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Armadillo Culture 06
From sokay@cyclone.mitre.org Wed Mar 16 23:32:32 1994
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 23:37:36 EST
From: sokay@cyclone.mitre.org (Stephen J. Okay)
To: sokay@jumpy.acet.org
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Number 6
"Part of the New Cruelty"
"....Which is really just a way of saying I'm lazy
and way overbooked"
My SoapBox
Top 10 reasons why my zine is late: An excuse checklist for editors...
Short fiction/Poetry/Prose:
Godel, Escher, Boesch
Hannah
Bird
Geek Culture:
The Caffiends dining guide: A source guide to caffeine, sugar and other
forms of hyperactivation.
Linux:Interview with Linus Torvalds
Interop Volunteering: Will network for T-shirts or food...
Music:
Jawbox*
Jawbreaker*
Pansy Division
Juliana Luecking
The Slackers
The PieTasters
The Checkered Cabs
MonoMen
Trenchmouth
Swirlies
Pennywise
Blue Meanies
SOAPBOX---------------------------------Soapbox-------------------------------------
Okay, before we actually get down to it and I turn you little hooligans
loose on this issue I want to get a couple things across (he says, flashing
back to 9th grade, last day of school before summer starts):
Administrivia:
Online readers: Since these seem to be getting longer and longer,
I've decided to try something here WRT an index of sorts.
The head of each article and or section is now keyed with a specific search
term to let you zip right there.
Keywords for this issue are:
SOAPBOX---this, basically
TONGUE ---more Eric Boesch insanity about his brief but bitter affair with
his tongue
HANNAH ---a cool story about one woman's work on Take Back The Night.
CAFFEINE ---The AC Caffeine (ab)user's guide. We do for sugar and caffeine
what we did to PopTarts in #5.
LINUX --- a brief interview with Linux Torvalds, creator of Linux.
INTEROP ---true tales from the soft underbelly of the computer trade show
world and how you can be become a t-shirt slut...
MUSIC ---Whats been spinning on the CD player and turntable while I put
this together...
ObLateZineExcuse:
The whole problem we have here is focus. As in a complete lack of.
There's just so much cool shit out there that I want to do and
experience that a lot of times I forget to write about it until
long after its happened. I get distracted just walking downstairs
to get a glass of water, so its little wonder that this is nearly
a year late. I'm going to try to do better really...I promise..
This was supposed to be out last fall, but right after I got
back from SF, I got involved in a computer animation called
"The Jetdillo Project". About the time I had to give the
computer back for that, the EveCon 11 computer room got thrown
my direction and I put my hands up in a defensive move, and ended
up catching it. In between all this were a bunch of shows,
work, grad school applications and porfolios, and pretty soon I
realize its late Jan, working on Feb. and I hadn't done anything
with this since October.
But I'm going to need to make some changes. First, I'm finally
looking for a staff. I admit it. I can't do it all by myself
as much as I'd like to. This is a prime example of what
happens when I try to.
Tell me about whats happening in your scene or your corner of
the net or why you want to write for AC or the idea you have
for this really cool column or something...HELP!
(please???)
The next one will be shorter and hopefully sooner than this one..
Some sections may disappear for an issue or be shortened in order
to facilitate this, like in this issue 'cause I kind of got tired
of waiting around for people to do stuff they said they'd do or
to finish stuff they started. I will also repeat the following
mantra to myself endlessly:"I will not keep 4 versions of this
on 6 different systems, I will not keep..."
Item #2: Moving on....
Well, ya know, this Sparc just isn't big enough for the both of us, so it
looks like its time for me to mosey. AC is looking for a new home. Things
have gotten such that I'm no longer comfortable to post or mail this from
inside the corp, so I need to find a new virtual home. Anybody out there
want to take in a bunch of armadillos? We're housebroken, don't eat much,
change our own newspapers, etc. etc. etc.....
As long as Paul continues in his quest to get his doctoral degree, the
uglymouse site will continue to be the FTP repository. Just look under
/pub/zines/Armadillo.Culture on etext.archive.umich.edu and there we'll be...
Hopefully by AC#7 we'll be safely ensconced in our new place...
*BRIBE ALERT*:AC shirts to the first operations staff who will provide me
with a free interactive shell account where I can get mail and put together
this little abomination. I'll basically need to be able to login, telnet,
FTP, etc. Yeah, thats right, do it....yeah...vipw, yeah, thats it...
-----------------------------Zine Excuse List--------------------------------
Here's something handy to use whenever people start asking you why you
haven't put out anything in the past 8 months...
10. The {dog|cat|$PET} ate it...
9. I got kidnapped by aliens and after cutting behind my ears and giving me
anal probes and other generally not nice things, they offered to drop me
off at the exact moment I left, but I said that even though I felt really
violated, I was short on material for my 'zine, so could I stick around a
couple months and do some interviews and well, here I am...
8. The drummer of the Scenesters, who, are like, my favorite band,
spontaneously combusted at a show I was at and,like, I caught his
sticks in the conflagration. How was I supposed to know this would
end in my just getting back from a 4 month whirlwind tour with
them last night?
7. I was too depressed/into my own ennui...
6. Its a trendy thing to do when you're putting out a zine.
5. The apology paragraph for the intro on why I was a couple weeks late
took a couple months to write.....sorry.
4. Despite the appearance, I lead a totally boring life and it takes me
this long to come up with stuff other than cleaning my lint traps
to mention.
3. Its a bizarre needfullness/S&M trip. I have to feel needed or like
I'm depriving somebody of something before I'll crank out an issue....
2. I was asleep
1. Look I'm really late on getting this done but am totally stuck, if you
can send me contribs for this one I'd really appreciate it...
TONGUE----------------------Godel, Escher, Boesch---------------------------
being the continued affair between Eric Boesch and his tongue.
>From linus.mitre.org!linus!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.ed
u!cs.utexas.edu!newsfeed.rice.edu!uw-beaver!boesch Wed May 19 09:48:08 EDT 1993
We kiss. My tongue hugs me and ruffles my hair and offers to cut my
hair, and I ask if that is a good idea, me being blind and all, and he
replies in lingering strokes down my back, "Why would that matter? I am
blind too." He tells me I am beautiful, could he please cut my hair,
and I say, cut off all of my hair, Love. So my tongue cuts off all of
my hair and says he will plant roses in my eye sockets next Fall, and I
wonder if the professor at Repetitive Data Entry Institute will like the
roses and give us good grades so we can be millionaire computer programmers
at home in our spare time, and pet newts could perch on the thorns.
Then my tongue pushes through my sphincter, and I squeeze him with it
and with my lips, and everything is perfect. Everything is still
perfect when my tongue carries something out of my asshole and dumps it
in the kitchen, doors open and close, cabinets open and slam hollowly
shut, and a cup scrapes the bottom of the toilet reservior. But I know
dinner will be perfect, so I try for something less worrisome to worry
about.
My tongue knows what I want to say. Does it know that when I wake up in
the afternoon I just stop myself from yelling, "How many of our
neighbors did you sleep with last night, you cheating bastard?" My
tongue heard the phone ring and smashed it, but does it hear the voice
that says, "He's trying to kill me, he's trying to kill me, he's trying
to kill me," as if the voice and me were really the same?
I could say, "Don't worry about the voices; they're just a phase in the
growth of our love." Then I could tell how women would answer the
telephone and hate me, and how later, I would imagine that women would
answer the telephone, and I would imagine them hating me, and just
before "If you would like to place a call please hang up and try again"
I would hear, "She's trying to kill me, she's trying to kill me." Then
I could tell how I could feel them sit in their living rooms and carve
the air with their fingernails and magically tear my brain apart. But
would my tongue feel that our love was nothing special to know that the
voices were not only for him? Would he love me better if I asked him to
ring the doorbells of the women's mansions, so that they would see my
naked and purring self cradled in the folds of my champion my tongue,
who would lash out and crush their foreheads so they would die knowing
they failed to keep me unhappy?
Or should I keep massaging my tongue between my lips and hope he
doesn't notice when I stifle a scream?
I must love my tongue completely so the women can see how happy I am
when I see them again. Besides, I promised to serve and honor my tongue
(and do a few thousand other things too) when my tongue put a ring of
coat hanger wire onto the ring finger of my left hand and brushed the
ring against my cheek and said we were married, and a few hours later
the hand was punching me in the nose and falling apart and smelling bad
until blood clogged my nostrils. So I pull my teeth back from my lips
to show how much I don't want to bite my tongue off, and I massage my
tongue with my lips. I hope my tongue likes how my head is shaking.
The dinner of oatmeal and meatloaf tastes funny. The oatmeal tastes
like flour and water with chunks of chewable vitamin C pill, and the
meatloaf tastes like shit but some of it seems too tough to be mine and
my tongue says it stepped outside to check the mail and that's all. I
believe with all my heart but my stomach wins out and the puke of our
love spills onto the carpet. I try to swallow it again even
before my tongue hits the back of the head and my nose hurts from my
love for my tongue but it's not enough so I hit my nose against the
carpet some more until my tongue hooks around my throat. And I'm
learning to love meatloaf and my tongue massages my head and we say
nothing and I'm happy for a while.
Before I have to start screaming, I ask my tongue, "What are you
thinkino he'll tell a long story about his wonderful plans for us
like he always does, or at least like he did a few times in a row a few
days ago.
My tongue says, "I want you to bear my children."
