. . . : ;  C h i c o ' s   G r o o v e ; : . . .
 . . . : ; 
  . . . : ; ytrof - august 8 1999
   . . . : ; 
    . . . : ; http://www.disobey.com/



. . . : ; The "TAP-TAP-TAP" Notice

I know, I know. I've been bad. You're wondering: "Morbus, we've missed
you. Where have you been? How can we stalk you if you don't send us the
information we crave for? The information we need to build our case
against you? Why have you forsaken me?" I can hear the tap-tap-tap of
your foot on my computer door, asking where have I gone, whatever for?


. . . : ; The "BACK-AWAY-SLOWLY" Notice

"Couldn't you have left a notice? A sign? A door with which to see your
hastily written 'be back soon'?" Questions come from all around, and I
can only answer that due to gravity, inertia, and other Laws of Sudden
Impact, I had a temporary sick leave. I determined it was best to heal
as opposed to get more of you to knock on my door (really Jim, you could
have called first).


. . . : ; ANNOUNCEMENTS and Jim used to be from Idaho...

IMPORTANT NOTICE: In an attempt to have more time to do other projects
and to further improve those that already exist, both Devil Shat and
Chico's Groove are moving to a monthly release. You'll receive the
issues on the second Thursday of every month. If you're pissed off (or
infinitely thankful) lemme know by sending mail to morbus@disobey.com.

NEW DEVIL SHAT (#FiftyFive): Along with the announcement of the monthly
publishing schedule, this issue of Devil Shat begins a new column from
Rown Garnbii called "Assholic". This one's about sexual exploits, AOL,
and the stunning realization that Rosie O'Donnell will always be there
in the morning, shocking us with her chunky little cheeks. Let Rown know
what you think.

NEW GHOST SITES (#29): The latest issue of Ghost Sites is also available
to the masses, with last call for Ghost Sites t-shirts (they're bound to
be 20th Century Collectible Items, you know), and the maddening amount
of web death that you've grown so fond of. Special about this issue is
that all sites listed were submitted by our readers - thank you!

NEW NETSLAVES: Finally a new NetSlaves and one you'll be happy about:
the final act of THE STORY OF CINDY, SOCIAL WORKER. Find out what
happens when she finally meets Phil Garland, read the latest Screams
from our Readers, and download a very special collection of audio
insemination from our Combat Manual.

LOW BANDWIDTH UPDATED: Although you can't see much, Low Bandwidth had a
huge code update this month as I attempted to remove pixel.gif from the
site (I was just getting sick of seeing it in my logs), increased the
viewing area, and removed five dead listings. Also changing at Low
Bandwidth was the removal of the Electric Dreams archive, and one new
addition. They'll be more changes in the coming months, as I try to turn
it into a much better site then it currently is. If you have any
suggestions for what I could do to it, lemme know.

MORE KUDOS: More kudos were added to the "About" section of Disobey, but
these recent ones have yet to be properly recognized: NetSlaves received
two cover stories at WIRED News Online, as well as seen live and in
person on CNBC. Plus, Ghost Sites received yet another award from a site
called Linky And Dinky, and Low Bandwidth has been appearing numerous
places in numerous zines. Finally, Disobey has been used in two
different resumes this week to help get jobs for people (I still haven't
determined if this is good or bad).

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Due to all the press that Disobey and NetSlaves
has been getting lately, we've accomplished two rather "wow" things:
first, we beat our old record of 211,000 accesses in a week with a
massive 297,806 as well as hurdling the 4 million mark in our two year
stint on the web. Thankee! Thankee!

MINOR UPDATES INCLUDE: Attempted to cut down on 404's with better
redirects for both Ghost Sites and Zero - I have noticed a decrease, but
I wish the stupid search engines would stop looking for a robots.txt (I
really should read more into that - anyone have decent reference
material?), and added one new signature to my email (ooOOooohhh...).


. . . : ; EVERYTHING else and he was such a small fry...

NEW PLAYSTATION GAMES: Once again, in an attempt to act like I had more
money then I want, I went on a buying spree of PlayStation games.
Normally, I get one every so often. Instead, I decide to pick up three
and I wish my decision-making had been bit more refined. One of the
games I got, WARGAMES, only saves itself by having a sound bite from the
movie WARGAMES (duh), otherwise it's a random "go-around, spin in
circles and shoot shit, man, this game is easy, oop, wait, THAT was the
ending?". Another game, WILD 9 was pretty fun, but again, was too damn
easy and reminded me of BIONIC COMMANDO (only on weed) The last game,
ODDWORLD: ABE'S EXODUS, I haven't had a minute to start comprehending,
but it looks damn enjoyable. That new computer is just getting further
and further away.

WAITAMINUT, I HEARD THAT...: Popular theory floating around the Internet
right now is that my absence from Disobey was due to a car accident.
This is true. There, it's confirmed. Now, shut the hell up and stop
spreading rumors. And send money, I just got the bill.

