jjSpace - Subgenii

The Saga of Reverend Magdalen

jj admin — Fri, 5 Aug 2011 13:45:27 -0500

As swiped wholesale from the archive.org copy of the High Weirdness Project pages. Much of this is obsolete.

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As of August 14th, 2007, custody of Reverend Magdalen's son has been awarded to her, pending the outcome of an upcoming felony hearing (drunk driving) for the boy's father. (He was subsequently sentenced to eight months incarceration, but was released after serving only one month.) Please see the latest news at the bottom of this page.

After custody was initially awarded to the father on July 6th, 2007, a month of wild, chaotic, unexpected developments unfolded. See: Reverend Magdalen Part 2

After things had settled down throughout the summer of 2008, the ashes were stirred once again in August of 2008. See: Reverend Magdalen Part 3

Artists are invited to Cleveland, Ohio on August 29th, 2008 for the Jocko Dome-o – a DEVO-themed fundraiser for Reverend Magdalen: [1]

Magdalen's ''myspace.com'' profile
Magdalen's Blog: rbevilacqua.blogspot.com/
Rev. Ivan Stang's history of Magdalen's custody court case: subgenius.com/updates/maghelp.html

The best media articles on this case:

Buffalo Beast: March 29, 2006 – Followup article: April 10, 2006
Cleveland Free Times: May 31, 2006

Court transcripts:

Transcript of the February 3, 2006 hearing: Adobe Acrobat document
Judicial decision of January 5, 2007 (postponed by Stay order of January 12): Adobe Acrobat document
Appellate court decision of July 6, 2007, awarding custody of Magdalen's son to Jeff Jary, the boy's birth father: Adobe Acrobat document

Press release:

March 19, 2007: SubGenius Cult Mother Fights For Child Custody

: Please consider donating to Magdalen's legal fund, either directly or by purchasing a T-shirt. (Direct donations can be sent via Paypal to magdalen@subgenius.com.

Pledgie.com keeps a running total of all donations! (Pledgie site begun on March 10, 2007)
Direct donation to Magdalen's legal fund: tinyurl.com/jbpe8
T-shirt fundraiser: www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=32908

The latest news can be found here: Reverend Magdalen Part 2

Part 1

The story began when Magdalen and her husband, Lord Jesus Christ (a.k.a. Steve Bevilacqua), had a domestic dispute. This is something that happens to many married couples, alas; more importantly, this was their own private business. In fact, it's still their private business, and we wouldn't be hearing about it at all, if something else hadn't happened to cause this case to be exposed to public view.

Magdalen's ex-boyfriend used her domestic dispute as an excuse to file for sole custody of their son. The boy (whose name is being kept private) had been living with her for his entire life; however, after filing a request in Orleans County Court, custody was transferred to him. Magdalen herself has posted copies of the custody filing documents on her blog, at rbevilacqua.blogspot.com (scroll down about two-thirds of the way down the page to see them). But even so, this is still a personal affair and none of our business.

What is our business is what happened after Magdalen contested the custody filing. To counter the accusations of her ex, she filed affidavits that offered a different view of the situation in question (you can read these documents at our page of Magdalen Affidavits). However, the fun really started when her ex used photos of her at our sacred X-Day gathering in an attempt to prove she was an "unfit mother" and unable to care for her own son. The story of what happened next has already become legendary. Magdalen describes it in her own words:

: On February 3, 2006, Judge Punch heard testimony in the case. Jeff entered into evidence 16 exhibits taken from the Internet, 12 of which are photographs of the SubGenius event, X-Day. [Magdalen's son] has never attended X-Day and is not in any of the pictures. Rachel is depicted in many of these photos, often wearing skimpy costumes or completely nude, while participating in X-Day and Detroit Devival events.

: The judge […] became outraged at the photos of the X-Day parody of Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ - especially the photo where Jesus [Steve Bevilacqua] is wearing clown makeup and carrying a crucifix with a pool-noodle dollar sign on it while being beaten by a crowd of SubGenii, including a topless woman with a "dildo".

: His Honor also strongly disapproved of the photos of Mary Magdalen [Rachel Bevilacqua] in a bondage dress and papier maché goat's head. The judge repeatedly asked, "Why a goat? What's so significant about a goat's head?" When Rachel replied, "I just thought the word 'goat' was funny," Judge Punch lost his temper completely, and began to shout abuse at Rachel, calling her a "pervert," "mentally ill," "lying," and a participant in "sex orgies." The judge ordered that Rachel is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because he felt the pictures of X-Day performance art were evidence enough to suspect "severe mental illness".

When word of this made it out onto the Net, people went ballistic. After learning of this via the Bulldada Newsblog, the webmaster of Bartholomew's Notes on Religion wrote a piece on it for his own blog. From there it made its way into Boing Boing – and that's when the word spread far and wide.

Part 2

Since the news broke, people have been asking Magdalen to post the actual transcripts of the court proceedings, so that they can read Judge Punch's words for themselves and verify that she was speaking the truth. The transcripts of the case were to become available by March 6th. However, for the entire week since March 3rd, Magdalen has been absent from the Internet, and she has not been able to make the transcripts available.

