Well, if I’m going to make it to Perth, I’m going to need a boat. And not just any boat will do, either. It has to be a really big one, filled with stainless steel, the best kind of steel because it doesn’t get stains. Why go for a type of metal that has stains, when you can have one that’s stainless?

Gee, being an eccentric millionaire gives you a lot to think about. Like trips to Perth, where I must go, and where to get the large boat necessary to make the trip. I know there are firms in Melbourne that do marine stainless steel fabrication, so I guess I should just ask one of them. Do they have phones, down at the docks where they work? Do they even work at the docks, or am I thinking back to the Golden Age of Piracy when all ships had to be made basically ON the sea, because they didn’t have extremely large trucks to transport them all over the place? Although, now that I think about the very large boat that I would like to sail in, I don’t know if there’s a truck on this planet that could take it on a road, or even lift it. It would be a struggle for an aircraft carrier, and those things are actually just large boats. Think of how much stainless steel those things have in them, sounds nice. Maybe I should commission an yacht?

No, that’s stupid. Fishing from the side of one of those would be almost impossible; you’d have to reel your catch up several stories, making the whole thing unnecessarily challenging. Imagine how strong the fishing rod holders would have to be to reel up the sharks and dolphins my rich party guests would be constantly catching. Not acceptable.

I’ll go with a regular stainless steel cruise ship, with torpedoes and a salad bar. SUCH a great salad bar. We shall arrive in Perth, feasting upon salad.

-Melton

The annual Contemporary Science-Fiction and Fantasy Fashion Show must go on, even if the old, worn-out lighting from yesteryear totally fails us. And I’ve SAID it in the past, but we need to move the venue. I know people think sci-fi and fantasy fashion isn’t as ‘important’ as regular fashion, but actually, it’s the way of the future and doesn’t belong in some old venue in the corner of the CBD. We’ll have our time, just you wait.

And hopefully, we’ll have some designer lighting solutions that actually work. I think the last time anyone did any lighting servicing in this building was during the war, which explains why it’s utilitarian and threadbare. We’ve done our best to doll it up for the fashion show, but it’s still not ideal. It was even less ideal this year when the lights finally gave out, after so any decades of service. Things only worked out here because the show was almost over, and the collection being displayed was of Volcanesca, Dragon Lady of the Forsaken South. The outfits were all dragon themed, which was a point of pride for this particular show. But just as the girl wearing the primary Volcanesca dress was about to come out…no more lights. Someone pulled a lighter out of their pocket and held it up to see, and then everyone started doing it, thinking it was part of the show. So the dragon collection was illuminated by fire…which turned out great. Must note that for next year, alongside ‘look into some serious commercial LED lighting for Melbourne‘, because seriously, what’s more important for a fashion show than light? People come there to see the outfits, represented in perfect clarity, so that they can buy loads of stock and the show can continue. I’d say some LED lights that really do work- and were made in this millenium- would be pretty helpful.

-Arteria

This business about outboard motors is foolish, and I must remember to reprimand our brother for bringing it up. No, we will not be travelling around in ships, much like the ships of Earth. Travelling between Moon Domes will be an affair for buggies and possibly short-range rockets, if the distance is far enough. Sometimes people let their imaginations run away from them, creating fantastical scenarios that have no bearing on real life. So foolish.

Now, we have to think about the potential Earth team while the rest of us travel to a new Lunar Kingdom where we’ll start a new society based on the words of our glorious-yet-unseen leader.

Yes. Anyway.

If this brother thinks outboard motor servicing in Melbourne is such a great boon, then perhaps they should be part of the Earth team instead of bringing their dangerous ideas to the Lunar Kingdom. Everyone seems to be floating around in boats nowadays…that’ll serve them nicely. And I’m not saying we’re NEVER going to apply real-world motor principles to our space travel, especially since we’ll be refining short-length travel in a vacuum to a far higher degree than ever before. Perhaps the principles of anchor winches and outboard motors will serve us well in the coming times of great bounty and wonder. Still, we have to work with what we have, and what we have are standard moon roamers. Well, we WILL have standard moon roamers, once the folks over in engineering manage to complete them. We gave them enough aluminium.

Melbourne’s best outboard motor repair is just fine for a planet covered in seas and oceans, but we will not need such things in the new world. The lunar ocean is just a phrase. Keep boating where it belongs on Earth. Honestly, people believe the silliest things.

-Cyrus

There’s a lot you can say about the art of fishing. First off, always observe proper stretching technique. Sitting in one place for incredibly long periods of time can really wreak havoc on your joints, and…other things. Here in the world of fishing, we call it ‘Rickety Rear’. I mean…people would if it ever caught on. Thirty-five years and you’d think people would start respecting me, but I suppose that’s what the internet is for. Now I have a whole new audience, and they don’t sit on the banks judging me for my technique. There’s nothing worse than a back-bench fisher.

One thing people never seem to heed is the strength of their fishing rod holders. If you want to be a serious fisherman, or fisher-woman, you need to sort out your fishing rod repository device. Sometimes you don’t WANT to fish for a moment, so you  put your rod in the holder and go to make tea, or observe some proper hand stretching technique. So you walk away, but you haven’t taken this great advice, so you hear a plop. There goes your fishing rod to a particularly deep part of the river, and you might not be getting that back. Those things can be expensive! And so, you need a decent rod holder to make sure this unfortunate person is not you.

And another thing! There’s a young, up and coming group of fishers from the millennial generation, and they’re evenly split between promising and unbearable. The sort that like to fish while eating avocado toast and sipping lattes are the good ones. They appreciate our slightly rickety boats, and even refer to them fondly as ‘vintage’ and ‘retro’.

And then the new crowd all come with plate alloy boats, flaunting their superiority and fishing with barely a sliver of effort because their fishing rod holder is motorized and basically doing all the fishing for them. No challenge, I tell you. None at all! The old ways are always the best, sometimes.

-Rod

Fishing IS everything. That’s obvious, obviously. It really makes my blood boil when people say things like ‘fishing isn’t a sport!’ and ‘so it’s like an afternoon nap in a boat, right?’

I was at the pub last night and my mate Jim was talking about how he’s getting ready for the big fishing competition: taking more naps. And then everyone laughed, so I had to say “Look, Jim, you know fishing needs more skill than that, right?” and he replied “Jim, seriously. It was a joke.”

There’s no joke when fishing is involved. I didn’t save up for years, against the wishes of the wife, just to buy a plate alloy boat and use it for napping. I didn’t train for years, crafting my own fishing rod holders and purchasing the best stainless steel snapper rack money can buy, just so I could have my chance at fishing glory. After all, there’s no sport that could be better described at the sport of kings. People always need to eat, and the water is just teeming with the answer to that problem. Man has been fishing since time immemorial, so when did it become so that it’s something reserved only for lazy folks with no social life beyond napping?

It’d be like if we all suddenly decided that farming was a profession for dossers. They don’t get enough respect as it is, in my opinion, so we might just be heading there. In any case, you can see why I’m taking this big fishing competition seriously. It’s one of the few places where we can come together and take this sport seriously, with an actual trophy at the end and glory for the winner. And everyone there just knows their stuff. Like, I can talk to anyone standing on the banks about fishing rod holders, and we can natter for hours on the best way to install them, which ones work best for different types of fishing…that’s why I hang out for this competition. I get to be among my people.

-Jim