FLIPPERSMACK 005 culturemag for a penguin generation http://www.flippersmack.com I saw the Escher show last night at the EpiCenter in San Diego. They were pretty good; the only band I've known of with only two people. Matt sang and played guitar while Dale sang and played drums. It worked out really well; they have some very melodic songs with harsh punk vocals. We'll do a full review of them soon in here. I'm spending another weekend in LA and getting Flippersmack out. Going to a renegade rave tonight called RollCall. Sleep this weekend is not on the agenda really. Hope you enjoy this issue! Back issues of Flippersmack can be found at http://www.nettwerked.net/ and http://www.fris.net Oh yeah. http://www.coolwhip.org Submit pictures. This is a cool site idea! I want to see your bodies covered in cool whip!! YES! -pinguino tABLE oF cONTENTS San Diego Storm Drains..........................Pinguino Trip...............................................MagMa The Tracfone Trap..............................The Clone Poetry: A Lost People...........................Pinguino -.x.x.x.- San Diego Storm Drains by pinguino [pinguino@comicartist.com] Storm drains aren't sewer pipes. There is a terrible misconception that we were running through the sewers. Although we did see a sewer rat, we were not running through any sewers. I got the lead for this particular tunnel off a random usenet posting from years ago; worse yet was the fact the person was remembering something he had done in his college years in the 70's. Needless to say, the opening to the tunnel was difficult to find based on the description we had, so we eventually ducked into the closest concrete-glazed drainage ditch and followed it out to the storm drain tunnel opening. Our group this time consisted of Secret Squirrel, White Rabbit, Tigger, Das, Kilna, and myself. We all were seasoned infiltration travellers who shared a spirit for adventure. The storm drain for the most part was dry, with long puddles that held an inch to three inches of water. Storm drain explorers should wear waterproof boots, even if it hadn't rained in a few weeks. The tunnel was about seven feet tall, concrete, and circular. There wasn't a lot of tagging, but sometimes there were pictures drawn with spray paint. There were lots of "The End Is Near" type tags. Also, you can see where the concrete tubes were dated; some of the tube sections were dated back to the 50's. The tunnel started out near Balboa Park and ended near the Star of India. The tunnel lasts for two miles beneath downtown San Diego. We made it out to where the ceiling went to about 4ft high, but stopped when the water went up to Squirrel's knees. The end was salty and smelly, with lots of sand, so we knew that we were only about twenty feet from the actual end. There were manhole access points all through the drain but we didn't go up any of them. Not exactly a place you'd want to hang out at, but the storm drains would be a cool place to take a bored friend or to possibly skate in during the summer. There was really no security. The entrance is near the Naval Hospital, and the area has some amount of traffic at night. We might not have catacombs or subway tunnels, but San Diego does have a cool drain to explore. -.x.x.x.- +- K-1ine "A 'zine for the 780 undergr0und scene" K-1ine offers the newest H/P and random misc articles from people all across Canada and the USA. -+ w w w . n e t t w e r k e d . n e t -.x.x.x.- Trip by MagMa [magma@sunos.com] The jiggling of our cat'’s collar once signified the arrival of new mail at our door. Now only the lonely footsteps that drop off my divorce papers are all I hear at my door. Enough is enough. I pack my bags and part just after the evening news begins. The M5 seems to have lost it's effect on me- I am no longer enthralled when I look at the contemporary styled rims that I spent so much time picking out. At least it's fast, too bad I have nowhere to go quickly. As I pass Pearson airport at speeds I wouldn't travel at otherwise, I'm reminded of the annoying radio ads that tell you to slow down. I juice it even more. I don't know where I'm going, all I know is that I must leave this mundane existence and actually change my life; not like those infomercial product buying wannabes, but actually change it, for the better. I zoom by a station wagon filled with a family of five with a canoe on their car; I'm reminded of when my father and I would go out into Algonquin Park for a week or two. Those were the days, nothing but untouched wilderness, not the stuff you see in zoos but real, live animals. Animals that fight to protect their--- great. Cops. I'm in sixth but two seconds later I'm in first hitting my chrome plated brake pedals harder then ever before. Speed trap? No. Car wreak and thankfully not a bad one, the cops don't even notice me. Good. As I sit I remember to change my cars clock from day light savings