I have no recollection of ever acquiring something called ‘The Ultimate CD’. I’ve gone through some weird ‘buying random crap off the internet’ phases in my life and as I was a great fan of PD disks (that’s public domain) back in the day, purchasing a CD claiming to be ‘ultimate’ is definitely something I would have done.
My rediscovery of said ULTIMATE CD was, in fact, not in CD form but found on an old hard drive in a folder called “keep for the LOLs”. The CD was so ultimate, I had made a backup.
A few minutes of skipping through its many many many directories reveals a wealth of random installable software that is absolutely not touching my PC, a lot of risky clicks, and many random text files ranging from eBay auction guides (I suspect eBay is where I found this thing) through to ‘Building Scientific Bird Houses For Fun And Profit’. At an initial glance, it’s like the PG-13 version of the ‘Jolly Roger’s Cookbook’.
Judging by the dates of the latest-looking files it appears to come from 1999. It also looks like someone had been saving the internet to an optical drive just in case it ever got deleted.
I was EXTREMELY relieved to find the directory named ‘BABY’ contained a certain animation that was synonymous with the ‘Ally McBeal’ era.
But everyone knows the dancing baby.
Let’s find the weird shit.
An Innocuous Beginning
The Ultimate CD clearly wanted to position itself as an ultimate guide to eBay, which at the time would’ve still been relatively fresh from its rebrand from AuctionWeb. Among the helpful Word forms aimed at letting you keep track of your inventory as well as items you’ve bid on, there are additional resources like how to change fonts in HTML (CSS was not on their radar). I also found a directory of search engines because there used to be loads of them. Helpfully, there are also plethora of ‘people finder’ companies listed by their actual real-world addresses and phone numbers (“used to find people you have lost contact with”), many of which were probably put out of business when Friends Reunited exploded on the web a year later. MySpace? Not even a thing yet.
Moving on, we find a directory for drop shippers. Standard stuff, yawn. But wait, this is getting more interesting! We’re starting to see the mind of the CD’s creator emerging.
There’s the Dancing Baby again, this time in screensaver form… as an .EXE file. Yeah, no thanks on that one.
An HTML file called “STUFF.HTML” promises free stuff galore, but sadly, all the links lead to dead ends and forgotten corners of the internet.
Now this caught my eye: a folder titled “HOW TO GET ONE MILLION PEOPLE TO SEND YOU $3”. Hmm, this could explain why I might have sent this person actual money back then. Let’s see what their secret is.
Finally, some information that might actually be useful! Manuel, I hope you’re living the good life these days with your mountain of cash.
An Eyebrow Begins to Raise
Of course, no self-respecting “random digital relic” would be complete without a guide to hacking, and this one delivers. It even has a relatable story most of us can connect with.
Once upon a time the most common way to get on the Internet was through a Unix shell account. But nowadays everybody and his brother are on the Internet. Almost all these swarms of surfers want just two things: the Web, and email. To get the pretty pictures of today’s Web, the average Internet consumer wants a mere PPP (point to point) connection account. They wouldn’t know a Unix command if it hit them in the snoot. So nowadays almost the only people who want shell accounts are us wannabe hackers.
The problem is that you used to be able to simply phone an ISP, say “I’d like a shell account,” and they would give it to you just like that. But nowadays, especially if you sound like a teenage male, you’ll run into something like this:
ISP guy: “You want a shell account? What for?”
Hacker dude: “Um, well, I like Unix.”
“Like Unix, huh? You’re a hacker, aren’t you!” Slam, ISP guy hangs up on you.
So how do you get a shell account? Actually, it’s possible you may already have one and not know it. So first we will answer the question, how do you tell whether you may already have a shell account? Then, if you are certain you don’t have one, we’ll explore the many ways you can get one, no matter what, from anywhere in the world.
There’s also a hilariously long section on what to do if you get caught (“Everything A Hacker Needs To Know About Getting Busted By The Feds”), and, naturally, a guide to search engines. It’s pure 90s web, couldn’t be more authentic if it tried.
I have used many Web search engines. But eventually I came to the conclusion that for serious research, you only need two: Alavista and Dejanews. Altavista is the best for the Web, while Dejanews is the best one for searching Usenet news groups. But, if you don’t want to take me at my word, you may surf over to a site with links to almost all the Web and Newsgroup search engines at [dead address].
