The Worldwide Culture Gonzo Squad, Inc.

I got perhaps two paragraphs into a “Pizza Hacks” article (drudged up by the Boing Boing people from a year ago—are they getting that desperate!?) over at SeriousEats.com and I thought: what a bunch of morons. (Of the “Pizza Hacks” peeps, not BB.) My mother taught me a pizza “hack” when I was a teen in the 80s and it beats anything out there, hands down. It’s fast, simple and you don’t need a stinking frying pan or to bother Domino’s for dough (which is actually illegal for them to sell).

Here it is:

1) Purchase uncooked biscuit dough from your local grocery store, it should be in the refrigerated food section. (Note: in the U.S., where I am from, biscuits are not cookies, so please use your local equivalent.)

2) Prepare your toppings. You can have anything you want on your pizza (in my experience, but I stick to traditional items like cheese, ground pork, ground beef, ground chicken, small or thinly sliced veggies).

3) Prepare a baking/cookie sheet. I don’t remember if my mother lightly buttered/oiled the sheet or not, so it would be prudent to consult the baking instructions on the biscuit package.

4) Place individual dough pieces on the prepared sheet and then flatten the centers out leaving the outer rim raised.

5) Sauce and top the flattened dough pieces, but again, don’t place too much on, but I recommend not putting on too much as the bottom of your pizza may not cook as well. Moderation is the key to fun here.

6) Place in broiler, cook 5 to 10 minutes, but WATCH them. As the broiler gets hotter, it will take less time to cook them. It might even be smart to turn off the broiler and let it cool down if your dough starts to blacken while the toppings remain undercooked.

These are great for parties and for all all ages, and the guests—if you are so inclined to allow them—can enjoy making the pizzas themselves.

“You wanted to know who I am, Zero Cool? Well let me explain the New World Order. Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what’s going on are the cattle.

Moo!”

One of my favorite quotes from Hackers. I remember watching it surrounded by angsty-teen paraphenalia, an impressive collection of retro gaming consoles, piles of data tapes and my then state-of-the-art 486DX2.
Crash Override. Acid Burn. The badass’d custom UIs and thumping beats of Voodoo People.

Despite ambitions of becoming a master cybercriminal, I soon realised that the world of the hacker was well beyond my reach. Worse still came the shattering discovery that most hacking was in fact done through visually lacklustre Telnet prompts and UNIX clients. Where were the badass skulls? 90s cool pseudonyms?

I was one of the cattle. The greatest ‘cyber crime’ I would ever manage was the manipulation of the alert sounds on my highschool’s computers to play Warcraft II battlecries.

Uplink: Hacker Elite gives anyone the oppurtunity to live out their anarchistic dreams of becoming a cyber criminal. You are recruited by an underground collective of highly skilled agents for hire, contracted by various anonymous parties to wreak digital havoc where required. Break into the Global Criminal Database and frame a man for murder. Commit corporate espionage through the sabotage of highly sensitive information.

As the game progresses, you are able to upgrade your deck to from an entry-level calculator to a secure server room (complete with security sensors and remote detonators…just in case).

Despite being released in 2001, the game has maintained a massive cult following (and has recently been made available via the Steam network). New patches, mods and missions are updated regularly through numerous fan sites - of particular mention is Onlink which comes with a plethora of new features, functions and most importantly - a built in MP3 player, so you can grind to your favorite tracks.

Here’s a quick gameplay sample:

For anyone that has yet to check it out - you can download the demo here.