It stings where the tears loosen the clots in my eye sockets. Does he
know how much he hurts me when he says that? My tongue dabs the tears
away and pats my shoulders and says everything will be all right, we
will visit the adoption agency tomorrow and bring home a happy limbless
baby with a strong tongue. Then it's quiet and my tongue withdraws for
the night but I can't sleep while our little girl lies in a drawer at
the adoption agency. I imagine her gurgling and babbling and breathing
little baby breaths in the cabinet, and I imagine my tongue holding her
and feeding her and wiping her little bottom.
I notice I've been gurgling and babbling and making baby breath noises
so I stop but the baby breath noises continue and I can feel baby breath
against my shoulder and I feel the mattress shake but I didn't do it. I
don't think I would be sane to shake my tongue awake so we can pat our
baby, but maybe sane means something different when you're the Messiah.
Maybe I should stop doubting voices and thoughts and just believe in
myself. So I turn over and there's nothing there, but the breath on my
shoulder is stronger now. I turn over again and there's still nothing
there. I still feel the breath but if I turn over one more time I'll
fall out of bed and my tongue will beat me up.
So I lie there and feel the breath on my shoulder and my eye sockets
fill with tears behind my sealed eyelids. My eye sockets swell from the
dammed flood of tears, crushing my brain into a tiny molten speck at the
back of my skull. Before my eyelids can burst I open them and tears
trickle weakly down the sides of my face.
I flop away from the edge of the bed and then flop around, shake my
head, tense my stomach, and hum "wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up
wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up --"
and my tongue stumbles around my mouth. I say, "We must make our home
ready for our baby our daughter is coming to visit we must have the
house neat for her the place is a mess we are not ready -- " but I only
hear quiet toneless gibberish. I catch my breath and scream "WHERE THE
HELL IS OUR BABY?" and my tongue pulls back down my throat, and I can
only wheeze and whine.
I try to catch my breath. Then I say, "Eehhhhhh." My tongue does
nothing. I flop my neck back and flip onto my stomach and chin myself
off the bed. My tongue hides as my dainty head hits the floor. I chin
over towards the door and reach the wall instead. I wobble over, tunk,
the bedroom door is closed. I say, "Beeehhhpeeehhhh," -- the pet name I
call my tongue because that's about all I can say.
"Beehhhhpeeehhh--ehhh? Beeehhhpeeehhh--ehhh?"
I wobble around so I'm perpendicular to the door. TUNK! I knock my
head against the bottom of the door. TUNch! Now there's a dent in the
door. My head hurts.
Just ten or twenty more hits and there might be hole big enough to fit
through, and then -- there's no time for making plans, I have to make a
hole.
Tunch! I think my forehead's bleeding. Maybe there is time to
make plans. I'll make a hole big enough to fit through, and then --
Tunch! There's a splinter in my forehead. I'll make a hole in the door
and then I'll make a hole in the front door and then --
Tunch! I think the headache makes me think more clearly. I'll make a
hole in the door and then I'll make a hole in the front door and then
they won't give us a baby if we can't show what a happy family we'll be.
Relax, think happy thoughts, happy happy happy happy shut up happy happy
happy happy shut up shut dup shutshutshutlalalalalalalalalalalalalala --
How can I be happy in the morning when I have to sleep on the floor?
"Beehhhhpeeehhh?"
I picture Mom and Dad and the mortuary attendant, with their mouths open
and smiling. I imagine circling their tongues with a red crayon, and I
wait to fall asleep.
HANNAH--------------Hannah, The Wire Chick-----------------------------------
From: Jenea Boshart <jboshart@husc.harvard.edu>
Hannah --The Wire Chick
I'm still not sure how it was that I got involved in this project.
I think it happened because my roommate D. was going through one of her
phases and thought it would be cool to get involved in the woman's
movement on campus, an involment we all knew would last two weeks, maybe
three, so we all just nodded our heads, said, "That's nice, D." and went
on with our business.
'Cept her business somehow became my business, when she told me
they needed a sculpture, and I said, "Hell, why not?"
A month later, I'm attending meetings about our celebration of
Take Back the Night (a national celebration going under different names
which targets the issue of violence against women). And where is D.?
Dunno, but not at these meetings surely, her two weeks were long up.
My initial understanding of the task: oh I'll help. It'd be FUN
to help. After all, I lack the experience to RUN the thing, to do the
thing myself. Sure I've done wire sculptures before, but they're small,
you know, never taller than a foot high, usually half that. And they were
talking about something as tall as me! And I'm tall! "Sure, I'll help."
"Alright, let's have a meeting."
In the meeting somehow the pronouns got out of wack and what was
"us" became me and what was "we" became "I." My frantic fumblings with
needle-nose pliers and spools of silver-tone wire was apparently years of
experience beyond that of any of the other members of the Radcliffe Union
of Students, or RUS. (Notice how very close it is to ROUS, or Rodents Of
Unusual Size. But I digress.) And suddenly it was MY project . . . the
woman in charge of it all stopped asking, "what do we need" and started
asking "what do you need" and I was hooked . . .
Elation? The opportunity of my artistic life. After all, art is
something I am blatantly NOT pursuing, though I could, and here they were
offering an (almost) unlimited budget to try something new, something FULL
SIZE!
Not elation. Fear. Cold, hard, fear. I didn't feel up to the job.
No matter! Full speed ahead!
Wednesday: Suddenly the celebration is in one week. I have no money in
the bank but they can't offer me an advance. "We'll see what we can do."
Thursday: "Which is nothing." No money and I don't have any. A friend
loans me $95 in cash. "What are you doing with that in your wallet?!"
I have to produce a sketch! A *proposal* that has to be approved by the
dean so that we can get a permit! Sounds a little too much like reality
to me.
Friday: Off to Pearl, my favorite art supply store. I buy 16 spools of
armature wire, a step up in thickness to the stuff I usually use. I ride
the subway with an eight-foot pole and a 25 foot roll of chicken wire. I
discover to my dismay that it isn't a step up in stiffness, but it's too
late now to worry. I'll have to worry about support later. I'll just
call on my old major and treat it as a physics problem.
Saturday: Some progress is made, that is, her barest dimensions are
designed, and the very very beginnings are made. Scared to continue, I stop.
Sunday: I blatanly and with malice do not work on her.
Monday: I study for a Psych 1 midterm and blantanly and with malace do not
work on her.
Tuesday: I blatanly and with malice do not work on her, although she's
due Wednesday. I call "she in charge" and say she won't be done until
Thursday.
Wednesday: I pull the first all nighter so that she will be done by
Thursday at 9:15 am. I take urk breaks and exclaim to loveweasl: "Never
by nine fifteen!" Over the course of the evening my fingertips go to
shreds. All over my hands and forearms are angry scratches. I don't want
to know what I'm scratching into my skin, but I do know that the wire
turns my fingers black. On the middle joint of my ring finger on my
hand is a h
uge blister from manipulating the pliers.
Thursday: Indeed she is not completed by nine fifteen, but I'm on a roll
and figure I could finish her by noon. "She in charge" suggests we
install her Friday, as it is raining anyway. I hear this news and fall
asleep for five hours. I spend the rest of the afternoon avoiding work on
her. I start up again at around nine pm. I proceed AGAIN to work
through the night. My wonderful friend E. spends most of it up with me.
My fingertips cannot take it anymore, and I carefully wrap each one in
athletic tape, along with my entire ring finger, where the blister is
rather excruciating, and my pointer which is rapidly approaching it. It
is delicious martyrdome.
Friday: Six thirty I am finished. I write a quick blurb to include on the
base:
Hannah
Jenea Boshart '95
THE WIRE IS EXTERMELY FRAGILE, PLEASE USE UTMOST CAUTION WHEN TYING RIBBON
Each ribbon represents a woman who has been sexually abused. If you or
someone you know has been sexually abused, add a ribbon.
I fall asleep and am up by eight thirty when "she in charge" calls. I
finally get to answer "of course" to her question of "Is she finished?"
Ah yes, DING DONG THE WITCH IS FINISHED!
And I hated her. Her head was a weird shape, if you asked me, and
a hundred other imperfections I don't have the heart to list. I felt that
she was the absolute low point of all my artistic creations.
After the call I run around the place making sure I have anything
I am going to need to install her . . . pliers? Check. Extra wire?
Check. Blurb? Check. Pole? Check. Hannah? Check.
I grabbed that wire wench by the base of her spine and took off
down the street with her. Ah the looks I got! One woman standing by her
car spoke to her companion still in the car . . ."Hey! Look at this neat
thing!"
I sat for a good fifteen minutes in front of Widener Library where
she was to be installed. People strolling by gave the two of us pretty
odd looks. I'm not sure if it was interest over Hannah or the way that I
*looked* dead but wasn't.
RUS people showed up, and we prepared to install her. A man came
over and asked us if we were from Hillel. No? Because Hillel is having a
Holocaust memorial on the steps of Widener all day long . . . We have a
permit . . .
The verdict? "She's beautiful!"
One RUS woman, K., couldn't stop kissing her. "I just want to
kiss her!" She exclaimed and the next moment I looked over and she was
kissing her. "What beautiful breasts!" another cried. "And ass!"
An ambassador was sent over to the Hillel people to see what they
thought of us installing her nearby.
Tourists stopped us and asked if it was ok if they took pictures
of Hannah. At least one tourist video-taped us. Apparently, she was a
success.
Ok, so I'll suffer the witch to live. She's probably not all that
bad. . . .
I stuck around until my ego was inflated just enough. Yes, she's
good, she's not horrible, she's good, yes yes yes . . .
And then home. And sleep. Yes, sweeeeeeet sle e e
e
e
ee
e
e
p
48 hours. I was up for 48 hours, minus about a total of five or six
hours. Forty eight focusing only on one thing . . .
Hannah.
Friday morning at last she was completed and at last she was installed,
and I was off my rocker. Out of my SKULL.
"You're off your gourd," E. says.
"I haven't got a gourd," I whine.
"Yes you do," E. replies. "I've seen it,
and you're never on it!"
The focus had erased my ability to see anything from anyone else's
perspective . . . I was on automatic stimulus-response. My brain was
going for coherency at all costs . . . and the cost was my inability to
understand anything going on around me . . .
It was a warm morning, and I am an enemy to the heat and was hating it.
Hannah was up at last and she looked cool. I needed sleep but I needed to
be told that she was ok, that she wasn't as heinous as I believed. On the
steps of the library nearby was set up a podium, and one by one people
were going up and reading names. Names were coming out of the speakers
and spreading across the Yard. It was Yom Hashoah, and the names were the
names of victims of the Holocaust.
My brain on auto-record gave as much emotion to the event as a video
camera. "Well done, a beautiful tribute, and here comes a woman and shes
looking at Hannah . . ."
Friend A. came over, "Want to read names for five minutes?" he asked, his
voice solemn. I blinked at him . . . this was not something I was
prepared for and my processing was on extra slow.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
"Yeah, sure . . ."
We walked over and the voice of the person preceding me floated gently
over our heads, reading name after name and I was flapping my jaw, trying
to tell A. that I had been up for 48 hours, could he believe it and and
and and and and
"Shhhhh . . ." A. said and maybe I realized the moment . . .
I read names and stumbled over the pronunciations and the wind put my hair
in my face and then I was done . . .
Walking back (to Hannah!) A. told me why it was that it was totally ironic
that I read just then but whatever it was it was beyond my understanding.
. . something about one of the names . . . A.'s roommate C. ran over and
hugged me, saying, "Thank you" and his face was sad and solemn and all I
could think to say was . . ."Cool shirt!" 'cause he was wearing a Take
Back the Night shirt, of course, and Hannah was for Take Back the Night
and look, there she is . . .
Friend J. showed up, and congratulated me on Hannah . . .I urged her to
tie a ribbon . . . She was vaguely reluctant and part of my mind was
saying "Jenea she's tying that ribbon for herself, Jenea she was sexually
molested only about a week ago and Jenea this moment is bigger than your
art to her and Jenea . . ."
"Won't you tie a ribbon, J.?"
At last I was at home and I was lying in my bed and I the forty eight
hours were over and at ast I w s goi to l e ee e
l a n s e e e e
g e ee e
e
e
p
.
AT LAST I WILL BE HEARD my emotional memory insisted and my dreams were
her hostage . . .
I was in the Yard, looking up the steps of the library. Names were
emerging from enormous speakers, and there was J., weeping, with her arms
around one of the speakers. My voice narrating the dream noticed, "This
will seem funny later" but I tell you at the time . . . the pain of the
moment of the moment I couldn't feel before of that moment was on her face
and I ran up the steps and we stood there and E. was there too and the
three of us just stood there with our arms around each other and wept.
"There's so much pain in the world," L. had said earlier, standing near Hannah
and looking over to the Yom Hashoah memorial.
Later, when at last I'd had a few hours of sleep under my belt, I had to
go back to the art store and return the extra wire. I met my friend E. at
the library. It was only about four in the afternoon, and the day was
starting its descent. It was getting a bit colder, a bit windier, but it
was lovely.
Names were still being read and I was able to appreciate the memorial,
unlike earlier in my comatose state. The stone was cold beneath me and
the sun was warm above me and I just listened.
E. showed up and we strolled off on our way to the subway. On the ground
near where Hannah had been I found the empty spool of purple ribbon.
Simple enough, the empty spool. "The ribbon was used up."
Yes, simple enough. Simple enough as every ribbon tied represented a
woman who was sexually abused. Simple enough to use up 25 yards in the
space of five hours.
Saturday urking instead of working as usual . . . Takin' data . . .
a horrible pun "cuntzero" says "ollopA" as he was
nicking himself at that moment . . .
AH the context he says now reading this AH you were
offended in context and now I understand and now I
J. was mollested a week ago by the guy (the dick! the cock! the flaming
asshole!) she was dating. "I really like him," she had said days before,
her face glowing. Her First Time with everything, and there wasn't much
of anything but then
But then she doesn't know if it was normal and I had to put my arms around
her and say "No my sweet J., NO this isn't normal and no it isn't your
fault and NO it isn't going to go away sweet J." Then I had to hold her
as she called him and tried to tell him "I just don't want to see you
anymore" and he was telling her "but I've decided that wasn't me and can't
you forgive me . . ." At church the talk of forgiveness there made her
lose it and when she came home she was "operating under mild sedation."
IT'S A COCK THING YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND
well Hannah's an ovaries thing you wouldn't understand
"Would you tie a ribbon?" A. ("She in charge") asked of her male companion.
"There really [avoiding] isn't anything [avoiding the] on the base that
[avoiding the question] invites someone to tie [avoiding the issue] a
ribbon . . ."
"Yes there is now go read it . ."
He reads it and then says "Yes that's better . ."
"But would you feel comfortable tying a ribbon?"
"Ok," he says, and ties one, but never answered the question . . .
J. ties a ribbon and it's for herself. I tie a ribbon and it's for J. and
for my old boyfriends little sister and for my friend's mother and for
And for 25 yards.
Friday night I'm babysitting a child . . . a tiny girl child of eight
months. She is sleeping when I get there and they have cable, so . . .
It seems it was an evening of rape . . . of child molestation. L.A. Law,
a woman is prosecuting her father now that memories of years of incest have
"I like him, he's so nice, Jenea" J. told me, maybe the day before, maybe
the DAY when he
finally emmerged. He abused her older sister too who killed herself.
The final straw:
A commercial comes on . . . the camera is focused on a girl of perhaps
ten. She is stading looking into the camera, embarassed. The rest of the
screen is pure white. She doesn't know what to do with her arms, and she
wants to look away but she doesn't dare. One foot on one toe, swinging.
She is lanky, in the horrible long-legged awkwardness of early puberty.
"America is losing her daughters," the voice says. "Studies show that by
age nine, girls start to lose their self confidence, their optimism . .. "
and on . . .and the last line, "If there is a little girl you know between
the ages of nine and fifteen, take her to work with you on April 28.
America, take your daughters to work and show them . ."
IMAGES Hannah and the empty spool and J. and LA LAW and "She deserved it"
and 70 cents on the dollar and big boobs on beer and my mom lying
paralysed as her first husband tried to find a gun so he could kill her
and my mom fighting off the advances of a co-worker and my mom making it
but only cause "she's a bitch with balls doncha know" and my coworker with
a daughter makin' what I made that summer and livin' on it and where's the
father and how many little girls like that one there already know the
facts of life 'cause daddy or uncle or daddy's friend or
And my little sister only eleven years old, the SPIT and image of that
little girl on the screen, long legged colt with the whole future ahead of
her and
And I just put my head down, and wept for her.
For Hannah, and her sisters.
jenea
-----------------------------Geek Culture------------------------------------
CAFFEINE&SUGAR
Live and Direct from Armadillo Labs, its the Armadillo Guide to Caffeine and
Other Sources of Hyperactivity !!!!
After the pop-tart thing last issue, I decided to do tribute to one of my
other favorite food sources:Caffeine!
So, I locked the boys back in the lab, bolted the door and didn't let them
out until their hands were shaking at the same frequency the processor on
my Amiga is :)
And remember, we wouldn't subject you to anything we haven't already tried on
ourselves in every possible combination.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Espresso Beans:
Concentrated antimatter as far as I'm concerned. Dark chocolate mocha stuff
overtop a real roasted coffee bean. Yow!,
just a handful of these was enough to send me SSTO.
Highly recommended for a quick burn, and the only thing known to induce a
caffeine headache into me.
You can get these at any of the bulk type candy places.
PS. since I wrote this a couple months ago, I've done a lot more field
research. There are currently about 4 different flavors out there, about
which I'll say the following:Skip the Holiday colored ones(i.e. red&green),
skip the milk chocolate. White is okay when you get tired of the straight
bittersweet stuff. Other than that stick with the original bittersweet
chocolate around the real bean.
Pocket Coffee: Warp Drive again. Dark semi-sweet chocolate w/ a liquid
espresso center. Cool!
Just one at a time was enough for me, although I seem to have gotten a bigger
kick from the Espresso beans. Availability is pretty limited as these things
are imported from Italy and I only know of two places around here to get
them. One of them is the Candy place on the bottom floor of Pentagon City
Mall in Arlington. Check the gourmet/import places around you...
Inca Cola:
Weird kind of pineapple-like, unplaceable tropic type tasting soda with mucho
caffeine. Kind of like if God had placed the blessed molecule inside mango or
pineapple and somebody juiced it then.
Jolt:Ostensibly(thats my new word :)
the caffeine king of sodas, I've found I have to be in the mood or right frame
of mind for this to work. 4:30 am at a con when I'm doing security,its great.
If I'm emptying one down my neck at Zig Zag or something and I'm chilled, I
usually end up falling asleep. Chats with nutritionally knowledgeable friends
leads me to believe that its a massive insulin flood from all the sugar that
does it...
Nitro Cola:
Heard about it, unable to locate. Supposed to be to caffeinated drinks what
the F-1 rocket engine was to launch vehicles(Somewhere around 1.2 million
pounds of thrust...). Obviously what we have here is a case of somebody
trying to out-Jolt Jolt, which, of course, is quite alright by me...
