a brand-new form of public humiliation
Jan. 5th, 2005 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deviLate last night in the pub I was waxing nostalgic to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miss_newham about talkers and BBSs and all things telnet-based, and remembering a world where that was practically all there was to the internet. When I got to college in 1994 there was one single computer connected to the Web in the whole university. There were always massive queues at it, and when you finally got to use it, you'd sit there for half an hour waiting for a little picture of an envelope to download...
Anyway, in my half-drunk and achy state I blurted out that the first thing I ever looked up on the web was (oh god) Robert Jordan. Yes, the Wheel of Time fantasy author. (Oh god the shame.) And I was wondering if other people had similar embarrassments in their past, like that first record you bought that you never want people to find out about.
What was the first thing you (consciously, deliberately) searched for on the web? Set homepages that just popped up, like your college homepage, don't count. Go on, I've owned up, now it's your turn.
miss_newham about talkers and BBSs and all things telnet-based, and remembering a world where that was practically all there was to the internet. When I got to college in 1994 there was one single computer connected to the Web in the whole university. There were always massive queues at it, and when you finally got to use it, you'd sit there for half an hour waiting for a little picture of an envelope to download...Anyway, in my half-drunk and achy state I blurted out that the first thing I ever looked up on the web was (oh god) Robert Jordan. Yes, the Wheel of Time fantasy author. (Oh god the shame.) And I was wondering if other people had similar embarrassments in their past, like that first record you bought that you never want people to find out about.
What was the first thing you (consciously, deliberately) searched for on the web? Set homepages that just popped up, like your college homepage, don't count. Go on, I've owned up, now it's your turn.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 12:27 pm (UTC)Ah, good old Bob! God help me, but I waded through about the first six books before I had to give them up. And people say J K Rowling needs a good editor...
How many books has he churned out in that series now - I lost count?
Web searches in the age of Spry Mosaic? I cannot in all honesty remember what I looked for although I *do* recall once in the Comp. Sci. computer room seeing a guy on the computer next to me browsing the PlayBoy website. It seemed to lack anything "saucy" in content and had the HTML style most usually seen these days on your average Geocities homepage.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 12:30 pm (UTC)RJ: I got to the start of Book 7 and just couldn't cram any more of his turgid prose into my poor brain. I don't know or care what the series is doing at the moment. Funny how you can love things so much and then become so indifferent to them.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 12:39 pm (UTC)Heh, scarily accurate ;) A lot of 24-point Times New Roman in various colours as well... :P
As for Bob's books, I think what did it for me was looking back at that 5th/6th book (whichever one I gave up on) and went through the following train of thought:
1. I have just forged through over x-hundred pages of this stuff. Again.
2. Nothing seems to have moved on since the last book.
3. Rand al' Thor isn't going mad - he's just an angsty Goth without the makeup.
4. Why do all these women want to shag him? Subtle author fantasy?
5. These women with the spooky powers are a whiny bunch aren't they?
6. Why is it taking so long for the Final Battle? And thus to:
7. These books will never end. These are this man's pension fund.
I decided at that point I wasn't all that fussed about them anymore. It's a shame really, since the original premise in the first couple of books was pretty good but if you take out the fluff, the actual story could have been wrapped up years ago.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 12:43 pm (UTC)Jesus! I've just done a quick check on Amazon. The next book is due out in October 2005 and is the eleventh book in the series! The synopsis given suggests that this is not the last one either.