The Pirate Squid Club(tm)

"Dedicated to the furthering of uselessness by abusing technology and fusing information."

Membership Charter and Organizational By-Laws

WELCOME to the Pirate Squid Club (PSQ).

Formed in 1993, the PSQ is a handful of silly individuals who gather together to exchange knowledge. There are no fees, we incorporate who we want, and the only prerequisite is to read The Slosh before committing yourself to the Club. (For more information about The Slosh, read further...) Basically, we just hang around and fry expensive toys. Here are some of the more prominent issues we support:

We exchange ideas. We call them "nerd gatherings" or "NerdFests". Every now and then, all us nerds get together and talk about technical things and over-dose on CO2-cooled Mountain Dew. (Okay, so it's a party for nerds. But don't condemn it until you try it!) At the last main event, Jim inhaled too much CO2 shortly before passing out in the bathroom. An empty 2-liter with dry ice and water seems to explode, incidentally. Kids, don't try this at home! (Or maybe Jim exploded. It's been a while...) Mainly, we just like to talk tech and pass the I/O cards.

We build interesting gadgets. Have you ever thought to yourself, "I wonder what life would be like if I hooked my old 286 to the toaster for perfect toast?" Or maybe you've thought, "I think this Halloween I want a talking pumpkin." We do. So we get out our soldering irons and old tattered notes from Electronics class, and we see what damage we can do. So far, I've only fried a Multifunction card in my 486 (due to an unfortunate incident with a variable AC transformer and fluorescent display we aren't talking about). Needless to say, all experiments are now done on an old PC/XT (8088) before tranferred to my 486.

The Grot Box. Every culture has its famed accomplishments. You've probably seen the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt, Stonehenge, the Roman Colliseum, the Eskimo igloo. We have something called the Grot Box. We've combined the "idea exchange" with the "interesting gadgets" and come up with an 8-foot rack-mounted box full of all sorts of hi-tech sophisticated electronic apparati. Basically, it's a hundred lights and meters connected to an old CompuPro workstation which does absolutely nothing. Well, it blinks and all. And the meters wiggle. Oh, and it beeps, too. Most of all, it just looks impressive. Compare it to something from a Thomas Dolby video or a bad Sci-Fi movie. You know, those big huge boxes of blinky lights which do absolutely nothing? Well, we've built one. Impressive, but useless.

Food. Mountain Dew, highly processed food, and anything else which requires little effort to prepare. Fast food.

EOE - Equal Opportunity Eggheads. Although the PSQ is comprised of my male cohorts and I, we aren't segregating against women. It's just that we haven't found many women nuts enough to want to hang around. I'm sure they're out there. In fact we've found one. It's just that Star Trek clashes with Melrose Place around here.

Magical places. On the weekends, you'll find us at Mike Quinn Electronics in Oakland, California. Here, you'll find oddities such as: old punch-card machines, 198 red lightbulbs, Commodore 64 systems, TV tubes, and Willie. They've got bulk IC's, parts, misc. electronic scrap, books, etc. It's where you go to find cheap used parts and things. If you just can't find what you're looking for, call Jay or Willie at 510.569.1539 or 510.569.3884. It's best if you can visit in person, as the atmosphere is unique. And they now take Credit Cards.

How to become a member. Well, that's rather complicated. We're pretty strict on who we hang around. It used to be that all members had to visit our house and become a roommate. But we didn't feel right about charging membership in addition to rent. So currently, membership is handled on an exclusive basis. However, I'm open minded, and if someone can provide me with a reason to make him/her a member... we'll see. Currently, those deserving such merit are dubbed "bozos" and are given full privileges thereof. (To the two guys in Italy who want to know how much the fee is: feel free to send me 50,000 lira. But I can't guarantee it'll gain you anything.)

I tried actually making a real club out of it. Unfortunately, there were too many "friends" of friends, and the friends of Squid-A didn't get along with the friends of Squid-B. So I dropped it and restricted membership to myself and a very few comrades.

What I do know, is that PSQ membership would definitely require an email account. Without email, I won't contact you. Also, you have to read The Slosh. So don't ask about membership until you read The Slosh.

The Slosh . The Slosh is a large text file, currently subject to constant change and updating. It's currently at about 450K and documents the chronicles of Dr. Emu and his cohorts. Much nerd-dom and wisdom can be found here. You can find The Slosh by anonymous FTP from: ftp.emf.net/users/quam. Or tag it from my WWW Homepage which links to the Pirate Squid Club: http://www.emf.net/~quam. Read it, learn it, be confused by it. It's the only literary way to go.

What is a "bozondo"? It's a term associated with ignorant people. Comprised of the words: BOZo, morON, DOrk. Bozondo. Usually used as a noun, but can be used as an exclamation, if you're actually looking for a bozondo.

The future of the PSQ. Well, I'm not quite sure. If you have any ideas, such as wanting a weekly/monthly/quarterly newsletter or something, I'll have to see a demand for it. I'd like to set up a depository of really bad literature and poetry. (Mainly the stuff written by me or Babar or someone just as insane.) Maybe even talk to Dr. Emu about accepting outside submissions for The Slosh.

Let me know.

There's much more to the Pirate Squid Club than this free informational brochure. If you're really intrigued, feel free to read The Slosh, a 450K text document created by Dr. Emu and friends. It explains a little more of this nonsense.

I welcome your suggestions and opinions. Email quam@emf.net. Thanks for your support!

-- Q

Copyright ¨1995 Jeffrey J. Feil - All rights reserved. All registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. This document may be freely distributed, providing it has not been modified and is published in its entirety.