As always, Defcon was freakin’ awesome, but this year it was an entirely different level of awesome because there were a bunch of PLA people there to hang out with, such as Rob The Hyena, Sudo, Staci (or whatever the I’m supposed to call her this week), Laugh Track Matt, Jenn, Afreak, Jammie, Blue Boy, murd0c, and of course, Scanner Mel!
Staci wasn’t going to be able to make it, but at the last minute a bunch of people chipped in some cash and made sure she got to sit on a Greyhound bus for more than 24 hours straight! It was the best hax ever, putting her through that kind of hell. A ton of thanks goes to the people who donated, including Tombstone, Spacebison, Trevor Burdick, Rob The Hyena, Richard H., djskott, pfelon, Blaise, and most importantly, ME! Also, tons of thanks to io, who suckered some guy into giving Staci a free Defcon badge to get in. Some people donated with expectations of having Staci write URLs on a t-shirt that she would wear all weekend. She went through at least a couple of shirts throughout the weekend and I’m going to attempt to list the URLs below. If your URL has been forgotten, leave a note in the comments or email to get it added. Thanks a ton for allowing me to meet the infamous Staci Stack!
Both The Phone Show and The Fun Show on Cacti Radio did Defcon wrapup shows this week, so you should check those out when the new shows go up on the websites and podcast feeds. You also might want to keep an eye on our Hotel Pranks page for a few new pranks to be added, since we spent about an hour a day listening to the hotel staff on a scanner and then called the rooms involved to mess with them. Apparently Defcon attendees are just as full of legal threats as normal people are!
The book vendor was nice enough to carry the PLA book on their table, but I’m too much of a jerk to remember who they are or what their URL is. Thanks, book vendor people, for helping to spread the gospel of the PLA to Defcon attendees!
Cell phone service was a huge failure for my cell phone while I was inside the Rio, so I missed a lot of texts and tweets, making me miss out on meeting a few people. I couldn’t even say hi to RijilV because our texts were delayed by about 15 minutes and we ended up giving up on each other. If I missed you, that sucks. NEXT time we’ll all have to work out a better system for daily PLA cactus worshiping at a specified time/place since the Rio seems to be one giant Faraday cage.
Thanks, everyone, for showing up and saying hi to me. And huge apologies to everyone that I neglected because I was so busy all weekend. If you weren’t able to make it this year, start planning for next year! And just to make you feel like you were there, here are a bunch of photo albums from a few of us PLA folks.
Have you joined PLA’s Facebook yet? Because you’re a stupid dumb newb if you haven’t. Sure we post updates on this website and on our Twitter, but most of the hardcore PLA action happens on the PLA Facebook. I just made the title of this update RED and BLINKING so this is obviously an important issue. GO JOIN THE PLA FACEBOOK!
Are you going to Defcon with us? In just one month, the biggest PLA meetup in the history of the world (since our Jonbenet murder meetup) will be happening in Las Vegas and will include amazing people like RBCP, RogueClown, el_jefe, Jammie, Chris Ellerbeck’s mom, io, Laugh Track Matt, Rappy McRapperson and a lot of other people who are only of moderate importance so I won’t mention them because they’re newbs and don’t really matter.
Defcon 19 will be at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, from August 4th to August 7th. Admission is an outrageous $150 per person, so bring lots of badge counterfeiting supplies with you. A few of us aren’t even buying admission into Defcon since there will still be plenty to do on the outskirts of Defcon. And if you buy some of us enough beer, we might even loan our Defcon badge to you so you can get in for a bit. So don’t let the entrance fee deter you! Come to Defcon! Visit defcon.org for official Defcon information and visit PLA’s Defcon planning thread on the PLA forums to make plans with us.
Okay, shit’s getting real now because I’m using the scroll tag AND the blink tag, so you know this part is important. Here it goes…PLA has their own Minecraft server now! That’s right, back in the day we were doing crazy illegal things with telephones and having epic adventures on the streets of Corpus Christi, but in 2011 we’re reduced to nothing but a bunch of nerds who play Minecraft all day. Awesome, right?? You can learn more about our Minecraft world by visiting this thread in the PLA forums or just point your Minecraft client to 96.44.162.50:26026
Did you notice that The Phone Show didn’t happen last week? I mean, it sort of happened but it wasn’t done by ME so the dumb stuff that Aikison did in my absence is totally insignificant. There won’t be a Phone Show this week either. And maybe even none the following week. I might be able to squeeze one in before I leave for Defcon, but don’t expect a lot of Phone Show antics until after Defcon.