Dr. Pepper:
Nothing particularily spectacular about this one except that its the only
drink I've been able to find that has Polyethylene Glycol in it, which if
memory serves is something really nasty they use in treating or processing
plastics...Those wacky soft drink chemists, next thing you know, they'll
be trying to slip Aspartame in our drinks...
Nerds King Size Rainbow assortment:
Cool! One of my favorite sources of sucrose and ascorbic acid now comes in a
large box, with LARGE nerd chunks in a variety of heretofore unknown flavors
like pineapple, coconut, blueberry ,etc.
The downside is that the hole in the box is halfway down the side and is way
too big, s they tend to fall out and spill all over. Somebody needs a design
school refresher....
Milky Way Dark:
Again what we have here is another stellar attempt by the candy industry to
cross the sugar event horizon and collapse into a sucrose singularity.
Something about Dark chocolate just kicks me into overdrive and the extra
sweet center sort of serves as a secondary thruster....Ask anyone in FanTek
security how I ran up and down 20 flights of stairs twice and then went
looking for jogging partners after a couple of these...
Skittles:
Ahhh yes, the one and only....
If you haven't tried these you should. Fruity M&Ms is the best way to
describe them, and I still have yet to figure out why I sweat around my
face everytime I eat a pack of them...ever curious....
Fruity Dinosaurs:
Included only because its an in-joke and it will annoy the hell out of my
friend Eric Mason...
Meterva
the soda which has been made from the yerba mata plant, another plant
besides coffee plants thats high in natural caffeine.
Found around here in the Asian Market/Deli quarter of Arlington,
its up to you to find it elsewhere...
Cygnus Explosion
Herbal Energizer
Slipped to me one night at ZigZag in lieu of the Soho I asked for. Save for
the carbonation, its kind like drinking a glucose IV. Weird, woody aftertaste
which I'm sure comes from the rosehips and other deciduous good-for-you stuff
thats present in trace amounts..
Maybe if I were totally dehydrated or going into a non-diabetic form of
insulin shock, otherwise I think I'll pass.
Zombie Dance:
A concoction whipped up @ Planet X, a vegan coffeehouse in College
Park Md., consisf equal parts Jolt, Blast(caffeine, Phenylalnine,
and other assorted amino acids) and Ginseng, topped with your choice of
Torani flavorings. I chose Passion Fruit. Kind of fruity,spicy,
that took hold pretty quick. Good solid boost with quicker than average
effectiveness IMHO, and a strong thrust throughout. This was interesting
given the side effects that Jolt usually has on me...
And when you've done everything on here all in one sitting just to prove
it can be done theres:
Hy and Zel's Pain reliever
One of the guys at Interop had this. Its basically 500 mg of Acetylsalicylic
Acid, Caffeine and Codeine. Live and direct from your favorite OTC vendor
in Quebec Canada. For when you really, really want your reaction-headache
to go away bad, but you still want to be awake through it all...
LINUX-----------Linux:A brief interview with Linus Torvalds------------------
From: torvalds@cs.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
To: Stephen J. Okay:
Subject: Re: "Interview questions from AC" (Dec 9, 13:23):
>
> 1. Did you originally set out to write an OS, or did Linux start out as a
> totally different project and one day you found yourself with a kernel
> on your hands?
It didn't start off as a kernel: it started off as just some general
fooling around with the more interesting features of the i386 processor.
I had been programming the 68k line before getting my i386 in early -91,
so I wanted to get aquainted with the PC hardware (I hadn't actually
used a IBM PC compatible before that, if you don't count some very
sporadic DOS access on the university machines).
The obvious interesting features on the i386 is the protected mode
segmentation and paging code and the task-switching capabilities, so I
just started out doing a simple program that changes into 32-bit mode
and tests some of this. The first "program" I did was composed of two
tasks that wrote 'A' and 'B' respectively to the screen, and got
switched around by the timer interrupt (so that I got lots of A's and
B's messing up the screen). Not very practical, but it was enough to
get to know the hardware a bit.
> 2. Has anybody approached you about commercial development of Linux?
> (outside of things like SLS or Yggdrasil distribution like efforts)
Not really. I have been in contact with different people who wanted to
make linux distributions, but it has never been a question of
commericalizing the kernel beyond that. There has been some talk about
making it easier for commercial companies to use the kernel (by allowing
loadable kernel modules etc), but that hasn't come to anything.
> 3. How much of your life revolves around the net?
I spend about 2-4 hours a day answering mail and skimming through the
linux newsgroups, and I sometimes read some of the other newsgroups
(usually "silly" groups like alt.fan.warlord). I don't do IRC or muds,
but I guess I'd be rather unhappy without a good net connection.
> 4. What do you think of the anonymization services like penet.fi?
> Do you think anonymous servers are a good thing?
I don't mind them: the groups I read don't usually need anonymous
services (although I do admit to reading alt.tasteless when I don't have
anything better to do, and posting anonymously on that is considered bad
form unless you have some truly hilarious story to tell and don't want
to be implicated). I'm rather neutral on the issue.
> 4a. Over here everybody's been making a big deal about the commercialization
> of the net and there are now some local cable TV co's offering net
> connection in addition to regular services. Do you think the arrival
> of joe citizen on the net will be a good thing or bad thing for the
> current net community?
The S/N ratio will go down, but that's nothing new. It probably won't
matter too much for the technical groups (a few more newbie postings
aren't going to make for problems), and I doubt the talk groups are
going to suffer much. Network volume goes up, but the lines also get
higher bandwidth all the time. I'm not a network guru though, so asking
me is probably a waste of time :-)
> 4b. There's also talk that the net(particularily USENET) will functionally
> collapse under its own weight unless some sort of control or policing
> is put into place. Do you agree or do we just need better filters and
> collators like xrn vs. rn. or Gopher/Mosaic vs. plain FTP?
I think it's partly self-limiting: good filters like a threading
newsreader (I personally wouldn't want to read news without trn) help
manage the flow of information a bit, but a group that has too high a
volume for people to handle will probably automatically have a kind of
"die-back", where people simply can't keep up and stop using it.
Filters will just make the point where this happens a bit higher.
I doubt that any real control would be a good thing: I enjoy the chaotic
nature of usenet, and it has worked this far despite recurring rumors
about "imminent death of usenet predicted, film at 11".
> 5. What do you do when you're not working on Linux?
> (And as a side question, how much are you still working on it?
> Is it still largely your project/product or has it been swept out
> from under you in the wave of net support & contribution?)
I have a cat that needs attention, and currently a girlfriend that needs
even more of that. I'm also active in the drunken revelries of the
student organizations at the university ("Spektrum" is the organization
for swedish-speaking students of math, physics, chemistry and computer
sciences), and play snooker about once a week (badly, but it's good fun
and nobody I play against is much better than I am). And I read
(thrillers, sci-fi, generally "trash" litterature) rather much.
Linux obviously takes a noticeable amount of my time: much of it is no
longer so much actual programming as generally just acting as the
organizer and all-round contact/support person.
> 6. What comes to mind when someone says "Armadillo" to you? Have you ever
> seen one?(outside of a picture?)
I have probably seen one in a zoo sometime - I think it's a brown scaly
animal with a long nose and tongue that eats ants? Or am I completely
off? We don't have them over here, I'm afraid.
> 7. Give me a brief description of the Linus Torvalds music collection....
Almost nonexistent. I don't even have a stereo, just a portable CD
player and at this time just one CD (Aerosmith) which I bought mostly
just to test the player.. I don't really listen to music, although it
happens that I put on the radio or MTV and have it as background noise
when I'm programming. I don't like rap music, but I can listen to just
about anything else ranging from classical to metal; I enjoy Aerosmith,
Queen, Pink Floyd etc.
> 8. Cyberpunk: Funny or not funny?
Not funny.
Linus
VOLUNTEER---------------------Cyber-Volunteer Programs ------------------------------------
or
I've noticed that a large portion of the geek culture articles I've done
in here have tended to be of the geek junket/geek mercenary type. This
is no exception and is probably one of the best I've come across yet.
A number of trade shows/societal conferences are turning to volunteer
labor for help in setting up/running the technical ends of their
conferences/shows. The basic idea is offer free food, crash space,
caffeine,t-shirts and a ton of other stuff in return for busting your
butt for a few days in putting up the conference computer systems
and network. All you have to do is get there. Interop Company has one
and SIGgraph this year is also running a student volunteer program.
There's some shit work, and occasionally long hours, but I felt that
was outweighed by the stuff I learned from it all and the people I
met and the connections I made when I did it. For those of you still
in school, this is a good way to pick up "real world" computer
training. They don't seem to be picky either about who applies
or what your depth of skill is. If you know enough to get your hands
on this, they'd be happy to hear from you it seems....
I did this last summer at Interop '93 in San Francisco. All I basically
had to do was convince work to cut me airfare and be willing to work
at least 8 hours once I got there for the duration of the conference.
In return, they crashed us, fed us, gave us passes to the conference,
t-shirts and a bunch of other stuff.
This might seem kind of mercenary, but with the idea of spending 2 weeks
in San Francisco geeking out for pretty much free, well, how could I resist.
After begging, pleading, haranguing and finally resorting to threats of turning
his dog over to a couple guys with middle names of "The", my boss relented
and gave me the tickets. So one morning in Late August, on only 3 hours
of sleep I found myself at the check in line behind Unrest at Dulles.
