(> We Are Legion <) gj 9 jhk k 78 645 kg jk7 hj 0 5 0 4 iuk 5 5456 55 5 5 5 5 5 5555 S 5 555555 S S S S S SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS S S '' '' S S ` , , ' S S ,, ,, S SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HEY, BOZZ MAN! Sorry but all controls are shiftin, man...shiftin! You're on your own down there. Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa= aK! . . . . . . WELCOME!TO!PIGDOG!PIGDOG!PIGd\ 010101 10 01 00 11 011101 11 11 01 0100 00101 1010 0100 01 00 10 01 11 11 10 11 10 00 01 10 1011 11101 1010 1001 10 11 1001 0001 (ugly graphic by Ratsnatcher) ONLINE Let='s start over again, shall we? Welcome to PIGDOG ONLINE mail: =tjames@netcom.com=ror@netcom.com BBS: The PolySpock Project (510.524.3649 -- HST Dual Standard) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ISSUE ONE: November 1993 Contents 1. Introduction 2. The Cop Car's Life (story by Zach's little brother, Charlie (8)) 3. Powerful Paul searches for useful vision accessories. 4. A short but stirring piece by bakunin@mit.ai.gnu.edu 5. (Review) TOOL, by Flesh 6. Venemous Anti-Windows Rumblings in the Masses! 7. Cheap Cigarettes -- TJM's 1st Annual Review 8. Ratsnatcher=D5s Review of IBM-PC BBS Systems (1) INTRODUCTION (or: All my Life I've Been CRAZY!) By Tjames Madison, Editor, Pigdog Journal Pigdog Lite, I was thinking of calling this...but something stopped me. This is the way we used to do these things. Back...back in the days before even LASER PRINTERS existed! Crazy! We had a little thing called THE RAT MANUAL...it had something to do with the lamented RATHEAD BBS, which is sort of now PolySpock Project, but not really, because nothing ever stays the same. A little history lesson might be in order. 1987 or thereabouts: Zach Copley, of Berkeley, CA, gets a piece of shit 8086 for Christmas. His parents are PROGRAMMING FOOLS and once started one of the very first COMPUTER CAMPS in the world, for Apple II computers, back in the 70s. Zach possesses all the Secret Knowledge he could ever need about programming Apple computers, but something about Bulletin Board Systems intrigues him. It just drives him CRAZY that he can open up a little world for people to come visit and fill it with his own EVIL PURPOSES. About all he can do with his PC is run Edlin and Basic, so he finds some BBS software and runs it through the internal 2400 baud modem and all of a sudden comes into existence: RATHEAD BBS. Zach soon becomes utterly INSANE and changes his name to RATSNATCHER. 1988-89: Things grow at an impressive pace. The BBS, now called RATHEAD SYSTEMS, helps found a burgeoning neo-anarchic computer network in the San Francisco Bay Area, NIRVANAnet, with Jeff Hunter of & TEMPLE OF THE SCREAMING ELECTRON (&TOTSE, for short), based in Walnut Creek. Others in NIRVANAnet include Dr. Strangelove and Just Say Yes in San Francisco, and Mick Freen and Burn This Flag in San Jose. RATHEAD becomes a Fidonet node, in addition to being a Telegard Beta Site, and soon Ratsnatcher finds himself with well over 2000 users. 1990: Ratsnatcher, along with DOCTOR MURDOCK, sysop of THE HOLLOW ALLIANCE in Richmond and RABID LIBERAL, a Rathead co-sysop, start an electronic publication called the RAT MANUAL, which contains filthy pseudo-hippie droolings and other cool stuff, and instructions on how to make illegal drugs out of common household chemicals, among other things. Two editions are published before Murdock and Ratsnatcher drink too much cheap beer one night and decide to publish a magazine, to be called PIGDOG JOURNAL. Not much happens for the rest of the year. The Persian Gulf explodes, and NirvanaNet experiences its craziest period ever, averaging hundreds of messages per day and helping to disseminate information on protest marches and other War propaganda. 1991: Early in the year I agree to help edit Pigdog, since I'm the only one anyone can find who has any real-life publishing experience. The staff gets good practice at missing deadlines and the first issue (20 pages, xeroxed, black and white cover) is released in July. 1992: Zach moves to Oregon to attend the U of O, and breaks ties with NirvanaNet, citing "philosophical differences." Also, they thought we were CRAZY. Rathead also drops its Fido status and is no longer a TG Beta Site. The board runs on fumes for several months, guided by the tremulous hand of QUAKER STATE TAPIOCA, Pigdog stalwart, and Zach=D5s Berkeley roommate SPECIAL ED WARD. Eventually Rathead DIES, and the DISCONNECTION REJECTION SOUND is heard emanating from 524-3649, causing millions of worried users to walk around in slow, sonorous circles, scratching their heads. The board is revived later in the year as THE POLYSPOCK PROJECT, as Zach returns from Oregon and sets up new Tag software on Special Ed hand-built 486/33 system. An HST Dual Standard modem is acquired, and things begin to rock again. Pigdog carries on; Issue #2 is released in early Summer. It features a totally bald Special Ed on the cover, and it weighs in at 24 pages. Cover price: $2. 