The reason for Magdalen's absence (and the lack of the transcripts) became clear as of Thursday, March 9. On that day, I learned that the judge had ordered Magdalen to cease all communication on the Internet regarding her son. This was not a written statement – the judge had verbally ordered her to remain offline, and no written order was available. Magdalen stated that even though the order was verbal, the court considered it to be an official order from the judge, and so she has had to remain offline since then. This has kept her from updating her blog.

However, as of March 15th, Magdalen had obtained legal representation from none other than the law firm of Lipsitz Green Fahringer Roll Salisbury & Cambria, LLP. (This firm includes Larry Flynt and Marilyn Manson among their clients.) Magdalen's legal team is challenging this order. When the order is overturned and she is online again, she will have quite a story to tell.

On March 26th, the court transcript of Reverend Magdalen's testimony on February 3 was made available online. (This transcript included only her testimony in front of Judge Punch; it did not include the statements of her ex-boyfriend. The entire transcript, including this testimony, was made available online about two weeks later.)

: webpages.charter.net/lenny49684/transcript.pdf

(This file does not contain the judge's outburst and final ruling with the alleged "pervert" and "mentally ill" statements, though it does have some interesting parts. The entire transcript, including the complete text of the previous link, is available here: www.box.net/shared/eruimij43v )

On March 27th, it was announced that Judge Punch has recused himself from the case, when Rev. Magdalen's case made TV news (briefly):

www.rochesterhomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=1053

From the story:

: "Judge Punch refused our previous requests for comment on this case. And we learned he is currently out of town. Bevilacqua will be back in court next month, but in front of new judge. Judge Punch recused himself last week."

Please note this does not mean Magdalen has won the case (yet), or that the case has been settled or dismissed. It is being re-assigned to another judge, who will be from a completely different county. Magdalen is hopeful that the new judge will be one who treats the case with less bias and more neutrality, as judges should.

April 7th: The transcript previously made available contained the text of Magdalen's deposition on February 3, 2006. The entire transcript of the proceedings is now available, and can be downloaded in .PDF format from here:

: www.box.net/shared/eruimij43v

Monkeyfilter discussion (thanks to Phloighd)
The Wild Hunt: a pagan newsblog, entry on March 20th: : [2] (Followup, March 28th: [3])
RU Sirius' podcast interviews Rev. Ivan Stang about Magdalen's situation:[4]
Article on Wikinews, Wikipedia's open-source news reporting service: [5]
The Beast, a Buffalo-based alternative newspaper, does a scathing article on this case: [6] (Followup, April 10th: [7])

Part 3

April 20: On April 19th, Magdalen had her appearance in court in front of a new judge, with a new legal team. We were hoping things would be wrapped up in that single day. That didn't happen, but there is still good news to be had. She wrote an update to her legal case, which can also be found on the newsgroup alt.slack. Judge Eric R. Adams of Batavia seem to be fair and impartial – which is the best kind of judge to hope for in a case of this sort.

: "Yesterday was our court date for a "further appearance" in front of Judge Eric R. Adams of Batavia, which basically means it was the first meeting and sorting out of what's going on and what will happen next.

: I can't describe how it felt, I was really overcome with emotion afterwards. Judge Adams conducts his courtroom with dignity and respect for all people before his bench, and whenever the conversation turned away from the subject of my son and his wellbeing, Judge Adams steered it right back on track. He has vowed to put my son's welfare first and foremost and to get to the bottom of what's going on and make sure my son isn't in danger. I started crying right then. It was so good to hear those words.

Magdalen's next (and hopefully last) court appearance will take place on June 26th (re-scheduled from June 12).

The Cleveland Free Times has published a damning article on the case: [8]

June 28th: The custody trial has taken three days (Friday through Tuesday), and Magdalen is exhausted. Still, despite its length, there is very little to report. There have allegedly been no hysterics, no bombshells, nothing unexpected, and nothing stupid to report. Apparently the trial has gone by the book and proceeded in an orderly fashion. This is being taken by Magdalen's friends as a good sign. Rev. Nickie Deathchick confirmed this lack of events in a message posted to alt.slack: "I have been in contact with Magdalen and Steve this week. Indeed, nothing terribly important to report. But there may be some very, very, very interesting transcripts available sometime in the future."

Update, July 5th, 2006:

Reverend Magdalen's new custody hearing had originally been scheduled for June 12th, but it was postponed until June 23rd. What was originally planned as a two-day hearing was extended to five, and it's still not over at this time. The case is scheduled to continue on July 20th.

The good news is that Magdalen's legal team has been earning their fees. Judge Adams appears to have more of a sense of humor than Judge Punch did, as he has been accepting the humor in such statements as "No, this is NO joke, NO parody" (from page 13 of the Book of the SubGenius).

The bad news is this: because her ex-boyfriend's lawyer is a personal friend, he is receiving his legal assistance for free. This means that they are free to use every delaying and stalling tactic in the book to extend this trial as long as possible, so as to run up massive legal costs for Magdalen. Magdalen's husband was on the witness stand for three full days of cross-examination, during which the Church of the SubGenius was examined minutely. (Jesus had to assist the court stenographer with the proper spelling of such SubGenius Elder Gods as NHGH and G'Broagfran.) These Scientology-like tactics have succeeded in bringing Magdalen's legal costs to exceed $50,000.

