Let me breathe 

You know, I don't feel too incredibly ancient when the cable news channels show commercials for the AARP or even reverse mortgages. I know I'm part of the older demo that watches. But when I saw one for home-delivered oxygen the other day, it kind of got to me.

Do you think this could clinch it? 

I do so love timeshifted media. I get to keep up with what I care about keeping up with on stuff like American Idol and don't have to waste my time on the rest. I spend 10 minutes a week watching LaKisha on YouTube and that's it.

I know I'm over sentimental and emotional, but when I hear the clip below my tear ducts start twitching.

Of course my lack of full immersion into the contest doesn't stop me from having an opinion about the outcome. I have to believe she has a great shot anyway, but with that big soulful voice, I think if she sang Etta James' At Last, that would clinch it.

Happy 10 years ago 

Scripting News reverts to its babyhood today. Congrats, and thanks for all the fish, Dave.

It made me feel like reminiscing too. I'm feeling chatty, so I'll be adding to this.

Here's one of the sites I kept back then. Lots has changed, but I still hang out online with Hil, whose sketch of me and my Ali cat anchors the page.

I still have Ali, the sweetie pie. Still have the chair, though it wears a slipcover now, and that quilt made by my grandma and Aunt Fannie still helps out with the naps.

My own history on the web is nowhere near as celebrated as Dave's and took a way different route.

First glimpses

I first saw the web in a Lynx browser and had that OMG feeling. This felt like something big. I'd been online for a while, getting my first e-mail account (MCI Mail) in about 1986 when I worked for Ketchum PR in LA. I haunted BBSs, preferring the discussion groups on MajorNet. I first started using the handle "amyloo" on MajorNet. I also used my dial-up account with a local suburban Chicago BBS to access UseNet. I tried a commercial survey (Valentine's Day promotion for Cinzano) on UseNet sometime in the late 80s and got a quick effective education in the anti-commerce culture of UseNet. (I believe that's the best way companies will continue to learn what not to do online, but they have to tune in to the reaction and try to understand it from the users' perspective instead of always always thinking "what can we get.")

It was also in the late 80s that another local BBS operator asked me to moderate a forum on women's issues. I tried to explain what it was to an offline friend, who ended up making sense of it for herself by remarking "Well, you finally got your call-in talk radio show, Amy."

But back to the web. I remember telling my soon-to-be ex how transported, literally and figuratively, I felt about the possibilities of the WWW, and he said "Wait 'til you see a GUI browser." He was soon to go to work for Spyglass, before they licensed Mosaic to Microsoft, and sent me a floppy sometime after the kids and I moved back to Bloomington in 1995.

I took a 1-hour class in HTML offered my my local ISP, Bluemarble, and that's the only formal training I've ever had in web stuff or anything to do with computers -- before or since. The five-student class was taught by Scott [what was his last name] who kept this great directory of mailing lists called liszt.com and later sold it to Topica.