I ended up online through having an internet radio program, back in the days before the copyright hammer was dropped. The owner of the station got tired of recording my records and CDs and uploading them for me, so he made me learn how to record the songs, myself and upload them to the station server, so I ended up with an internet account in 2000 or so.
Anyway, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, I read something, in Scott Rosenberg's Table Talk, I believe, that mentioned MetaFilter as being the first and best blogging site to post about the attack and the most informative thereafter. Like everyone else, I was starved for information in the days immediately after September 11, 2001. So, I clicked on the link and read a few posts and then signed up.
My email name, then and now, was y2karl, from a name I invented one night when I called Coast to Coast with Art Bell before the dawn of this century, as Bell was always hawking handcranked radios and a year's supplies of food on the program while we were all supposedly awaiting Y2Karmageddon.
(Art's long gone gone and I hardly ever listen to the show anymore since George Whathisname took over but I happened to tune in last week. And, dang, if they didn't play an ancient Art Bell episode where the guest was some Nostradamus expert from Seattle by the name of John Hoag. And, dang, if the longest call in was from some y2karl from Seattle. I had forgotten that I had called up and got all sceptical on one John Hoag -- skeptical as in the voice of Edward G. Robinson in the Ten Commandments : 'So, where'd he mention the Internet then, Moses ?' Well, not exactly... but I digress... )
So, I didn't feel like using my real full name and since the name Karl was already taken by some guy named dhoyt, I used my email name and signed up. And the rest is history is bunk. Or the end of history is bunk. Or something like that. Or just something. I will have been here 10 years come this 19th of September.
The Yeats Thread
This was one of the nicest threads I recall reading. Man, but there were and still are, at times, some smart people here. I was humbled but happy to be in the same company that day way back when.