YOU GOT DEALS?: Yeah, that's right! In a poor attempt to save money
(another?), I went down to Borders, open only a couple of months in my
hometown. They were having sales on computer books - and rather nice
ones at that. So, I worked home with a total of $120 worth of books for
only $22. Rather nice! Picked up an XML book (what a waste), a Dynamic
HTML book (hmm... this is nice), and some crappy but good looking
website book (old hat, really).

MOVIES I'VE WATCHED: Sometimes I wonder if you care (do you care,
readers? sniff!) but I've seen tons this month: THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
(what, are you kidding - good!), RUNAWAY BRIDE (was dragged there, stop
laughing), THE HAUNTING (good amounts of sexual undertones and special
FX - rather drab past that, but the location rocked), FRANKENSTEIN,
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN
(classics that were immensely enjoyable to watch in a row), CREATURE
FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, REVENGE OF THE CREATURE, THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG
US (hey, come on, I had a Universal Horror kick - all good movies, the
third one even gets moralistic on us), and finally WES CRAVEN'S CARNIVAL
OF SOULS (which I didn't like at all).

PANIC ENSUED AND ULCERS ENHANCED: Well, I really didn't get an ulcer,
but it made for a cool title. As some of you could guess, Disobey is now
two years into its world domination plan, and going quite nicely. Its
only expense has been paying to own the name "Disobey.com". Well,
Network Solutions, that company we all love and who has, until recently,
had a strangle hold on the domain name market, failed to send me a bill.
They should have sent it two months ago - they didn't. Nor would the
online payment form work. Nor their automated teller ("please enter your
invoice number" - YOU DIDN'T SEND ME AN INVOICE TO GIVE YOU A NUMBER,
YOU LIMBAUGH LOVING SLUT!). I started getting rather panicky and
paranoid (thinking about some of the other horror stories I've heard).
Eventually, a day before deactivation, I won. Phew.


. . . : ; BLAHBLAHS OF THE WEEK:    ( july 15th - august 12th )

[Fun-With-One-of-the-Week]-= Majordomo
---As well as other attempts to free up some time in my busy Disobey
---life, I've also been playing around with Majordomo at the server,
---and trying to get that running so perhaps I could automate the 
---mailing lists. One of the annoying bits of releasing these email
---feeds all by yourself is maintaining your subscriber list. It's
---even worse when you have four different lists, and about 150
---subscriptions per week. Hopefully, I can earn back that half hour
---for better purposes.

[Fun-With-Two-of-the-Week]-= NewsClipper
---There's this wonderful Perl program called NewsClipper that I just
---discovered which yanks news down from other pages and displays it
---any which way you want. It's been a wonderful helper when it comes
---to DNN, as well as keeping me up on my comics. Pretty soon, I'll
---try to release some of my own plugin's - I've already got a job
---rewriting the "could-be-better" instructions.

[Getting-Sick-of-'Fun-With's-of-the-Week]-= Applescript
---I've been trying desperately to become a master of Applescript for
---the Macintosh, a scripting language built into any Mac which allows
---you to control any application and any core-OS feature. Been
---failing miserably too, but that's really due to the fact that I skim
---too much and try to do too many advanced things before I can walk.
---Ah twell. Combining Applescript with Cron for the Macintosh makes
---for a rather powerful combination.

[Stop-It-Already-!!!-of-the-Week]-= Sendmail 8.9.3
---I've been in the process of revamping Disobey.com and how it handles
---mail, which has sent me into a feverish studying of Sendmail 8.9.3.
---If you know how the Internet runs, you know Sendmail handles most
---of the email functions necessary to keep everyone going. Yeah, welp,
---I just had a crash course in it based on shoddily written HTML files
---from multiple locations, as well as the fun doc's from the Sendmail
---website. Finally, after a week or so of tweaking and getting annoyed,
---I'm happy to say that I know more than I care to, and that I've got
---a pretty decent setup running.

[Sniff-Sniff-of-the-Week]-= Broken Tan Connector Things
---I had great plans to have a stupid answering machine message of
---the week and post the number on Disobey and have you guys call
---in and we'd have loads of fun (wouldn't we?), but then the stupid
---line splitter that I had broke (or generally, stopped working) and
---now my plans are shattered (a lot of you are probably breathing
---sighs of relief). Perhaps I could get my own 800-number, I heard
---there's some outfit giving them out for free on the Internet...

[New-Toy-of-the-Week]-= mp3 Streaming
---It's funny that I'm listening to it as I type this, but the
---newest Net thing which I've been subjecting myself to is mp3
---streaming. We all know what an mp3 is, now imagine that coming
---to you in near realtime from a radio. Kinda like RealAudio only
---with much better music due to the proliferation of mp3 files. If
---you know of any good stations, lemme know.


. . . : ; The Issue Was Written As If I Gave A Damn
  
. . . : ; SUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Subscribe ChicosGroove
. . . : ; UNSUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Unsubscribe ChicosGroove