But just how do you efficiently use these search engines? If you ask them to find “hacker” or even “how to hack,” you will get bazillions of Web sites and news group posts to read. OK, so you painfully surf through one hacker Web site after another. You get portentous-sounding organ music, skulls with red rolling eyes, animated fires burning, and each site has links to other sites with pretentious music and ungrammatical boastings about “I am 31337, d00dz!!! I am so &&^%$ good at hacking you should bow down and kiss my $%^&&!” But somehow they don’t seem to have any actual information. Hey, welcome to the wannabe hacker world!
Don’t Go After the Middle Class (Each Other)
Even deeper in the digital rabbit hole, we find texts dating back to the 80s, like “The School Stoppers Text-Book” (88 ways to “sabotage” your school) and other curiosities that have likely circulated in various forms over the years. Feeling a bit out of place is “Anarchy on the Greens…,” or, shall we say, “fucking up a golf course.” Do YOU want to know how to mess up a golf course? The Ultimate CD has the answer (I would not suggest that you follow the provided information). Spelling has been kept intact:
I’m sick of seeing destruction files about blowing up cars and destroying houses. we shouldn’t be going after the middle class (each other) we should be going after the big coperations. and what is the number one sport of those rich bastards? Golf! The following are some ways to fuck up a golf course.Feel free to modify and add to it. Feel free to add and distribute as part of a collection.
If you choose to do any of the following Fez is not responsible, we just give you the ideas -you act on them.
Some of these may require an accomplace in the form of a caddy who is your friend and in on it.
Fez Ltd.Tim Masterson
Fucking Up A Golf Course
Part I: The Green
The most heavily take care of part of the course is the green. They are well groomed. In case you don’t know, it’s the area around the hole and the flag. Plug up the hole with dirt, shit, jelly, peanut butter, vasoline, etc. I reccomend something that will really fuck up their hand if they put it in there. Remove all the flags. The hole is moved often so that water running over the green doesn’t form a funnel right to the hole: Dig you’re own hole, search through your garage for s shovel or something. Not to big, about the same size as the real hole. The course owner keeps the hole, replaces it, and digs a new one weekily or after big rains. Right before a storm or during dig about five holes, or just get a friend and totally dig up the green. Light the flags on fire, use gas so it stays a while. Get shampoo, oil, anything slick. Pour it all over the green. It will either fuck up their shot or fuck up their shoe.
Part II: The rest of the hole
The fairway, the tee area… Detergent kills grass. nuff said. Using a hoe (the garden tool, fellas) or shovels, fuck up the tee area so that they can’t put the tee in the ground to take a shot. Using a really long fishing wire, set up a trip wire across the entire fairway. Rip up bunches of newspaper and spread over the course. Do it on only one hole, it looks cool.
Part III: Interrupting Play
Self expanatory. Get yourself a laser pointer (you know, those things that look like pens but shoot a harmless red beam. maybe a teacher uses one. They run cheap, 50-80 dollars, at office supply stores like Staples or Allied) Sit in a tree, or on the ground near a tee area that is shaded and point it in their eyes right before they swing. For you uncreative useless types yell real loud before they swing I reccomend “DUCK!” or “LOOK OUT!!!” On up hill shots steal the ball after they hit it, they will really be furious with this one. On water shots, make sure the ball rolls into the water. (Be careful, don’t get hit with the ball, they hurt). Roll golf balls across course.
Part IV: Misc.
Other shit. Do anything that you would do to a car to a golf cart. Pour dirt, food colouring, stink bombs, anything liquid and disgusting into one of those ball cleaners (get those stink bombs in the real small glass container, put it in in such a way so that it breaks when used). Destroy the paths for golf carts. Some courses have coolers of water so the bastards can refresh themselves, either change it’s colour, content, or both. Be creative. Replace regular golf balls with foldgers crystals. Replace regular golf balls with exploding golf balls (check local gag store). Replace golf clubs with clubs that are slighly sawed at the bottom so that it breaks (or just saw it when the shit head ain’t looking). Full golf bag with sludge. Tape or glue one of those small glass smoke bombs onto the gas pedal of a golf cart so that it breaks when stepped on. This is also fun with regular cars.*
It’s kind of sad that nowadays, all we have are TikTok hijinks. We’ve lost the beauty of prose like this. A victory for fleeting video, a major loss for the written word. I bet you couldn’t even sell this info on eBay anymore, because it’s “woke rubbish” or something like that. But hey, The Ultimate CD still has plenty to offer, and most importantly, it keeps providing me with easy blog content. So let’s make this a series and revisit it another rainy day, so I can finally get my three dollars’ worth.
