| 08.25.02
Today is
all about 1996, and so here's a trance classic from then to help bring
you back:
Seven replied with a bored 'NO. ' Sadly the series never amounted to more than pulp trash but Captain Janeway's hairstyles and the aforementioned mechanical or part-mechanical beings were enough to keep me partially tuned in for a bit. Back in 1996, when I started this web page, I explored every aspect of this 'internet' thing from the chat rooms of IRC to the message boards of Usenet. Usenet still exists, however, it's not nearly as popular as it once was due to mass spam mailings and the rise of the web based message board. That said, at the time it was the place to be to chat with strangers of like interest. Humiliatingly, I've found many of my old posts on Google's Usenet archive , a sort of crack cocaine for the internet nostalgia set. My old posts are almost unbearably nerdy! Ridiculously nerdy! It is as if a time traveling nerd has in fact gone back in time and replaced my posts with his own. I will not embarrass myself too much but I did find one amusing post from the alt.tv.star-trek.voyager group that I had fired off to Usenet legend Cronan Thompson, whom I often sparred with in matters regarding sex and gender, topics at the height of fashion in 1996. Cronan had decreed that I would surely rank among the worst Star Trek captains ever, second only to Janeway, whom I ranked first, if only to be controversial. Here is my passionate (if nerdy!) Usenet reply to his unfounded accusation, written nearly six (!) years ago on October 28, 1996:
Oh, the shame! Cronan was an immature, homophobic little fuck but he was also one of the funniest people I'd ever met, on the internet or otherwise, and I was very sad when he died 4 days before my birthday in 1999. He died from cancer, lymphoma, the same kind I fought off last year.He was only 19 when he died, and he fought a much braver battle than I did. As I write this I endure an insane fever of 102.8 that my doctor says can be normal for persons even so far into remission as myself. I guess I am lucky to have it. As a continued nostalgic lark I've looked into my journal from October of 1996. I found this saved email from Ken of the 80's server:
I really like getting compliments. It makes me feel worthwhile. I wish I'd had the foresight to save my online rants and writings from the web page back then, but until 1999 it simply never occurred to me. Unfortunately no thorough web equivalent of the Google Usenet archive exists. Here's part of an email I'd written to a girl that I'd married as a lark that year. Unfortunately she now despises me:
'Mask-a-rave'! 'Land of the Living'! How perfectly 1996. Here's an early email to my web page some dude had sent me: Hello Diabolique!: You have done some really wonderful things here. You are really quite Lovely? Attractive? Or just beautiful. I would opt for beautiful. . . no, devastating. I am not even gay, I like a woman in and with me. but moreover, I admire anything of beauty in an otherwise rancid or sentient void world. You should be proud of you efforts. I am held by and applaud you. I am a writer, I work at childrens or young adult novels, And if anyone knew I would find beauty in your presence, I would probably be burned at the stake with my little books as kindling. Anyway I just wanted to say I'm really aroused and drawn to your face and it's luminescence and it's luxury. I cannot support you in any other method other than to say I would love to fall in love with you. That is the highest honor I can offer you as congratulations to you skills. -- [name deleted by me] Happy Birthday. . . Break something. But enough nostalgia! Luckily you have no need to be nostalgic for me. My fever and I are very much still here and today I feel an electricity in the air because of it. The very air you're breathing now! Even the sunshine outside conducts its current. Feel it? |
until next week, remember..
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