time back into which ever it is for the winter months. Odd how it's been days since the change and I haven't noticed. Animals that fight to protect their young. Those were the greatest summers of my life, probably because soon after that I lost my father. Why was he so stressed, I used to wonder. Toll freeway, I bet it's almost always empty, lets see, I feel the turbo kick, here we go like doh-diddly-o. So the story goes, she wants the house, our child and even the cat, she doesn't even like cats. Apparently she has no interest in my car, shame really. The quiet roar of the engine makes me realize I don’t have any music playing. Odd. I shuffle through my discs looking for something to fit the mood. Chicane is the first thing that comes to mind, sweet ambient music. I depress the gas pedal a little more. Back in sixth. Canoeing with my father was always fun and challenging at the same time. He let me be in stern, so I had all control but also had to use my body to the fullest. Power always comes with a price I guess. Isn’t it interesting that when you drive fast you seem to float by everything? I think it is. A calm comes over me, much like the calm that one finds when watching rain drop on skylights. Every time we pulled upon a campsite the first thing we did was find a place for our tent, it may seem obvious but it was a long process. My father always preferred the high more rocky locations, while I always wanted the tent near water so I could hear the calming sounds as I lay there trying to sleep. The gas icon is lit. Why can’t there be gas trucks that you summon, they fill you up and you’re on your way without being bothered to stop. We should put gas trucks way before things like the censorship of the Internet so it becomes mindless like television. When we had the tent all set up and my favorite stuffed animal tucked in my sleeping bag waiting for me we quickly made a fire. Gas stations nowadays seem more like space stations in my mind, with the extremely bright lights and bubbly form. As I step back in I hear “so your back this way again?” part of a song by chicane, fitting. As it grew darker from day into night my father would ask me to go look for firewood but never letting me leave his sight, he had a thing about me being an easy kill or something to that effect. I switch on the headlights, with that blue like colour that seems to blind people more then anything else. Oh well. The only thing I seemed to dislike about our northern getaways was how the smoke always seemed to blow in my face even when I moved next to my father. He always found it quite amusing. Electronic music always seems to sound so much better then the real thing, mind you jazz has its moments too. Just before bed we would brush our teeth at the waters edge skipping rocks that seemed to bounce off the glass leaving it’s mark for only a short time. Similar to how things fad with time, ask someone if they would like to watch a movie made about a dozen years ago, almost always that response will be “that movie is old”. Funny. I follow this road and these cars to where ever they take me. When I was in my sleeping bag and ready to sleep my father would ask “would you like a story” my instant reply was always “yes”. He woculd tell the greatest of stories. I up shift trying to overtake an oversized Sport Utility Vecile, with ease I fly by almost wanting wave. The lights that illuminate the highway shrink into regular lampposts and the roads do the same into regular roads. Do the cars slow? Of course not, we, I, go faster. I would always drift into a sleep always dreaming about the subject matter of that story, I wonder if my father was ever offended when I did that. I think I have figured out why people buy SUV’s, it’s just so they can run over the other cars in the event of a crash. BANG. I jolt out of my sleeping bag with what I believe is a gun shot, where is my dad? I slowly unzip the tent door to find my father on the ground. A lone jet-black wolf stands upon a nearby rock. Blood. So much of it. I wipe the sleep from beneath my eyes just as the chime in my 15 hundred-dollar watch dings one am. The blue light from the headlights reflects quite well off the eyes of the beast ahead of me, I jerk the wheel to avoid —and like that it’s over. Strange. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||***************************|| ||******The GrassHopper******|| ||***********Unit************|| ||***************************|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| -.x.x.x.