1993: Work is begun on a totally revamped Pigdog #3. Heavy machines are acquired. High technology is employed. Work is stalled shortly thereafter due to complete Internet addiction. Zach purchases a Very Fast Computer, a 486/66, and puts strange Unix software on it. We make many color images and print them out at great cost. Meetings are scheduled and lots of beer is consumed. Finally, Pigdog #3 appears in November, after two frantic all-nighter sessions at Kinko's. The public acclaims it. Work on #4 is already underway. This is where we are right now. Pigdog is 32 pages long, professionally-printed, with a stitched color cover. It can be ordered by sending $3 to: PIGDOG, 1563 Solano Avenue, Box 248, Berkeley, CA 04707. This history is imperfect...I'm sitting here with ALL the doors and windows open, and it=D5s 40 degrees outside...I'm wearing leather gloves with the fingers cut out of them, and I'm wearing a big black trenchcoat with a leather jacket underneath it. So...this history is imperfect. I think I'll get some more coffee. Yes, I think that's what I'll do.... RoR TJM San Francisco 24 November, 1993 (2) THE COP CAR'S LIFE Psychopunk Fiction by CHARLIE COPLEY, Age 8 Hey, my little brother wrote this story for Pigdog. I'm not saying we should put it in, but please put it on the Pigdog mailing list. The Cop Car's Life ------------------ The cop cars were sitting around. Suddenly the alarm went on and the comptuer said 1816 Street-FIGHT! Three of the cop cars ran outside to their motorcycle and their short car, and they took off to 1816 Street. As soon as it got to 1816 Street they got out fo their vehicles and stopped the fight. They arrested the car that started the fight, and they took him away in the short car. As soon as they got back to the station, they went to the jail cells, and put the bad car into one of the cells. Then they came back out of the prison cells, and one of them said "there's nothing to do around here, not even anybody to arrest." And then the alarm went on again. And the computer said 1416, abandoned warehouse, Ato gang! One of the cop cars said that is the worst gang in the entire city. All of them ran outside to their vehicles. One got in the prison van, one got in the short car, one got on the motorcycle, and one got in the cop car and they all raced to 1416 Street, abandoned warehouse. One of the gang members said "Hey, there's the cops!" And the boss looked out the window, and saw there were cops, and he said, "Prepare your battlestations! The cops are here." And they started a gun-fight. The End by Charlie HEY! FOUR EYES! Pathetic MEWLING by POWERFUL PAUL, Sysop, The Hollow's Alliance ...and I don't know why. It isn't even vaguely interesting and it goes nowhere, but at least it'll prove that I wrote SOMETHING... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about getting contact lenses. I wore them about eight years ago, but after a few months I started feeling this terrible agony after I put them in my eyes. I knew something was wrong, because I normally only felt terrible agony WHILE I was putting them in my eyes. I went to an opthamologist, who sat me down in front of some really scary pieces of equipment and peered at my eye through a lens while wrapping my eyelid around a toothpick. I would have felt much more at ease if he had wrapped my eyelid around the toothpick BEFORE looking through the lens, so that he could see what he was doing, but he didn't ask my opinion. To be honest, I would have felt much more at ease if he hadn't involved my eyelid in any procedure using a toothpick, but he's the one with the degree. Anyway, after staring through the lens and grunting a few times, he said, "You've got lots of little raised bumps on your eye, which means you probably had some kind of allergic reaction to something in the contacts or the liquid stuff you put them in." Actually, this was the third thing he said, but the first thing he said was something like, "There is a sizeable conglomeration of conical protruberances visible on your corneal epithelium, possibly indicative of an antigen-antibody response perpetrated cytologically by an element of the corrective lenses which you have been utilizing or the isotonic solution in which they are periodically immersed, in conjunction with the tissue around your retina," and I had to talk him down a couple stages before he made any sense. Apparently speaking this way is popular in the medical profession, or any profession whose practitioners are required to have pieces