THE AMAZING MONTY PYCON COLLECTION (Previously known as "The Rather Unamazing Monty Pycon Collection") BY GARRETT "THE BUG" GILCHRIST WITH HELP FROM MARK "GUMBY" WUNSCH 7TH LEVEL AND OTHERS FOR WINDOWS AND WIN95 VERSION 5.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right! It seems you've taken the time to download this little file, and I suppose we should take the time to tell you what it's all about. This is a little file we like to call "MTYPYCON.ZIP," and it's just chock-full of the very best Monty Python ICOs, CURs, and ANIs available anywhere on the 'Net. If there is a better or more complete set anywhere frankly we doubt it, but if there is we'd love to steal from it so I'll just note here that Garrett Gilchrist can be reached at ocpmovie at lycos.com as of this writing. This is a really heart-rendingly good set, we swear it, and it's all based on the works of Monty Python, including such films as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Monty Python's Life of Brian," and "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life," and of course the Flying Circus television show. We also make nods to the Python video games by 7th Level, and such post-Python works as Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" and John Cleese's television series "Fawlty Towers." We plan to update this file regularly, so stay tuned to further updates, which should be readily available at: PythoNET: (http://orangecow.org/pythonet) If you can't find the pages, or have any questions, comments, or horribly demeaning hamster-related insults, just drop us a line at, again, ocpmovie at lycos.com. Hmmm ... still here? Wow, you're a patient little bastard. Maybe you looked at the icons first. Few can resist the temptation at this point. Well, since you're here ... UPDATES IN VERSION 5.0 This file used to be all in 16 colors, but now includes lots of hi-color icons created by Linus the Llama. These are quite nice looking. Every single part of the collection has been updated. About half the icons are now by Linus ..... the hi-color ones are all him. GUIDE TO THE ANIMATED CURSORS These animated cursors replace your mouse arrow cursor when it is busy or working in the background (usually an hourglass). Much more interesting than an hourglass, these are. These ones are by Garrett, and are his favorite part of the collection. MPFCOPEN - Really cool, this one. Recreates the entire opening sequence to Monty Python's Flying Circus. Nude organist plays, John says "and now," Mike says "It's," and Gilliam animation rolls. BRIAN - Lots of stuff happens. The Life of Brian logo floats through space, a centurion pops up looking for Brian but is hit by a stone head, Brian pops up running from soldiers and is hit by a stone head, Brian falls down, dies, turns into an angel, can't fly and falls down. CREOFISH - The John Cleese fish from Meaning of Life swims as Mr. Creosote walks by in the distance ... then Mr. Creosote's huge head appears, frightening the fish away. SILLYWALK - John Cleese does his silly walk. TIM-BLOW - Tim the Enchanter blows things up. NORMAN - Spiny Norman the giant hedgehog says "Dinsdale!" APPLAUSE - Stock footage of old ladies applauding, often seen in the Flying Circus shows. BOMB - A Gilliam cartoon bomb falls on a computer monitor. CHICKEN MAN - Chicken Man from Gilliam cartoons flaps his wings. COMFY - The Comfy Chair flashes ominously. FLOWERHEAD - Flowers grow out of a man's head, as in the MPFC opening titles. FOOT - Python foot crushes a computer monitor. GRAIL - Holy Grail flashes on and off like a beacon. GRAIL2 - Grail floats around elusively. HATCHING - Chicken lays an egg, out of which the Chicken Man hatches and flies off. HEAD - Various things fly out of a Gilliam cartoon head. KANIGETS - The camera pans past all of King Arthur's knights, as the Grail sneaks around behind them, unbeknownst to them. KANIGET2 - Same thing without the Grail. LIPS - Gilliam laughing lips. LOBANGEL - Angel Brian flaps his wings, from Life of Brian opening. LOBCROSS - Whistling on the cross in Life of Brian. ORGANIST - Nude organist plays music. REAPER - Death from Meaning of Life points accusingly. SPAM - Can of Spam rolls and unrolls itself. SPANISH - Camera pans past the members of The Spanish Inquision. TRAFFIC - "I Like Traffic Lights" song. ---- WHAT ARE PYCONS? pycon = monty PYthon + windows iCON The original "Pythicon" collection was created by Garrett "Bug" Gilchrist after realizing how few good Python icons were out on the 'Net. It started small but soon grew to be rather impressive and proved a worthy cornerstone, one of several, for his struggling new Python webpage. That webpage grew into the mighty PythoNET, but the icon collection remained untouched for some time. Enter Linus "The Llama" Boman, creator of the long-established Virtual Camelot webpage. Bug and Llama had been decent friends and damned good enemies for some time and had even collaborated (read: nearly come to blows over) a Monty Python theme for Windows 95. Seeing the now-long-established Pythicon collection stagnate was too much for this young Aussie so he began to submit creations of his own, which Garrett took one look at and then deleted entirely. But Linus would not be squelched, and after submitting an estimated 6.5 billion little icon files to the Bug he finally had to admit defeat, and a new icon collection, dubbed the "Pycon" collection, began. That's pretty much it. Unless, of course, you count the theme work by Mark "Gumby" Wunsch (MAWGumby1@aol.com) and all that ripping off from AOL, the Net, and 7th Level, but then that's another story ... "SHELL32" FOLDER EXPLAINED WHAT IS SHELL32? ---------------- Look in the Shell32 folder for Shell32 Icons. Most of the graphics in WIndows 95 are regulated by a file called SHELL32.DLL which is found in your C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM folder. This includes majorly the icon art used for file folders, the Windows Start menu, the "My Computer" art etc. For the Monty Pycon icon collection we've decided to include Pythonic versions of some of the icons in this DLL. They are all named by number and with the aid of a program such as Microangelo Engineer (part of the Microangelo suite, easily found in shareware form on AOL and the Web) you can quite easily change your WIN95 (NT too) system to be Python- ready. All these icons are given by a number, usually the place of the original icon in SHELL32.DLL. Some of the icons included: 1.ICO - Blank or New Document 7.ICO - 3.5' disk drive 12.ICO - Cd-Rom drive 20.ICO - "Programs," for the Start Menu 21.ICO - "Documents," for the Start Menu 22.ICO - "Settings," for the Start Menu 23.ICO - "Find," for the Start Menu 24.ICO - "Help," for the Start Menu 25.ICO - "Run," for the Start Menu 26.ICO - "Suspend," for the Start Menu 28.ICO - "Shut Down," for the Start Menu 30.ICO - Shortcut arrow (here a tiny keep left sign) 32.ICO - Recycle Bin empty 33.ICO - Recycle Bin full 40.ICO - Windows logo 41.ICO - Audio CD 43.ICO - Many Blank or New Documents 51.ICO - Print to Disk 52.ICO - Recycle Document 53.ICO - Recycle Folder 54.ICO - Recycle Both 67.ICO - To Tape Backup/Disk More system-ready icons can be found in the other folders of the Pycon. Enjoy. Still here? Oh piss off and install the icons already. Don't know how? Check the sodding windows manual. And no, the CURs and ANIs don't work in Windows 3.x. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PythoNET: (http://orangecow.org/pythonet)