Reading between the lines, we can only assume that the opposition is acting out of desperation. Their insistance on using the Church of the SubGenius in the trial – again, after doing the same thing five months ago – suggests they have nothing else to work on, so they are once again trying to bring up the argument of an evil, Satanic sex cult.

Meanwhile, X-Day took place during the week of June 28th through July 5th. Aside from the Escape Vessels of the Sex Goddesses failing to show up once again, this was one of the most enjoyable, exciting, and Slackful X-Days of all. (A number of events were held especially to honor Judge Punch, and we are waiting to see if photos of these events end up in the court case.) Unfortunately, Jesus (Steve) was unable to attend X-Day due to his business commitments – this trial has put such a strain on him, he actually had to work on the Fourth of July. His presence at Brushwood was sorely missed, because if there's anyone who deserves rest, relaxation, and Slack in this affair, it's him.

As before, transcripts and other documents will be made available online as soon as possible. Until then, I ask you to read the documents currently available, and to accept my word that I am presenting this as truthfully as possible. (The court is not allowed to release transcripts until the legal proceedings have finished. Due to the time necessary to transcribe the court documents, transcripts may not be available until around September.)

IMPORTANT: The brave and hardy administrators of Taphouse IRC (the official IRC network of the Church of the SubGenius) have begun a fundraiser for Magdalen's legal fund, by producing T-shirts with a goat head logo and the quote "Why a goat?" (as was repeated by the original judge in this case). These shirts are being sold for $20, of which $8.10 of every sale will go directly to her legal fund. All help is appreciated, and every little bit helps. The URL for the fund-raiser is:

: www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=32908

(At X-Day, a special T-shirt autographed by Magdalen was auctioned off for $120, with the entire amount going to her legal fund. This shirt was purchased by none other than Pat "The Man" Volkerding, the man responsible for Slackware!)

Up-to-the-minute updates can be found on the IRC channel #subgenius and the newsgroup alt.slack.

July 23: Magdalen states, "Court ran out of time again, and we are adjourned until August 11, and then again for August 23." In regards to the case being repeatedly dragged on: "…there's nothing you can do about that, that's a regular-type lawyering strategy."

August 3: Rev. Ivan Stang posts a bulletin to alt.slack noting that Magdalen must provide $10,000 immediately to support her legal costs: [9]

September 19: There has been little development over the past month: the opposition has repeatedly called for delays and postponements, with little actual progress being made. Magdalen writes today: "Basically, court is supposed to finish this Friday (September 22). We go Wednesday afternoon and all day Friday, and then we're supposed to finish." We can only hope this is the final end to the court proceedings. If this is so, then it will be at least another two weeks before Judge Adams publishes a ruling.

November 30: Apparently the definition of "two weeks" used in the American legal system is really "two months, or however long we decide to make it." For those who are still following this case: Magdalen is still awaiting the final decision from Judge Adams regarding the custody case of her son. The only news reported has been that the opposition is still attempting delaying tactics, and everyone is simply waiting for the final decision. Magdalen is still in New York, waiting for the outcome of the case – which has now lasted nearly an entire year.

On the plus side, a new published article about the case appeared in the Batavia, NY Journal-Register on November 30: [10]

Part 4

January 6, 2007: Reverend Magdalen announced today that she has received a call from her lawyer stating the custody battle has been won. She will rejoin her son on Monday, January 8, 2007. The official judge's decision will be made public then.

Magdalen writes in email: "Well, at only one month late, the decision is finally rendered, and I won! I haven't actually gotten the paper yet, but my lawyer has it and he read me the highlights over the phone."

Post to alt.slack: [11]

Boing Boing reported the news story on Thursday night, January 11th ([12]). By the next day, the blogs had picked up the good news. Unfortunately, just as word was spreading about Magdalen's victory, an unexpected turn of events took place.

January 12, 2007: As is often the case in these situations, a last-minute emergency has arisen. Reverend Magdalen writes:

"I went to pick [my son] from school yesterday. I wrote and telephoned the principal, Mr. Matt Penrod ( Mpenrod@lyndonville.wnyric.org ), emailing him a copy of Judge Adams’ Court Order giving me residential custody, and informing him I was coming to get [my son] and not to let Jeff take him. As I was driving to the school to pick [my son] up, I telephoned to double-check. Mr. Penrod informed me that he had allowed Jeff to take [my son].

"[My son] and Jeff were missing until this morning, when Jeff returned [my son] to school. It was the most frightening night of my life.

"The reason Jeff did all this is that there is a Stay hearing today. It’s just like when the Presidential election happened and Antonin Scalia ordered Florida to stop counting votes. Basically, Jeff has asked an Appeals Court judge to stay the order of Judge Adams, and they are going to decide on that this afternoon. For some reason, Jeff thought that this Stay hearing gave him the right to do what he did, or so he claims. He is wrong, of course, but he still got away with it. The police looked for them all evening and didn’t find them.