of paper with lots of Latin words on them framed on the wall. So that was the end of my life as a contact-lens wearer. I went back to the opthamologist a few times so he could check on the progress of my reaction, and to remove the toothpick, but it didn't go away for a year (the reaction, not the toothpick) and I began to suspect that he was just leading me on. This is probably an unfair suspicion, since he couldn't have been charging me more than three hundred dollars a visit, and besides, he called me by my first name. Since that time, I've been wearing glasses. Wearing glasses isn't so bad, except for the fact that when you're not wearing them you may as well be blind and the fact that everyone assumes you're a geek. But people tell me that I would look better without glasses. They may be right, but all I can see when I look at myself without glasses is a pink blur. A very striking pink blur, but not GQ cover material. Apparently contacts are also very useful when playing sports. This is a strong argument, since I have a very active sports life, sometimes even when the TV is off. But the best argument of all was just given me by a friend: "Try it. You might like it." So now I have to figure out the details. I have to go to an opthamologist's office. I have to explain to the receptionist that I'd like to make an appointment to discuss contact lenses. I have to listen to the receptionist snicker when I turn around to leave while she's thinking, "He probably thinks he'll look more MACHO without glasses." Then I have to talk to the doctor about them. The doctor would never snicker at me behind my back, at least. They save that for cocktail parties. Then I have to pay for them. And then I can go back to wearing them. This part I don't like. I remember putting my contacts in far better than I remember ever actually wearing them, because it was a very traumatic experience. At least until I'd done it so much that all the nerve connections between my eye and the pain centers in my brain had been fried out from overuse. And I remember not being able to rub my eyes, because the contact might get lost somewhere in my head and wind up blocking my eardrum or something. And I remember the humiliation of searching around on my hands and knees with one eye scrunched shut while other people looked at me and clutched their children away. In fact, I really don't remember anything good about having contacts. Never mind. I'll stick with glasses. I may not like it, but it sure is easier. WOOD YOU BELIEVE? A Strange and Frightening Parable, by bakunin@mit.ai.gnu.edu (Michael Bakunin) Now, I am at work and beyond braindead. So, we have two choices. One, Mister Big Nose gets into Pigdog. I think it's high time. Whom do I send it to? [it must be sent for Mister Big Nose is DRAWN, drawn I say, but usually not quartered]. Two, you put what follows in, and that I recommend against, but if you must, cut here -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was one of those little nylon ropes. I thought it looked somewhat suspicious, standing there at the bar with those hoodlum physicists, but what did I care. I had a beer in my hand, a good beer, a beer that tromples on your tastebuds as it goes down, and gives your epiglottis a mean kick for even considering the gratuitous use of alliteration to describe its swath down your throat. So, I was in a good mood when that lazy, good-for-nothin' rope meandered on over. The thin red piping in its nether knots seemed to bode ill, but what did I care. Did I mention I had a beer in my hand? I did? Good. I've become increasingly worried about my memory lately, increasingly worried by the fact that I meet people who are naggingly familiar, whom I point to, whom I nudge, who turn around and say, you know, like, "Hi, dad!" I love that. So there the rope sways, probably allowing itself to be slowly dissolved in an illicit bevatorn somewhere, I think, probably enjoying it a lot though, I ponder, and take another swig of beer, wincing as it kicks my epiglottis again for good measure. The rope just sways. "Have a beer?" I ask hopefully, but it just sways. Well, that about all I can take, so I grab a great big knife from between my date's shoulders, and start to fray the bottom of the rope, muttering madly, muttering madly as the little red piping dances before my eyes as it drifts glinting to the floor, muttering madly as my date bleeds into her empty beer [and who emptied it? who else!], muttering the only thing that makes sense anymore: "I'm a frayed knot! I'm a frayed not! Hahahahahaha!!" (_I'm just _afraid_ -- ed._) TOOL -- Undertow Some Call it Music, by FLESH (flesh@wps.com) Tool Undertow Zoo Entertainment Desperate situations come a dime a dozen. Because of one I ended up drunk on Southern