TALLAHASSEE – Hundreds of Katrina evacuees who fled to Tallahassee seeking refuge from the storm have been politely told by their hotels and motels to leave this weekend to make room for a football game: FSU vs. Miami.

From here.

The Jackson Bureau reports that the power disruption has produced a de facto gas shortage. Stations with power — maybe half — have quickly run out of gasoline, so people are waiting in line at unpowered, unopened gas stations speculatively, on the theory that they’ll eventually get power and open, and they’ll be able to buy.

So, gentle readers, how prepared would YOU be for a Katrina-scale problem? The axis of Nielsen-Hayden have much to say on the subject, most of which we’ll be taking to heart here at Heathen central. We probably have most things we’d need already, but that really isn’t enough. Pack it all into a bag, and keep the bag close to the door. Have a car? Make another bag.

New Orleans by satellite. Water all the way to Rampart (compare to this GoogleMaps hybrid).

On the other hand, the images of the Mississippi coast are less dramatic in some ways because basically everything is gone. However, we’re told there are some here, but we can’t get the site to load. It’s probably just as well.

If you read this site, go NOW and give. Billmon has a fine list there; you pick. They need cash more than anything. If you’re going to go Red Cross, think about giving through Erin and I; her employer will match our contribution. You know how to find us.

Katrina, however, is in a class all by itself:

Effective immediately, the Postal Service is not accepting any Standard Mail or Periodicals Mail — from any source — addressed for delivery within the following three-digit ZIP Code ranges: 369, 393, 394, 395, 396, 700, 701 and 704.

The first two are Meridian, MS. 394 is Heathen Homeland, Hattiesburg, MS. 395 is Gulfport; 396 is McComb. 700 and 701 are NOLA; 704 is Mandeville, LA.

Via BoingBoing.

• My brother’s father-in-law now has power — and, in fact, said power returned while Frank was leaving me a voice mail, if the spontaneous cheer in the background is any indication — which is good, as it means Frank and Aubrey have someplace cool to be for a while, as their house won’t have any for a couple days, if not longer.
• Our mother’s house is not so lucky: they likely won’t have power for a month. They’re going to try to get a generator at Sam’s in the morning, as there are rumors of a shipment. My 71-year-old stepfather has already run through one chainsaw blade clearing their own modest driveway. Seven trees will do that, we reckon.

We still can’t reach our relatives in Columbia, MS, but every other party is fine, if a bit rattled. Final tree down count at the Hattiesburg location: 7, including at least two on the house. There’s roof damage, but nothing catastrophic (i.e., just expensive). Thank God for small blessings.

Hurricane Advice We Find Both Amusing And Terrifying

“Bring an axe to the attic:”

Some houses in Chalmette have water past the second floor. The Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries ahs approx. 60 boats ready to go out to rescue people from rooftops where necessary in St. Bernard Parish (and 200 throught SE Louisiana. Some people were reportedly trapped in attics. You’d think everyone would know by now, BRING AN AX TO THE ATTIC. I don’t care if you’re in Nebraska. If you go into the attic, you bring a damn ax.

Where the Heathen Ancestral Home Is, Superimposed Upon Certain Storms

What Our Mother Said Just Now As She Watched a 100-Foot Pine Get Uprooted In Her Front Yard

“The ground is breathing.”

Where Said Tree Fell

On the neighbor’s yard, but not without clipping the neighbor’s house as well.

What’s Weird About Knowing This

The eye is over them, but they still have phone service. No power, but phones work fine.

Why Our Mother Is Not, As She Was During Camille, Under A Mattress

We have no idea.

One Possible Reason

South Mississippi is one place (the only, really) in the US that can look at her and say, quite literally, “We’ve seen worse.” Assuming you’re old enough.

But Still

More trees have come down in her yard since we started writing this — one on the garage, it appears — and they now expect significant structural damage to the house.

At least there’s this

Our mother has decamped to an interior hallway, though there’s no word on mattresses. Yet.

Why We Still Think Mattresses Might Be Wise

Even inland, Katrina is still gusting at 135 with sustained winds at 105 — with hurricane force winds extending 125 miles from the center.

Our Mother’s Safety, Of Course, Is Our First Concern, But This Is Also A Load Off Our Minds

Early reports indicate that the French Quarter did not experience significant or catastrophic flooding.

Ergo, This Is What We’re Doing As Soon As Possible, God Willing

Eating here.