As per usual, I proceeded to try to interview them, but pretty much fucked it
up, not having kept up with them recently, I didn't really have any salient
questions to get them with, and they just sort of edged away after a few
fumbling minutes of my blurting out stuff, although this could have been
due to the fact that the ticket counter in front of them was now open and
they were next in line, Themselves going to play in L.A. and us headed
several hundred miles north of there.
So we're on the plane and settling in when my friend Torin taps me on the
arm and opens his mouth to reveal a small white paper tab hanging off the
end of it. I knew exactly what it was, but didn't say anything. At least
not vocally. Instead I typed a plea to him not to throttle me and repeatedly
enlightening him that I did not have horns or breasts and that it was really
the plane that was capable of flying and not him. And he just wouldn't shut
up about it either, even after I pointed out that one of the attendroids
was in her jumpseat about 2 feet across from us. I had visions of both of
us getting busted or something and me getting grilled about it all 'cause
they'd figured he was incoherent or something when my chest starts beeping.
I flash him a look as to ask if he'd slipped something into the coke on my
tray when the attendroid had passed it over and he demurrs. Thats when I
remember it was my palmtop. I pull it out of my jacket, shut off the alarm
and zip it back up inside my jacket.
This totally freaks out the guy next to us. Here are two guys with laptops
linked to each other and then one reaches into the pocket
on his photog. vest and pulls out an HP95. I shut off the alarm and set it
to California time while our neighbor scrapes his jaw on the seatrest :)
The first couple days were pretty much manual labor type stuff. Unpacking
crates, running cable,pushing boxes, screwing rackmounted things into their
racks. A good part of this time was spent on a platform lift with a bunch
of union "boys" running cable from one end of the hall to the other..
This confirms and shatters a few myths I'd held about union labor.
Shatters in that all the guys with the exception of one were all really
active and actually worked and it was their bosses that were the real
assholes, haranguing them that it was 5:25 and what the heck were they
still doing up there working when they get off at 5:30.(Gee, I don't
know, maybe it's cause we're only 20 ft from the end of the run and we've
only got one cable to toss over the side before we've finished this whole
half of Moscone Center).
Confirmed in that the rules are far more important than the job it seems
as we have to wait three hours one day for a guy to come over and unplug
our lift's batter from its charger so we can get to work.
Things settle into a predictable pattern from here on. Get up at the
not entirely ungodly, but still less than beatific hour of 7, douse
myself with water from the shower, strap on my skates and head outside.
Cross Sutter street, dodging the peds, slalom down Stockton, wave to
the Beefeater dude outside the Hyatt and terrorize the Aussie tourons
he's trying to help board their bus, hop over a homeless or two once I hit
Howard St and duck into Moscone Center.
Food is waiting there as usual. And there's tons of it as per usual.
If nothing else they want to make sure we're well fed, so theres a full
tray of bagels and donuts and stuff in the morning, more in the afternoon,
a catered lunch and if you don't like that there's vouchers for a deli
down the block and if you get bored of that you can go anywhere and
bill $15 of it to Interop. Torin and I make it a point a couple nights
in a row to order a bunch of extra stuff at the Deli and go hand it out
to the homeless people who are always hanging out on around the convention
center. Nobody else is going to use it, we're all too stuffed, so why not
them...
Saturday and Sunday are spent largely hanging over or perched
on the rafters of the North Hall in Moscone. With the ribs up
across the hall, the FDDI backbone gets strung across the back
wall of South Hall. This involves basically sitting a person in
eah of the arches that sweep up to the ceiling and passing them
a length or orange-insulated fiber and having everybody tug to
get it through. I'm at about the third arch from the end so I'm
pulling pretty much the entire weight of the cable myself. Its
a weird balacing act between pulling hard enough to get the
cable throuh, but also trying to maintain my balance on the
foot or two of cement that I'm currently squatting on.
There's a lull as some logistical shit is worked out, so I
take to climbing up my arch a little. Its one of those swooping
cement thingys that looks the the top 1/4 of an O where it starts
out steep and levels out the higher you go. Its painted, so its kind of
slippery, but there are enough bumps, holes, and irregularities in the
surface to get a purchase on and I climb up about 7 or 8 feet then
realize that I'm going to have to get down eventually and don't really
relish sliding down a slope that ends up being vertical at the end, so
I slide down on the rear of my sneakers which are pretty much smooth
and run into the wall a second or so later. Cool experience, but I wouldn't
want to do it twice in a row.
I am pretty much in geek heaven. After grabbing food, we pick up where we
left off the previous day and just get back to it with little or no
interference or oversight from anyone. Maybe a little direction or
goals at the start of the day, but we're left pretty much alone with our
group of people to put the net together. We know what we're doing, they
know we know and thats why they have us there so management stays the
hell out of the way pretty much and lets us do our thing.
Just me, the boxes, cables a bunch of net.friends and the chance to wrack
my brain from time to time. I spend most of the day with my head inside
a mobile pedestal learning how to do 110-punchblock and RJ45 connectors
and the finer points of fiber optic cable.
After another 13 hours we all split for beers, caffeine, whatever
strangeness we're looking for.Torin's friend Harish,and I collect Torin
and head back to the hotel.
Again, I'm way too tired to do anything but get crashed right
away. There's an Artless show tonight that I'd like to go to and
is probably still going on, but I'm just too beat to even get up
let alone contemplate driving or anything. This is the one thing
I regret about the trip. I didn't get to a single show while I
was out there. I was too exhausted by the end of the day when we
were in SF and when we went out to Palo Alto I didn't have a car
anymore.
Later that night, I decide to try to skate down the middle of
Stockton Street right past the hotel. They say I'm insane, I know I'm
insane, but its 2:45 and there's nobody around and no cable cars running
this late and I've been wanting to do this since I got here so fuck it.
The hill is pitched at about a 30 degree angle and the only thing that
I can think of that will work is a really deep slalom.
I start one, get about 20 feet and realize how fast I'm going already
and brake hard,screeching all the way down the hill, wondering how the hell
those skate rats we saw Wednesday afternoon did it.
I shake my head, count my bones and go in to crash....
The next morning, I strap on my skates and start to weave my way past
the war memorial at Union Square, slaloming down the street when I hear
a *clap* behind me. I turn around and there's this guy in a 3 piece suit
who's just ollied his plank onto a bench right behind me. He pops off the
bench and slams onto the pavement almost even with me and proceeds to
do a series of 360's off and on the curbs and traffic islands and between
my side of the street and the other. I just crack up and almost run into
a cab. Its so cool. Its so SF.
"Hi, we're t-shirt sluts, we network for t-shirts, you wouldn't
have any to spare would you?"
The above answer become an oft-repeated phrase over the next 3 or 4
days now that that hall has been made droid-habitable. Safely
ensconced within their booth thats been set up virtually over
night and with only why their glossys ended up in Boise as
opposed to SFO where they should have to worry about now,
some of the vendors start unpacking their promos. Some are
cool, some are little more than blatant adds. The different tail
crews note who's got what and try to plug for getting some,
noting who's handing out, who will be later, and who just sort
of snorted at the question.
Its shameless but it seems that everybodys doing it. And its
all part of what makes a show like this work. Shirts are the
real currency of the show. If you want your tail up early or
a special conector made and don't feel like waiting forever,
a box of t-shirts left out at the side of your booth will
soon draw curious passersby who surprisingly enough just
HAPPENED to be in the neighborhood and just HAPPENED to
have what you need and oh by the way, 2XL if you have them
in that size.
There is some selection to the feeding frenzy though. Some of
the volunteers ignore, pass up or turn down shirts that are
going around for various political or ethical reasons.
Quite a few pass on the Novell shirts because they're
sharing pillows with USL and therefore AT&T. And would
you really WANT to wear an MS-Windows shirt? And would
you further *ADMIT* to it?
I snigger numerous times later that week while looking at
the suits who are forming 20-30 person lines just for a CHANCE
to win what I'm wearing on my back and fend off more than
a few cash offers for one of my Interop T's. I had to work
for these and they're mine and you were probably sipping your
sparkling water in first class when I was crimping BNC connectors
or fighting with a recalcitrant router to get this so there.
Then there's the button woman....
Shortly after the show started on Wednesday, bunches of the
volunteers started showing up at the lost techie burial grounds
with lots of diferent yellow buttons saying things like "When
cryptography is outlawed, only u6r67$%#$$#@@", "No
Trucks","Will network for t-shirts or food", "I know it sucks,
I fixed it at Interop" and others. Brief questioning of several
posessors of these buttons led us to a person who was to become
very popular over the next couple days, the button woman.
She worked for ClariNet, and their promo was custom buttons
with the words "ClariNet" in greyshaded 3pt type tiled on the
background of the paper, very tiny, very inconspicuous, you practically
have to use it as a monocle before you recognize it's their name thats
repeatedly printed across the background. And they say Anything you wanted
them to say. ANYTHING.
It seems that one of the suit-to-tech adapters had started
going off, ragging on some of the techs and in general acting
none too bright. "We've replaced D's brains with Folgers
Crystals and nobody can tell the difference". Cute, but there
had to be a better way to make him see the error of his ways.
Somebody hits on the idea of getting the button woman to make up
buttons that have all different names of caffeine sources on
them and slipping D one that says "Folgers Crystals". But how
to get her to make around 20 buttons for us without totally
taking advantage of her services and possibly pissing off the
ClariNet people or her?
Then Torin finds out she can be plied with Chocolate......