The good news is that there are at least 2 other shows that you can listen to on Cacti Radio during the week during my absence. Rob The Hyena does The Prank Show every Saturday night at 9pm Pacific and Staci Stack is still doing her Fun Show on Wednesday nights at 8pm Pacific. There are other shows that happen too, like Aikison and Badfish’s live show on Fridays at 9pm Pacific and Carlito’s Madhouse on Thursdays at 7pm Pacific which he hasn’t done in MONTHS NOW so I don’t know why I’m even posting it.
What do you think of the new design on phonelosers.org? Doesn’t the pea green background just make you want to throw up? And that pay phone menu over on the side? Have you ever even seen it? I never have because it takes 3 years to load, and I designed it! I bet it’s cool though. If you dial the standard Bell secret code into the keypad, a bunch of money is transferred to your PayPal. Try it! Let me know what you think about the design in the comments. Critique your hearts out and let me know how it could improve. And, oh yeah, GO JOIN THE PLA FACEBOOK!
But why I’m really writing this post about Rob is because he’s been editing a ton of audio lately, mostly related to prank calls done outside of the regular Phone Show and Fun Show hours. He’s got directories full of calls to a phone mob we did yesterday and a Subway we’ve been bothering and, of course, the infamous Weather Girl pranks. There’s a lot more than that too, so go visit his page and browse the directories full of fun audio.
While you’re listening, be sure to add Rob as a friend on Facebook so you can get to know him before you meet him at Defcon this summer. You’re going to Defcon, right? RIGHT??? Cause all of us sure are.
Any of you Phone Loser types going to Defcon this summer? Quite a few of us PLA people are planning to make it, such as RBCP, afreak, DBK, RogueClown, Jenn, blu3b0y, CountyKid, el_jefe, Jammie, ApprenticePhreak, io, Rappy McRapperson, Laugh Track Matt, OhEmGee, lmnk, Evie and Drolley. This year’s PLA group photo should be a lot bigger than just RBCP and Drolley. In fact, this might be the biggest PLA gathering ever. Defcon 19 will be at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, from August 4th to August 7th. Admission is an outrageous $150 per person, so bring lots of badge counterfeiting supplies with you.
vixen, altalp, i-ball, RTF and RogueClown hiding behind him.
This weekend a bunch of PLA Forums people made it to the annual ShmooCon hacker convention in Washington D.C. There were a lot of other people there too, but who cares about all them. Lots of thanks to everyone who showed up and said hello to us. We only caught the very end of the Podcaster’s Meetup, but still managed to see a lot of people at the HacDC party.
Trevelyn and i-ball, in front of our room’s door
Great times were had, childish stunts were pulled, fun people were met and nobody got arrested or beat up! I’ll do a more detailed writeup of the weekend’s events on my homepage later this evening and I’ll put a lot more pictures on my Flickr account. Also, keep an eye out on the PLA’s YouTube for some ShmooCon video to show up soon. Thanks again, everyone!
RBCP, i-ball, Trevelyn and Altalp tie up the real registration people and throw them in a closet.
The PLA panel happened, but I don’t have too much information at this time. murd0c called me last night and gave me details, but I was too tired to remember anything he said. I’m pretty sure nobody died, though. Below is the video that was played at the beginning of the panel, which murd0c claims got a few laughs…
I’ll update this post as people send me links and information. Or if you just can’t wait for me to do it, then post your links and information in the comments. A huge thanks to murd0c, RTF, I-ball, Sidepocket and whoever else participated in it.
Here is a video of the panel, reduced to 10 minutes for YouTube. Thanks, Jammie, for videotaping this!
HOPE is happening this weekend and the PLA panel is happening this Saturday at 11:00pm. If you’re going to be a HOPE, you are not allowed to miss the PLA Panel. murd0c, RTF, I-ball and Sidepocket are counting on you to be there for an hour of PLA silliness. So BE THERE!#@!!@1!!#&^@#%
HOPE is less than a month away, so it’s not too late to make arrangements and attend. There will be a PLA panel there, just as there was in 2006, which will be on Saturday at 11:00 pm. Location: Turing, on the 18th floor. Join murd0c, RTF, I-ball and Sidepocket for an hour or so of PLA fun. And hopefully you’ll get one of the hundreds of PLA Media DVDs from the picture above. BE THERE!#@!!@1!!#&^@#%
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