We're back on track again. We're sorry about the lack of new content during the last couple of weeks. It's a terrible ordeal we've been through here... Thanks for sticking with us! Everyone should be glad to know that the culprits responsible for all of this are now safely in jail...

Here's what happened. On February 3, 1999, two men wearing "Tux the Penguin" Linux t-shirts and greasy ponytails burst into our downtown office. The big one kicked over a plastic lawn chair by the door, and started yelling at the top of his lungs...

"You fucking CREEEEEEP assholes!!!! You fucking dipsomaniac SHITHOLES!!! I should tear your god damn hair out for this!!! You don't know what FREE is!!!"

At the time, I was finishing up a tutorial piece on making a bong out of duct tape, and as I spun my computer chair around, I was able to grab my wrist pad to use as a weapon. But before I could even get to my feet, the small one came up behind me, hit the eject button on my CD-ROM drive, and slammed down a copy of O'Reilly and Associates _Running Linux_ on the open drive--cracking the door clean off. Then he started to grab wildly at the peripherals on my desk, so I hit him square in the teeth with my "Silicon Sports" wrist pad, which stunned him...

Unfortunately, the rest of the Pigdog staff was out to lunch or otherwise off-site, so I was alone in the office without help or protection, and before I could subdue the larger intruder, he dived behind the Pigdog infrastructure server rack, and began to rip and bite all the cables and wires like some sort of rabid hippo.

I ran over and grabbed his legs to try and pull him out, but he was too heavy for me. Obviously, years of Cheetos, Jolt cola abuse, and donuts had made him too large and too wily. The only thing I could think to do was pull out the Swiss Army knife on my keychain and try to carve some pain into his leg. I hoped it would get him to stop eating the ethernet cables and whatnot, but instead his throaty shrieks seemed to incite the other penguin-shirted attacker. I watched helplessly from across the room as the smaller geek pushed my Nokia 445X 21" monitor onto the FLOOR where it made a grotesque popping sound, much like a sausage exploding in a microwave.

"How could you PROMOTE STALLMAN at a time LIKE THIS!!!" He kept yelling, "We might be rid of that commie FOREVER if it weren't for people like you!!"

Seeing my 21" monitor destroyed made something inside snap. Things get hazy at that point, but apparently I abandoned the big Linux freak and leaped toward my desk where the smaller Linux geek was trying to pry my computer case open with a letter opener. When I got to him, I WAILED on him with my wrist pad--using it like a belt; beating him like a stepchild.

After about two minutes he let out a horrible wail like I've never heard...

"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaiii..."

And that's when I stopped. I collapsed into my chair, taking huge gulps of air. The terrifying weeping seemed to defeat the bigger one too, because he started crawling for the door oozing blood from his ankles. When I caught my breath, I called the authorities.

The upshot of the whole event is that my computer has been down, and the Pigdog database server and source control server were completely knocked out for over a week. Luckily, we had a good backup, but it's taken us a lot of work to get things back to the level where we can push out new content. We'll be back to 100% some time in the next couple of weeks.

The details, the "whys," and the "whatfors" are still vague and troublesome at this point. As best we can figure, they must have gotten wind of our plans to publish an extensive interview with the SOUL MAN of the Free Software movement, Richard Stallman. Now that people are starting to make obscene fortunes based on free software, which has been rechristened "Open Source" software by businessmen, it seems that SOME people don't want Stallman to get any more press. Stallman still seems to believe that free software--and lots of things relating to it, including documentation for free software--should be free... pretty fucking crazy.

Or is it? Officially, we take no position on the issue, but I suggest that everyone listen to what Stallman has to say. Sure, he may be crazy, but is he AS crazy as the two brutal and vicious Linux thugs who ransaked our offices? And what about those who sent them to attack us? Are they sane?

It's good to be back.

Check it out yourself

iambic@pigdog.org