill other players with feelings. But while others actually kill,
just let these players hang around the church and brag and showoff.
[This technique might make you a true christian since of all your church
 visits. But i doubt you would manage to do anything else but pray in a real
 fight.]

----------------

To be continued.
/The K Killing Korp.

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> read page 8
You read page 8 in your newspaper.

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Ok, as you might know we got two new highwizards this last month.
The newest addition to the administration is 'Dwinbar' and 'Restless'.
These highwizards will work with the approval of new guilds.
I thought i might check out what people thought about these new highwizzes.
So, i made a question that i asked 77 mortals on the mud and i got quite
a lot of answers.


The question asked:
===================
Hi, I am Leclerk. I am writing for NannyMUD Times on a feature about the
muds newest highwizards (Dwinbar and Restless). I am gathering 20 comments
about each of those highwizards. My question for you is: What is your
opinion/comment of Dwinbar and Restless? (Please reply one or two lines on
each of these highwizards. Your name will be kept anonymous, unless
requested otherwise)


The answers i received (in cronographical order):
[Note: Some of the answers are in swedish, i have kept them in swedish,
       but i made a translation between the brackets.                   ]
=========================================================================

- I do not know either of them

- Dwinbar rocks and never met restless

- Dwinbar ... his area is way too weird and as for Restless never talked
  to him, he's really a wiz? <grin>

- hmm, can I think about it for 5 minutes? Smile

- Can I please tell you later Im in the middle of a fight

- Dwinbar is nice, a little strange Wink but restless i don't know.

- sorroy i don't know dwinbar and restless

- heh, cool.. well, i dont really know them..

- Hmm.....havn't heard much about restless....(silent guy) and Dwinbar is
  an ok wiz (dont know much about him iether....=)

- well i like Dwinbar, but who the hell is Restless?

- sorry, I don't really know any of them well Smile As far as I heard Dwinbar's
  comments on guild lines he's cool and has a rather amusing sense of humor.
  Don't know anything abt restless tho Smile

- Hmmm, about Restless. Don't see her around much. A nice person from what
  I've experienced. Does she do anything nowadays?

- Heh

- I don't even know who Restless is

- Dwinbar Is one of DA coolest wizards, i like that guy Wink
  And Restless, she dont like me i guess, but i like her anyway, not seen to
  much of her acually.
  /Popkhorne

- Dwinbar, now there's a fun person. Always fun to talk to when he 'gets
  warmed up'. B) Isn't offline as much as other wizzes seems to be.

- Dwinbar is very, VERY knightish...

- dwinbar hmm why not maybe with ice-cream.. .

- I dont know

- no problem. a) I am new here, so who's Restless *grin*
  and b) Dwinbar is cool, always a open ear for his fellow druids

- sorry but i do not know anything about the wizzes a have never talked to
  them sorry:)

- Dwinbar is a dweeb, but I respect him since he's a Hi-wiz Wink, I hope
  Restless will bring new life to the old adminsistration =)

- Ive played for some whilw now and think of myself as knowing most mortals
  aswell as Wizards, restless I cant say I know. For some reason shes stayed
  unknown to me. Dwinbar is the man all especially females fera when he gets
  goin on his favourite subject, Flapa, oh I mean the very relationship
  woman/man. Dwin is a good coder and great player all respect.

- About Dwinbar: He's fun and i nice chap to talk to.
  About Restless: Well Actually I haven't seen her much. But her and bive's
  school in Sims is great. Smile

- I dont know much about them I know that dwinbar always is funny and he has
  coded the area with the door, and restless has coded Chaos in simyarin but
  I never talked to her. Dwinbar is so cool

- dwinbar is a flap, something like that?

- sorry but I am an utter newbie...

- Dwinbar is the tastiest high wizard ever.  He should be a very good
  influence in the admin as far as the players are concerned.

- I don't know much about either, but their work is good.

- ok...Dwinbar is a flappy, foolish, weird, dumb, and utterly pathetic loser
  ...but he's nice enough

- i'm too new to hve an opinion yet

- I am sorry.  I know neither well enough to discuss their attributes
  positively or negatively.

- Restless is simply strange, seriously

- Dwinbar seems to be a nice guy, first time I saw that he was a high wizard
  I was very surprised... I don't know about restless

- dwinbar is nice (he answers questions) while the lother on to my knowledge
  is kinda mean..no offense but this is what i hear and see...
  /Alabasteres

- hrm, du, jag känner inte nån av dom så bra..
  [hrm, well, i dont really know either of them very well..]

- sorry, no comment

- well, my dear leclerk, of the two wizards you are refering to, I have
  noticed nought.

- I don´t know anything about them.

- no comment, i stay i enough trouble as it is

- don't know either...

- du får fråga någon som känner dem bättre.. sorry.
  [you have to ask someone who knows them better.. sorry.]