Cactus, a 40-year-old tortise at the San Francisco Zoo, had surgery recently to remove half a pound of bladder stones; as the turtle normally weighs only eight pounds, this was sort of significant. The veterinarian patched Cactus’ shell with fiberclass, not unlike a surfboard.

As we Heathen are decended from pseudo-country veterinarians, our first response would have probably been unworkable. However, “flush him and give the kid a new one” will work just fine for non-endangered non-zoo non-mammal animals owned by children, just so you know. Or so we’re told.

Overheard online, and definitely apropos in re: some “southerners” we know:

Just because your children were born in the South does not make them Southerners. After all, if a cat had kittens in the oven, that wouldn’t make them biscuits.

A comment to the last post suggested to us that we explain what happened over the weekend, and why the site went from “fine” to “gone” to “weirdly obsessed with David Brown’s photography” to “fine without comments” to “fine again” since Friday.

The most important point to make, though, is that the “David Brown” phase wasn’t the hack — it was actually part of the recovery.

First, background: The old machine on which this blog ran for much of its life hosted a number of other sites, including our personal site (Nogators.com, which was also the original home of Heathen), the short-lived bachelor-party documentary CarlsGoneWild.com, a wedding site for AubreyandFrank.com, our own wedding site at ErinandChet.com, and a blog for Infernal Bridegroom artistic consultant Charlie Scott at Blog.InfernalBridegroom.com. Two of these sites (ErinandChet.com and Blog.InfernalBridegroom.com) ran a blogging tool called WordPress. This becomes important later.

Now: On our way out of town on Friday afternoon, longtime Heathen Hatch alerted us via email (all hail Treo) that something was askew at Nogators. We don’t look at Nogators very often anymore; most of our efforts are spent on Heathen. Hatch, being Hatch (g,d,r), though, had not updated his bookmarks from the time that Heathen lived at nogators.com/heathen, and so he saw the problem. Basically, some jackasses had replaced the default page of many of the sites on the server with a st00pid “we 0wn yoo” tagger page. (Yeah, these kids are just about the same level of fucktard as the people who spray paint their names on other people’s buildings.) When Hatch saw that, he sent the email.

Once at the airport, I checked the damage, but I didn’t have enough time to do a thorough investigation — I did, however, have time to shut down Apache, the web server through which they most likely gained access. After dinner in Jackson, I was able to put together what happened via some Google searches and sysadmin spelunking. The script kiddies in question used an exploit in WordPress to gain partial control of my server. To brag about their deed, they posted their “tagger” page, but left behind some nastiness for me to clean up. They’d attempted to install a r00tkit (in order to take control of my server later), but their ineptitude made it pretty easy to locate and destroy their trojan. However, since the machine’s OS was outdated and had been compromised, I immediately began the process of migrating all the sites hosted there to another machine. Apache remained down at this point.

Moving takes time. File copying and new server configuration are pretty quick, but DNS changes take about a day. I copied Heathen over first, but made a minor configuration error on the new server that resulted in it responding to requests for MiscHeathen.com with its “default” site instead of this weblog. The default site is DabFoto.com. DABFOTO IS NOT WHO HACKED HEATHEN. DabFoto is the profession site of David Brown, a friend of mine who is providing the new home for Heathen and its companion sites. Far more people, though, saw either no site at all (from Friday though sometime Sunday) or David A. Brown’s photography site (from Sunday until today) than ever saw the tagger page, and since most of you have no idea who David is, it’s reasonable to assume he was the hacker. After all, you punched in Heathen and got him, right? And Chet was saying he’d been hacked, right? Q.E.D., except not.

At this point, Heathen’s up, and ErinandChet.com will start working sometime in the next 12 or so hours, albeit in a new, green, minimalist presentation instead of via WordPress. Blog.InfernalBridegroom.com will not be coming back as a blog per se, but we WILL provide forwarding from /charlie to Dr Scott’s new Blogger site as soon as it’s up.

Clear as mud?

Well, sort of. Heathen is now operating out of an undisclosed location; the remaining sites from the old machine will pop back up in a few days, though certain blogging tools will no longer be welcome, as apparently they provide too much enticement for jackass script kiddies.

From this BBC coverage of his funeral:

Friends were instructed to remember him afterwards with the clink of ice in whiskey.

Cheers, Hunter.

Some goatfucker script kiddie hacked some sites here. We’re fixing it now, which is kinda hard on account of being in an airport. More to come.

