If I get to see only one movie this summer, this will be it. I was giggling through the last 2/3 of the trailer.

Received good news for school, consolidation loan going through (allegedly) Thursday.  (Ferris: Let my Transcripts Go!)   I keep getting the vibe that the work I do for money is less important than the work I do regarding the Sunum Bonum and Thelema in general.

Saturday was the big fucking cleaning day with some on Sunday.  The Dining room is pretty well done, the Living room is at 90%, with some minor jobs to be done.  The Office is a nightmare as is the Kitchen.  We are planning on getting paint for the front bathroom.  Hopefully next Sunday is the day to knock that bastard out.   (New fixtures and shower hardware!  YAY!)

Sunday was broken up some by the Symbolism classes at William Blake Lodge.  They went pretty well and I got some reinforcement to ward looking to outside sources for information and hints.  Brothers R and C were most helpful and I enjoyed poking through the imagery with them.

The presentation for FSG comes along.  Making a tight 4 hour presentation will be interesting, and hopefully I will get the chance to run it at WBL later this year.  I am working on locating a good deal on tarot decks (7-10 Rider-Waite, 3-5 Thoth decks) the best offer I have is 20% off, which is pretty good, but I’m still poking through the options.

Yesterday (Monday) Blew.  Just a general asstastic day at work. I think I was tired/busy/sore and it was hard to function.  I need to get my ass back to the Gym, which helps me regulate things.    I declared the evening a Sabbath of rest and we had dinner in the dining room as well as vegetated and watched some season 7 Buffy.  It is just getting better…

Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are on tap from netflix.  Dunno if we will get to them, but I think it is likely something that may occur next week.  We are starting to get into crunch time for Ecumenicon, and then C visits, then G comes for training.  It is amazing the amount of stuff we can cram into a couple of months.

The New toy is fascinating.  The fact that the X-Box 360 will do stuff with Microsoft’s DNA development kit means that I can also apply what I learn in school to my fun time too.  I’m totally hooked on two old X box Games (under 10 dollar bin for the Win!) and working on playing on X box Live sometime soon.

I have been directing you all here, sometimes subtly, sometimes through threats of violence, and still others by page redirects. I figure it is about time I actually get off my butt and write something.

Started the week on a Magickal High (I am counting Saturdays as the start of the week, as that seems to be when the most work can get done, unless I am slacking) from making Abra Melin incense and Oil, and then finally Cakes of Light with the Crowley You So Crazeee Study Group (Documented on this page earlier.) I am rather proud of myself because I have cakes of light that are both Book of the Law ‘correct’ and Gluten Free! They also came out more or less as you would expect a cake of light to appear. Many thanks to S, BJ, C, J, and whatshername. (I really cannot remember her name… did it start with a k?)

I finished Accidental Christ which was a great book, as long as you don’t mind a little bit of liberty taken with your bible stories. (There are truly some funny bits in there, my favorite is how Simon Peter became known as “The Rock”.)

Just as I started the week with a Magickal buzz, I have ended it with the promise of more development. Lon Milo DuQuette, (I cannot bring myself to post the Youtube video, guys. Its really funny and I wish I could have seen Lon’s face the first time he saw it, but that may be for another post.) author of many fine (and funny!) occult books has offered a class on the Maybe Logic Academy titled “Initiation
The Western Magical Tradition” (exciting title, no? Ok I’m just giving Lon a Hard Time now.. though its not like he will ever read this.) It is a bit pricey, but if you are unsure about joining an actual ceremonial magician order like to OTO, It may well be worth the investment to get your feet wet and see if it fits you.

On other fronts, we are prepping for a visit from Chuck and I am doing a MASSIVE reordering of the house. (Well that, and I am trying to accommodate the treadmill for the dog in the office.) It looks like a vast wasteland here at the moment with the dining room slowly coming together. It also appears that another trip to the Storage Unit will be occurring.