- i don't know either one...sorry

- I am sorry to tell you that i really haven't an opinion to give.
  i do not know restless at all. and i happen to know Dwinbar too slightly to
  have an opinion.

- well don't know anything about dwinbar, Restless, know she's done a fairly
  good job in Simyarin, but wish she'd get off her butt and fix the bugs
  *grin*

- Dwinbar is the funniest highwizz, Restless I don't know.

- They both suck.

- Dwin and Restless made Hiwiz, who died? Wink Anyway I am sure the will make
  fine additions to the Admins.

- I love Dwinbar, he is cool. Restless I haven't spoken to much but she is
  nice when I saw her at the mudparty last winter.

- i don't have anything to say about them coz they r not in my guild...
  so i have no opinion 'bout them...

- I am sorry but I have no opinion about thoes tow "highwizards"....Smile)))

- No comment about Restless. I don't know her...

- No comments really

- i dont know dwinbar, bu i like restless a lot. she is friendly and helpful.

- well Dwinbar sux( he's boring), and ive never heard of Restless before.

- Dwinbar will make a good high wiz...I hope...Fun to talk to and he knows
  what he's doing...hopefully...
- I don't even know who they are.

- Any comment and for the only reason i didnt met they so much as i can
  formulate an opinion..

* One wizard also gave comments *


- Dwinbar: He's a pretty interesting kind of person. Seems like he's insane
  or something. I wonder how he became highwiz, maybe taren had something to
  do with it? they HAVE been seen together in pblic you know...
  and restless? everybody knows how it is... Sex with admins is the best way
  to get power around here... Corrupted bunch, those admins. I want to be
  kept anonymous Smile

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[Polar]

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I thought some of our foreign friends might be curious about what the
motherland of this mud is like. Then, what might be better than a story about
Sweden written by an american, to make sure its not just bullshit talk.
This story was taken from the May issue of Rolling Stone magazine. It was
typed in to textformat by the lil sprite mrs. Ryner. The story is so long,
it has been splitted up into two parts. The last part is published in the
November issue.


STOCKHOLM SYNDROME              by P.J. O'Rourke

Sweden takes care of its citizens from erection to resurrection but taxes
them to death.  And they love it.
===========================================================================