"The Stay hearing starts at 3 PM and I’m fighting to have [my son] with me at that time, because I’m afraid that if the stay is denied, Jeff may take off with [my son] again just like last night."

January 12, 2007 – Magdalen writes:

"I just got the call from my lawyer that the appeals court judge has granted a Stay of the order granting me custody. I never actually got to enjoy that custody during the 30-some hours it was in effect, because the school let Jeff take [my son] and hide him overnight.

"The Stay is conditional on the case being heard at the earliest opportunity, which is in May 2007. Until that time, Jeff's order of Temporary Sole Custody issued by Judge Punch on December 23, 2005 in an ex-parte hearing of which I was not informed, remains in effect.

"The appeals court judge did order expanded visitation for me, so that it will be the standard every-other-weekend visitation rather than the restricted 8-hours per week I've been living with.

"Please let the people know about this, it's really hard when I keep getting all these congratulations in my inbox."

: (My own apologies to everyone: the announcement last Saturday that the case had been won was the latest we'd heard, until the sudden unexpected turn of events on Friday, January 12. We sincerely believed the case was over, but unfortunately it is only one more chapter of an ever-increasing tale of injustice.)

January 13th: Rev. Ivan Stang provides an update for Magdalen: "This last judge decided that although SubGenius isn't a real devil cult, but is 'art,' it is nonetheless the kind of art that will somehow be harmful to a child. (I suppose art like video games or cop shows is harmless compared to, say, a SubGenius book on the top shelf.)" Rev. Stang's complete message to alt.slack can be read here: [13]

Boing Boing published an update on Tuesday, January 16: [14]

The text of Judge Adams' decision on January 5th, 2007, was made available online on January 21st. It can be downloaded at this location:

: www.box.net/shared/eruimij43v

The text of the Stay order placing this decision on hold has not been made available yet; however, Magdalen's lawyers have stated it will be made available shortly.

The judicial decision includes commentary on the personal life of Magdalen and her husband that, quite frankly, I still believe is none of our business. However, the commentary on the Church of the SubGenius is quite interesting: it suggests that Judge Adams is suspicious of our Church, as he refers to SubGenius writings as "drivel." But, reluctantly, he did not find anything in it that has had an adverse affect on Magdalen's relationship, or on her son.

In a surprising twist, Judge Adams has ordered Magdalen to remove all SubGenius literature, books, pictures, etc. from her home. This, apparently, is in order to protect her son from the awful SubGenius influence – or, more precisely, because the son's father does not want the boy exposed to our evil cult. (However, Magdalen is allowed to set up her own "office" with SubGenius paraphernalia. Although the decision doesn't say this, I suspect the judge would allow it as long as the office is locked.)

March 10: In a new appeal for funding, Rev. Ivan Stang reveals that Magdalen's custody case has cost her and her husband approximately $73,000. Additional funding is needed, because she is now required to hire a new lawyer (though still from the same law firm) to represent her at her upcoming custody hearing – which is now scheduled for June 2. Magdalen is short by $2,000 for the new lawyer's retainer. Rev. Stang's appeal for assistance can be read on the newsgroup alt.slack at this link: [15]

Magdalen writes:

: "Basically, although I did win the case, it's now going to appeal. Orleans County has, of course, offered to pay all the expenses for my ex's appeals case, while I still have to pay for my appellate lawyers, which it turns out are different from regular lawyers and require a new $10,000 retainer to hire. I'll still be represented by the same firm, Lipsitz, Green, Scime, Cambria, but a different individual will be handling the case.

: "We go before the Fourth Circuit Appellate Division on June 2, and then they will make their decision within 30 days of that. I am cross-appealing to ask that the parts of the decision forbidding me to make or keep SubGenius art inside my home, travel with my husband for his job, and homeschool my son, be struck down. Until then, my son has to stay with my ex, though I am supposed to get 'extended visitation.' So far, I have not yet been able to actually access that extended visitation, as my ex says it will take a court order in writing to make him comply, and all we have is a verbal order. I hope that will be straightened out soon." (More of this can be found in Reverend Stang's newsgroup post.)

For the second year in a row, the verdict is expected to be made just around the time of X-Day. Coincidence…or conspiracy?

Coverage in Boing Boing: [16]
Coverage in The Wild Hunt: [17]
The author of the Cleveland Free Times article weighs in on the situation: [18]

March 12: The pledgie.com donation site has raised over $2,000 for Magdalen's legal fund in under two days! Heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated!

June 8: Magdalen confirms the hearing was moved up to May 21 and did in fact occur on that date. We're now waiting for the verdict, which will be released live in real time online, on June 8 at 3:00 PM, at:

: www.courts.state.ny.us/ad4/

…except that, yet again, the announcement has been delayed. Magdalen writes: "Well, we all waited expectantly for the decision to come out on June 8, but the court decided to "hold it over to the next term", which means they'll be releasing it, supposedly, the Friday two weeks after June 20, which puts it squarely at July 6. They did not inform us ahead of time they were doing this, and in fact it's not really legal, as the law says they have to decide in 30 days. But this does happen from time to time, my lawyer says, and there's nothing we can do. Oh yeah and they might decide NOT to hold it over to the next term but instead release their decision at a random time between now and July 6. So it's like they're saying, have fun checking the website every day to see if maybe today is that random day that probably won't even happen!"

