Unless you read the Research & Development (R & D) newsletter (that's advertised at BEA, LadyBumps, and Wren Spot), you have no idea what I am talking about in the title of this article. If you do read R & D (which I encourage you to do), you probably already know that Al at R & D reviews stories and gives them a rating of anywhere from zero !'s to a maximum of 5 !'s. So, what the devil is my title about? Did R & D actually render an opinion of BEhavior? No they didn't, however, yes they did.

The last issue of BEhavior ran my column, "Valkyries in the Desert". This was just a shameless plug to get people to visit Diana the Valkyrie's two websites. One of those websites is LadyBumps. Now, before I go writing stories about other people, I ask their permission. I do that out of courtesy and respect for the people I am writing about. So, I sent a full pre-production copy of my story to Diana to get her ok to run the story. Well, not only did she ok the story, but, she posted my article in the story section of LadyBumps. I was unaware that it wound up in the story archive. Hey, I think that it's great that Diana thought my article was good enough to post. I am very pleased that it was published. It's nice to be complimented in such a way. (Thanks for posting it, Diana!)

Now along comes Al from R & D. Al has a mandate to review stories that are posted at BEA, LadyBumps, and Wren Spot. Nobody told Al that the posted "story" was really just a BEhavior article, and Al does not read BEhavior. Anyway, Al wrote a review of my article, without knowing it was an article written as a plug for LadyBumps. In his review, he pointed out my article was way too short for a story, and for some reason wound up with an out and out plug for LadyBumps. He then rated it at "!!!" .

And that's how R & D rated BEhavior "!!!" .

This whole episode strikes me as rather funny, and as a lesson as well. The funny part is how inadvertently we got a rating from R & D, and the lesson is: be careful what you write, as it may come back to haunt you.

There wasn't any haunting in this case, as Al has great integrity as a reviewer and just calls them as he sees them. While I was surprised that my article got a review, it was a pleasure to see that Al gave it his normal, quality effort in preparing a review. It's just funny that it was reviewed at all.

Now that the funny part is over, let me talk about the verboten subject of R & D versus BEhavior. You know, webzines are either supposed to ignore each other or take potshots at each other on occasion. They aren't supposed to be nice to each other. Here's the bottom line: there is no "versus" here, and if you want the most out of your BE experience, you need to read both webzines. (Heck, they're free anyway.) We here at BEhavior are sensitive to the issue of duplication of efforts.

Al also has his own views of the difference between the two webzines. (Of course, his view is liberally sprinkled with Al's sense of humor (oops, that's "humour")...)

We're fulfilling a different purpose. BEhavior is a glossy in-house mag; the kind of thing you find on the coffee table in Reception while you are waiting for someone to finish his morning poo and come downstairs to meet you. As such, it tends to concentrate on what's happening at BEA, and it gives an inside-looking-out view of the world.

R & D occasionally tries to turn over the stone and look underneath at these weird people with their wholly illogical fetish. It aims to blow away the whole 'support group' mentality: the kind of thing that you find among newcomers to the BE-Buddies. R & D just rejoices in huge tits.

All this means that if you want story reviews, movie reviews, the F files, Corinne's Column, UG's morph of the month, grammar tips, occasional strip club reports, and other areas not normally found in BEhavior, then you really need to read R & D. On the other hand, if you want articles focused on BE, boobs in general, technical aspects of morphing, technical aspects of being on the web, what to do at a strip club, humor columns, or other areas not to be found in R & D then you need to read BEhavior.

While you are enjoying both BEhavior and R & D, I'll be wondering just where this article is going to end up.

:-P
Bad Irving