Secrets of the City

This raises so many complicated questions about the nature of Internet culture that it’s hard to know where to begin. Was the Internet stupider in 1999 than it is today?

He looks like Tom Colicchio except when he stands right next him, as the link above demonstrates.

Andy, you ask a penetrating question. On the one hand, 10 years ago we had a plethor of rainbow bars and gifs of dancing teddy bears surrounding bland and rarely updated web content. Now we have youtube commenters misspelling “gay” in more ways than anyone thought possible. I call it a draw.

This raises so many complicated questions about the nature of Internet culture that it’s hard to know where to begin. Was the Internet stupider in 1999 than it is today?

Absolutely and No way.

The internet has always been stoopid. There are just a higher volume of idiots now, than in 1999. And trust me, I was all up on that BBS shiz in the late 80s – early 90s. I know all about being stupid on the internet, from personal experience.

Actually the “_____ ate my balls” websites seem in retrospect like a trend that was ahead of its time.

None that I’ll ever admit to, of course.

Thanks to google buying DejaNews, I’ll never be able to live down my Winnie the Pooh ascii art sigs from the early 1990s. Sigh.

Did everyone know MollyP actually owns the Hampster Dance album? It’s true; it’s incredible.

Ooooh aascii art. I used to date a boy who made that…and also wore a black trench coat, and liked to start things on fire while listening to heavy metal.

Does anyone remember text games?

WELCOME TO SECRETS OF THE CITY! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS?

>n

YOU ARE STANDING IN A FORUM. AROUND YOU ARE LINKS TO NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT AL FRANKEN. MAX SPARBER IS HERE.

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>i

YOU HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF INTERNET MEMES AND TWIN CITIES ALTERNATIVE ROCK OF THE 1980S, A TWINS BASEBALL CAP AND A SHORT ROPE.

WHAT NOW?

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YOU HAVE BEEN EATEN BY A GRUE.

God dammit!

hahaha I just laughed out loud!

Dorks. I’m going over to the food thread.

(Rolls eyes and saunters away.)

Well, don’t let the HEAVY WOODEN DOOR WITH A SKULL-SHAPED IRON LOCK AND MYSTERIOUS RUNE-LIKE MARKINGS hit you on the way out, Jane.

weird…Zimmern merely licked my balls and put them back. guess they weren’t bizarre enough.

I loved Infocom. And once I sent an email complaining about a bug in Starship Titanic and got a personal email back from Douglas Adams.

Not really.

But I did get a very nice email from the producer of the game.

Also, you had to almost try to get eaten by a Grue.

I have the hamster dance on iTunes. Moreover, it is the mutual ringtone for my wife and I when one calls the other’s cell. Also, I have the soundtrack to Disney’s Robin Hood, featuring “Whistle Stop,” the song that’s sped up and remixed to make the Hamster Dance. The song is written and performed by… does anyone know? Beuller?

Roger Miller, the country music hall of famer best known for “King of the Road.”

:: sigh ::

Nostalgia for BBS. Dial-up. Yankee Trader. Fido-net.

Good times.

Kate, do you have a brother who went by the moniker “Your Father?”

Kurtis, you are on a roll today. Who would you rather be trapped on JenniCam with, Mahir, Evil Bert or the Dancing Baby?

Ah yea, the BBS days were so fun. I remember my first modem was 300 baud. Nope, I don’t have a brother named “Your Father” I only have a sister. She’s all about having babies, not BBSes.

Gosh, that’s a tough decision Andy, since you’ve left out so many other possibilities.

Why don’t I just send you the URL to my personal WWW site’s “Fave Links” page to your hotmail account?

Me too!

That would be awesome, Curtis. My email is skankinrudeboy1013@compuserve.com.

If anyone gets misty-eyed for the glory days of Prodigy, I’m going to smack them.

Now GEnie, on the other hand. I loved me some Mechwarrior Online.

Me too!

CompuServe was to AOL what Facebook now is to MySpace.

My first extra-net experience happened in 1992 when the CompuServe FlightSim forum hosted a fly-in. We filed flight plans (to somewhere in the Caribbean, IIRC) and dialed directly into the host number. He would take screenshots of each plane landing and email them to the participants but could only handle one or two planes at a time.

oooooh Rich, I am totally misty-eyed over Prodigy! It’s like those first memories you have as a baby…fuzzy and warm. I heart IRC too.

My first computer that was actually mine and mine only was an Amiga 2000, though I lost my virginity to a TI-99 (Hunt the Wumpus, anyone?) The Amiga had some awesome games though..Does anyone remember Tass Times in Tone Town? Extreme nerd points if you do.

echo on
Hunt the Wumpus. That game is still a legend of AI programming. I myself was a fan of Fantasy Land door game on some of the citadel BBSs.
echo off

That was the dirty one, right? Back when “hot mail” was not an e-mail provider.

@LowBloodSugar: What Citadel boards did you frequent?

I’m so old I remember Wolfenstein 3D, the predecessor to Quake (with begat Doom). I still have those somewhere on 1.44mb floppies somewhere.

And shareware.

Remember when you could go to B. Dalton and try out new games and programs before buying them?

My first computer was a hand-me-down: an IBM XT with a 10mb hard-drive. It was the computer I took with me to Singapore … in a suitcase of its own. LOL (I did eventually buy a 60mb notebook while overseas that lasted me until I could afford some real computer “muscle” in 1996.)

Ones I remember: Submission Records, Wolfs Den, Fire Opal, Suicide Gorge, and the funniest one of all was TC Chat – it has 24 lines, fancy! There were a bunch more that I can’t remember. I used to hang out at Miller’s Amiga in St. Paul and admire the 2400 baud modems.

And Zimmern LOVES IT! http://www.andrewzimmern.com/node/1201

My first email address was airtrvlrr@aol.com in 1991. WTF was I thinking? Oh yea…I was 23 in 1991.

Via almost every blog in the Twin Cities???

Not mine! I can’t stand Zimmern.

aaahhhh, i saw andrew zimmern’s daddy he seems like he doesn’t like sports or girls.