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FYI, There is some Discordian Jewelry out there already, but looks like they have sacred chao only: http://www.markdefrates.com/pages/symbol_t.html#Anchor-39842

Good to know about Anathem, going to tackle that next. Currently reading Clive James' Cultural Amnesia which is very engaging (but very large).

Its a hospital for those in persistent vegetative states.

Have you no respect for the sanctity of life?
\

No THAT is a sigil I can perform magic to... 

I have begun to wonder if we truly ever 'switch to a new map', as opposed to simply bringing another map up in a tab and focusing on it. Do we ever discard older maps completely?

I don't think so - when you learn something new, I think that experience is colored by the map you are using at the moment. For example, as I said in another thread, Illuminatus is a young adult book. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the people I have met who truly love that book (or certain others, like many of Hesse's) read it before they were 25. Re-reading it now, I still enjoy it as much as I originally did, perhaps because my concept of that book was colored by those previous maps... but if I experienced it now for the first time, I doubt it would have the same profound effect on my life.

Maybe that disregards nostalgia and makes other unwarranted assumptions, but take another example like how you feel about a person you have met in the past that you disliked because they did something that you did not like or agree with - I'm sure we all have one. The next time you meet that person, you are going to carry that feeling with you whether you have a new map or not - whether you still think that what they did was wrong. That person can do something that changes your feelings about them, but all that does is update that small portion of the map you are using - the next time you meet them, using a different map, those residual beliefs about that person will stand unless overturned again.

Needs more Jazz hands. Maybe one after every paragraph verse:

Blood of the Natives spills
from the holes in your
Spaghettios-  a river,
stinging
and emitting heartburn:
population control
bordering on genocide.
What a horrid tyrant did you turn out to be!
Jazz Hands!

?

The answer to question 5?

Edit: This guy seems sorta testy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culbert_Olson

No one but the designer would know this phrase

LOL; I have a feeling that this is the downfall of this project.

"What number am I thinking of?"
"Seven?"
"Oh... Ummmm... nope, you lose." 

Or its this

http://www.babylonproject.org/index.html

Both!

Most of what is currently at Castlechaos is output from that project, but Tales of Eric has much more to it than what I have on CC and there is much more output than is on the project site. I think it may have been lost by one of our operatives, however.

You may see a lot of Crowley talk, but I think most Discordians enjoy Crowley not for his purported magic, but for his ability to encode levels of meaning into his poetry and prose.

Got any suggestions of some good Crowley?

See the recent posts at http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=11834.30

The Book of Lies is great if you want poetry with lots of hidden meaning, in the tradition of alchemy. My non-poem work of his is Diary of a Drug Fiend.

I got to about page 155 of Illuminatus Trilogy and got bored

That doesn't surprise me at all... Illuminatus! is one of those books where your reaction to it depends immensely on the age you are at when you read it. If I read Illuminatus! now, it would definitely not effect me like it did when I was 16.

Except I have a hard time buying or believing in some of the connections to some of the 'Magick' type stuff.  Mostly on that I feel like I'll have to see it to believe it.  That may be my skepticism trip kicking in, but I don't know how to get around that without feeling conned, hehe.  

You're not the only one. I would say that many discordians believe in the kind of magic you can muster with things like the Turkey Curse - for the most part, there is a healthy skepticism inherent in those who throw off organized religion. You may see a lot of Crowley talk, but I think most Discordians enjoy Crowley not for his purported magic, but for his ability to encode levels of meaning into his poetry and prose.

Cram can be a very orderly motherfucker.  Just saying.

He put a book together, after all; one doesn't do that by tossing a pencil at a notebook and hoping for the best.

No, you have to put the pencil and the notebook in a box with a monkey and a Geiger counter. Once the Geiger Counter clicks, the monkey will be simultaneously William Shakespeare and Carrot Top until you open the box, and then it will be a cat.

That's what Wikipedia says, anyway.

... but often, the entire prank seems situated on the ego of the prankster, rather than the weakness of the victim... does that make any sense?

Yes, and it's more than pranks - I've seen lots of ego in online Discordia too. Look at the Wikipedia kerfuffle... everyone trying to get their names on there and getting seriously pissed off about it. Ego is something that it is hard to transcend. I got a bit of a thrill when some of my horrible writings showed up in the Apocrypha or wherever... but I got to a point where I just didn't care anymore... especially when I got involved with the Babylon Project, where no one's name was on anything... unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have panned out.

...and thus a community is born out of discord.

I like the way the discussion has been going - there seems to be a large number of people that think that in order to think for you yourself, you have to meta-think. To me this seems like the likeliest way to become a thoughtful (in the sense that you think instead of react) person.

So, to get the conversation completely off track again: "A community born out of discord"... every Discordian community I've seen online has either broken up or had a high turnover rate. I'm not saying this is special to Discordia - entropy strikes all internet communities eventually. I am not a big fan of the forum format, and its definitely hard to keep up with this one because of the volume, but its amazing to me how successful and long-lasting this site has been.

There are certainly instances of flaming and trolling (discord, after all) in many of the threads, but they don't seem to be systemic like in so many other places. Most of the people here seem to understand the concept behind "the sacred chao" and the balance that is necessary between creative order and creative disorder to make things work. So what is the secret? Do you hunt down and kill the trolls? Or do you just hire that out?

Ayyyyyyy! I still wear that Fonzie shirt sometimes...

After eating bacon weave, make sure to floss...