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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.

One of my nicknames in meatspace is "Rickalicious", but it's way too common around the internet for me to claim as my own. "Rickalicioso" is its Spanish cousin, who's more sophisticated and well-traveled and can actually roll his Rs.

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My Internet Saga
A tale of time limits, teenage angst, and true love.

I first experienced the wonders of the internet as a wee lad on Take Your Child to Work Day at San Francisco General Hospital. The grown-ups in charge sat us down in front of computers, directed us to Yahooligans!, and showed us the state-of-the-art capabilities of the World Wide Web. I went absolutely nuts reading all about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, my current obsession at the time, and by the end of the day my mom had to come over and basically tear me away from the computer.

My grandparents got dial-up in their house before we got it at home, and when we came to visit I would head straight for the computer and fire up AOL Instant Messenger. I went through aliases like Imelda Marcos goes through shoes; somewhere in the deep dark crevices of the internet lies a pile of my old forgotten screen names that have remained untouched for over a decade. Probably the strangest (and therefore most memorable) was "mpoiwngolyi"; determining its meaning is left as an exercise for the reader.

Soon enough, my house joined in on the internet fun. One particular afternoon I was on a Jordan Knight chat room (don't judge! I really liked his song Give It To You which is what led me there in the first place); three hours later my mom awoke from a nap, appalled that I had spent all that time wasting away in front of the computer instead of wasting away in front of a book like I would normally do. It was then that she issued the decree stating that I would have to ask for permission to use the internet, and even then permission was only granted in half-hour increments once a day.

Despite these limitations (and with the help of free internet at the library), I somehow entered a phase where I thought it a brilliant idea to keep a private journal, public for all the world to see: a "blog", as the cool kids were calling it. I started with a Homestead website (after teaching myself a bit of HTML) and then moved on to Xanga, LiveJournal, and even NuTang (in an act of anti-Xanga defiance). Years later I discovered the power of Google, and my naïve perception of privacy on the internet quickly dissolved. I managed to remove (almost) all of my old blogs – lest potential employers stumble upon such gems as "my brother is SOOOO annoying", "school sux", and "my mom's internet policy makes no sense" – though there is one that I haven't been able to take down because I can't for the life of me remember the password and customer service for this site is virtually nonexistent. (Finding this embarrassing blog is not left as an exercise for the reader.)

I've since more or less taken control of my internet identity, though there are still a few skeletons out there that definitely preclude any hopes of me running for public office. But I doubt many people my age are completely clean, and I for one am excited to see how society and the media will handle this plethora of incriminating miscellany as Generation Y starts taking charge and calling the shots 'round here. I know at some point we will all be desensitized to Facebook photos of underage whippersnappers wielding red Solo cups with toilet-facing grimaces and pulled-back hair, but the rocky transition will surely be A Fun Time For All.