Update, July 6th, 2007:

After originally being scheduled for June 22, the decision of the appeals court in the case of Reverend Magdalen has been announced. In a brief two-page announcement, the court has awarded custody of her son to the father. Stating that the father "deserved" custody of Magdalen's son, the court declared that the father's home would be his primary residence, and the matter is being referred back to family court to arrange for visitation rights for her.

The decision cancels a number of paragraphs of the decision of Judge Eric Adams, in January 2007. However, it does not remove Judge Adams' order for Magdalen to remove all SubGenius materials from her home. Even though her son is no longer in her custody, she still cannot keep any SubGenius materials in her own home, except for a specially designated "office."

Upon conferring with her lawyer, Magdalen wrote a brief statement and posted it in her blog: Blog entry for July 14, 2007

The actual .PDF document of the court decision can be seen here:

www.courts.state.ny.us/ad4/Court/Decisions/2007/07-06-07/PDF/0753.1.pdf

Please remember that this case has cost Magdalen over $70,000, and she is in need of any donations to her legal fund that can be given. If you wish to donate to her legal fund, please click here:

www.pledgie.com/campaign/show/90

Coverage in The Wild Hunt: [19]
Coverage in Fark: [20]

An unexpected development has occurred, and was made public on July 23, 2007. See: Reverend Magdalen Part 2

: Please consider donating to Magdalen's legal fund, either directly or by purchasing a T-shirt. Direct donations can be sent via Paypal to: magdalen@subgenius.com

Pledgie.com keeps a running total of all donations! (Pledgie site begun on March 10, 2007)
Direct donation to Magdalen's legal fund: [tinyurl.com/jbpe8 ]
Taphouse IRC Cabal "Why A Goat?" T-shirt fundraiser: [21]
A second T-shirt fundraiser, sponsored by Rocknar and Hellpope Huey: [22]

Up-to-the-minute updates can be found on the IRC channel #subgenius and the newsgroup alt.slack.

Legal Fund

IMPORTANT: Because Magdalen has a new legal team, donations to her legal fund are to be sent to a new address. Based upon consultation with her lawyers, the original estimate of the cost of her defense was approximately $20,000 US; however, legal stalling tactics by the opposition have driven this to over $70,000, with more still to come. This number is still in flux. (Because the biological father supposedly has "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome," he has never had to work and is a trailer-court welfare case. His lawyer is a personal friend who is representing him for free.) Paypal donations can still be sent to magdalen@subgenius.com. Checks or other payments can be mailed to the attention of:

: Rachel Bevilacqua
: c/o Christopher S. Mattingly
: Lipsitz Green LLP
: 42 Delaware Avenue
: Suite 300
: Buffalo, New York 14202-3857

SubGenius Links

jj admin — Sat, 3 Oct 2009 13:23:08 -0500

The Main Site, or "SubSite."

Kern's Holler Journal, brought to you by Tater Gumfries.

Deceased!: The High Weirdness Project, Modemac's wiki.

Rev. Chain Smerker, in Australia, which is why all the religious hand gestures are reversed. Or at least, I think that's why.

The Monohedral Cathedral

jj admin — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:26:58 -0600

This shimmering edifice in cyberspace just happens to be my first ministry!

Currently more active is this Google Groups congregation.

And here's the location on SoundCloud where we put some music.

All designed as a brief break from the trollwaves of alt.slack.

061228 00:16 - Gay for Linux Day

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:23:31 -0600

061228 00:16 by iDRMRSR

While Melinda was doing the laundry, I applied myself to trying out Linux on the other two boxen I have gathering dust here.

One was my newer laptop. I FINALLY found a distro, Linux Mint 2.1 (Bea not Barbara) in which a couple of simple commands got my wifi card working with ONLY THE LIVE CD in the thing! I also found a hunk of software out there somewhere that restored the functionality of my touchpad, so I could scroll by dragging my finger around it as if it were a nipple.

I never "did it" (that is, installed Linux) on a laptop before. I washed real good afterward, and nobody will be the wiser because I just used the Live CD, so there's like no trace of what I did around.

Then I got this 550MHZ P-III box in a closet. It has a WHOPPING 20GB hard drive and a 3D video card with a whole 16M onboard!!! It even has a ZIP drive (100mb) AND a DVD read only drive! Perfect vintage, I supposed, to run Linux on.

Took forever to slap Ubuntu on it, however. But it runs. Just barely. I thought it might be a little peppier than it was with just Windows ME on it (remember that turkey). You can really, really tell it's sluggish compared to a more modern machine. I was lucky to find it was new enough for the BIOS to boot from a CD.

I may screw around with it a little more and then I think it's going to go back in the closet.

Enough of that stuff for today. I'm going to think about sticking toothpicks in Kirstie for the rest of the evening and see what's playing on Eyelid Theater.