     I was walking through Gamla Stan, the Old Town in Stockholm,
wondering where the crazy people were - the jabberers, the arm wavers,
the fellows with hand-lettered cardboard signs about George Bush and the
new world order.  There's something too rational about Sweden, too pulled
together, something constrained and self-conscious.  It reminded me of
another place, but what other place, I couldn't recall.  Not East
Germany.  Not Canada, really.  I stared at the quaint, narrow houses, the
clean and rather boring shops, the well-behaved white people.  It was
Disney World.  There was the same labored cuteness, inexhaustible
courtesy and preternatural tidiness.  I half-expected to turn around and
see someone dressed as a mouse.  I turned around and saw someone dressed
as a king - the king of Sweden.  Which, as it happens, he was.  King Carl
XVI Gustaf was riding in a gilded coach-and-four with footmen in knee
breeches holding on behind.  This in a country renowned the world over for
its utter egalitarianism.
     About two days later I was asked, "What is Sweden like?"  A
reasonable question, except I was still in Sweden and was queried by a
Swede.  The foreign visitor's thoughts are always of interest, I
suppose.  "How do you like Australia?" as Australians.  "Are you having
fun in Italy?" ask Italians.  "When are you leaving?" ask the French.
But only a Swede would be so far gone in self-analysis that he'd ask
somebody who'd been in the country less than a week, "Who are we Swedes,
and what are we doing?"
     I didn't think it would be diplomatic to mention Disney World.
"It's like Minnesota," I said.  "You know, wholesome, hygienic, polite,
cold climate, everything works, and it's full of, uh, Swedes."  (Also,
the radio programs are as dull as Garrison Keillor's - at least if you
don't speak Swedish.)
     Actually, Sweden isn't like Minnesota or Disney World, but then
again, it isn't much like Sweden, either.  The people aren't all that
tall and blond, they don't talk orgy-borgy talk, the women are no more
beautiful than women generally are, and as for the vaunted Scandinavian
lubricity, there was exactly one naughty-type Swedish magazine available
on the newsstands.  It had the promising title Slitz, but the only nude
photos were of an underfed young lady in appalling eye makeup, and the
accompanying copy began with a sentence about "legendariske visionaren
och chefredaktoren Hugh M. Hefner."  You don't have to be a linguist to
know where the hot stuff comes from in Sweden.
     There is, in fact, formal censorship.  I was at a dinner party
having one of the precisely two drinks that Swedes have before the meal,
when a guest arrived late.  This is something no guest ever does in
Sweden, not even if he died en route, though sometimes it can be hard to
tell.  The guest apologized sincerely.  "I had to finish watching
movies," he said.
     "Jurgen is a film censor," said his dinner companion, also
sincerely.  Jurgen reassured me.  "We're only looking for violence," he
said. So Showgirls was OK but Hamlet was out? "No, no, I don't believe
anything should be censored," said the censor.  "I'm looking for real
violence - porno films where women are actually injured.  And child
pornography."  Wasn't that more a matter for police?  And it was.  But
for some reason these moviemakers needed to be censored as well as arrested.
     I'm sure I received a logical explanation.  And I'm sure I don't
remember it.  This is, after all, a country that maintains an entire
national state-supported religion, complete with bishops, a synod and
pastors in every pastorage, and only 5 percent of the population goes to
church.
     There are huge, splendid, empty, idle houses of worship everywhere.
I went to the Storkyrka ("Great Church") behind the royal palace.  The
Storkyrka was consecrated in 1306.  It was the site of coronations until
1907, when the Swedish monarchy decided that formal coronations were too
la-di-da.  Inside is a very big oak statue of St. George killing the
dragon.  The was carved by Bernt Notke in 1489 in a manner extremely
lifelike, right down to the well-whittled horse asshole.  (One can only
speculate about the shoptalk of the apprentice sculptors, to whom this
task no doubt fell.)  The dragon talon freighted, fang brandishing, a
spiny reptoid with every appendage webbed, frozen in midslither.  It is a
fine reminder of the high artistic skills of the Nordic Renaissance and
also of Sweden's strict attitude about drugs.  Only 4 percent of Swedish
high-school students have ever tried drugs, although the percentage may
have been much higher in 1489.
     The only indication that the Storkyrka was used, other than by us
tourists, was a little red table and six or eight wee plastic chairs.  A
day-care center had been set up right beneath the place where St.
George's lance was popping dragon slime, and you could hardly blame the
tots if they never set foot in a church again.
     But the dragon isn't real.  It isn't consequential.  It isn't in
earnest, and Sweden is an earnest country.  A new storm sewer is being
dug in Stockholm's Kungstradgarden.  Posters have been mounted around the
site showing the engineer's drawings and giving details of the costs,
building technique, and future benefits of this large drain.  At
Stockholm's tourist information center, a main feature is the Swedish
Institute, "a government-financed foundation established to disseminate
information about Sweden."  Picture a tourist info booth in Rockefeller
Center stocked with books and pamphlets about labor relations, social
insurance, public procurement and the domestic chemical industry, half of
them in Swedish.
     I gathered heaps of Swedish self-seriousness.  One tome was called
Love! You Can Really Feel It, You Know!, a title I can only hope lost
something in translation. Love! is "a body of reference material produced
by Skolverket (Sweden's national agency for education) for use in Swedish
schools...to provide an overview of how education in the arena of
sexuality and human relationships works today."  The chapter headed "The
Adolescent Years - Questions to the World" contains these "Questions From
Boys": "How big is the average dick?" and "How many holes does a girl
have?"  And under "Questions from Girls": "When will my breasts stop
growing?"  When will my breasts stop growing?  Not that the Swedes
possess no sense of humor.

     What does Norway have that Sweden doesn't?  Good neighbors.  I heard
that joke several times.  But in Stockholm there's a whole museum of not
getting it.  The Vasa was, as a guidebook put it, "the mightiest royal
warship of her times."  The Vasa's wreck was discovered in 1956, and she
was raised almost intact after five years of work by diving crews.  The
hull was enclosed in a shed and sprayed with wood preservatives for
another 17 years.  Then restoration began, and finally, in 1990, the
Vasamuseet opened, a noble, copper-sheathed, tent-shaped structure
housing the ship and seven floors of displays and exhibits.  Which is all
well and good.  The Vasa, however, was launched on Aug. 10, 1628, sailed
1,400 yards and sank like a brick.  "The mightest royal warship of her
times" - her times being Aug. 10, 1628, from 4:30 until 5 in the afternoon.
     The day after I visited the Vasamuseet, a crane was set up in front
of my hotel.  The crane was mounted on a truck bed and extended 60 or 80
feet.  It was supposed to hoist some air-conditioning equipment onto the
roof.  The truck driver was maneuvering the crane in a slow, methodical
Swedish manner.  And the whole things tipped over - plopp (the name,
incidentally, of a popular Swedish candy bar).
     The crane fell across four traffic lanes, through the roof of a
shuttered kiosk, over a breakwater and into the harbor.  And I...I'm an
American. I can't help it.  My relatives came over a long time ago.  My
family doesn't act like it's from Europe anymore.  I laughed.  The hotel
manager was standing next to me in the lobby.  She said, "It isn't really
funny."  Of course, if anybody had been hurt or a row of cars had been
creamed or a bunch of tourists had been standing in line at the kiosk to
buy sea-cruise tickets, then...then it would have been hilarious.  Sort
of.  I guess.  I was beginning to wonder if I had been in Sweden too long.