- The Tracfone Trap by: The Clone [theclone@hackcanada.com] *% Introduction *% Tracfone Trap *% Technical Notes *% TracFone TOS *% Tracfone Complaints *% TrapFone Dot Com *% Conclusion Introduction - What is TracFone? TracFone is a wireless phone company in partnership with Telefonica de Mexico based out of Orlando Florida which offers 'Nation-wide Pre-paid service' (a partnership with Verizon Wireless) which bills your analog phone on a "pay as you go" basis, letting you control your own costs as you need them. With TracFone there are no credit checks, no contracts, no age limits, and no costly cellular phone bills. What makes TracFone such a unique pre-paid wireless company is that on the phones' themselves is a time-counter that keeps track of the minutes you use, by sending a real-time roaming update to the closest b-side wireless carrier and then eventually to Verizon wireless who perform the necessary updates. For example; if you are roaming on TracFone while in Edmonton Alberta Canada, your ESN/NAM header information will be sent to Telus Mobility's Home Location Register (HLR) system which recognizes the account, processes it, and from there it immediately diverts it to Verizon. TracFone Trap - TracFone Incorporated currently offers two analog Nokia model phones to its customers: the Nokia 252, and the Nokia 918. Both models are sleak and fully loaded with features that make using these products enjoyable. -NAM PROGRAMMING- Unfortunately, TracFone has really limited its customers freedom by putting a limit on what other numbers - but specifically what other carriers can be programmed into the phones NAM memory bank by locking the first A-side SID. The truth is customers do not have the ability to program other numbers into the phone AT ALL, meaning you're stuck having only one account on one phone; that being the TracFone account on the TracFone phone! The NAM memory bank looks something like this: (1st) phone # - 666-313-3370 (1st) SID - 0 (A-side) (2nd) phone # - [blank] (2nd) SID - 1 (B-side) On the attempt to program the second memory bank you'll get the following: "Location NAM error" Lets say you successfully hacked the NAM programming menu code for the phone... couldn't be too tough if you consider all the available web-sites and mailing- lists on the Internet that focus on just that... ie. (list) gsm_underground@yahoogroups.com (site) http://www.hackcanada.com/ice3/cellular/index.html (site) http://www.nettwerked.net/TFA/cell.html Now to take advantage of the hack you would be required to have firstly broken the NAM programming menu code, followed by entering in the exact same account information (phone # and SID) that appears in the first memory bank into the second memory bank. By roaming on the B-side you are likely to get lots of extra time even AFTER the TracFone's unit-counter time runs out because it can take from several days to a few weeks for the header info (ESN/MIN/NAM) to be sent from say Telus or Rogers/AT&T to Verizon and then finally to TracFone's HLR provisioning system for "current account updates". After this time, the TracFone's unit-counter will realize the customers account is out of air-time and will finally boot them off the network until the phone is re-filled. What else sucks about TracFone? - There is no way to buy phone units online with a credit card; only through an authorized retailers. - Finding authorized retailers in Canada is one thing, but finding a retailer at all that will accept Canadian dollars and Canadian addresses is another thing. - The web-forms on tracfone.com do not accept Canadian addresses (ie. 12274-123st Edmonton Alberta Canada, T5X-2R9) - If you wanted to change your account information, you would be required to mail your Nokia analog to TracFone (you pay the shipping fees) to be reset... for a fee of $75.00/USD. Call 509-710-4619 for more information. - TracFone will not let you receive calls when on roaming due to the carrier and number assignment. The message the person who's calling your roaming TracFone will hear is Verizon's "unable to reach subscriber" message - this was verified by calling a roaming TracFone from a Telus landline. Technical Notes - (note: The Nokia 252 is virtually the same as the Nokia 918 in respects to programming, so don't fret my pets.) Technical specifications on the Nokia 918 model phones offered by TracFone Incorporated can be read at this site: http://www.nettwerked.net/nokia_918.txt Terms and Conditions of Service: Upon activation of cellular radio service ("Service"), customer ("You") agrees to the following terms and conditions: To maintain TRACFONE cellular service and keep the local phone number, purchase and activate a 30, 100, or 260 unit prepaid cellular card every 60 days or a 10 unit card every 30 days. You may purchase as many TRACFONE Prepaid Cellular Phone Cards as you want. TRACFONE will display the due date reminder every time you turn your phone on. If you do not purchase, and redeem, at least one TRACFONE Prepaid Cellular Phone Card within 30 or 60 days of initial programming and set-up, the Service will be suspended. You can reactivate your Service by purchasing and redeeming a TRACFONE Prepaid Cellular Card; however, a different phone number will likely be assigned. You (the customer) have no property interest or other proprietary interest in any telephone access number assigned. Each card redeemed will extend service by 30 or 60 days from the date of redemption, depending on the card value. Any and all tampering or falsification or entering of codes not properly authorized by TRACFONE may result in immediate discontinuance of Service and prosecution to the full extend of the law. TRACFONE reserves the right to cancel any Service without notice. TracFone complaints: The following are a few examples of horror stories that current and former TracFone customers have written about over the last four months: (taken from http://www.bitchaboutit.com/ReadPages/telephone_complaints.htm) Date: 04 Jan 2001 Tracfone, the biggest joke I have ever heard of! I have been trying for four unsuccessful weeks to contact them to activate this phone that they screwed up. After being disconnected over 100 times I got mad enough to just let it alone. They told me the hold time was 94 minutes! I work customer service too and that is unacceptable! This company is going to get a piece of my mind if I ever get a person on the phone. They sure do have excuses though! Heard em all so far! - Christina Hull, MD Date: 04 Jan 2001 I purchased a Tracfone on December 12th, for my boyfriend for his birthday. I had it "activated" on December 21st. After 3 days the phone still did not work, so I called back. After 5 or 6 calls and 2 hours on hold, I reached a "technician" who "reprogrammed" the phone. He then performed a "test call" and the phone didn't work. So he asked me a couple of questions and I am mid-sentence and next thing I know I am back at square one, waiting on hold again for "an estimated wait time of 45 minutes." 3 days later I waited another 45 minutes, this time late at night, and reached someone who again "reprogrammed" the phone and assured me that whomever I spoke with previously did not program it right. It has now been a week since that call and still the phone does not work. I've been trying to call for about 4 days now, and you can't even wait on hold anymore, they tell you to wait 60 minutes and call back. Please do not purchase this phone, it is a real hassle. There are many other pre-paid cellulars out there - buy one from a company with a local office where you can go and get decent service. I will be returning my Tracfone this weekend - thank God I saved the receipt. - Jodi Rapes, MI Date: 02 Jan 2001 Tracfone has the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my life. I will take every chance to steer possible customers away from buying into this piece of doodoo service. If you call the 1-800 # then you better bring the book War and Peace while you wait for service. You will make it cover to cover and then some. - Mark Vatcher, NH Date: 26 Dec 2000 I bought a tracfone (prepaid cellular service) from Wal mart after I had visited Tracfone's web site. On the site They say: Instant activation or in 24 hours in some areas. It is now 4 days and in a few hours 5 days after over 100 phone call attempts, busy signals, excuses etc. claiming the christmas rush, then blaming southwest bell and one excuse after another my #$%$*&@#% phone is still not activated!!! I see you have another complaint on this site for TracFone. Their # is 800-867-7183 - Brent Gould, MO TrapFone Dot Com - Still undergoing major construction, TRAPFONE is a site for the wireless phreak to spread knowledge about the technical infrastructure of TRACFONE's analog cross-country cellular network, but mainly as a place for irrate (former) customers to rant about why they think the service TRACFONE offers just plain sucks. http://www.trapfone.com Conclusion - There you have it folks; TRACFONE Wireless Incorporated is a trap sucking unsuspecting customers into its us-only plan through carefully crafted advertising / hardware programming techniques, and have THE worst pre-paid cellular customer service in the world. I advise that you let all your friends and family know about this deceitful company so they won't be lured into the tracfone trap either. Too many people have been hurt already by this company... it's time we all take a stand and run these guys out of business once and for all. Credits - I'd like to give credit to Alan (780) for his story and support while working on the development of this article. -.x.x.x.- A Lost People by pinguino [pinguino@comicartist.com] Poetry.com keeps sending me stuff wanting to publish this on some spoken word CD or something. Either it's good, or they try to make money off any submission. -|- Once I stepped on the very steps that Thomas Jefferson used every day I felt history surge through my veins. An aura resides at Monticello of inspiration forgotten long ago People need inspiration today. A week ago I stood on a stone where thousands of soldiers were slain. I felt nothing. -.x.x.x.- Flippersmack (c) 2001 Pinguino Kolb All Rights Reserved.