061224 14:56 - My Microsoft Turkey!

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:21:13 -0600

061224 14:56 by iDRMRSR

I went over to WalMart and they had these things stacked up against the wall. There were so many of them, and so many people were buying them. Must be like 95% of the whole human race out buying these turkeys.

I got mine home and took the cover off to start to thaw it. I noticed that this turkey I bought was first frozen in 2001, but that it had a seven year shelf life, so I was well within that timeframe. I would have liked to have a new turkey this Xmas, but I guess M$ must have bought the farm back then and still had a lot of them in the warehouse. Whatever, turkey is turkey, and if it's the same as it's been for several years, wtf.

I got a phone call while it was thawing. I came back to the turkey about 15 minutes later and found out that someone had snuck in my kitchen door, removed a drumstick, and stuffed the cavity with Spam. So I took it back to WalMart and luckily the manager agreed to replace it with a new one, and he also sold me a roasting/thawing pan with a deadbolt lock on it and advised me not to leave it out in the open. Fair enough, this is not the best of neighborhoods sometimes.

I got the thing all thawed out, and with the kitchen door secured, I opened up the roaster thing and added the stuffing. I almost forgot to pull out the little bag of giblets! Many times I had baked turkey in the past and the little plastic bag was still inside, but this year I remembered. I noticed there was a coupon in the bag this time.

It entitled me to a $5 discount on M$ next crop of turkeys, which it said couldn't be made available in time for Xmas this year. Wow, I can put that over with my important papers and have something new next year. While this one has been in the freezer for five years now, it's still quite pink and not at all freezer burnt. But that'll be a novelty to get a fresher one, something to look forward to.

This turkey had one of those pop up thermometer timer things. I jiggered it a little to see if it was working, and a little computer chip inside in a squeeky voice told me to cook it at 350 F for twenty minutes a pound, and to poke it when it was browned, and if the juices were clear, it was ready to go. It then told me I should check if it was 165F with a meat thermometer. I went down the street to the hardware store, which was still open, and told the manager I needed a meat thermometer for a M$ turkey. He said, just go pick out any one on the shelf, even the old ones in the back, they're completely compatible. So $3 later I had my thermometer.

I used this generic brand of stuffing and cooked it up and it came out great. Everybody was satisfied and it was turkey as usual, same as last year, same as the year before that. Nothing strange except, you know, for some reason, the closer this bird came to getting cooked, the slower it got at browning. I had to leave it in an extra hour until the juicy pinkness cleared up. Seems like it took longer than last year.

Everybody was so hungry that eventually one of them dug in to get the last piece of stuffing, and would you believe, found a small amount of Spam inside. Must have been stuck in there by someone from the factory. We just threw it out, no problem.

Then later I started cutting up the carcass for midnight sandwiches, cleaning the bones. All of a sudden, the knife clunked up against something right behind the neck. Now, I did remember to remove the giblets this year, what could this be?

Oh, gosh, it was an AOL disk. Lucky, none of the guests knew I had forgot to remove it, and it didn't spoil the flavor or anything. Hey, I might clean it off and try AOL out again this year to see if they've gotten any better these days.

The day after, a couple of us ended up with a mild case of the runs. I guess somebody brought in a virus. Well, with the cold weather and closed quarters, and all these people milling around during the holidays, that's not totally surprising. Took a little Paregoric and I was fit as a fiddle. I felt kinda bad about the virus, but I called the guests the next day and they said, oh, it could have happened to any one of us, it wasn't a big deal, and if that's all that happened was some loose bowels, it certainly can't spoil everybody getting together and communicating and having fun at the holidays.

Can't wait to try out that new crop of turkeys next Xmas!

061224 12:51 - Free turkey

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:19:06 -0600

061224 12:51 by iDRMRSR

I went to the butcher shop yesterday to buy a turkey. I could have paid $0.89 a pound for one, but instead the butcher told me about a new movement in the meat industry, the open source meat initiative. Under this new plan, you could just get a free turkey, or rather, a type of species very close to a real turkey, equal in nutrition and almost exactly the same in every other regard. Rather than raising them on the farm, small hobbyists all over the world raise their own turkey-like birds and exchange them for free with each other, hoping that one day all the inbreeding will produce a species much tastier than the usual mechafarm produced crap.

So I opted for the free turkey! The butcher gave me this carcass with all the dark meat but no white meat.

I asked, "What good is this?". The butcher said, well, most of the FLAVOR of the turkey is in the DARK MEAT. Due to a legal issue with the HunnySuckel corporation, he couldn't just give me a whole turkey. However, he said his brother was in the parking lot out back, and had the white meat in his trunk for all the free turkeys. He explained to me that it was up to me, if I wanted white meat, I could go out to the back and get it. He said a lot of the free turkey people simply content themselves with the dark meat. "The Free Turkey people are believers in CHOICE", he intoned.

But I would not be so content.

So I went out back, and sure enough, there was his brother, and he pulled from the trunk a nice set of breasts and wings, and even gave me a little handy sewing thing so I could sew them back on myself.