Comfort, laying in a pool of my own vomit in the middle of Fisherman's Wharf. I didn't care what anyone thought of me, nor what happened to me. I was a few months past my nineteenth birthday. One year past how long I long I thought I would live. I was completely lost in the realization first time in my life, the only person that I was obligated to show any kind of responsibility to, was myself. And I didn't give a rat's ass about anyone or anything, and had no real reason to. The freeway to pure fucking id had been built, and showed no hope of closing down anytime soon. I received the Tool CD not too long ago. Previous exposure to the band, was a really disturbing claymation video for the song 'Sober' which left me with the feeling that the band was onto something. When I put the CD on, I discovered that it isn't a cd, it's an evil mind-program. The first song, 'Intolerance' opens with this strange noise I haven't been able to identify. The gurgling sound of air being forced down the drain, that has a rotting dead rat clogging it's pipes perhaps. I'm not sure. the exact sound is rather a moot point though. The WAY it's used is what's effective. The sound is set at such a low level, that it forces you to turn the volume up to hear it, in all of it's audio oozing. Ten seconds later, your ass is on the floor. Those three opening notes are right on top of you, driving a needle right into your skull. Right straight into your id. It's a sado-masochist's nightmare of the worst degree. The baddest acid trip you've ever flipped out on. The sound of jail doors slamming shut. The sight of a close family relative's falling pants, after they've just beaten you into submission. This isn't role playing. Shit, this is real. FUCKING GAD, THIS REAL, AND I AIN'T GETTING OUT OFF IT. Sure, at any time, you can get up, and turn the damn thing off. But it's like a really gory accident. You j u s t h a v e t o s e e, and I'm glad I did. Not since Lemmy decided that there was nothing wrong with attaching a small nuclear detonation device to his bass, has the bass been given the frontal attention it deserves. The whole album crawls through broken glass, spilt beer, and stale piss chanting over and over "You lie/cheat and steal/You lie/ cheat and steal." The nightmare of the whole song, is the simple realization that that bloody, scab covered thing crawling twards you...is you. Yep, it's you, crawling right up your leg screaming "No one's innocent!" You can feel a grip around your neck tightening But whoa there Jim-Bob, you ain't getting off that easy. No sirree. That was only stage one. One single song. There are ten tracks on this CD, not counting the untitled bonus track that sound as if it was lifted from Henry: A Portrait Of A Serial Killer. Did I mention the visual artwork that's included in the CD? Nope I didn't. Guess I better. The front cover is a surrealistic form that could either be fingers, or ribs. It's surrealistic, so you make your own judgements as to what the hell it is. To me, though, it's kind of a "he-he-he, wait until you see what we have inside for you. he-he-he." Opening it up, you see a pig, with the word "Undertow" shaved into it. It's surrounded by forks. The forks are all business end up, giving the appearance that the pig is impaled on the forks, and happy to be there. Further into the fold, we find the usual credits, right next to an x-ray picture of someone with a neon tube shoved up their rectum. Turn the page, and you'll find a nude picture of a very very obese person sleeping on black velvet. Is this person male? Female? Does it really matter? It doesn't. Because when you open up the fold again, you get the same person lovingly embracing a nude man. The two seem to be almost falling. Unfold one more time. Here we have pictures of the band members. before any Rock and roll band ever has picture taken of themselves, they should be forced to look at these band photos ala Clockwork Orange. There isn't any "rock-star" posing in these pictures. The photos are SO DAMN nightmarish, no words in the English language can even come close to describing them. They go perfectly with the music on the cd though, complimenting each other, in their own way. As an extra bonus, they included the picture that was subsequently banned as their album cover. A very grotesque cow liking it's anus. In order to see it, though, you have to figure out how to open up the back casing. This is just in case you skipped the above self-indulgent blather spewed forth above. In a nutshell, if Undertow isn't in your music collection, seek professional help. There's something wrong with you. HOT DOG STAND! I Hate Bill Gates! by RATSNATCHER (ror@netcom.com) [196/200] From: Ratsnatcher #1 To: Greg #25 Subject: Windog Date : 17 Nov 93 06:14 (C:\MIB\MSGS\MSG*.BBS #9032) > I've had to install windows on the system in order to run the OCR > software. I thought that maybe it would grow on me and I would learn > to > like it. No Fucking Way. I have the strangest things happen to stuff You mean you figured Windows might be ~okay~?? HAHAHAH!!!!!!! I had the same problem with Windows. I could never get used to it. It just continually fucked shit up and got in my way. I just hate it so much. They turned every application that I love into a Windows application... It's like the Frankenstein monster or something! I have yet to see a good Windows application. They ruined all the Mac applications...all the DOS applications, everything (sob...) Even Microsoft's own applications, the ones that were any good, have been fucking mutilated. Like Microsoft Word! It's just *great* on the Mac, although big, but the Windows version is positively SICK...SICK!!! I tell you!! ...and it even crashed on me once and wiped out zillions of hours of work. But the night that Windows crashed HORRIBLY when I changed video drivers, barfing error messages EVERYWHERE and then trashing it's own "*.ini" files, and *exploding* all of the application icons, I vowed NEVER to use it again. I just used DOS from that time on, until I could install a real OS on my computer. That's back when I didn't know about NEXTSTEP, and I was considering selling my 486 altogether...just to get Microsoft and Windows out of my life! Doctor Murdock says that until he went to OS/2, Windows would regularly just WIPE his whole harddrive for no good reason...randomly. And Windows comes with *stupid*, sickening, preset color combinations for its Desktop, such as "HotDog Stand"...weird shit like that. Then you just open Windows inside Windows inside Windows Inside Windows until you just throw the mouse against the WALL and reboot to get to the DOS command line. Windows makes me appreciate the DOS command line, and *that* is another Microsoft cruelty, only somewhat corrected by using the 4DOS command processor instead of COMMAND.COM. Microsoft has driven me to Unix, I tell you! But, I am proud to say that my computer is now completely Microsoft FREE. By the way... One time I selected HOT DOG for my Windows Color combination, and started working. Before long, I discovered that I HAD to put a jester hat on. I just had to... I can't explain why...and I went into the bathroom and put colored paints all over my face! And I had this stupid grin...and then I drank beer and just played Mindsweep for hours on end, listening to Alice Donut. TWOFER HEAVEN Cheap Smokes, by Tjames Madison (tjames@netcom.com) Clash of the Titans II: Battle of the Generics (or the Two For a Dollar Skirmish) In the last installment of this much-adored (and much-imitated) public service, I explored the long-simmering feud between Marlboro and Camel, with Marlboro coming out as the clear and obvious winner (thanks to all you fans who took the time to congratulate me on my innate wisdom and savvy. Thanks; it meant a lot). This time around, we turn our attention to the lower rung of the ladder, and take a look at the bargain cigarettes that have been breeding at a tremendous rate over the last few years. Raleigh, Viceroy, Bull Durham, Chesterfield...names from the past? Yes. But thanks to rising cigarette taxes and a belt-tightening recession, these are also brands which have risen from the dead, of late reincarnated as "value" purchases, finding new life flourishing in colorful plastic displays all over this great nation. "What's the difference?" you might ask; "they all cost a buck fifty. They must all taste the same." Aha, there you would be wrong, and let's see... why as we start off with: RALEIGH: This, like many of the cheap brands, is a RJ Reynolds product. Rumor has it that when RJR decided to pump steroids into Camel and make a run at Marlboro, this brand lost a close intercorporate struggle to become flagship brand for the ailing tobacco giant. Some consolation prize. Raleigh's never got any respect and they never will. Even though puff for puff they go longer, stronger and smoother than Camel, it will be another generation, if ever, before you see a cigarette called Raleigh retail for more than two bucks a pack (unless something insidious and totalitarian occurs with cigarette tax policy in the meantime). They come in several different sizes, shapes and flavors, including ultra-light and menthol (no menthol light, though). My favorite is the Raleigh =D2gold=D3 Light King, a compact instrument of coronary carnage. The buzz is slightly sweet, though not unpleasant, and the tobacco tastes, to my palate, significantly fresher than Camel. An ultra-bargain at $1.59 a pack (standard) and some $14 per carton (at certain warehouse stores), this smoke