Anyway, that was my week that was, though I may have forgotten something and will probably post more as things go along.

Uh yeah, when Spokeo said explicit permission, they really didn’t get explicit permission.  I apologise for anyone getting spammed by that fuckwitted site.

I shall ponder my next move in their impending beatdown.

Sorry.

Charlie Stross has done a wonderful (and wonderfully geeky) write up of the major candidates as AD&D 1st Edition Demons.  Check it out!  “The Future is PORK!”

Spent a wonderful evening making Abramelin Incense and Oil with Brothers and soon to be maybe sister, (if we did not scare her off!) was being a bit economy minded and let Jack have the oil we made and took the solids from anyone who would give them up and I have a nice 1QT bottle infusing and separating and will probably get much more out of it.  We then made Cakes of Light, which proved interesting as an experiment and the outcome was satisfactory with mine, and I think the same for everyone else. I may have to use less oil next time, but it appears I have achieved Gluten Free Cakes of Light!  We all went hardcore and made Active Cakes.  (The poor poor positive child will have their hands full next mass, I believe.)  There was much banter and posturing on the great Mysteries of the Universe, and fun was had by all involved.

We had a good time and bonded a little and honestly, it was a damned lot of fun.  I look forward to the next one eagerly.

(I think this was the Baphomet Crocker or Martha Crowley episode of the Crowley You So Crazee Study group.)

1981msgs

Anyone remember this out there?

Lon and I @Delaware 022308

I had the privilege of spending my Saturday with Lon at the home of Seelie Court coven in central Delaware. He held his Enochian Magick Class and promoted his new book, “Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley”, which is out in June.

He was gracious enough to sign my “Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot” book, and I picked up his DVD for Miki and he signed that as well. (The DVD was “Lon Milo DuQuette
Live & Uncensored: Tarot Kabbalah & Oracles” )

The Enochian Class was wonderful, and talking about stuff during the break with Lon was a real treat and I got a ‘blessing’ only as Lon could to use his material as reference (as long as it is cited, of course) for my upcoming Tarot Presentation.

We watched the episode of Enigma about Aleister Crowley with Lon and Richard Kaczynski. (Entertaining and NOT as bad as some other short documentaries out there.)

Sillof’s workshop has a great Steampunk Ironman figure pair. I’d like to see a story based on that. Here’s one of the pictures:

More Here:  [www_sillof_com]

I bring you the IGE class action suit information from BrokenToys.org before the admin of that site had to edit it due to legal threats. As part of my coverage here, I will make commentary through it, since it is exciting to examine and learn from. (Mr. Jennings is somewhat renowned for his insight, so this is a fine piece to look at and learn from!

My comments will be in This Color and typeface (Ow)

Pierce To Yantis To Evers To Chance: The Rise And Fall Of IGE

This was written by Scott “Lum The Mad” Jennings at BrokenToys.org, his Personal Blog.

MMOcitizen.com, a website operated by the law firm currently bringing a class action lawsuit against IGE, obtained and published a copy of a complaint in another lawsuit involving IGE: this one brought against former CEO Brock Pierce last year by co-founder Alan Debonneville. I really find Mr. Jennings to be quite thorough in his information collecting. Having Sources makes your blog, you know, somewhat credible.

For almost 5 years, Debonneville has dedicated his entire life to the creation, development, and success of IGE US, LLC (”IGE”). IGE’s meteoric rise from an under funded startup to the market leader culminated in a Goldman-Sachs investment of $60,000,000, which set the value of IGE at the time of $220,000,000. While Pierce, a flamboyant former child actor, has always been the public face of IGE, Debonneville has been the tireless working founder, responsible for the expansion and operation of the company.

The filing goes into great detail about IGE’s rise and fall from Debonneville’s point of view, with, just in case you weren’t already glued to your PDF files, added dirt from the dot-com-money-and-man-boy-love days of DEN. This nicely breaks up the fairly monotonous material being presented and establishes the “something is not quite right’ aspect of the piece.

