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bibi's bookshelf

@bibliobasilisk

bibi. ace. 21+ where all the shit that i read finds itself resting. avatar picture courtesy of @iguanamouth

Good Omens and the greatest trick the devil ever played on me personally

I packed off to college in 1998, before many of you were twinkles in anyone’s eyes. Back then, internet piracy was just really taking off, and it was accomplished by means of FTP server. These servers had “ratios,” meaning that their owners expected you to upload a certain amount of data in certain file formats before you could download a certain amount of data in that format. Most servers were 1:2 (Simplified, I upload 1 .mp3, and I’m allowed to download 2 .mp3s) or 1:3. There was a lot of trash to sort through, but you found your treasures eventually

I took to this internet piracy like most other freshmen took to drinking at frat parties. I stayed in Friday nights downloading music and movies. I had everything my 18-year-old heart could desire - these were the Wild West days of the internet, when the dorms had ethernet, but the universities hadn’t bothered to set any kind of codes of conduct. You could download and upload whatever you wanted, and no one was going to stop you.

One evening, when my roommate was out of the room having a healthy social life or some damn thing, I was on yet another FTP site - a really good one this time, full of stuff I wanted. It was a 1:1 server, an unforgiving ratio, but I had spotted goodomens.mp3, and I had set my lights on trading for that audiobook. I’d read the novel in high school, see, and I wanted to hear if the narrator did any funny voices.

We had ethernet, sure, but you have to understand what speeds were like back then. It took me half the night to upload that many tracks of Third Eye Blind and Goo Goo Dolls and whatever the hell else I had lying around my hard drive in 1998 to reach the ratio, and it probably took the other half to download the audiobook. But eventually I had my prize, and I booted up Winamp (It was a music player; ask your parents.) to listen.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

It was Queen. More than a gig of Queen tracks strung together and labeled as the Good Omens audiobook. I’d been, as they say, played for a sucker.

Now, there are one of two conclusions you can draw from this little misadventure:

1) Good Omens fandom has had a wicked sense of humor since the very beginning,

or

2) Anthony J. Crowley had the File Transfer Protocol figured out at least as early as 1998, and he was prepared to take advantage of that knowledge.

I know which one I believe.

or

3) Crowley was who uploaded the original mp3, and as with his cassette tapes, after two weeks it just turned into Queen

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love how wei wuxian came back wrong from the burial mounds and then came back right after dying. it's like he didn't restart correctly so he had to be turned off and on again and now he's fine

i wonder if any newer fans of hermitcraft (e.g the guys who picked it up because of the Empires crossover) don't know about Doc and his whole gambit. anyways, don't worry guys, he's like a large friendly dog. actually super chill, capable of unchecked and maniac violence, cares for his kid Very deeply, regularly breaks the game to prank the hell out of his neighbors. those who have been around for a while will know that he's more bark than bite. yeah he COULD bite a chunk out of someone's leg but he only does that if they're being a legitimate asshole, don't worry!

older hermitcraft fans, settling in with a fluffy blanket and a box of popcorn: goddamn it, he's at it again. may as well enjoy the show, it's guaranteed to be good

newer hermitcraft fans, hiding behind their chairs: what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck how is he doing that. What is that. Why is a dragon there

older fans: oh yeah he duplicated a dragon from the end and brought it into the Overworld. there's also another one flying over spawn. he did this for a flex.

newer fans: what the FUCK

older fans: if it helps, that's not the wildest thing he's done

newer fans: THAT DOESN'T HELP AT ALL????