Old News - Now Archived

Sometimes, between hour twelve and thirteen typing away at a 60hz computer monitor sending a massive amount of ultraviolent rays your way, you get that little voice that, try as you might, you can't smother. It tells you all the things your parent that cared would yammer on and on about except that they can't anymore because the one benefit of the nerd revolution is that we all make enough to move out of our parent's basements (contrary to populace belief). Often, I should admit, that voice is vocalized by my friend The Milker. The Milker has had an interested year so far. He worked with me back in the old Cyrix days, when Cyrix kept up a strong Longmont presence in order to effectively strategize their CPUs in this worldly, processor-based game of what we lovingly referred to as "Risc: The Game Of Global Domination." (The "C" denoted the Complete Fucking Geek edition, natch.)

We all got blamed when the stock of our parent company reached an all-time low of $8 a share. I mean, eight dollars a share? I was always told that a company is a good buy if you could sell off everything tomorrow and get substantially more, per share, than what the stock price is. They had a lucious and green park in the middle of Silicon Valley which I guess is akin to a having a 72 hole golf course on the island of Manhattan. Or something. You may not know this, but giving the Milker and myself the axe will immediately add thirteen dollars to the price of a stock. So The Man got lucky there.

While personally the next month included a lot of binge drinking, delivered pizza and acting cool towards my all-but-official-girl friend (mu-wha? what time is it? oh. no i was up until four last night. when do you get off work?) the Milker was having none of that. He hooked up with a different company and starting putting grindstone to nose.

He was a leader -- a champion of the little man -- at his new position in Denver. He got The Internet installed on all of his co-worker's computers (beforehand the IT guys were locking them out and denying them access to anything, much less NASDAQ to see how much slashing us was making for the previously mentioned company). He was respected by his peeps for bringing this to them -- much like how Picard brought fire to the skrulls. Or was that the Silver Surfer? It was like somebody.

Then The Milker then got the hammer two days before Christmas because the logs indicated that he spent too much time on the internet. Bastards.

That didn't stop him, of course. His contracting company had him on "the bench." Which means that he was still pulling a PHAT salary and got to download porn all day from the comfort of his home until they found him something. The profession we all dream about (well, not some of us) was one that he actually lived. And he did it well. A genius in an underappreciated service.

These days the Milker doesn't visit those sites all day anymore. He hooked up with an IT firm in Denver making even more cash. However, he does still provide the little voice that says to me when I've been writing code far too long, "You need to get out more!" "You need to experience all this state has to offer!" "When are you going skiing with us?" "You need to go on dates, you complete loaf!" "How's your mom?"

See, I've thought about that. And believed that I had the solution.

Why not take social interaction and mix it with something that I absolutely roXorS at? Exactly! Ultima On-Line!

4 little words -- three of them single ASCII characters -- provide a gateway to a host of eventual orgasmic bliss. It's, obviously, "r u a gurhl?" Look, I think it's better than "what's your sign?", OK?

I subscribed to "UO" ("you-owe?") for this purpose. I did not realize that the amount of work to get a decent character in this game requires more of a commitment than the work I do for my real job. My friend "Bundy" signed up a few weeks before I did. All I wanted to do was make a guy running around in a black jester's cap that could cast cool spells. That's all. Instead I discovered how I needed to get funds for my character. I needed to kill animals and sell the ribs to different stores for food. I needed to slay magpies to get better at killing dumb animals. And I always needed to be on the lookout against people that would rob me. Not that I had anything worth taking, or anything. Bundy would constantly make fun of me because my character sucked and couldn't defend itself. He then refused to give me any more virtual UO money.

It just got tedious. If I am going to spend two extra hours a night working -- why the hell wouldn't I just do it at my real job where I can get real, American-Government-Backed Benjamins? I don't know. It's not a case of not playing games to bake bread. It's really not. I ended up just macroing a guy who says "Alms! Alms for the poor!" over and over again. He is a filthy beggar and I feel better about my real life because I am doing better than him. Because in reality the money thing is mostly okay, I am instead just usually begging for head.

Anyway, the story with Ultima On-Line almost had a happy ending. Almost. I decided, after a week and a half of building up my bank account through consistent and effective groveling, to invest in some ultra keen clothes and deadly wizard's hat. I meant business! To show that I wasn't messing around I started casting "greater heal" on people who I'd never met before that didn't need healing. Just to prove that money meant nothing to me. It actually takes a lot of money to buy the "reagents" you need to cast spells in that game, but I didn't care like I say. I created the illusion of having wealth to flaunt. This eventually led to intensely gripping net.conversation. You know how it goes, don't give me that look. The kind that eventually incorporates the *blush* emoticon and what not.

It became time to exchange e-mail addresses. And it is here where the story takes a dramatic turn for the worst. My chief e-mail account is with Juno. I have been with Juno since the beginning. I used to have an e-mail address like "sherwin_r102@monroecc.edu.csc.ny.csc.com" or something like that when I was attending classes regularly. (It was actually listed in an issue of Next-Generation when they printed my letter on the "five worst video game boxes of all time" so it's  the most famous address I've ever had. But I had to keep failing Assembly (CSC 102) each semester in order to keep it. I did so five times so don't ever question my dedication. Sadly, that's not a joke.) Juno has grown since the early days, to the point where they now advertise on television.

Normally, that's good. The guys and gals doing the ads, however, must reside on 1500 North Main, Metropolis, Bizarro Dimension, because they chose to associate Juno with the rip-roaringly funny concept of venereal disease. If you own a TV and are reading this website you've probably seen their ads.

"Janice gave it to Mel. Hakeem gave it to Uhurah and M'Benga. Sally gave it to Roger and Phil. It's JUNO!" Oh, really? Hahaha! I thought it was gonorrhea ! Or herpes! Or crabs! Or chlamydia! Or hepatitis! But it's an e-mail service, really? Wow! Maybe I'll choose Hotmail, then. The ads end with an eighteen year old blonde in a baby tee smiling seductively and knowingly while some guys work on her car. Awful. The hell kind of conclusion is the general  populace supposed to draw? No, I'm serious. That she'll be paying them with Juno CDs or that she will be paying them with a painful case of angry syphilis? I hate commercials that really make you think afterwards.

So that was pretty much the end of that.

Most of the whiners on Ultima On-Line complain so much because they are player killers. They need a fresh supply of victims. Nobody wants to be the victim. So they whine and moan like little fraulein sheepen when they have to attack players that can defend themselves and fight back. I thought there was nothing more pathetic that. Missing out on what was bound to be a torrid night of "cyber" because of the imagery my e-mail account produced keeps that king in check, though. Y'know, our sub-species of the human race was doing just fine, in terms of being absolutely socially unacceptable without Juno pitching in. It might be possible for them to advertise in a slightly different manner. And that's all I'm saying.

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