After living and working in Spain for a few months, Debonneville observed that Rector and Pierce had a very close relationship, one that did not seem normal between a 40-year old man and a 20-year old young man…

…Apparently, there were a multitude of charges related to the prior operation of a company specifying that Pierce, Rector, and Shackley had stolen money from the company and wasted corporate assets for things like the purchase of illicit drugs, living a lavish lifestyle, and criminal allegations of transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. Upon learning this information, Debonneville questioned Pierce regarding the allegations, and Pierce stated that the claims were false and contrived as a setup by some competitors and former employees…

Wild enough? It gets… something. Worse? Better? Uwe Boll? Wit! It is truly Wonderful!

Debonneville was told by Pierce that the “Spanish FBI” came to their house with a “SWAT” team in helicopters, kicked in their door, shot their dog, and threw all of them in jail.

The complaint eventually leaves the Mallorca Vice portion of history and gives a breezy history of much of what we knew already - IGE’s quick rise and huge cash infusions, and the use of that in a quest to purchase respectability through hiring executives and purchasing websites. Eventually, it all falls apart around the time of the Goldman Sachs investment as the principals began to fall out over arguing over how to divide up the huge amount of stock, which is dealt in the document (from Debonneville’s viewpoint, of course) in point-by-point detail. This bridges the time between the man love and the stock asshattery, which is leading to the crux of the biscuit, so to speak.

Debonneville was starting to discover that Pierce had not only lied to Debonneville about the Yantis Stock Repurchase, but also that Pierce had benefited personally to the detriment of Debonneville from the Salyer and Maslow sale of stock. Of course, Debonneville was shocked to learn that Pierce had sold any of Pierce’s stock in IGE…

…On July 14, 2006, in an apparent attempt to convince Debonneville that his interest in IGE was becoming worth less and less money, Debonneville was sent an article regarding a crackdown on the sale and purchase of game items for cash in Korea. The implication was that IGE’s recent acquisition of Itemmania, a Korean online house, was going to be a failure. In hindsight, it appears that this was just another one of Pierce’s attempts to manipulate Debonneville into selling his stock to Pierce for a less than fair value, certainly for less than Pierce realized on the sale to Maverick. Today, it is likely that this may in fact be IGE’s most valuable remaining asset…

And just in case you started nodding off with tales of stock screwballery… enter everyone’s friend in space, Jonathan Yantis. This introduces the villain who uses what essentially is cheating to make money from other people’s IP and resources.

Yantis also advised Debonneville that if a deal was not reached with IGE, Yantis had already put a network in place to compete with and destroy IGE. Yantis stated that through the hiring of certain individuals who he had a long time business relationship with, Yantis would sell currency that had been exploited or duped.

Exploiting or duping is a process whereby an outsider hacks the game program into creating currency for the individual or duplicating an item and then selling it over and over which also results the creation of currency. These actions allow for the exploiter/duper to create an endless supply of currency without any real cost to that currenct. This is something Yantis has done in the past and made large profits from. The exploiter/duper would typically receive a commission for any currency sold of about 40% of the sales price. Due to the currency being exploited, Yantis was and would be able to sell currency at a price significantly below market, since the cost of the currency sold was non existent. This also allowed for an infinite supply to be created in what could take as little time as a few minutes.

Yantis indicated that this was also how he could turn the trading arm of IGE around and make it profitable, almost instantly. Pierce was aware of Yantis’ intent to use these exploits. In fact, Pierce counted on them as part of the rationale behind why Yantis should be brought back to work for IGE.

A clearer explanation of the toxic effects of RMT on online gaming has yet to be written. (I know. I tried.) My personal reaction tends to be OMFG IT SUCKS for people you know actually playing the damn game.

I’m sure that as this hits the commentariat there will be more to be said. Oh, there will be more.