MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I started using the Internet back in college using e-mail, gopher and irc extensively. The first thing that really blew my mind was being on IRC in the first hours after the Oklahome City bombing. I was a freshman then in my dorm room without easy access to a tv. It was just mesmorizing to get play-by-play transcripts from someone in OKC that was typing what they saw on tv. Likewise to be part of a community of people spanning the globe really showed me the power of this (new to me) medium.