Starting that evening they begin to appear: "Earl
Grey","Darjeeling","Mountain Dew", "Jolt", "Chocolate covered
Esperesso beans", and of course, "Folgers Crystals". The trap
is sprung on Friday afternoon. D is handed his button and
accepts, proudly pinning it on himself, totally clueless. A collective
snigger erupts across Moscone as the news spreads.
Friday comes and goes and promptly at 5, amidst cries of "Tear Down The Net!"
We do exactly just that. Inside 2 hours max, we have torn down all the tails
and peds and are packing and boxing stuff. Spock once said "As a matter of
cosmic history it is always easier to destroy than create". We've proven
this in our ability to reduce to components and cables 3 days work in
just a couple hours.
Torin wants to check out right away and get over to his friend Strata's
in Palo Alto. Since we're to be there for the next couple days he wants
to get an early start on it. So we check out and drop the keys off at the
front desk much to the bewilderment of the night clerk who gives us this
look like we must be on the run from the law to be checking out at 3am.
I hand him the keycards grinning that infamous shit-eating 'dillo grin
thats gotten me grilled by suspecting teachers and other authority figures
in the past and just walk.
We get to Stratas about 4 or so and I'm totally wired again from lack
of sleep so I curl up with a Physical Review Letters I find over in the
corner and just start reading in the middle of her hallway.
Everybody's still up and nobody objects. I can tell this is going to be
a cool 3 or 4 days...
The true cool geekiness of the place is revealed to my eyes later after
the sun's come up and I can actually make out more than just the outlines
of the place. There are whiteboards everywhere for one thing. And where
there aren't whiteboards, there's newsprint and always a copious collection
of markers or pens next to them. The set in the main living area have
diagrams and pseudo-code for a MUD the denizens of the house are
working on, along with critical commentary. The bathroom seems to be
having this running discussion about cats and who's doing who in the
house and "If using your computer were like going to the grocery store...."
I add my own inimitable remarks to most if not all of them.
The next couple days pass in a haze of just lounging around, playing
Sega, reading, or waiting for the phone line. As much as there's a line
for the bathroom, there's even more of one for the phone, with at least
3 of us having brought laptops and everyone wanting to get jacked and
check their mail or news. Conversation takes place in a blend of
English, UNIX, DCL and other languages with everybody running a TLA
filter. Its very cool in that it really keeps you on your toes mentally.
Its not that we're all trying to be more-geek-than-thou, its just
that we're about 8 people who are all on the same level pretty much
and it just seems to be a more efficient way of communicating. In fact
there's almost a thirst and blessed relief about the place for the fact
that we can all talk and not have to follow up everything we want to
say with 5 minutes of explanation.
Food consists of a mixture of sugar and real stuff with Lucky Charms and
Pizza forming the two biggest staples. And there are some serious
appetites here. We end up making a food run at least once a day.
And not just for a few things, but serious grocerage. A couple 24s of
Coke and Diet Coke, more poptarts, more popcorn, donuts, chips,cereal,
and since we've got a couple bucks left lets splurge on some fruit and
veggies...
Saturday I get Keith to go back to SF with me to pick up some parts
for my skates. He and I wander around Japantown, pop into a few bookstores
and I resist from spending mself any more into debt than I have, get
some Chinese dumplings and a couple skate wheels and an axle or two and
head back. Sunday I return to the skate shop, loiter for a few and then
strap on my skates and head over to Golden Gate Park. On weekends they
close the majority of the park to traffic and let anything human on
wheels take over. I'm leaving day after tomorrow so I definitely wanted
to check this out..
*EVERYBODY* is. If its human powered and its got wheels, its
there. Roller skates, Inlines, skateboards thrashing and doing stuff off
railings and statues in the park and rollerskis and snakeboards and
just a ton of people on a ton of wheels. I start grinding across this
set of stairs across the street from this museum and there's this girl
there watching me. She's sitting on this stone railing post and keeps
looking at me and out into space all at the same time. She looks just
like the girl on the beach in Barton Fink, both in looks and the way
she's sitting there. Its all too surreal so I of course have to go
up to her and say "Are you in pictures?" She turns over and looks at me
with this really bizarre stare that says she obviously hasn't seen the
movie and I go back to my curbing. I can't help it...life and art collide
and bleed into each other too much for me to even NOT consider saying
it. I can't resist a perfectly set up scene like this....
(End note: Yes I did go to the Haight, but you've probably already been
there and so has everybody else's 'zine so I'm not going to waste your
time on stuff you've heard countless time before.)
Contacts:
Interop Company:
erose@interop.com
480 San Antonio Road
Mountain View, Ca. 94040-1219
SIGGRAPH 94 Student Volunteer Program
401 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611 USA
students.s94@siggraph.org
---------------------------Newsfroups----------------------------------------
alt.society.generation-x
I still haven't made up my mind here..There's lots of boomer vs. X-er flaming
going on, lots of whining, but there's also some cool stuff. There is a good
number of users on here who are trying to fight through the flames and say
"We know everything's fucked up, so what are we going to do about it?"
As much as I hate to admit it, I feel
vaguely at home here, mostly 'cause
I know the crowd. Recent threads have been running on doing the Suburban
Family Thing As an X-er, Who's X and who's not, Why MTV sucks, X philosophy
and books, etc. It worth at least a pass through to judge for yourself, but
the volume can be overwhelming.
alt.drugs.caffeine
Pretty much what you'd expect, although a lot more chemistry and science
stuff going on here than you might think. These people take their caffeine
in ALL forms very seriously. Lots of requests for the caffeine GIF,
but not as much screwing around or lame "Can somebody send me the FAQ"o
postings as you might expect from a single-subject group such as this..
I'll give it a claw up.
alt.skate-board
Grab your plank and throw on your baggies and hit the 'crete with this group.
A decent, high signal-to-noise group that has a small, but devoted readership
with lots of worthwhile articles. What surprised me most was the lack of
'tude on here. Every time somebody has tried to start a flame fest on here
it usually dies quickly, cycled out by a moderate but consistent flow of
articles on boards, who's skating for what team, scene reports, busts, etc.
alt.geek
Back again for the second issue, I have to plug these guys again
as a really cool geeky hangout. CAK, Bear, Dana and other geeks
are the perfect net.crowd to hang with if you're taste in convo
runs along the lines of whether the bit in TRON was truly a bit
(it had a quiescent state besides just simply YES or NO) ,
why there aren't all that many female geeks out there and how
to encourage them, first computer-use stories and other stuff.
comp.graphics.algorithms
Groups like this are USENET in micro. Lots of very useful stuff, much of it
esoteric and unfathomable to Joe User, but if you HAVE to have the absolute
best and up-to-the-second FFT or bump-mapping algorithm, this is the
place to ask. Lots more questions than answers as one might expect,
but poke around a bit and you'll find some cool stuff.
dc.music
Sort of local clearinghouse for info on the DC music scene ranging from
WolfTrap and K-Center type stuff to Jazz, Indie, Reggae, Indie & DIY shows.
Everybody shows up here basically. Low volume, mostly 'cause its really new
, but all it needs is a few good posters..
Karma Lapel
This has got to be done by a fellow English Major or something. Actual real
literary criticism and reviews of stuff which go well beyond the usual
"It was a stone groove my man" or "totally rad" type comments you see in
'zines . But its not pretentious, much as the above desc may make it
sound. And they actually have someone who does real artwork for them too.
Cool!, made me want to start scribbling on the pages of #5 before I sent
it out, but I just wanted to get it done so I passed and settled for
doodling across the cover a little more. The fact that Heath, their
editor dude, gave AC a rather glowing review for #4 has of course,
nothing to do with the fact that I liked his a lot too.
Format:Hardcopy
Contact:
Net:hrow@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
Snail: Heath PO Box 5467
Evanston IL 60204-5267
Wired
Wow, a slick-but-not-slick "new-edge"-zine thats about tech and the net
and new geek toys and other stuff, but which doesn't insist on casting
it all in the typical "cyberpunks are so ]<ool D00Dz" mold. Kind of like
Mondo, but with a brain. Yes, there is the obligatory VR-sex article,
yes there was the Logitech ad, but there's some pretty cool stuff in
here too. And they actually DIS a lot of the tech too as useless marketing
ploys, instead of praising it all from on high just because it comes in a
matte black box with chrome plastic edging. If Mondo is the "Vogue" or
"People" of hardcopy netmags, Wired is at least "US News&World Report".
ICS Information-Communication-Supply
Interesting netzine with real, original, multipart short fiction
with a decided angle towards what I call "gaming fiction". As in
it sounds like these guys play a lot of RPGs. Which isn't bad,
just kind of predictable sometimes. There is also usually a couple
articles on the sociological or political aspects of the net as a
tutorial or two on using things like FTP, Gopher, WAIS, etc.
And unlike a lot of "cyberzines", they don't get in your face
or try to impress you with how jacked they are...
Format:Net
Contact:ORG_ZINE@WSC.COLORADO.EDU
William Wants a Doll
A Grrrrrlll 'zine thats not 'tudinal nor pissed at the "other half of
the world", but doesn't knuckle under either. And she's not as stuck up
about the net as a lot of punk 'zines either...
#2 came with some cheap earrings, articles on 25 things you can
do with a boy, a slacker's guide to Baltimore and other stuff...
