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singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora
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OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 252--5/25/99
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(Cup OWis252, Created v3 (10/3/99), Copyright 1999)

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OSOAWEEK
Ezine of Obliviana
Issue 252, 5/25/99
by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana
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LORD OF OBLIVIANA
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Tue 6/1/99 * 10:28 PM

Hello. This issue is somewhat late. I went to Wild West City on Sunday, Stormjaunting on Storm 53, awesome.

I'm in the middle of converting Severe Repair into Aerie format--425 Cups for Aerie v2, which is to be released in five days and a few hours! I think that, unfortunately, I'm going to have to push back the Aerie Zope section till v3...

Also in the past week or so, I've been working on the overall Obliviana "game system". I've definitely been making progress. Progress... I introduced Obliviana as a game kinda thing way back on July 28, 1994. Now here I am, five years later, getting no hits at all on my website, and I'm "making progress"... sheesh...

But the world has also made progress in the last five years. Or perhaps "regress". In any case, the world is a lot different today than it was five years ago. And in my opinion, the world of today is much more potentially receptive to Obliviana than the world of 1994.

It crossed my mind today on the bus that when Obliviana takes off--that is, when people start getting into it--the development process will be forever changed for me. Feedback is a powerful thing... a necessary thing, with good and bad aspects.

I believe that the whole evil cult phenomenon involves feedback to a large degree. A guy has weird ideas, then some people embrace the ideas, and the guy is reinforced in the ideas, and then the people are further reinforced, and then you have a very unhealthy situation for everyone involved.

I must add, however, that I do believe there is a supernatural component present in all evil cults. The idea of this "feedback reinforcement" would suggest a purely scientific explanation. And I say, to some extent, "fuck science".

Obliviana is a good thing. But people are all messed up. The good thing that is Obliviana could potentially be warped into something bad if I am not diligent in preventing such a thing from happening. And ultimately, I'd rather Obliviana remain totally obscure than it becoming a bad thing.

But I am confident that I can introduce Obliviana to people and keep it a good thing. If there is some element of fate involved in my development of Obliviana, perhaps this long, long development period serves the purpose of Obliviana ultimately becoming something good. With each month of continuing failure to make Obliviana popular, I grow wiser.

Oh well. I gotta write another issue of OsoaWeek now, so I'll continue my thoughts there.

Get all Obliviana!

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SONG OF THE WEEK
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Sonic Mega CD, "Quartz Quadrant Good Future"
(MIDI downloaded from the Internet, from the Japanese version of Sonic CD, a Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega CD System)

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