Mega-Zine & VR - A Retrospective (Part 2)

Great idea, Andrames. I am meshing your two names, incase you don't understand what I did there. I think it actually makes a quite good name Anywhere, where was I?

I found 'Zine when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. At that time, we didn't have Teletext, so I could only read it when my Mum was at work (she worked in the shop next door and we got to sit upstairs watching the owner's HUGE at that time TV whilst eating whatever sweets we wanted, it was grrrreat). When we got Teletext, I would have been 14 or 15, and it was then that I was in the midst of my illness and away from school and any form of social interraction.

Under the pretense (pretense looks like it's spelt wrong, I'm confused) of studying I went to the library, set up my first e-mail account (which I still use today) and sent my first 'Zine e-mail. I think it was about lettuces. I had chosen the name Lilac Leopard for its alliterative properties and also because I liked purple and cats. I think it was printed, and I showed EVERYONE I knew. After a few weeks Yahoo VR was mentioned on 'Zine, and I Googled it. I think by then, I was just about to turn 16 so it would be late 2001/2002. That is a long time ago. I began e-mailing Le Enfant Terrible Paul because he had mentioned he was from near Rotherham, which is near me. I also began speaking to Phil Hippo and Adam Skutterbob about that time. After the Jonthepostman fiasco I started talking to more people, as everyone seemed to know who I was, and in April 2002, Adam told me to join the current VR. I was a GreenMod at some point, then I didn't have the net for a while, but then I came back and as predicted by many, I've taken over, innit Regards the 'Zine side of things during this time, I actually don't recall much other than transcribing 'Zine letters to the Megazine Yahoo group by hand like 2/3 days a week, which made me a little less interested in 'Zine if I'm honest. I stopped writing properly in about 2006 I think, because I was a little more grown up by then and had realised I had sh*t humour and imagination and nobody really cared if I wrote in anyway!

DARREN RUINS TECHNOLOGY SHOCKER!!!

I didn't have an opinion previously. Above opinion is based on you breaking a modem. OMG etc. If you had broken it sooner VR might never have existed, you evil genius. Although you would have had to have met Andy some other way. Or maybe you could have travelled back in time. Either way, I'm watching you, Mr.

Quote: admin

August 2001 I got my first computer with external 56k dial up modem. Years later Darren would blow up this historic modem saying "I plugged it in, and it smelled of burning".

This made me laugh.

How did you meet Andrew, Darren?

Through Rachel.. Who I met on some Cable WebTV thing called Leisure District about 3 or 4 years earlier.

I was house sitting for my brother around 2001/2002 for a couple of weeks while he went to New York, myself and Rachel had agreed to meet up, since I was in Manchester, she asked James to join us. around a month later I joined ld Yahoo VR and somehow managed to get in with the mods and Fee and co, so then got offered the job of moderating the yahoo group for a while - Then James started work on this - told me to sign up and test it with him - I leaked the URL in a fit of rage one night when the Yahoo group was being flakey, as per and the rest, as they say is history.

Yeah, I miss drunken rampages too.

And who HASN'T had Alan?