#3 has her interviewing her family members, an expose' on her summer
intership with Sassy and how she became the disillusioned youth
that she is today based on that corporate experience, stuff on
TeeVee Luv, etc. What really impressed me about this was the amount of
effort and attention that it Arielle puts in to each issue. In a
sea of cut-and-paste I'll-rip-the-balls-off-the-next-man-who-looks-at-me
GRRRL 'zines, WWAD stands out as a refreshing, different, more positive
expression of girl power. There are also clips from "Free To Be, You and Me",
a '70s kids book about breaking gender roles and uniqueness, which I remember
really liking a lot as a young 'dillo and which seems to form the core of
WWADs philosophy. Arielle seems to be aiming at the newly-adolescing as well
as college-age female while trying to reach guys too and manages to hit all
three pretty squarely.
Format:hardcopy
Contact:berg@brick.purchase.edu
or
Arielle Greenberg
105 Patton Blvd.
New Hyde Park, NY. 11040
Tabula Rosa
Flashback to your past and Saturday mornings spent on the floor watching
RoadRunner cartoons and Land of The Lost and "Those meddling kids" munching
Super Sugar Crisp or Froot Loops with this one. I'm not usually one for
childhood nostalgia stuff, but TR reminded me that one of childhoods
principle elements is sugar, so that cured a good chunk of that problem.
The other part was cured by also reminding me that the other major half
of it involves large amounts of being a little hellian whenever possible.
#1 had childhood breakfast stories in it, while #2 focused on family
vacations and field trip disasters, something else I could get into given
the number of 14 hour trips to Northern Mi. I endured as a kid....
Format:Hardcopy
Contact:
Bill Roussel
PO Box 6
Ancramdale, NY. 12503
Alien Relay
(#6 sent for review)
Yeah, I know, everybody does their reviews in Alpha order, but I do them in
the order in which they pop into my head. So there, Deal with it Pink Boy!
But I digress....
Lots of scanned in graphics and clip art with gothic and cyberpunk like
stories, poems and fugues pasver top of these images or over top
magnified copies of themselves. Most of the longer stuff is kind of cool
and I did like the one "interview" with a city sanitation worker a la
"Soylent Green". But AR seems to be suffering from a lack of self-esteem
of sorts. It spends too much time trying to look like others and trying to
to be a 'pro forma' gothic C-punk zine. This has possibilities if the
editor would let it be itself instead of everybody else...
Contact:
Jacob Pickard
2776 North Wiel Street,
Milwaukee WI. 53212
Withering Snout:
The thing about this is that the parts that V. slams most about her
'zine are the parts I kind of liked the most. What can I say?---It appeals
to the smartass in me. I particularily liked the zine rating system she
devised which can be approximated as sort of like a narrative version of
the USENET Erland ratings system smashes into a top ten list taking them
both through a plate glass window into Phyllis Richmans lap....or something
like that... Also cool stuff is a thing on how *NOT* to get a summer job at
Matador records. Various scribblings and epithets hurled along the side
which make her sound like she could pass as Dr. Clayton Forrester's
alter-gender-ego. Take that as you wish "my little tatterdemalions.." :)
Format:Hardcopy
M. Vischmidt
90-11 35th Ave. #3N
Jackson Heights. NY 11372
Chuck:
The 'zine that proclaims itself to be half chicken/half duck and certainly
all travails and adventure in the Northern Ca. suburbs. It reads kind of like
combat notes from suburban hell, which aside from sounding really cool I have
absolutely no clue what use or meaning that phrase has. But I digress again.
#1 had this cool Anarchy Man sticker inside it that I really liked a lot
but then somebody else liked it 'cause they ripped it from my car, along
with stuff on monster truck rallys and why to avoid them, why Chef's
Hat boxing is like sex, a pico-bio on Charles "Chuck" Mingus, King of
Cunnilingus, Occupational Poetry, and other stuff.
#2 is to be commended for its "Kitty Activity Corner" amongst other things
in which the author shows how your cat can become Totoro in just a couple
easy steps.
$2 to:
CHUCK
Mike Woolridge
PO Box 6623
Concord, CA. 94524
Derogatory References
(#76 sent for review)
I was kind of put off by the title of this when I first got it in that
it seemed a more than a little self-referential and I was right.
Basically a journal of literary, musical, and cinematic criticism and
philosophical opinion written in installments over the period July-Nov. '93
There is a significant chunk of stuff on the author's own journey through
substance abuse recovery and DR seems to be part of that recovery. For that
I will commend Mr. Hlavaty, but beyond that it seemed to degenerate into
art-critic type musings and I could picture a sort of John Houseman-like
character making commentary. The mental stuff surrounding recovering I could
have related to given my own psychotic period of a few years ago, but
as I just said, that was a couple years ago, so I could identify but
it didn't really take hold.
Format: Net<free> and Hardcopy<$1>
USnail:
Arthur D. Hlavaty
206 Valentine St.
Yonkers NY. 10704-1814.
Net:hlavaty@panix.com
Epicenter Records:
If you go nowhere else in San Francisco, you *HAVE* to go here. Not really
so much a record store as it is a punk resource and community center, every
town should have a place like this. Occupying the upper floor of a rowhouse
in SF, Epicenter is home to a record store, two labels stuffed in around
the side, a grafitti wall which invites scribbling, an art space, a
mini-library and probably still has enough space left over to hold a small
show(does anybody knoe if they do this or not?). The art space had a women's
art exhibit in it when I was there, and the staff was pretty cool(they even
opened up the back and dug around for about 10 minutes to find me a shirt),
esp. the one female with many piercings who also happened to be a DC ex-pat.
Totally punk/indie/DIY, with not a Nirvana nor Pearl Jam CD to be seen
for miles. :) A well-stocked 'zine/book section to boot.
Location:
476 Valencia St. San Francisco, Ca.
Dharma Coffehouse
(University Dr. in Fairfax, right behind Planet Nova)
The coffeehouse craze has finally seeped into Fairfax with this place.
Its has the knack of being a scene and a coffeehouse without trying
to be forced about it like ZigZag or some of the others downtown.
Which isn't to say its totally free of pretention, but its not as
bad as it could be. In a place which is basically one big huge strip
mall that likes to pretend its a city, Dharma stands out as an island
of welcome Bohemia. Pick-up jam sessions, chess/card games, etc. abound.
Food & drink is pastries, biscotti, coffees and Italian Sodas and cheap.
Highly recommended is the half double decaffeinated half-caf with a
twist of lemon(Just kidding Heather :) ).
The Black Cat
14th & S NW, D.C.
Wow!...you mean DC is actually OPENING a performance space instead of
just closing another one?---Whoa...heavy concept....
And not a bad place either. :)
*BIG* floor by DC standards and a nice sizable stage too along with pool,
a food place attached next door and bar along the side. I've been there
a couple times and its pretty cool. Bands that have played there in
recent months have been Tilt, WOD, The whole Simple Machines Working Holiday
thingy, Jawbreaker, Hoover, Trusty, Jawbox and others...
Its certainly no DC Space and not as big as say St. Stephen's, but it will
do and is a much preferred alternative to another show at the 9:30 club.
---------------------------Music---------------------------------------------
Shows:
Artless: Mykel Board is a maniac. Very cool, Anti-PC band with an
equally cool lyric book they were handing out at the GLOV
show. Surprisingly, given the pretensions some of the other
bands there, I'd have to say they were the most PUNK band there
of all.
Pansy Division:
Also at the GLOV benefit, SFs premiere queer punk band didn't do much
for me. I mean they were talented, but seemed to be a lot more straight
middle-of-the-road rock than anything resembling hardcore. Maybe it
was that it was the night before The March and the 'tude they were
wearing, but "Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar" left me underwhelmed..
Jawbreaker:
Totally awesome. They embody all the reasons I got into and
like punk. Very uplifting, energizing, solid power punk out of the
Bay Area. The rhythms and hooks and words, all get under my skin and tingle....
Some people say they are already or will soon be sellouts but I still like
them.
Bivouac ranks as one of 'dillos top 10 albums for '93.
Slackers
Good, upbeat, more on the traditional side of ska with some jazz thrown
in and an occasional drum solo, The Slackers were probably my favorite
band at the DC Ska Fest '93. True to their name, they didn't have anything
out when I saw them although they were working on it. They were cool
enough to hang around with me for about an hour and talk about the New
York scene and how it pretty much sucks and how punk up there has devolved
into hip-hop mostly.(Hey, they said it not me..)
Juliana Luecking:"She's Good People"
I've been a Juliana fan since her "So fuckin' perfec" days and loved
her spoken word stuff when she was here last spring, and liked "She's
Good People" a lot, even though being a straight white male, I didn't
get big chunks of it. Still I was cracking up over "Cleavage, Cleavage"
and "The Perfect Lesbian Bar" and "Trust Stevie" sounds like such a
cool party...
On Kill Rock Stars
120 NE State St. #418, Olympia Wa. 98501
Groundwork:
Saw these guys in August at the Nocturne with Iconoclast. Native Nod was
supposed t have been there, but they broke up a couple days before...
Their "Living in Fear" single comes highly recommended as a good couple
tracks of pounding, pour-your-soul-on-the-floor liberative hardcore and
some neat anarchist anti-consumerism prose on the sleeve.
I talked to Brendan after the show and got his opinion on Angst.
Armadillo Culture : I've got a question for you...
Brendan:Okay....
AC:Would you say that Tucson is the Angst capital of the universe?
Brendan:Let me say this: Tucson is the shithead capital of the universe,
starting with us..
AC:Really?
Brendan:Yeah...its pretty bad..have you ever been there?
AC:Yeah, I was out there last summer visiting a friend, and the one thing
that I think really struck me about it was that it wouldn't be a good place
to walk around drunk 'cause you'd probably end up impaled on a cactus or
something...
Brendan:Oh yeah...definitely....definitely. I dunno, its okay...its okay,
its just got a lot of fake culture...fake people..