     I'd gone to Sweden to find a socialist paradise.  And I'd gone in
February on the theory that any place can pass itself off as paradise on
a balmy summer weekend, especially a place that pretty much invented nude
volleyball. But let us look at paradise when the days are so short that
if you take an afternoon nap, you not only wake up in the dark, you miss
the sunrise.  And as for the temperature, "It's not so cold," say the
Swedes.  "We're right on the water here, so it never really gets
that...darn it.  Hand me the hammer, Rolf.  The Mr. Coffee was frozen
solid again."
     But a socialist paradise was indeed what I found - folkhemmet, as
it's called, "the people's home."  This sounds like the latest sensitive
renaming of the country workhouse, but the word has perhaps more charm in
the original language.  Sweden is a welfare state from cradle to grave
and further than that.  Between elaborate sex education (How many holes
do girls have? Does body piercing count?) and the constitutional status
of the Lutheran Church, Sweden provides for its citizens from, as the
Swedes put it, "erection to resurrection."
     Medical care is available to everyone in Sweden at nominal cost,
even to tourists, though I was not personally lucky enough to have a bad
accident or severe disease.  A visit to the doctor costs between $15 and
$20.  A specialist gets $5 more.  Hospital stays cost about $12 a night
for anything from a twisted ankle to cancer.
     Unemployment insurance is 75 percent of your pay, and there's
unlimited sick leave at the same rate of compensation.  If you're
completely disabled, you get your whole paycheck.  (In 1991, a one-day
waiting period for sick-leave benefits was instituted.  An enormous drop
in Monday and Friday worker illnesses resulted - one of the medical
miracles of the 20th century.)
     Day care is available for all children from infancy until who knows
when - maybe until they get senile.  I mean, I have an official Swedish
government report (which I haven't quite summoned the patience to read)
titled "The Old Are Youngsters Who Have Grown Older."  Parents pay about
10 percent of daycare costs.  Eighty-four percent of women work - most of
them in day-care centers.  No, it just seems that way.  A very large
proportion of women are employed in the public sector; however, some of
them are in Parliament.
     Swedes get five weeks of legally mandated paid vacation.  If you
have a baby, parental leave lasts 450 days, mostly at 80 percent of
salary, and either the mother or the father can stay home.  An additional
120 leave days can be had to care for a sick child.  Thus some Swedes are
able to take 570 days a year off from work.  And teenage girls who become
pregnant can presumably get 15 months off from school with good grades.
     Actually, there isn't any grading in Sweden until high school, and
education is free through the Ph.D. level, with additional "study
assistance" money available plus cheap student loans.  This should carry
you through to retirement, which comes at age 65, when you'll get about
two-thirds of the average income from your best earning years.  And all
benefits are indexed to inflation.
     Sweden has managed to do these fine things without putting half its
citizens in gulags, or invading Poland and France, or winding up with
Madonna starring in a movie about its politics.  Sweden's per-capita
gross domestic product is a hearty $27,660.  Swedish life expectancy is
78.7 years, even if they do call in sick a lot.  That's vs. 75.7 years in
the United States.  And infant mortality is 4.0 per 1,000 live births,
compared with the American rate of 7.9 per 1,000.  There's no poverty
worth mentioning in Sweden, and no great wealth.  Well, there is great
wealth, but they play it down.  A Volvo limousine is something to see.
Seventy-two percent of Swedish households have a washing machine.
Ninety-seven percent have a television set.  There's a car for every two
adults.  The Swedish system works.
     Except it's broken.  In recent years the Swedish government's budget
deficit has been as high as 12 percent of the gross domestic product.
Sweden's national debt is nearly equal to all the goods and services
produced in Sweden annually.  To get even, the Swedes would all have to
move next door and mooch off Norway for a year.  Just paying the interest
on the national debt takes 7 percent of everything everybody makes or
does in Sweden.  And this despite the Swedes taxing the hell out of
themselves.  The tax burden is the highest in the developed world.  More
than half the GDP goes for taxes.  So living in Sweden is like getting
divorced every April 15 - a divorce with dependents.  And these
dependents never outgrow their need for child-support payments; quite the
contrary: "The Old Are Youngsters Who...," etc.  Of an adult population
of 7 million, 2.7 million are not working or are living off some form of
social benefits.  Another 1.6 million are employed by the government or
in government service agencies.  And only 2.7 million are actually paying
the bills by working in real businesses.