I got it home, sewed it back together, and put it into the roaster pan. Unfortunately, the free turkey was too oddly shaped to fit in the pan. So I ended up having to buy a FOIL pan and kind of mashing it into the right shape for my free turkey.

It suddenly occurred to me, I didn't remember exactly how to cook a turkey. So I searched the internet all over and found a nice recipe to cook my free turkey. The recipe went something like this:

1. Slice and serve the meat but not until you have read the full cooking instructions (unless you have done this before and know exactly what you are doing, and realize that some people have no business trying to cook a turkey unless they know avian anatomy and physiology and food science cold like us, in which case they should stick to eating at McDonald's).

2. Before you do that, you must thaw the turkey, unless the turkey is already thawed, but do not skip step 3 below, EXCEPT when the turkey is already cooked. However, if you want it warm, prior to eating, do not do step 1 first! Instead, heat the turkey and then do step 1. THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! Do we make ourselves CLEAR?

3. Bake the free turkey for 250 * 10^6 microseconds per kilogram at a temperature of 449.816667 kelvin. IMPORTANT: if you pierce the breast with a sharp knife, and the juices are still running pink, the turkey may not be fully cooked and you risk intestinal disease if you eat it at this stage. To prevent this {TODO list - insert additional cooking instructions in next build along with documentation referring to desired final temperature of cooked meat}.

So I got out my slide rule and computed the cooking time, popped the bird in the oven and turned it on. I crossed my fingers and presumed the juices wouldn't run pink and all that. Then I noticed the very strangest thing.

With this open source turkey in the oven, I went to set the oven timer. It's a digital timer on a Westinghouse oven. Every time I set it, it displayed 88:88. I could set the timer OK with the free turkey OUT of the oven, but every time I put it in, the display read 88:88. After a while, I simply decided to use my pocket watch to do the timing.

While the free open source turkey was cooking, I did some more GOOGLING and found out that if I had used a KENMORE oven instead, the timer would set properly. Since the turkey was free, I decided it wasn't such a big problem to do without the little timer, especially since I had this nice little pocket watch around.

After about two hours, the smell of turkey began to fill the room and it was heavenly! I could see through the oven window, the skin was browning and crisping nicely. I could hardly wait until the cooking period was over.

That's when, all of a sudden the light in the oven blew out. I could not see inside at all! Panicking, I reached for my oven mitts and opened up the oven door to peer inside.

I discovered that somehow the free turkey in my oven had completely locked up the oven door latch! I could not get inside the oven. The timer still read 88:88 and I had no idea what was going on inside. Normally, I'd just flip the little safety lever and the door would open, but with the free turkey inside, it was frozen shut.

To get it out, I finally had to break through the glass in the oven door. This is not a simple thing because it's tempered glass. Shards of glass got into the turkey, and I then knew I couldn't eat the thing. It was corrupted totally in the process of finalizing the cooking. The smell of the house was very enticing, I must admit, and the parts of the free turkey that weren't full of broken glass were very nicely browned.

I ended up going to Denny's for a turkey dinner. They're open 24 hours, even on Xistlessmass. That dinner cost me $14 including the tip. It wasn't the best turkey around, but the stuffing was pretty tasty and it filled me up. Even though I kind of resented throwing more of my money at a big corporate food place like that.

The day after Xistlessmas I'm going to go out and buy a new oven door, and see if that butcher has any free, open source FILET MIGNON around, just to give that a try. Maybe if I try a different SPECIES this time, I can find a free food alternative that is ready for my kitchen!

061224 13:28 - Christmas Dinner at the Apple store

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:16:53 -0600

061224 13:28 by iDRMRSR

There's an Apple store near me. This I knew long ago, but I saw an add in the paper that they were open on Xmas day, and were serving a complete turkey dinner with all the trimmings, prepared with the new iCook device they were planning on launching in 2007. How could I resist.

I went into the store and they had moved all the computers to the side and put in a completely white banquet table with about 50 white chairs surrounding it. I took my place and paid the $249 dinner fee, which I thought was excessive, but they promised to take ALL the hassle out of dining for me, so I figured, what the hey.

On the plate in front of my there was the iCook device. It had three things that looked like electrocardiogram electrodes, shiny chrome bullets on the end of a very thin white wire connected to the cigarette sized iCook itself. One wire was about five feet in length.

The "chef" came in, and told us all to insert the outer two electrodes on our tongues, and to swallow the one with the longest cord. I thought that might make me gag, but it's coated with an anesthetic so you can get it down really easy. I swallowed mine with absolutely no problem.

Then this freakish bird like thing was taken out of its cage and fastened to the table with bungee cords. The bird was an albino. The "Chef" then attached some probes to the bird, connecting it with a small mini box which, we were told, was the server for our iCooks.

The bird then extended a proboscis with several attachments on it like a dentist's drill. The first one was a feather remover. It buzzed all over the bird and cleaned off all the feathers, which were sucked up into a ceiling vacuum. Another attachment neatly severed the bird's neck. No blood came out!

One more attachment gutted the iTurkey, and the all white entrails were swiftly removed with another vacuum wand skillfully wielded by the "Chef". The "Chef" then proceeded to stuff the iTurkey with white stuffing.