AC: Kind of like they think its a happenin' place but it really isn't?
Brendan:Well, you see Tucson is just like this massive vortex, this massive
hole. Once you've been there for about two years, you're doomed. There's
no escape. It just sucks in things, people, and they never leave. It'll
get everything someday...
AC:Oh no!...she's been there for about 4 or so. She just graduated from U of
A.
Brendan:God, I'm sorry man....she's doomed. <grins> Just like us,
we're doomed too. There's just no escape.
Albums/Tapes/CDs/punch tape (joke :) )
The Monomen:
Crunchy, crashy, noise surf rock, The Monomen remind me kind of a less
polished Pixies minus Francis' lungs. Given largely instrumental tracks
with simple but catchy surf garage riffs and threads, The Monomen are
the kind of music you crank out of your car and full volume and jam to
at the stoplight without caring who's watching. Two claws up!
On Estrus Records, POB 2125 Bellingham, Wa. 98227
The Dambuilders: Candyguts
These guys put me in that interesting position of recognizing a talented
band but nevertheless not liking them. Clear, plucky indie-pop guitar
rhythms with a violin tagging along close behind and some good pop
lines make this a well done single, but I'm going to contest the default
Indie-L assertion that the DamBuilders are totally the shit. I think its
that its too soft, mellow, muted for my tastes and that violin is almost
screechy in parts...sorry
On Salient
The Swirlies: Brokedick Car
Okay, laugh, point fingers, kick me out of whatever punk "boyz club" you
want, but I have to admit that I have a true weakness for a female-led
indie rock "lala" type music .
They're hard to pin down musically. Thoughts of the Pastels, Superchunk,
Magnetic Fields, and My Bloody Valentine all float through my head when
I try to describe these guys to people. On this particular offering we
have 5 tracks(although one is a slightly funkified, electrified mix of
a previous track). Seana's voice is especially good on the first cut,
"The wrong tube", and the 2nd track "Labrea" provides a kind of weird
impressionistic instrumental departure from the typical indie fuzz pop
that characterizes the rest of the album and the "House of Pancake" mix
of "pankcake Cleaner" stuck in my head for days. Overall, its like hard
candy stuck on a tooth. You know its not good for you to have it sitting
there but it tastes too good to not just dissolve it and savor it by
running your tongue over it.
Pennywise: Unknown Road
Some kind of cool (dare I say the word) mersh-punk, sounding a lot like
Bad Religion and meaning to and being quite good at it too. I mostly think
its that Toronto thing 'cause there's something here that makes them
not a total BR ripoff but kind of their own sound too. It would be hard
for Pennywise to miss commercial success with this. They have just enough
of the formula mixed in there with themselves in there to make it work...
On Epitaph.
Trenchmouth:"Construction of New Action:First there was movement"
JazzPunkFunk thats got a deep groove you can move, skank or head-bob to,
usually all in one song, Trenchmouth mixes percussive attacks and
top-of-the-lungs vocals with bouncy, funky,jazzy, spirally music.
Particular favorites are "Oxygen Gum", "History" and "Siberia".
On Skene!
PO Box 4522 Saint Paul, MN. 55104
The PieTasters:
I will chalk my semi-dis of them last issue up to bad karma and having
seen them play in only a couple rather lame venues in Fairfax.
When placed in the appropriate clime/club however, they are quite cool.
The were great with the Pickles this summer, brought the house as well as
the DCFD down at the DC ska fest in August, and were pretty tight the couple
times I saw them this fall. A local Va. band, they place a sort of rock ska,
fast paced, given to long horn and drum solos which tend to detonate into
the full force of a ten-piece ska band skankin' it out at maximum volume.
CD out now called simply "The Pietasters" as well as a previous tape called
"All you can eat". This plus their earlier 7" "Ska-rumptious" make a cool
meal...
On Slugtone!
3323 Wessynton Way
Alexandria, Va. 22309
Checkered Cabs
Probably *THE* best "traditional" local ska band around, these guys are
a show not to be missed, playing a lot of Specials/Madness/Selecter-influenced
early '80s type ska. They tend to play a lot with either the Pietasters
and Skunks and seem to frequent 15 minutes mostly but I've also seen them
at the 9:30. I like their cover of "Carry Go Bring Come" especially.
Unfortunately, they're slacks and don't have anything out yet.
Operation Ivy Compilation CD
If you don't have any Ska in your collection or any CDs period, you should
own this. Its that good. Really. 27 tracks of just about everything OpIV
put out on one CD makes for some of the best punk/ska music I've ever heard.
Totally cool guitar work with heavy drums and ardent, desperate, impassioned
screamed vocals makes you just want to break out and start pogo-ing or
slamming or doing whatever wherever you are.
Put this down and go write to:
Lookout Records PO BOX 11374 Berkeley Ca 94701
to get a copy.
Simple Machines ---The Machines 1990-1993
"The Machines" is a collection of the 7 original 7" comps that SM put
out from 1990-1993 as part of its "Simple Machines" collection.
Everbody is here. Geek, Autoclave, Nation of Ulysses, Circus Lupus,
Juliana Luecking, Bricks and even a few bands that are still around like
Tsunami, Superchunk, Velocity Girl and Jawbox. As the singles are layed
out in chrono order, the disc serves not only as a collection, but also
as a chronology of sorts as to what was going on in the DC indie
scene at that point. If you missed some or all of these when they came
out on vinyl a couple years ago, here's your chance to redeem yourself.
Simple Machines
po Box 10290 Arlington, Va. 22210-1290
Blue Meanies: Pave the World
What ska, jazz, hardcore,pirate drinking songs, and standup
comedy have to do with each other can be best described by whats on this
6-track CD from The Blue Meanines. A mixture of ska,punk,funk, parody and
general goofing off make this one to put right next to my Pickles and
Raymond and Peter CD. On NO!
Raymond And Peter:Shut Up Little Man!
And speaking of which, we have the two golden boys themselves.
Raymond and Peter are(were, Raymond is dead) two welfare cases in SF who
loved to hate each other as evinced in large block letters, underlined,
asterisked, and boldfaced in glowing neon on this CD, which consists of
their harangues, monologues, threats, epithets and calling of plagues
down upon each other.
"Shut Up Little Man" is 36 tracks of their antics including such gems as
"The Crucifixion of Dinner", "Toenails", & "Queers always giggle falsely"
Its hard not to feel somewhat guilty about totally getting off on such hate
and obvious suffering, but on the other hand its also hard not to admire true
true artists who excel in their craft.
Available as tape, comic, CD or even Macintosh screensaver from:
Tedium House
POB 424762 San Francisco Ca.94142
Include SASE
--------------------------Roll Credits!!-------------------------------------
Look, its done okay?
Over, fini, terminus, end, EOF, EOI, NO CARRIER, ABEND, Connection closed
by foreign host, outta here, 86, casper, GET IT!?!?!?!???!!!!!!
I'm out of here. I'm going to go print this out, take it over to Kinkos
and get it duped for the hardcopy issues and then go grab myself a double
quintuple Mocha with an espresso bean chaser at Dharma. I deserve it....
And while I'm there, if you hang out over in the back corner, you might catch
me whispering the following:
Eric Boesch did the tongue angst piece.
Jenea Boshert did the "Hannah" story (jboshart@husc.harvard.edu)
Thanks to:
Linus Torvalds for doing the Linux interview
Brendan for taking a few to do the Groundwork interview with me...
AC Staff Pro-tem:
Lije : Editing and Format Bitch
Eric Mills: Minister of Groovelocity and Pranks as well as assistant editing.
(emills@mason1.gmu.edu)
I did the 'zine/newsgroup/music reviews and also the Caffeine/Sugar thing as
well as the CyberVolunteers article.
------------------Submissions,Dominations, and other family fun-------------
Submissions: yes, have some. Send me stuff, pretty much anything really.
reviews, letters, opinion stuff, high-weirdness-by-mail type stuff, art,
shows you saw, scene reports, etc. I'll send you back a copy of the past
couple ones I've done including the one I put yours in.
Send to:
USnail:
Armadillo Culture
2857 Foxmill Rd. Herndon, Va. 22071
Net:
sokay@cyclone.mitre.org
If you're at a show in DC or thereabouts and you see a guy with long
brown hair wearing a photographer's vest(has about 20 pockets on it)
glasses(and possibly an AC t-shirt), thats probably me. Come up
and say hi, I don't bite.
FTP sites:
etext.archive.umich.edu
This is an anonymous FTP site.
GIFS: I am experimenting with scanning in photos I've taken at some
shows. the fruits of this effort have been uploaded to the FTP site.
The GIF of this issue's cover is there also. If you do not have FTP
access, mail me and I'll get them to you, but *PLEASE* try to get them
via FTP/Mosaic/Gopher/WAIS.
Shirts:
Its true!...now you can have your very own AC T-shirt,
lovingly silkscreened onto a 100% cotton shirt. They're
hip, they're happenin' and they're pretty damn cheap too!
The design is an armadillo surrounded by various 'zines, flyers,
45s, empty caffeine units,pop tarts,etc. hacking on his terminal
and the words "Armadillo Culture" across the top. The back has
the 'Cool Tunes, Fast Compilers, Cheap Caffeine" slogan on it.
$8 covers the cost of the shirt and my getting it back to you..
And don't forget to give me your size either...
Wing your cash or checks(made out to Steve Okay)
to:
Armadillo Headquarters
2857 Foxmill Rd. Herndon, Va. 22071
Attn:The Toiling Masses in our sweatshop