[Polar]

Public spending in Sweden is equal to nearly 70 percent of the GDP,
and the Swedish economy is doing about as well as ours would be if seven
out of 10 of our economic decisions were made by political types -
witness the Whitewater land-development deal. For 25 years, Sweden's
economic growth has been lagging behind that of other industrialized
nations, and between 1990 and 1993 the Swedish economy shrank by 5
percent.  There's been a small upturn since, but the Swedish Institute
(government funded and hence prone to sunny outlooks) admits, "The
majority of households have seen their financial circumstances
deteriorate in recent years."  For Swedish industrial workers, after-tax
earnings adjusted for inflation have stagnated since 1975.  And rightly
so, since Swedish labor productivity has increased by only 74 percent
since 1970, compared with a 700 percent increase in labor costs - many of
those costs resulting from government-mandated employer contributions
to...well, to the government.
     As the 700 percent figure might indicate, inflation has been a
problem in Sweden.  There have been only a few years since 1979 when
Sweden's inflation rate was below the average for other prosperous
countries.  Government deficits are partly to blame, but Sweden is also a
small country moshed up against the Arctic Circle.  Unless you want your
material circumstances limited to wood pulp, livestock, Saabs and cod,
*Press return for more or q to end. >
you have to import a lot of things.  The krona is one of the weakest
currencies in Western Europe, Western Europeans being no fools.  "Do you
want that in deutsche mark, Swiss francs, or day care, family leave and
$15 doctor visits?"  So, imported goods are expensive in Sweden.  In
fact, everything's expensive in Sweden because, on top of the other
government extractions, there's an astonishing 25 percent national sales
tax on almost all goods and services.  Every time you order a burger, you
buy the government fries and a Coke.  No, actually just a Coke, since the
tax on food and restaurant meals is a mere 12 percent.  At least tipping
is minimal.  The Swedish attitude seems to be that all services, even
drink orders, should be provided by the government, and the government's
been tipped already.
     One thing not causing Swedish inflation is an overheated job market,
although full employment has been a principle of Swedish government since
the 1930s.  (Full employment is not one of my own personal goals in life,
but it seems to be important to socialists.)  Until 1990, Sweden had an
unemployment rate of 3.5 percent, which is amazing considering that 3.5
percent of my bum friends wouldn't take any job, even if it paid $100 an
hour and involved doing inventory for a blind liquor-store owner.  But
now Sweden's unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, and if you add the people
in various do-little government programs with names like Youth Training
Scheme and Working Life Development, the figure is closer to 13 percent.
*Press return for more or q to end. >
     Nor is the situation likely to change soon, since net investment in
the Swedish economy has gone from about 16 percent of the GDP in 1970 to
less than nothing recently.  People have been going around to businesses
taking their investments back. "Give me that drill press."  In Sweden you
can get a better return on your money from government bonds than you can
from corporate stocks and debentures, and you don't have to read the
financial pages every day to see if the government's still there.
Believe me, it is.

     Sweden is screwed.  Not that you'd know it.  Everyone and everything
looks prosperous.  Sweden is modern in all the things that should be
modern (phones, roads, cars, toilets), while all the things that should
be old (royal palaces, battle monuments, trees in the parks) are as old
as they're supposed to be.  Stockholm sits on a paisley map of islands,
inlets, peninsulas and bays dividing the freshwater of Lake Malaren from
the Saltsjon arm of the Baltic Sea.  The architecture is neoclassical, or
tidy brick Hanseatic German, without the ponderous touches and without
Germany's vast bomb-cleared swaths of urban renewal (Sweden having spent
World War II deciding on the morality of war).  The contemporary Swedish
buildings aren't very awful by European standards - no plumbing-fronted
Pompidou Centers, no entrances to the Louvre the look like Biosphere 2.
Stockholm is one of the more attractive cities in the world, sober beauty
*Press return for more or q to end. >
division.  Creams and pale grays predominate; neon and fluorescents are
sparingly used.  Any shortcomings seem to be problems of affluence rather
than want.  The sidewalks are slushy.  Even with 13 percent unemployment,
no one deigns take so humble a job as shoveling snow.  And when it comes
to such very modest business ventures as shoeshine stands - do not bring
your best cap-toed oxfords to Sweden in the winter - there are none.
     Litter does not exist.  There is graffiti, but it is neatly confined
to bridge abutments and the cement embankments along certain canals.
There are no street vendors or annoying buskers (though perhaps it wasn't
the season).  There are no woebegone panhandlers or newspaper-wrapped
transients (it was certainly the season for that).  The modern structures
are maintained.  The old structures are restored.  The Swedes must
levitate their garbage.  I never saw a bin or can.  When the crane fell
over, it was cut apart with torches and whisked away by suppertime.
     I asked Janerik Larson - the executive vice president and director
of communications at a media conglomerate with the conglomeration of a
name Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik - why Swedes still worked.  If they
don't work, they get almost what they would get if they did work.  And if
they do work, their raises and bonuses are all taxed away.  Give
Americans a situation like that, and we'd be putting all our economic
energy into playing extra cards at the Indian bingo hall.  But there was
nothing visible in Sweden so far as to indicate much national
goldbricking.  Larsson pointed to the window: "You see how it is outside?
It's always like that here."  Over the centuries the Swedish gene stock
has been culled.  The lazy ones froze.
     I asked Dr. Carl-Johan Westholm - the president of the Federation of
Private Enterprises (in Sweden, even opposition to central planning is
centrally planned) - why Sweden still worked.  If Sweden is so poor,
where is the poverty?  Why aren't there people at stoplights offering to
clean my windshield?  Or more to the point, my shoes?  "We don't have
income, but we still have wealth," said Westholm.  "You may live in a big
house, and the neighbors think you're wealthy.  And they're right in a
sense.  But they don't see you going to the bank to take out a second
mortgage.  Sweden is borrowing its prosperity.
     What happens to Sweden when nobody's willing to lend it more money
and the Swedes finally realize that they really can skip work for four
months if the kid pukes?  The people of Sweden - like Damocles - are set
down to a sumptuous feast, and overhead, suspended by a hair is...not a
sword, this is too prosaic a country...a gigantic wet blanket.

