Draginol brings back memories--War boards, flaming, and more

Thanks Draginol for the inspiration for this one, found here

Some of the comments in that original article, and the comments that followed (that I didn't get around to saying anything about until now) bring back great old times for me.

War boards. Man, those were great times. In poor Yogi Berra-ese: half of the reason that I'm 400 times better at typing now is from flaming every Tom, Dick, Harry and Sally that ever gave me just enough of their mind for me to turn around and slap 'em with.

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... continuing from original article

Really, I *flunked* typing in high school. Skipped the darned class. Took it for god knows why (actually I think it was because I knew I'd probably have to type reports and such in College, was intending to go to college and wanted the skill to be prepared just in case). Went to the first few weeks of it, got to about 18 - 20 WPM, and then stopped going.

Didn't go enough to get dropped literally 4 letter grades by a hard-@ssed teacher that dropped me grades for not being in class. From B down to F as in failed, even after I had been "caught" truant to the guys class (yup, guy teacher for typing, perhaps part of why I wasn't as interested in going as often as I should have). I worked my rear end off, practiced and studied, and practiced more, to get myself to a passing 30 WPM so I could pass that darn class with a D- and got crapped on and flunked it because of that hard-@ss. I should legitimately have had a C, but oh well.

If you flash forward a few years, I had gone to college, flunked out of studies in Architecture (I really hated the Engineering style math classes, ran into a complete *b!tch* of a history teacher that ripped me off thoroughly, and then let depression catch up with me once I was already on academic probation... { depression from not having my car while I was at school and being left pretty much penniless in a curriculum that required spending money to make models for the classes, having no money for entertainment, etc., but I digress }) and had found myself returned to the nearby community college if I wished to continue any pursuit at higher education.

One thing that stuck with me a bit during all of those tough times in college was the computer bug. I wanted to play Video games badly. Not just play them, but program them into the comptuer. Change them, tinker with them, perhaps make them easier to beat, or harder. Make the rewards in the games better, etc.

As I went on in classes at the community college, I got into computer classes and started to find my purpose in life -- working with computers. Unfortunately I paid dearly for my lack of attention in that typing class, and wound up working my 2 to 4 finger typing skills to death. I was blazin' fast with those fingers as I typed in the key words from my computer languages, but typing real sentences, real words, bleh. Not fast at all

A few more years go by, and I'm finding myself working as a "computer operator", corrected to be: "electronic compositor" at a printing company. Responsible for editing materials before they went to press. Make small corrections to typesetting commands, fix typos in words, etc. Hired for my computing skills, but never really "tested" as to my typing skills. (Never even asked about it on the job app if I recall).

All the while at about that time I was running my own little dial-up bulletin board. King of the empire was I. Able to chat real time with people from who knows where. Sharing messages with people, trading games and other programs via uploads on our BBSes, and more.

After just a few days working in my job at the printers, my new boss somewhat casually mentioned to me: "you do know how to 10 finger type, don't you?" as he watched me hunt and peck around the keyboard. Message received and understood. Ugh, yeah, I can 10 finger type. Not efficiently, but... So back I went into the recesses of the brain and started actually typing.

Practice makes perfect, and man, oh man, did my friends and enemies on the BBS scene pay for my lack of skills in the typing world. I typed scores of words. Went on for paragraphs where others would just type a sentence or two. Defend my positions about things and trash the positions of others just to incite a response. It was fun. Mad, power hungry fun. If someone crossed me too badly, I'd just trash their access, fix it so they couldn't post anything, give them almost no time online, etc., and leave them unable to defend themselves without having apologized for their mistakes first.

If you've read my articles and threads in the past, or heck, even this one, you know I can type like crazy now. My "pretty-fying skills" were acquired while working at the printers. I had an artistic background anyway, and had long ago learned that dressing up an apparent turd will at least get people to come over and sniff at it. HTML comes some what naturally thanks to the printing background, and the computer programming teachings, so I have fun in that area too.

Lots of little skills acquired along the way in life, but many that harken all the way back to those old BBS days. Little BBSes, then later on BBSes that were part of "networks" like Fido-net. Network skills from there that parlayed into network technician and systems administration jobs along the way, and are building blocks of skills that I used in my every day IT world job even now.

All thanks to a desire to debate others, to play games on 'puters, and just plain have fun.

Oh what a twisted life we go through when we are a bit young and left without enough money to get through year 1 of college in the manner in which we desire.

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Hello
I have some inside knowledge as to what happened… I own www.wolfsurfer.com and wolfsurfer was owned by tracecom ( the same as blogclicker)
I would like to offer EVERY blogclicker member FREE upgraded memberships at wolfsurfer I am appalled at what happened with blogclicker and the manner in which the site DISAPPEARED! If I can help those thousands of members or there is a way to contact them to offer my services from wolfsurfer I am glad to do it!!
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