is undoubtedly your best buy possible. On a factored nicotine/taste/price scale, it would have to rank very near even Marlboro, though that says little when examining the high prices usually slapped on the Philip Morris flagship. VICEROY: Also known as "Viceboy" to fans of the old "Wacky Packages" collectible stickers. This cigarette sucks. It makes me physically ill and one time I even coughed up blood from smoking it. Quite possibly the worst single "standard" (not low-tar, not "womens", not menthol) cigarette in existence. Overpriced at a suggested $2.09 (and occasionally marked up from there), this can only be classified as a "desperation" buy. Avoid at all costs. BULL DURHAM: "In the old west, giving someone a Bull was a symbol of friendship," it says on the back of this relic from the American Tobacco Company. Apparently this brand was either in a fifty-year hibernation or limited to an area just outside of Wichita, Kansas until just a couple of years ago. Generally cheap, ($1.60, competitive with Raleigh), this is a reliable, though bland, purchase. It contains acceptable levels of tar to satisfy, and the nicotine factor is just high enough to settle habitual cravings. I can't recommend smoking it all the time, because I also can't recommend eating Big Bite Hot Dogs from Seven-Eleven, either, but it'll do in a pinch. Nevermind the ridiculous and hokey packaging...the cigarette itself is quite adequate. VANTAGE: Just saw these Phil Morris bungles making a comeback as a Twofer (Two-for-the-price-of-one). I bought it immediately and surprised myself by not remembering the stupid filter system they contain. It consists of a little, plastic hollowed out tube...the filter end of the cigarette actually contains a round hole...I am unclear how this is supposed to help filter out tar, but hey.... Not bad, really...just not very good, either. I'd still buy it before Viceroy. BRISTOL: Four stars. This little gem from PM was marketed extremely shabbily, and, I'd have to say, undeservedly. The taste is almost on par with Raleigh, and not far behind even Marlboro. I suspect this really is Marlboro tobacco, maybe the stuff that got left out in the sun a day too long or something. Extremely cheap. I've seen it on sale for an amazing $1.25, single pack and faithful...PM really needs to get on the ball and market this baby...quicklike. If you see it, buy it. BUCKS: Now here's a thoroughly mediocre buy. This was the inverse of Bristol: a PM cigarette given splashy marketing and even a halfway intriguing package design (a buck foraging in the wild, natch), but the quality, sad to say, is just not there. And neither is the nicotine. I personally have to smoke about three Bucks in a row to equal anything real. Also, after the introductory "bargain" period, has been overpriced, averaging around $1.75 per. Skip it. GPC, other Generics (Blue Box): Fairly horrible, but you get what you pay for. Still more pricey than Raleigh or Bristol, which induces head-scratching. Lots of people buy these things, for no good reason. I guess the idea of "generics" has become ingrained in American Consumer Culture as roughly equitable with "cheap." Not necessarily so. OTHERS: Lately I;ve seen True making a comeback. Too bad. Also, RJR is pushing Winston into the bargain category with its Winston Select, almost solely available as a Twofer. It's better than Camel, but.... American has also brought back some older names: Chesterfield is now available as a light, which is seen by some as a sign of the End Times. Also, Swisher Sweets, which I can't summon the courage to sample. Maybe next time. I'd get into the numerous menthol bargains around, but I'm saving that for... Next issue: In the Trenches With the Green Brigade: Menthols Strike Back. RATSNATCHER'S HATE FILLED EVIL MIND Review of Bad BBS Software, by RATSNATCHER THE SEARCH IS ON! Ok we're looking for new BBS software, so if you have something, upload it. We have a special directory set up for it, so you shouldn't have any problem. The problem is, that we hate TAG and we have to get rid of it right away because it makes the board look bad. That's just a fact. The support for TAG is almost non-existent, too. I have wasted almost $50 calling lame TAG beta sites. They wont help, and worse, they wont even let you on, even when you're a long distance called seeking help. They think the world should lick their cock. Well I say, chop it OFF. I know it doesn't have to be that way. We used to run a good Telegard Beta site here before Telegard went the way of the dinosaur, and I helped everyone. And it was no problem. So lets find something new... let's go. REJECTS: PowerBBS -- very lame Windows based system that has a confusing file and message base. The look and feel is uncustomizable. It will always