                                                       /to be continued.

[Polar]

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Support the Male Players Network (MPN).
=======================================
I am going to tell you about a hidden problem, something we men don't
generally talk about. The women and their harassment of us! We don't
even have the time to get ourselves a nice leather outfit and a machoweapon
before they start whining: help us with quests! help us with XP! Where
is the post office? Where can I find emoterooms? And thousands of
other questions. And if we don't reply, then they report us to the
admins, claiming we harassed them sexually! I say, is this fair? If we
go to the admins claiming they groped us in public, would they not but
laugh at us? And that is only the least of their evil deeds...
 
We all have had them hunting us in big parties and we can do nothing
but run! The men who have been caught has never been heard from again
and we can only guess what horrible things they went through. There
are rumours about men being castrated by packs of wild women and other
rumours telling us about men walking alone in the very village area
has been kidnapped and sold to the escort service!
*Press return for more or q to end. >
We men must unite against them. If we are united then there is nothing
they can do to stop us. We will form networks, we will never walk
alone, always have at least another man close by, to defend ourselves
and we will stop mudsexing them until they are down on their bare
knees, begging us to forgive them! No man should ever have to be
afraid of a woman.

SUPPORT THE MPN - Wizards: Put the letters 'MPN' in your alignment.
                  Players: Make an alias 'alias msay say [MPN]'.

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We decided we wanted to find out which player in NannyMUD that have the
highest knowledge about the mud. Therefore we present this competition.
It consists of 10 questions about various issues of the mud, plus one
deciding question to make it possible to find one single winner.

Price:
======
The winner will recieve an autoloader that proves that he has the most
knowledge of Nannymud.
He will also recieve a cashpot.
The cashpot is taken from the income of the sales of this paper.
Half the income from the sale of this issue goes directly to the cashpot.
Last issue where sold in 199 copies. Which would give a cashpot of 9950coins.

Priceceremony:
==============
The winner will be anounced the 31st of October 1996, 18.00 (6pm) CET
(swedish time) 5pm GMT 12am EST 11am CST 10am MST 9am PST. It will take place
on small ceremony on the green place outside church.

Rules:
======
No wizards, No wizseconds, No playerseconds, No players from University of
Orebro is allowed to compete.
If a competitor is suspected of cheating he will not be allowed to compete.
If the cashpot is not collected within 1 week from the day the winner gets
announced the cashpot is handed over to Bailiff.


Questions:
==========

 1. At what level does a Druid gain the power 'spores'?

 2. What is the name of the god the Monks worship?

 3. In which wizards' areas is Profezzorn's Golf quest placed?

 4. At what rank does a Khorne gain a Daemonname?

 5. What is the name of the mother of all Vampires?

 6. What is needed for a Knight to gain the title 'Champion of Arthur'?
    (Name at least 2 things needed.)

 7. Who where the creators and guildheads of the Drunks guild?
    (Name all 3)

 8. What is the first day in the NannyMUD week called?

 9. Which was the first quest in NannyMUD?

10. Which player is the oldest in NannyMUD?
    (Playtime in Nannymud! Not RL life age.)
    (Only mortals counted, not wizards. Wizards second characters is counted
     though.)

Deciding question:
==================
How many spells 'Brainburst' do you think it took the Simyarin Megalomania
to kill pet? (Hint: It took 3hours)

Answers:
========
Answer the questions and mail your answers to: 'ANSWER' using Nannymud mail.
Last day of entry in competition is 25th of October 1996.
All results will be presented in the next issue of the NannyMUD Times.

Questions about the competition:
================================
If you have any questions about the competition ask 'leclerk' on nannymud or
mail me (leclerk).

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MUDPARTY IN OREBRO, 12th OCTOBER!
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

Your hostess: Oriole.
Your co-hosts: Mordor, Edric, Drelb, Leclerk, Tugh, Nib, Zaigo and Eifel.

WHY:
LOTS OF FUN!
MEET PEOPLE!

WHEN:
The party will take place at the 12th of October. The party starts at 18.00
but you can come earlier/later if you like. We will be in the studenthouse
from 14.00.