We’re anonymously quoted in Gridskipper,a Gawker media blog about travel. Said quote comes from a mail we submitted in response to a previous entry in re: Moscow’s Cosmos Hotel.

Oil tops $65 a barrel.

That this restaurant — widely hailed as the finest in the country — is closed for a private party on October 10 and 11. Mrs-Heathen-to-Be and I had planned to dine there 10/10 as the kickoff event of our California honeymoon.

Fuck.

Ibrahim Ferrer, 1927 – 2005. (Pic via CNN; news and more via MeFi.)

No, really (via MeFi).

Today, my brother turns 30. We observed said event on Wednesday night with a trip to Philip M’s via booze-filled limo — I flew over to attend as a surprise, orchestrated by my sister-in-law — but today’s the actual day.

Happy birthday, Frank. I love you. See you soon.

We believe the following quote from Dr Thompson adequately captures the Proper Breakfast for sometime during the festivities:

The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newpapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music…All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked. Hunter S. Thompson on breakfast [from “Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’76”]

BoingBoing lives up to its slogan by pointing us to The Most Beautiful Machine, a brilliant piece of sculpture if ever we’ve seen one.

I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.

More here and here.

It’s called “love_your_job.gif,” but we might also call it “How Mr Heathen Feels About RFID Equipment This Week.”

(Author here, but found here.)

Trunk-mounted meth rockets.

And by “fun” we mean “that sucks.”

We’re trying to send a set of addresses to our friends who are throwing us a party. As it happens, Apple’s address book has no “arbitrary export” feature, which SUCKS. It’ll do VCards (which are great for moving between address management tools, but lousy for arbitrary data manipulation), but that’s all. However, it does have an address-label printing feature, which OUGHT to be at least good enough to get us past this roadblock (leaving aside the issue of data-lock-in for a minute, anyway).

However, in previewing the labels, we noticed that sometimes it was using the partner/spouse information in the addressee line (as in “Chris B___ and Cathy P____”) and sometimes not (as in “Edgar A____”, with his lovely wife nowhere to be found). Both records had the spouses listed in the “spouse” field. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth resulted before we were able to figure out for the Applecare dude exactly why this was. (We’re pretty sure this isn’t the way information is supposed to flow on those calls.)

As it turns out, when printing labels, the Address Book checks to see if there’s a record for the spouse. Unaccountably, if there is, it decides NOT to append the spouse name to the adressee line. Sure enough, Mrs Edgar has a record of her own, but Cathy does not (sorry, Cathy). The theory held up well; the minute we created a record for Cathy, she disappeared from the addressee line with Chris.

But it gets even suckier: For some reason, Tony’s spouse wasn’t showing up, either, and Emily doesn’t even have a record; she’s listed — with both first and last names — only as his spouse. However, we do know two other people named Emily, but with different last names. This partial match is enough to make Address Book omit her from the addressee line.

The AppleCare response? Don’t use the Spouse field, which means returning to the morass of somehow fitting differently-surnamed couples into a single set of firstname, lastname fields. Uh, no thanks, jackasses.

So: Way to go, Apple! Looks like I’m about to fucking TYPE the addresses into Excel manually. What. The. Fuck?

If we were in the legal profession, we probably wouldn’t say things in public like “Sure, there’s no way he can win; he’s got no case — but what do I care? It’s not contingency, and he’s paying $250 an hour.”

In no particular order:

• The waiter was able to give directions to a sushi restaurant that included “and turn right on Muhammad Ali…”
• The 13th floor of out hotel isn’t missing; in fact, it’s the “club floor,” featuring nicer furniture, better beds, robes, complimentary cocktails and breakfast, and a dedicated concierge. (We get to stay on said floor due to a familial connection between client company ownership and former hotel ownership, and at a rate that’s frankly absurdly good.)
• There’s a sign in the airport that boasts of the city’s status as “America’s 16th Largest City.” This reminds us of “Red, White, and Blaine” for some reason.

