I joined as soon as the age barrier dropped enough to allow me to join
I wasn't so much awed by the names themselves, as by the friendliness with which I was greeted. First of all, while I had installed mIRC and could join the channel, I couldn't see anyone in there
It turned out I wasn't using an Undernet server. But back then I didn't know what the problem was, or how to resolve it, so I posted a message in these boards' How To section, asking for somebody who was on at that time to join me on Yahoo! Messenger and help me. Not one, but *two* people responded - Elena and Annette. Elena was the unfortunate one to respond first <G> so she had to take me to the channel step by step... God, that really took a long while! But she was very patient, and in the end I manage to arrive at #loisclark - and there was a big crowd, who apparently knew I was coming, so I was immediately greeted by a handful of messages like 'Hey, Anna, welcome! Nice to see you made it!' That was so cool and so encouraging
(I'm not sure who was there; apart from Elena, I seem to remember Wendy, Labby, probably Pam... but it's been a long time, it was late <G> and I was overwhelmed, so I can't enlighten you further.) But I was sure people wouldn't notice much little newbie me, and I'd find myself sitting in a corner of the channel, watching a conversation and feeling like I didn't fit in. Which was not the case at all
Plus something that never ceases to amaze me, and it's more evident when chatting in real time than on the boards: I was just 14, and there were all these people older than me, who in other circumstances it wouldn't even cross my mind to call them something other than 'sir', 'ma'am', 'Mr. X', 'Ms. Y'... and yet, not only they don't mind me calling them by their first name, but they actually *expect* me to do that! It's kinda weird, when you think about it. (I'd made a poll about that, but I can't find it. Or maybe it wasn't a poll, but a discussion in another folder... *sigh* Nevermind.)
And... you want bumbling idiots? One of my first times on IRC (must have been the second, in fact) I was watching everybody kicking the other out of the channel as a joke. So I thought I'd join in the joke... and managed to accidentally ban Roger.
The poor guy thought I had something against him.
It's great to meet all the FoLCs in real time, and very fun, too
Thanks to all the people who make this possible!
See ya,
AnnaBtG.