A thirty-six laser light then shone on the iTurkey from above. In about thirty seconds, the skin was crispy and the smell of turkey filled the room. No need to wait hours for cooking!

The probes on my tongue then started emitting the most heavenly "turkey and stuffing" taste. Nothing was in my mouth, yet it seemed as if I could chew and swallow every virtual morsel. As I and the other diners slurped at the electrodes, the iTurkey in the center shrank in size until it eventually disappeared completely.

The probe down in my stomach had expanded in size dramatically. I had to loosen my belt. The taste generated by the iCook device sated me completely, and my gut felt as if it was a-busting. I then became very drowsy because the tongue probes had begun to simulate alpha waves inside my skull. I felt just as if I had eaten the biggest holiday dinner, and the best, in my whole life!

I must have dozed off about two hours. The other diners and I seemed to arouse at about the same time, all as directed by our iCooks. Indeed, for the money, this was probably the best dining experience I had ever had.

Noting that we all had arisen from our postprandial naps, the Chef told us, that was the end of the meal.

Unless some of us wanted to stay to experience the other new product being launched, the iToilet.

061223 00:06 - Slax Slackware Live CD - nggghhhh!

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:14:36 -0600

061223 00:06 by iDRMRSR

So close. Golly this live CD boots up REAL FAST somehow with a KDE desktop. On the laptop I tried out, it even mounted the NTFS partitions, including the hidden ones Dell always sticks out there.

Sound, video OK, only problem was ACPI. If you didn't boot with the ACPI=off option, nada, but otherwise it came up almost as fast as a boot from the hard drive.

It's got NDISWRAPPER so I tried to bring up my wireless card. I needed to copy the Windoze drivers files, which were immediately available on the NTFS partitions, plug in the WEP key and ESSID and all that, and eventually I got it CONNECTED.

I set up the default gateway, did this IWCONFIG and that IFCONFIG and this DHCPCD and that ROUTE command for about four hours total and NEVER COULD GET IT ON THE INTERNET. I even ran the same commands, route, netstat, iptables, on my working wired Ubuntu and the laptop. Everything should work but NADA beep. Ubuntu and Slax looked the same, but only UBUNTU could talk to anything.

My wireless router can see the laptop and the laptop DHCP can lease an address. But if I try to ping that same address ZILCH happens, 100% packet loss. Magnificent. Maybe I should try to run everything through the DHCP server on the wireless router.

Actually, it's simply hilarious. It's like the wireless card is operating all on its own as a sentient being, having a chat with the wireless router and otherwise ignoring the rest of what's going on inside the PC. What make is so silly is having to copy something out of \windows\system32\drivers to install on Linux. I love it.

Ah well, maybe in a few days my Sabayon distro Live CD will show up. And I can use the little Slax LiveCD in case I need a canopener if I ever fuxor the Windows install on the laptop. It's a nice snappy tool for something like that.

Looks like I got some toys for Xistlessmas after all.

061222 00:32 - What am I doing?

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:12:34 -0600

061222 00:32 by iDRMRSR

Obsessed with a six year old PC and trying to get MIDI and the 3D desktop thing working under UBUNTU.

And I just noticed the time, PAST MIDNIGHT.

Today's (22nd) my birthday. I'm at the Heinz Age (57). That's thrice 19!

Equation even sort of works out BY WEIGHT. If you pick three slightly anorexic 19 y/o's, that is. That's an interesting topology question...could 3 19 y/o's fit into my pants at the same time? I don't think so, which is a paradox because then, where's the rest of the weight.

And old as I am, I'm still SCREWING AROUND WITH THIS SHIT!

I'd rant more but I need to check my MySpace page one more time before I change into my evening truss for bed. May even try and squeeze out a little pee before I go to sleep, instead of after.

061222 15:01 - On the OSX front ...

jj admin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:10:35 -0600

061222 15:01 by iDRMRSR

On the OSX front, I've been doing some studying, and here's the torture trail for Windoze folks, the things that will cause US to rip out our hair more than the Linux command prompt:

1. Copy a folder to a folder with the same name elsewhere. OSX destroys the old folder (instead of merging the files). INSTANT coronary for a Windows user.

2. Closing windows does not stop the application. Slow death for a Windoze user.

3. Dragging a file to a blank CDR to back it up just puts a LINK to the file on the CD. Like Polonium 210 for us Windoze folks.

4. Cannot MAXIMIZE a window. WTF?

5. Many applications open SEVERAL small windows at once. WTF?

6. Only one FINDER open at a time. Kill me now, before I buy a Mac Mini.

7. CTRL DRAG to actually copy a file's contents. AIEEEEE.

8. Hidden .DS_store files splattered all over your disk.

No thanks.

BTW, I took Leonard's advice and tried this distro:

http://www.slax.org

The LiveCD actually ALMOST WORKED on my laptop. I could get the wireless card to connect. Sort of. Still can't reach the internet, but there's still time THIS YEAR to solve that problem.

It's a cute and FAST distro with KDE. Looks rilly nice, like the girls in those Russian mailorder bride pix, but once you get it home...arrrrggghhhh...