Although CC9 is but a couple of weeks away, the next party I'll be attending in person is this time next month - that's to say, Sundown 2009, taking place in sunny (!!) Budleigh Salterton on the weekend of September 11th, a stones-throw from where I live. If you're a UK scener then you need to be there (unless you have some excuse like you're on a honeymoon *cough*). If you're in the UK and merely curious about the demoscene, then it's a great place to find out more.

For those who can't attend Kaplicon, the webcam online is at Pardal's site (former Shucon webcam).

While waiting for some annoyingly slooow code-compilation, and following a chat with someone about PROM programming, I thought I'd check out the plus3e website. What wonderful timing - I'm only 1 month late with the news that a new version of these lovely replacement ROMs has been released. v1.38 is a minor bugfix, but worthy of a download.
More recently there's been a couple new tools for moving files around your .HDF images via your PC - one is command-line based, and the other is a GUI. I recently had a request to add some features to 3eExplorer, which I aim to do some day when I have a spare moment, but these tools could be just the answer. Available on the plus3e site.

Quick pointer to Papaya Labs, who have new stock of DivIDE boards, fresh and pine-scented. Marvellous.

Yes, I'm still alive. In fact, I have been working on some "behind-the-scenes" stuff for raww.org, which I hope will be ready soon... something to kick me into action, kinda.
In the meantime, the next demoparty that's coming up is Chaos Constructions 2009, which is taking place at the end of this month, on the weekend of August 29th. The standard compo ZX-Superfecta (Graphics, AY-Music, 512b Intro, Demo) make an appearance, along with a realtime coding contest. And hey, they have a twitter feed. Good stuff.

Kaplicon 2009 meeting is going to be held at usual place, House of children and youth in Kaplice, South Bohemia, Czech Republic from the 14th to 16th of August, 2009. All Speccy fans are welcomed. Take your Spectrums and don't forget to bring your own monitors.

Quick congratulations to my good friend Hellboj, who evidently knows Yerzmyeys sister in the biblical sense, as they've just produced offspring, in the shape of Hanna. I can say from experience that it's great to be a Dad. Congratulatory beer is in the post.

I'm afraid I'm going to be very lazy indeed and point refer you to a couple of Speccy Live posts about the results and releases of both Artfield, which took place ooh, last month, and DiHalt which was slightly more recent. Mostly graphics and music by the looks of it. Hmm.

After a triumphant CSS meetup in Oxford in June, where the ZX Spectrum sent its first tweet to Twitter (in a pub, no less) the Spectranet World Tour continues. This time, the Spectranet will be appearing at RetroEuskal, in Bilbao, Spain. The Spectrum on the Internet workshop will be at 12:00 on Friday 24th July. More info (in Spanish) is here - http://retroaccion.org/node/96

One more time, the 8Bits compo organized by Retroaccion association strikes back at Euskal Encounter. This year including also a music compo coming along with graphics compo. We hope to extend the number of compos in next years to come on demand. What are you waiting for?