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.

My very first exposure to the net was at the Brantford public library in 1995. They had set up two terminals running lynx; the start page was Yahoo, and my main goal in those days was to find codes for the Mortal Kombat II machine down the street.

There was always, always this creepy guy reading furry porn on one of the machines. Always.

My girlfriend and I convinced her parents to get online, and they did. Yahoo was the first site to get my attention, of course, but usenet soon followed, and then I realized the possibilities for self-promotion - I convinced a friend to make a page for the 'zine I was doing, which he wrote with the HoTMetaL editor and had animated GIFs. For shame!

Started a directory for Brantford-based sites using Netscape Gold, bought my first e-mail address for five bucks a month, and that was that - I was hooked. Getting e-mail from all over the place, having people sign your guestbook, even linking to you from their own pages... too exciting.

And that's my story of How I Came To Be An Internet Addict.