WHERE:
The party will take place in a part of the city of Orebro called 'tybble'
Tybble is located approx 2kms from downtown Orebro. It is located within
2mins walking distance from the University of Orebro.
Oriole has rented a studenthouse specially made for partys and such.

HOW TO GET THERE:
The adress to the studenthouse is: Tybblegatan 98
If your going here by train, our Taxidriver Mr Leclerk can pick you up.
Just call to the phone:  070-5865437 (ask for 'snyggingen')
If your going there with a car:
* If your entering Orebro from E20, drive towards 'Centrum' when you see the
  signs pointing towards 'Högskolan' drive towards it. You will drive along
  a twolane road. When the road turns into a onelane road, take next turn
  right. (left is högskolan) Take the next right too, you will now see a
  pizzeria. Go past it and park in the parking behind the pizzeria.
* If your entering Orebro from 'Norrköpingsvägen.' When you start to enter
  the town and come to the first redlight. Turn left. (Right is högskolan).
  Take next right, you will not see a pizzeria. Go past it and park in the
  parking behind the pizzeria.
* From the parking. You will see a building with a sign 'Sörbygatan 6' or
  something like that. Go beside that building (on the left side), and
  continue on the little pavement. You will enter a building complex, in the
  middle of those houses a smaller house lies. With the sign '98' on it.
  Thats the place. Enter the door and your there dood!
If you get lost, call 070-5865437...

COST:
Please bring 10 skr for Oriole as rent for the studenthouse.
Also, bring a present for Leclerk with a value of no less than 100 skr. Cool

FOOD/DRINK:
Bring your own food and beverages.
Pizza places all around the area. Many places have driveout delivery too.
You dont have to drink alcohol, some will, some wont.

DO:
Hang around. Meet other mudders. (Rough estimation, prolly 40 players will
be there.) Chat around. Talk about the good old days. Curse the admins.
(Beware though, some might be there. Cool Later in the night when Mordor have
gone to sleep we might sneak away to the labs and mud. Cool

PLAYING POSSIBILTIES:
Access to a lot of computer labs. At least 40 computers with telnet.
The telnet sucks tho, you might not be able to connect to your homesites.
Telnetting to nanny works well tho.
Remember to turn of your 'site-restriction' if you use that on Nanny.
There is a challenge made, Fluid have challenged Leclerk in a duel in Quake.
The winner will get to pour a bottle of cocacola all over the losers head. Cool
One lab will have 8 computers with Quake running, just to join in and frag.

SLEEP:
You can sleep in sleepingbags in the studenthouse, on sofas in the univ.
We have access to the studenthouse til 12:00 (12am) sunday. At that time
the place have to be cleaned up. Dont worry, all cleaning will be done by
Nib's gf. Cool

OTHER:
Leave all your pkchars at home.
Mudparty means 'FEST'.
Any questions: Ask Oriole
If your comming, please inform Oriole.

SEE YA THERE - Oriole, Mordor, Edric, Drelb, Leclerk, Tugh, Nib, Zaigo, Eifel.

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NannyMUD Times is expanding its edition and are now looking for more writers.

This is searched for:

* A feature on adventure-litterature.
* A feature on music with a mudding athmosphere.

* In next issue we plan on making a HUGE coverup on the guilds.
  We look for people from each guild to write a text about your guild.

  - Whats cool with your guild?
  - Why should I join your guild?
  - What powers do you have?
  - How is the 'guildfeeling'?
  - What made you choose your guild instead of the others?

  Write a text about your guild and mail it to 'leclerk'. The texts will
  be published in your name in the feature of the guilds.

* Poems, Crosswords, Jokes...

* Well, ANYTHING that might be of intrest of NannyMUD's players.

If you got any questions, ask 'leclerk' or mail him.

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> read page 14
You read page 14 in your newspaper.

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Madame D's question column.
===========================


Q: Oh great and wise Madame D, I, a humble and chaste knight, was wondering
   if their was any chance for my guild to be saved from the depravation of
   the mind/body/soul that has seemed to stray the acts of my fellow members
   from the true path of Prudence, Temperence, Fortitude and Justice?

A: Rumours say that Silencer will soon banish all knights, thereby fixing
   the problem. So don't worry.


Q: Is mudding on Nanny really fun nowdays?

A: Oh puny mortal, how little you know! You only get as much fun out of a
   game as you want to. Have fun when you play, and the game is fun to play.

Q: Oh wisest of the wise, the brightes of brightest... me, a puny wizard
   with problems with the english language...seek thee to help me with a
   (not for you ofc) strange problem: Why is things sent with a boat called
   cargo and things sent with a lorry called shipment?
   -+ The small, unimportant wiz, who wants to be anynomous +-

A: We asked an expert in the area: The captain of the Stormpasser, and he
   said:
   We sailors can't spell to shipment, we just forget those last four letters.
   That is why.


