If you live in San Francisco, do yourself a favor and drop by 826 Valencia, between 18th and 19th in the Mission. Founded by Dave Eggers, the project is part tutoring workshop and part pirate-themed store. Like David Byrne says, “Definitely one of the top five pirate stores I’ve been to recently.”

They’re currently displaying an exhibit by the Mekons, a mural by Chris Ware, and original proofs by some of today’s best writers.

Plus, they have almost every issue of Might Magazine for sale in pristine condition, for only $10 each! I now own a full print run of the magazine, including extra copies of their debut issue. If you’re a McSweeney’s fan, they have back issues, t-shirts, and various McSweeney’s books signed by their authors. Plus, my friend Mat volunteers there. It’s a neat place.

On a whim, I decided to search the California Unclaimed Property database to see if I had any unclaimed money waiting around for me. I didn’t, but my mother and grandmother both had standing claims, totalling over $175! Free money!

Take a minute to search for the names of your friends and family in your state’s online database, and let me know if you find anything. Just look up your state, visit the government website, type in a last name, and grab that cash. Happy hunting.

One week and 257 spam e-mails later, we’re back home from the trek to San Francisco and other points north. More on the rest of the trip later, but first: California Extreme!

This year, I played some older obscure games that were underappreciated in their day, along with some old favorites. Get your copy of MAME ready and try out these obscure gems, hosted here for your convenience: Rescue, Q*Bert’s Qubes, Pooyan, and Make Trax.

Like last year, there was an entire section devoted to old laserdisc games. Most of these full-motion-video games were pretty terrible — all style and no substance — but one game fails miserably on both counts: Gallagher’s Gallery, starring the inventor of the Sledge-O-Matic. If you can find a more irritating game, I’ll be impressed.

For a taste of the rest of the event, a selection of photos are available from the night before and Saturday afternoon. (I’ll add links to others as they appear.)

Continue reading “2002 California Extreme Roundup” →

America chooses Kelly Clarkson, but Sideshow Justin has other plans…

Every form of media is pirated online. Music, movies, software, console video games, television, music videos, and books are all routinely traded via FTP sites, IRC, the Web, and Usenet. So what’s left? Not much, as it turns out.

One exception is periodicals; magazines and newspapers are cheap, published regularly, and unbelievably tedious to scan manually. Full issues of Playboy are traded in niche online communities, but so far, general interest magazines have evaded the pirate community. Until now.

“Enigma of Esoteric Nothingness,” a new group of scanner junkies, has dedicated themselves to the task of scanning in monthly periodicals (in addition to their regular e-book output) and distributing the PDFs (usually around 20 MB each). They haven’t made much of a dent in the local newsstand… So far, just a few issues of PC Magazine, 2600, Time, Mad, and Scientific American. But it’s a start. Take a look at their bundled .NFO (information) files for the June issues of Mad Magazine and Scientific American, and this Usenet post that details all the books/magazines they’ve scanned, as of late July.