BoingBoing points us to this fine archive of “54”-era New York night life shots. It’s not safe for work (unless, presumably, you are or work for Ian Schrager), but there are some gems (marked safe or not):

• Fashion mogul Halston, gay/red-baiting pit-bull for McCarthy Roy Cohn, and 54-owner Steve Rubell (SFW)
• Tim Leary, clearly in his element (SFW)
• Brooke Shields and Mariel Hemingway, looking oddly demure (how old was Brooke?) (SFW)
• Bill, Ron, Mick, Keith, and Jack (SFW)
• Patti Smith and bullwhip-storage pioneer Robert Mapplethorpe (SFW)
• One we we think ought to be captioned “Lick you? Sure, but I’m not putting down my drink or my cigaratte.” (NSFW)
• Porn star Annie Sprinkle, an amputee, and a lot of Crisco (Profoundly NSFW)

It’s worth paging through all of them. New York was like a different planet then, apparently.

Richard Dawkins rants good in re: the intellectual bankruptcy that is ID theory. He closes with this gem:

You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.

More
BoingBoing points us to an open letter to the Kansas school board insisting that they also give classroom time to the Spaghetti Monster theory, on the grounds that it’s got as much going for it as ID.

You can get 2,000 superballs on eBay for $200. Madcap hilarity ensues.

Robert Love was Hunter Thompson’s editor for many years at Rolling Stone. He shares a bit of his experience in this CJR piece.

We live, it should be noted, in a world where an image search for “six-legged puppy with two penises” can legitimately produce something other than the null set.

From Slacktivist yesterday:

In any case, I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for blogging today. I’ve got to go to a funeral, place an ad in the paper, argue with a cyclops and then take my friend Stephen to a whorehouse. (Happy Bloomsday.)

For reasons we think best not to disclose — but which have nothing to do with dipsomania — we’re spending this year’s Bloomsday in a warehouse full of Jack Daniel’s.

Oh: “Yes I said yes I will Yes.”

John Phillips has been called to testify before today. You pretty much have to show up when this happens, no matter what. Except John is an astronaut, and is, um, in orbit, so today he’ll provide the first ever Congressional testimony from someplace other than Earth.

(Yes, it’s a bit of a stunt. No, that doesn’t make it less cool.)

Eighty-One Guys, All Of Them That Guy.

(Thanks to Mrs Heathen To Be, who graciously doesn’t point out that we’re actually (almost) several of them.)

Due to our current employer, we have learned a great many things about RFID technology in the last eight or nine months, most of which have actual practical applications, or at least the potential therefore.

However, the piece of information concerning RFID equipment we learned today, we’re pretty sure, has no application or interest beyond the immediate, and that is the answer to the question “How much RFID equipment can you get into a 2002 Hyundai Elantra sedan?”

J: Do you have a thumb drive handy? C: Sure, but it’s full of Sri Lankan hip-hop.

Certain former Heights-area restauranteurs have pointed us to this product, in the event some of you Heathen feel that your back door isn’t quite pale enough. Or something.

We did not ask what said restauranteaur was shopping for when she found this. We are also not making a joke on her possible distastisfaction with her current Shade (caps intentional and amusing to no more than two or three people, tops).

First spotted over at JWZ, and then via Metafilter, which provided some much-needed context. Apparently, it’s a parade by the art group Royal de Luxe in Nantes, France, and was done in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passing of Jules Verne.

Those are marionettes. The “Petite Geant” actually arrives in an enormous rocket. At one point, she kneels and lets kids swing on her arm. Don’t miss the shots of the 37-foot-tall elephant; apparently, his trunk is also fully articulated and could pick up hay to eat. Amazing. Fuck floats; absurdly articulated and expressive marionettes are where it’s at. Awesome pics and even a few videos here. There’s some behind the scenes stuff, too.

Also, more pix and video at the Nantes.fr site — perhaps someone (Miche?) can provide us with something like a translation of the relevant text.

Also also, because we live in the future, there’s already a flickr tag for “Nantes.”

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JWZ has more technical details gleaned from someplace, plus links to more pictures.

It seems that Ol Diz’ silence had a purpose, and that he’s now abandoning his indie blog roots to work for, as Wonkette calls it (scroll for May 31 entry, final bullet), the Blorg. Follow the artist formerly known as Diztopia to his new gig as Gridskipper.

Ladies and gentlemen, music legend Phil Spector in Court, apparently moving on from “wall of sound” to “wall of hair.”

(Via Warren Ellis)

Here’s a collection of incredibly well put-together, very, very small apartments.

We miss Hunter.

Mao sounds like an interesting game.

Here’s a fine listing of someone’s 25 favorite Sesame Street moments. The only thing that could make this better would be Quicktime clips.

We’re in Chicago at a trade show, where we learned many things, among them “Tom Ridge is a terrible, incoherent speaker.”