Q: Why does noone want to patch me 3 k questpoints?

A: Because no one think you are worthy to get those 3 k questpoints. And
   they are right.


Q: Oh most noble and apparently all knowing madame D... I have a question...
   this is a game- based upon roleplaying and the administration has taken
   the viewpoint (being kind of vague)- that the extreme of roleplaying may

   be carried until the point where it makes the game unplayable for
   others... If this is true- then why does it seem the admin constantly is
   against "evil" behavior and role-playing- please help, already I am
   overcoming by snuggly happily feelings and have no desire to change my
   foul evil way
   - Dark One

A: We asked our expert admin Dwinbar in this delicate matter, and he gave
   us the full explanation:
   The administration wants to have the exclusive rights on evilness in the
   game.


Q: O masterful and omniscient Madame D, is it true that the only way Brom
   can get off is through demoting someone?
   - An Anonymous Wizard

A: That is not true. It happens when he sitebans as well.


Please keep sending in your questions to me, when you have a copy of the
NannyMUD Times just type 'ask_madame_d <question>'.

Hugs Madame D.

[Polar]

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Aunt O's gossip column.
=======================

Demotions:
----------
This last month started with a very unfair demotion. Tugh got demoted for
saying on wizline: "Roland, it was more fun having sex with your mother than
with your girlfriend". Roland got a bit upset and for beeing the big
promoter of silencing the 'freedom of speech'. He decided to disconnect Tugh
every time he tried to logon to the game. This lead to his poor demotion.
When Brom told him he was getting demoted for 2 months. Roland replyed:
"Make it 4, fatboy!". For some reason this lead to Roland only got demoted
for 1 week. I guess Brom likes insults, we should all try it.

Worth to mention about the demotion of Roland and Tugh. When Roland got
demoted he had about 300million coins on him, and he was a level1 pk'er.
For some reason he hid in church until he got his levels back. Tugh only
had 10k coins on him and succeeded in making himself to a nice little corpse.

We got the rumour that Akasha got demoted since the admin she mudsexed was
no longer a active admin and therefore she could no longer be called a
'skilled' wizard. Beldin where obviously a better 'skilled' wizard and is now
promoted as a 'exalted' wizard.


Banished players:
-----------------
There where a bunch of banished players during the last month. Most of them
where multiplaying. The rumour where around that some wizards where
multiplaying with themselves. But that never lead to any banishment.


Rumors:
-------
We noticed that the most boastful pk'er around, Mr. Dragonpen one day became
all quiet and stopped playing. We got insider info that he got banished from
the Vampire guild where he tried to make a carrieer. The reason? He talked
too much.

We all know that Dwinbar and Restless got promoted to highwizards.
We will not publish any rumours about Restless at all.

The newborn wizard Mishra started his wizcarrieer with a bug and he even
succeeded with doing the bug twice. When we come to think of it, that was
the only thing he did this month.

A player told us: Kefka won every single one of Snafu's stupid "Name yer
Parties" competitons and never got the promised reward of 1 mil gold.
Snafu blamed his secretary for the oversite, but we know he is lying.

A rumour told us that Gurk is desperatly trying to get some polish guys to
Orebro mudparty with their trabant stashed with booze and other drugs.

After Nanny had been running for the past few months somewhat more
peacefully, it is rumored that Quasar has heroically overcome connection
problems (or perhaps a siteban?) and is once again back to nauseate us.


[One paragraph is deleted here. Not by censoring, but because she]
[felt harrassed, mocked and made fun of.     /Mats               ]

Andromeda left the druids because cathbad decided to take out all his
current stress on her; she decided to leave rather than be submitted to his
threats to throw her out.

The little innocent girl Lady have been seen quite a lot in Dwinbars workroom.
(In his case you can actually call it a workroom.) But when we think of it,
what girl has not been seen in that workroom?


Marriages:
----------
Kairi    was married to Vulcan     by Vulcan  Mon Sep  2 07:25:15 1996
Zarathos was married to Ataca      by Beldin  Sat Sep  7 20:26:20 1996
Bulldogg was married to Enya       by Vulcan  Sat Sep 14 18:01:28 1996
Darren   was married to Erotica    by Vincent Sun Sep 15 20:56:49 1996
April    was married to Wartox     by Snafu   Sat Sep 21 04:26:37 1996
Kornelia was married to Darkwinged by Mats    Mon Sep 23 19:53:24 1996
Durnik   was married to Chupo      by Beldin  Tue Sep 24 05:04:13 1996
Lellidon was married to Cancer     by Jaso    Fri Sep 27 00:41:32 1996
Leowon   was married to Nymph      by Leowon  Mon Sep 30 14:24:17 1996

Remember to keep us updated with all the gossip. When you have a copy of
the paper, just type 'aunt_o_gossip <gossip>' to update us.

Best Wishes, Aunt O and friends.

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> read page 16
But there are less pages than that!