ask for your real name, unless you pay the author $35 an hour to get rid of the evil logon questions. It's also slightly PCBoard like. PCBoard, Remote Access, TBBS, Galacticom, MajorBBS -- All out of the question. Aren't there ENOUGH big file boards with no personality already? TBBS is better than most of the other's mentioned, but it costs money and it's so boring that it can make a gophers heart stop at 50 feet. Celerity, Forum III, LSD, Forum-X, etc etc, ad infinitum per Forum Hacks. These boards suck, they are hard to use, they all look and feel the same, and they are for little kids who fancy themselves as hackers and pirates. If you logon to one of these systems you instantly know that it's some little fucking brat with a daddy-purchased expensive computer who thinks he's god's gift to BBSing. Every once in awhile I meet one of these kids and I smack them in the face, back-hand style. Yes, I'm spelling badly and leaving out punctuation, but I'm on a roll and I'm drunk. Let's see... WWIV aka "wiv." The lamest of lamest hobby-bbs program. The "this board will be up for 21 days, or until I get the GPA bug (my parents are not happy with my grades so I have to shut down the board for awhile) BBS program. It's also primitive and old. I am bored just thinking about it. Waffle: This is a mostly UNIX BBS, even though you can get the MSDOS version. It has extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY weak file and message base features. There is no ANSI support at all, and it's completely command-line. I can't abide by it. No thank you. Okay... new kids: Ultra-BBS. No. That's all I can say. It's a PCBoard look-a-like which has a different file base thing. The descriptions come at you one at a time. It would take a lifetime to search through an Ultra-BBS's file base that only had 20 files. It's also another BBS program that has stupid message base concepts like, for instance, when you're reading messages the prompt says (m13321...2343. Message =3D 2343+ N/Y/C)? Ick. It makes me want to vomit into a can. Maximus, Opus, Fidonet lover BBS's... Goddamn. I don't like any BBS program that MAKES you do menus with that have brackets around the commands like "[C] Conferences". God. I hate the idea of conferences anyway. These are messages. We call BBS's. We do E-Mail. We do MESSAGES. We are not at a conference. I will NOT [J] JUMP to a fucking [C] Conference. I have never called one of these boards that didn't look and feel and be EXACTLY like all of the rest of the fucking boards that I've ever called which use these retarded BBS packages... and so I can't think about running them at all. Virtual BBS. I have some respect for this software because you really can just about make it do anything. The only problem with it is that it is written in Virtual Basic, which, even compiled into machine language is incredibly slow--at least this program is. And besides that, to really customize it, you have to purchase the source code. And even to do minimal customization, you have to learn a complex and ill-thought-out scripting language. And you better believe that's slow. But it does have it's points. But I've seriously evaluated it, and I can't run it. It doesn't provide anything more than TAG without a lot more work than I should ever have to do to run a BBS. For a long time I have been threatening to write a BBS program, and would just as soon write one than program VBBS. Negs on that. Searchlight. I hate SL. And now you have to purchase it just to evaluate it. Luck for me, I have kept an eye on this program. And it's just no good. It's makes you push the space bar HUNDREDS of times just to read a message. It is the completely counter-intuitive. It is slow. It is cumbersome. It doesn't do anything. And it's another package that looks the same, no matter WHO's running it. Even if satan HIMSELF were running it, it would just look big and dumb. No, I wont. Now, I'm out of BBS programs. I've seen a few others... Oh: Renegade: No. It's a cross between Telegard and one of those Forum Hacks. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I don't want to go to a bunch of kids named"IceMan," and "Doctor SuperHack" to get support. I don't want to run a hacked on version of Telegard, nor TAG for that matter. So what else is out there. I've kind of run out of programs--off the top of my head--so tell me, HELP me... what should we run here at PolySpock. Is there anything else I should evaluate. I've looked at some others besides these, but I can't remember them...that's probably because they were INTENSELY lame. But pleae help us. What should we run... You should speak NOW. Or I may have to write a whole new fucking program. OUTRO Send Us Junk! Pigdog wants your stuff! 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