Monday, October 07, 2013
TODAY'S BIG CAT ROUND UP
The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.
DAN HOLDSWORTH SENT THIS UNCATEGORISABLY PECULIAR STORY
Installing Linux on a Dead Badger: User's Notes
By Lucy A. Snyder
5 April 2004
Let's face it: any script kiddie with a pair of pliers can put Red Hat on a Compaq, his mom's toaster, or even the family dog. But nothing earns you geek points like installing Linux on a dead badger. So if you really want to earn your wizard hat, just read the following instructions, and soon your friends will think you're slick as caffeinated soap.
Minimum Installation Requirements:
- one (1) pocketknife
- one (1) screwdriver, flathead, to install Duppy card (see item 4. below)
- computer with:
- CD drive
- USB, Ethernet, or a free slot for wireless networking card
- Telnet or SSH client installed
- cyberspiritual controller program such as FleshGolem (Mac OS X and Linux), Phranken (Windows 98, ME, 2000), or ItzaLive (Mac OS 8.1-9.x and Amiga)
- one (1) Duppy card (available in CardBus and PCI models) or SpiritInTheSky external adapter (available in ethernet and USB models)
- VüDü Linux (available from Twisted Faces Software)
- minimum 3' x 3' (1m x 1m) fireproof surface, in secure, ventilated area
- privacy
- one (1) dead badger, good condition
Optional Installation Requirements:
- one (1) gallon of holy water (Bless! brand exorcise water is ideal) in a silver or silver-plated bucket
- one (1) pair latex gloves
- one (1) fluid ounce of flea-killing shampoo such as Ecto-Soothe or Mycodex
- running water and a large sink or washtub
The following test installation was conducted on the concrete floor of the garage of a detached single-story house, on unconsecrated ground, using a 400MHz clamshell iBook, and began shortly after local sunset.
Step 1: Find a suitable badger. Specimens from zoos are ideal, but suitable badgers can be found as roadkill along highways in many parts of North America, the British Isles, continental Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa.
- Other animals of family Mustelidae can be used in place of a badger, but an adapter may be required. See Appendix II for details.
Step 2: Once you have obtained a dead badger, check it carefully for structural damage, particularly in the spine, skull, and legs. Dead badgers do not heal, and a badger with broken legs will display limited mobility. Brain and spinal cord damage is likely to interfere with the Linux installation and render any successfully-installed system unstable, as well as voiding all explicit and implicit warranties according to the laws of any and every state, country, or alternate dimension, present or future.
- As a precaution against infection, wear latex gloves at all times when handling your dead badger. It is highly recommended that you wash the carcass with a suitable flea-killing shampoo.
Step 3: Obtain a copy of FleshGolem or other cyberspiritual controller program. This test was conducted with a copy of FleshGolem downloaded from the Apple site's utilities section. Follow all installation instructions carefully, including addenda in the readme.txt file.
FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES
- Red-backed Shrike breeds again in Dartmoor Nationa...
- 269 million birds are killed across Canada each ye...
- Restrictions in place to protect rare bird
- Light at Night, Melatonin and Bird Behavior
THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS INPIRATIONAL
The Gonzo Daily - Monday
Yesterday was an interesting one: I did a
long interview with a man who recently saw and photographed something strange in
Loch Ness. To his great credit he does not and never has claimed that this is
the Loch Ness Monster, but merely something that he cannot explain. The
interview and pictures will be in the next episode of 'On the Track' sometime
this week (hopefully). I have some other interesting interviews lined up this
week including an Austrian lake monster witness, the author of the latest KLF
book that I have been raving about, and Steve Ignorant. Not bad for one week,
eh?
Another visit to our old friend Thom the World
Poet.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_7.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_7.html
Today's Track of the Day is by Leonard Cohen
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-gonzo-track-of-day-leonard-cohen.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-gonzo-track-of-day-leonard-cohen.html
New Steve Hackett video featuring Jakko
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/video-premiere-steve-hackett-lamia.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/video-premiere-steve-hackett-lamia.html
German Corky Laing review
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/german-corky-laing-review.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/german-corky-laing-review.html
Blodwyn Pig review
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/blodwyn-pig-review.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/blodwyn-pig-review.html
Stephen Stills feature
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/stephen-stills-carry-on.html
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2013/10/stephen-stills-carry-on.html
* The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow....
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
* We should probably mention here that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
* Jon Downes, the editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of whom is also orange) - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon, which he shares with various fish and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus...did we mention the orange cat?
INAPPROPRIATE CORNER: Dinosaur porn
Most of the stories which appear on this section of the bloggo come from Richard Freeman who is a self-appointed seeker after inappropriateness in all its forms.
However, this one comes from Max:
"As these things happen, it's come to the planet's attention that a pair of Texas college students has been self-publishing a not-unsuccessful series of dinosaur-on-girl porno novellas on Amazon. Given that the Internet requires elaborate sex fantasies involving The Price Is Right and the Muppets to even maintain an erection, dino porn seems quasi-puritanical. But these books sport outright hilarious art, which juxtaposes a blase stock photo model with a confused CG dinosaur. Here are the 10 best covers."
Read on..."
OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today
Yesterday’s News Today
On this
day in 1959 Simon Cowell was born. I'm sure many of you will balk at the idea
of mentioning the millionaire TV and music producer as anything Fortean-related,
but consider this: were P.T. Barnum alive today he would have come up with the
idea for the X Factor and ---Insert Country
Name's--- Got Talent. In fact, Barnum actually came up with the model for
X-Factor and most of the music industry’s success when he hyped up Jenny Lind.
So professional polishers of turds like Cowell are Barnum's modern successors,
like it or not.
And now
the news:
The egg
incident from last years BGT finals discussed at length on This
Morning: