Are You Chatting Me Up?:
A post-analysis of a presentation/activity of running two chat rooms simultaneously in one session.

Shipka's Forum Prompt:
Online Presentation Response

Also, if there's anything you want to add, FEEL FREE TO DO SO!

N. Barsky's aka "Marbeh Raglaim" First Response ·  P.C. Paul's aka "Flipper" Response ·  N. Barsky's Second Response

N. Horstman's aka ???? Response ·  S. Norfolk's aka "fallenangel" Response ·  S. Miller's aka "Lucille" Response ·  E. Berman's aka "ridiculous9" Response

A. Campbell's aka "WonderWoman013" Response ·  R. Desai's aka "Anokhi" Response ·  K. Zajdel's aka "Dwigt802" Response

Y. Martin's aka "BE" Response ·  M.J. Bowen's aka "Fuschia Skunk" Response ·  A. Sheikh's aka "ILikemyoldsc" Response ·  B. Bauhaus' aka ???? Response

N. Barsky's Third Response ·  B. Mechairia's aka "noname" Response ·  E. Jones' aka "Godsgift06" Response ·  M. Purcell's aka "HONKifyurFLaWed" Response

Flipper's Response

         I have had similar experiences with other chatrooms, and in retrospect it surprises me. When I first started using chatrooms back in 1996, I thought they were the neatest thing I'd ever seen. The idea of being in my own home and chatting in real time with some stranger from South Africa, brought to the room purely because of some common interest, gave me a weird thrill. It reminded me of those dreams where I would discover in my house a new room or corridor that somehow I'd never noticed before.

         The novelty wore off very quickly. The problem with most chatrooms is that you usually have more than two people present. It's very hard to figure out who's talking to whom. Conversations feel broken up, disorganized, chaotic. You say something to someone, that person responds, you respond back--but what usually happens is that while you're sitting there formulating your response, several dozen lines of text flash by and the line you were originally responding to is now up above and out of sight, and when you finally press enter, the person might not figure out what your statement was responding to.

         This kind of confusion rarely occurs when you're talking to a bunch of people face to face. There are numerous rules of protocol that are probably instinctive to a certain degree, or at least programmed into us by habit at an early age. These rules include the subtle elements of body language. Among other things, you usually make eye contact with the person you're addressing, so even if there are a half dozen simultaneous conversations flying by, you still don't lose the train of thought. Of course, there are some challenges to real-life conversations as well, such as the problem of when it's your turn to speak, and when it's okay to cut someone off without seeming rude. But these are nothing compared to the challenges involved in online chatting, from what I've seen.

         I've had much more success with message boards, which I feel better approximate conversations in the real world, the main difference being that you can go on for as long as you want without having to worry about someone cutting you off. (As you can see, I cherish that ability.) The only risk you take is losing people's interest by being too long-winded. In the real world, you wouldn't even get that chance, because if you're boring, people will either cut you off or find some excuse to walk away.

         The problem I've found with message boards is a problem I've had with many online interactions, including chat rooms. The Internet seems to give people a great capacity to lie about themselves. Aside from the widely publicized dangers posed by Internet stalkers, there are very few rules in cyberspace regulating truth-telling: you pretty much can say whatever the hell you want, without facing the consequences that would result from similar behavior in the real world.

        People online act rude, hurl insults at strangers, when they probably would never say those kinds of things to a person's face in a real-life encounter. They also often make up claims about themselves to puff themselves up. I've seen this happen several times, including the first time I posted on a message board back in 1997. In a recent encounter, I went to a message board devoted to the movie Fight Club. Some guy there claimed to be a middle-aged psychology professor, and he used his alleged experience in this field to discount any theories that disagreed with his own. I noticed several errors in his posts, and also that his writing style bore some striking similarities to those of a supposed young female poster who, curiously, also had a habit of blindly rushing to his defense whenever he got attacked. As soon as I pointed out these facts, I was immediately assaulted by a torrent of insults. By all common sense, I should have walked away, but I continued baiting this guy (who I'm sure was a teenage boy) because I was a better arguer than him, and it was fun to watch him get angrier and angrier the more calm and eloquent I grew.

         Still, there's the counter-veiling and quite ironic phenomenon that was brought up in the chatroom, namely intimacy toward strangers: for some people, being anonymous and online spurs you to say things you wouldn't even say to your dearest friends. This again goes back to the lack of consequences and accountability in cyberspace, which has contradictory effects.

         I, however, have not tried to disguise myself online, even though I use pseudonyms and don't necessarily reveal crucial things about myself that would be readily obvious in offline interactions--like my sex, my age, my ethnicity, and my religion. It seems that no matter where I post, my personality shines through. In the case of the chatroom, I didn't even try to hide who I was. My personality was in full evidence: I'm very talkative, very opinionated, a natural contrarian, and I have an almost anal-retentive adherence to proper spelling and grammar, except that I don't bother about capitalization and I occasionally resort to Internet abbreviations like u for you. Someone thought that I was Chris Paul, which doesn't surprise me a whole lot. We're both intellectuals, and that's much of the way I was behaving on the chat, only there wasn't any way people could shut me up.

         When people say that they've formed close friendships with people they met online, I'm willing to believe them. I just have trouble imagining that I'd be able to accomplish such a thing. I have tried online dating, and so far it hasn't worked, because I put too much of a distance between myself and my writing. I'm an excellent writer, but that's just the problem: I use my writing skills as a mask. I'm great at analyzing things, but I have a certain aloofness, and writing posts back and forth doesn't have much potential to bring out the romantic in me.

         And yet my social ineptness in cyberspace is paralleled to some degree by a social ineptness in the real world. That's probably why I haven't really got a clue who any of the people were. All I can tell you is how I came up with the screen name I used. And that's a long story.

         Ever since a childhood experience where I opened some curtains shipped from who knows where and out jumped a foot-long Asian centipede that had somehow survived the journey overseas, I have had a phobia of centipedes. In fact, I pretty much hate all creepy-crawlies, with centipedes and millipedes at the top, and spiders a close second, though I can tolerate most insects as long as they're not crawling on my skin. But if I see a centipede on the wall, even the relatively tiny local variety found in numerous apartments and houses in this area, I get sick to my stomach.

         Sound weird? I don't understand why the phobia isn't more common. Centipedes to me look like a train of spiders glued together, and then you hit the fast-forward button.

         But if there were a technical term for this fear, it would be chilopodophobia, the root based on Chilopoda, which is the biological class to which centipedes belong. In other words, a synonym to centipede might be chilopod (pronounced KIE-low-pod), sort of like a whale might be called a cetacean. Of course nobody ever really uses those terms except maybe some scientists, but they are found in dictionaries.

         So in late 1996 when I first started using America Online, there came the time for me to select a user name, so I chose Chilopod, thinking it sounded cool. (It would sort of be like Indiana Jones calling himself Serpent.) But believe it or not, someone had already taken the name! Some biologist fellow, I later found out. I had the option of putting a number into my name (like Chilopod2), but I didn't want to. It destroyed my feeling of uniqueness. So I altered the spelling a little. Instead of Chilopod, I was Kylopod. That became my main email address and Internet pseudonym after that.

         Sometime later, I chose an alternative name which I frequently used on the Internet when I was talking in more specifically Jewish contexts. I looked up the word "centipede" in a Hebrew dictionary and it was translated as marbeh raglaim. Literally "numerous feet," a phrase that appears in Leviticus 11:42 when referring to bugs in general but is used in Modern Hebrew as a somewhat fanciful name for centipedes and millipedes. (The more common term is nadal.)

         When we simulated the chatroom in class, the name I chose was Kylopod, if you recall. But because that cat was out of the bag, I couldn't use it again for the chatroom; so I chose instead my second name, marbeh raglaim.

A response to N. Barsky's "The Problems of Online Interaction [Communication]" by P.C. Paul
Barsky said, I Kept both chat rooms open through a split screen the entire time, and I never really committed myself to a single one. Maybe I was afraid of missing anything that was happening. I had thought I would be more inclined to participate in the wild card chat, because then I wouldn't be under pressure to stay on topic. But I found myself talking much more in the other room. I needed the topic to be directed, because I had trouble keeping up with the flow of conversation otherwise.

[I had the same strategy with both windows open split screen and in both chatrooms and then just gave up and watched the words scroll by.]

Barsky continued, "I have had similar experiences with other chatrooms, and in retrospect it surprises me. When I first started using chatrooms back in 1996, I thought they were the neatest thing I'd ever seen. The idea of being in my own home and chatting in real time with some stranger from South Africa, brought to the room purely because of some common interest, gave me a weird thrill. It reminded me of those dreams where I would discover in my house a new room or corridor that somehow I'd never noticed before.

[That was my experience too and it was 1996 for me too. Hey if you worked in a computer store and didn’t chat you weren’t a computer person.]

"The novelty wore off very quickly," said Barsky. [Extremely quickly]

"The problem with most chatrooms is that you usually have more than two people present. It's very hard to figure out who's talking to whom. Conversations feel broken up, disorganized, chaotic. You say something to someone, that person responds, you respond back--but what usually happens is that while you're sitting there formulating your response, several dozen lines of text flash by and the line you were originally responding to is now up above and out of sight, and when you finally press enter, the person might not figure out what your statement was responding to," said Barsky.

[I should have just opened your post and copied the text into mine. It would have been easier that saying all the same stuff twice… Haha]

"This kind of confusion rarely occurs when you're talking to a bunch of people face to face. There are numerous rules of protocol that are probably instinctive to a certain degree, or at least programmed into us by habit at an early age. These rules include the subtle elements of body language. Among other things, you usually make eye contact with the person you're addressing, so even if there are a half dozen simultaneous conversations flying by, you still don't lose the train of thought. Of course, there are some challenges to real-life conversations as well, such as the problem of when it's your turn to speak, and when it's okay to cut someone off without seeming rude. But these are nothing compared to the challenges involved in online chatting, from what I've seen," Barsky also said.

[Once again, I agree. In the chatroom, the fastest typist wins. Is anyone using Voice Dictation for Chat? I know when I was I the computer store customers were highly interested in using Voice Dictation software for chat and doing cut and pastes but I don’t know if the Voice Dictation ever became fast enough. I’m curious, does anyone know?]

Barsky said, "I've had much more success with message boards, which I feel better approximate conversations in the real world, the main difference being that you can go on for as long as you want without having to worry about someone cutting you off. (As you can see, I cherish that ability.) The only risk you take is losing people's interest by being too long-winded. In the real world, you wouldn't even get that chance, because if you're boring, people will either cut you off or find some excuse to walk away."

[Again still in agreement. I prefer asynchronous communication unless the synchronous is one-on-one because if you remember it was handy when we were working towards a goal like on the project. ICQ is even better than AOL IM because it has a lot more power such as direct file transfer and the ability to send sound bites. The problem with ICQ is that it is so complex.]

"The problem I've found with message boards is a problem I've had with many online interactions, including chat rooms. The Internet seems to give people a great capacity to lie about themselves. Aside from the widely publicized dangers posed by Internet stalkers, there are very few rules in cyberspace regulating truth-telling: you pretty much can say whatever the hell you want, without facing the consequences that would result from similar behavior in the real world," said Barsky.

[That is true, but I met people I chatted with all over the country and the world and those who were willing to meet person to person were similar in real life most times. Sometimes you would run into the "Wizard of Oz" syndrome where the person was the "Great and Powerful Oz" on the net and in real life they were very introverted and would shrink in person. The people I met said that they were surprised that my real life persona was the same as online. I asked what they expected and they said well usually people weren’t the same in person as online. Evidently they were pleasantly surprised because a conversation started yesterday in cyberspace would continue in oh, I don’t know, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana… I met quite a few people… men, women, husbands and wives. Most times it was fun. You just had to be yourself and I think if you’re conformable with who you are and they are conformable with who they are, things go smoothly. It’s when you try to be someone you’re not things get uncomfortable.]

Barsky said, "People online act rude, hurl insults at strangers, when they probably would never say those kinds of things to a person's face in a real-life encounter."

[Right. Because they figure they can get rid of you at the flick of a switch.]

"They also often make up claims about themselves to puff themselves up. I've seen this happen several times, including the first time I posted on a message board back in 1997. In a recent encounter, I went to a message board devoted to the movie Fight Club. Some guy there claimed to be a middle-aged psychology professor, and he used his alleged experience in this field to discount any theories that disagreed with his own. I noticed several errors in his posts, and also that his writing style bore some striking similarities to those of a supposed young female poster who, curiously, also had a habit of blindly rushing to his defense whenever he got attacked. As soon as I pointed out these facts, I was immediately assaulted by a torrent of insults. By all common sense, I should have walked away, but I continued baiting this guy (who I'm sure was a teenage boy) because I was a better arguer than him and it was fun to watch him get angrier and angrier the more calm and eloquent I grew," continued Barsky.

[Oh yes. This happened in another room. Unfortunately it wasn’t one person but several who got jealous that particular people were receiving all the attention and would rage attacks upon themselves to get the room to come to their aid. Eventually several people did this it went completely out of control and the administrator shut down the room forever.]

Barsky also said, "Still, there's the counter-veiling and quite ironic phenomenon that was brought up in the chatroom, namely intimacy toward strangers: for some people, being anonymous and online spurs you to say things you wouldn't even say to your dearest friends. This again goes back to the lack of consequences and accountability in cyberspace, which has contradictory effects."

[Yes and then things get real weird if you ever meet in person.]

I, however, have not tried to disguise myself online, even though I use pseudonyms and don't necessarily reveal crucial things about myself that would be readily obvious in offline interactions--like my sex, my age, my ethnicity, and my religion. It seems that no matter where I post, my personality shines through. In the case of the chatroom, I didn't even try to hide who I was. My personality was in full evidence: I'm very talkative, very opinionated, a natural contrarian, and I have an almost anal-retentive adherence to proper spelling and grammar, except that I don't bother about capitalization and I occasionally resort to Internet abbreviations like u for you. Someone thought that I was Chris Paul, which doesn't surprise me a whole lot. We're both intellectuals, and that's much of the way I was behaving on the chat, only there wasn't any way people could shut me up," said Barsky.

[That was interesting. Well that’s why we like talking to each other. You’d probably like talking to my Mom too. She loves all this stuff and she’s all over the place. But Steve got me to come out of hiding. All he had to say was Tachoma and there I am. I think Flipper would enjoy talking to a Tachcoma. The personalities are similar.]

"When people say that they've formed close friendships with people they met online, I'm willing to believe them. I just have trouble imagining that I'd be able to accomplish such a thing. I have tried online dating, and so far it hasn't worked, because I put too much of a distance between myself and my writing. I'm an excellent writer, but that's just the problem: I use my writing skills as a mask. I'm great at analyzing things, but I have a certain aloofness, and writing posts back and forth doesn't have much potential to bring out the romantic in me," Barsky said.

[Yes some people have. I didn’t have much luck though and I tried several times. I was talking about this in some abstract way in the chat. Its like an out of body experience… yea yea and that’s how the whole discussion in chat swung over the Ghost in the Shell. It was fun and fascinating but also kind of weird. The more fascinating part was the person you started to connect with was never the person you would be looking for in real life for both parties.]

Barsky said, "And yet my social ineptness in cyberspace is paralleled to some degree by a social ineptness in the real world. That's probably why I haven't really got a clue who any of the people were. All I can tell you is how I came up with the screen name I used. And that's a long story."

[I didn’t expect anything but a long story, they usually are look at mine it’s just as long. These names come about in very meaningful ways and I only took an excerpt from my post from two weeks ago from Sock Puppet Day.]

"Ever since a childhood experience where I opened some curtains shipped from who knows where and out jumped a foot-long Asian centipede that had somehow survived the journey overseas, I have had a phobia of centipedes. In fact, I pretty much hate all creepy-crawlies, with centipedes and millipedes at the top, and spiders a close second, though I can tolerate most insects as long as they're not crawling on my skin. But if I see a centipede on the wall, even the relatively tiny local variety found in numerous apartments and houses in this area, I get sick to my stomach," said Barsky.

"Sound weird?" [Not really, we all have our fears] "I don't understand why the phobia isn't more common. Centipedes to me look like a train of spiders glued together, and then you hit the fast-forward button." [I can see that, I hate insects anyway. Spiders don’t bother me though. I leave them alone and they leave me alone.]

Barsky continued, "But if there were a technical term for this fear, it would be chilopodophobia, the root based on Chilopoda, which is the biological class to which centipedes belong. In other words, a synonym to centipede might be chilopod (pronounced KIE-low-pod), sort of like a whale might be called a cetacean. Of course nobody ever really uses those terms except maybe some scientists, but they are found in dictionaries."

"So in late 1996 when I first started using America Online, there came the time for me to select a user name, so I chose Chilopod, thinking it sounded cool. (It would sort of be like Indiana Jones calling himself Serpent.) But believe it or not, someone had already taken the name! Some biologist fellow, I later found out. I had the option of putting a number into my name (like Chilopod2), but I didn't want to. It destroyed my feeling of uniqueness. So I altered the spelling a little. Instead of Chilopod, I was Kylopod. That became my main email address and Internet pseudonym after that," Barsky said.

"Sometime later, I chose an alternative name which I frequently used on the Internet when I was talking in more specifically Jewish contexts. I looked up the word "centipede" in a Hebrew dictionary and it was translated as marbeh raglaim." [Ah so that’s what the word means.] "Literally "numerous feet," a phrase that appears in Leviticus 11:42 when referring to bugs in general but is used in Modern Hebrew as a somewhat fanciful name for centipedes and millipedes. (The more common term is nadal.)"

A response to P.C. Paul's post by N. Barsky
"Once again, I agree. In the chatroom, the fastest typist wins," Paul said.

[Well, I'm a real fast typist. I take after my dad. If I don't account for errors, in fact, I can type almost as quickly as I think, and this ability is immensely useful for freewriting and for notetaking. I got the laptop a little over a year ago, but it would have been so useful in the early years of college. In my first semester at UMBC, I enrolled in two history courses. One I got an A in, because I was able to keep up with the lecturer. The other I had to drop, because I couldn't keep up with her. I tried recording the class on audiotape, and that technique can work very effectively so long as I'm willing to put in hours taking notes from the tape later. But I'm just not an auditory learner.]

[Last year, however, I discovered that I could get through a lecture class entirely with my laptop. It was the Shakespeare course, taught by Dr. Edinger in a lecture hall. He allowed very little discussion, most of what you had to do was just take down whatever he said and regurgitate it weeks later on the open-note midterm. This technique was not particularly appropriate to an English course. I have to give him credit, though: he was very effective. His lectures were anything but boring. He made the information accessible; it was like the Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare. After I was finished the course, which I got a B in, I realized two things: (1) If I had figured out earlier how to use my laptop to an advantage, I would have gotten an A (2) If not for my laptop, I'm not sure I would have passed the course.]

[But my laptop has been considerably less necessary in other English courses, and several teachers including Shipka officially banned it from their classroom largely because of me. (So you've got me to blame!) But they're right: in these open-discussion courses, having students type on a laptop is distracting.]

Paul said, "Is anyone using Voice Dictation for Chat? I know when I was I the computer store customers were highly interested in using Voice Dictation software for chat and doing cut and pastes but I don’t know if the Voice Dictation ever became fast enough. I’m curious, does anyone know?"

[I don't how well voice dictation works, but my father who knows a lot about this stuff thinks that any voice recognition software largely sucks, and probably will for some time. Back in 1988, me and my family went to this place in Florida called "Xanadu, the House of the Future." Our guide was a tall, black, deep-voiced guy, looked like a drill sergeant, and among the features of this "house" was a $1,400 computer named Godfrey that responded to voice commands. You'd say "turn off the lights," and it would. But to activate the computer, you first had to address it by name. Our guide demonstrated. He said, "Godfrey!" The thing wouldn't turn on. He changed his voice slightly. "Godfrey!" It still didn't turn on. As we in the audience were stifling laughter, the guide finally found the correct intonation and the computer sprang to life.]

[When I passed by the place in 1997, it was boarded up. But now most computers come with some sort of voice recognition software. Here, for instance, is what comes out when I recite the first paragraph of this post: “once again I agree into chatroom the fastest typist plans” well, real fast typist I take after my dad I don’t account for errors in fact I can type almost as quickly as I think and its ability is a man so useful for freewriting and for notetaking I got the laptop a little over a year ago but what it would have been so useful in the early years of college in my first semester at UMBC I enrolled into history courses one I got an a in because I was able to keep up with a lecturer the other I had to drop because I couldn’t keep up with her I tried recording the class 1.8 and that technique can work very effectively so long as I’m willing to put in hours taking notes from the tape later but I’m just not enough water for your...]

[When I was first playing with this feature last year, it kept writing out this word, "zhoulotskunosprok." I thought it might be German or something, but when I googled the word, I only came to webpages commenting on the fact that this word mysteriously shows up on this voice dictation software that comes with Windows. Must have been some prank that one programmer decided to insert into the software.]

"Again still in agreement. I prefer asynchronous communication unless the synchronous is one-on-one because if you remember it was handy when we were working towards a goal like on the project. ICQ is even better than AOL IM because it has a lot more power such as direct file transfer and the ability to send sound bites. The problem with ICQ is that it is so complex," said Paul.

[I also had IM in mind, and I've used ICQ, as well as Yahoo messenger, a long time ago. I think that IM has an audio chat, and even a video chat, but the people I've IMed so far have not had a microphone or camera set up. I did once chat with an Israeli because of this website that tries to improve people's foreign language skills. The aim was that he would help me improve my Hebrew, and I would help him improve his English. The trouble was, his English was already much better than my Hebrew, and we only did this chat once. But it's a neat idea, if it can be expanded upon.]

Paul continued, "Sometimes you would run into the "Wizard of Oz" syndrome where the person was the "Great and Powerful Oz" on the net and in real life they were very introverted and would shrink in person."

["Wizard of Oz" is actually the perfect metaphor for the fakers I was telling you about, the people who try to "take over" a message board by making lofty claims about themselves, saying they're some accomplished professional with advanced college degrees. Of course, the question then becomes, why is that person spending so much time on a message board? You ask that, and you immediately get evasive answers. And don't even think about asking for proof! The answer will invariably be something like "The trusted people on this board (i.e. not you) already know I'm legit." Anyone who expresses the slightest skepticism will be rained with insults.]

"Oh yes. This happened in another room. Unfortunately it wasn’t one person but several who got jealous that particular people were receiving all the attention and would rage attacks upon themselves to get the room to come to their aid. Eventually several people did this it went completely out of control and the administrator shut down the room forever," Paul said.

[On message boards, as opposed to chatrooms, people like this can influence things for a long time. The "professor" I was telling you about, on the Fight Club board, is still there now, as far as I know, still bullying people. Anyone who gets in his good graces, he initiates into this little team he calls the Space Monkeys (patterned after the movie) all of whom will band together at his command to rain insults on "trolls," a term they tend to apply loosely to anyone who expresses a variant interpretation of the movie. I, of course, went to the top of their "troll" list as soon as I wondered if the "professor" was really who he said he was. That ugly thread is by now long gone, though I saved a copy to my computer. Don't even think about asking me to send you a copy so you can read it. I have shown people excerpts from it, but most people have far better things to do than slog their way through the entire thing, which went on for several weeks. And I gotta admit, I enjoyed every moment of it, because just as you hate chatrooms, I HATE BULLIES! And it's fun to take them down in cyberspace, when I don't have to worry about getting some 6'4", 250 lb maniac angry at me. I also wouldn't worry about getting stalked: these multiple-identity trolls are too cowardly for that.]

Paul continued, [I can see that, I hate insects anyway. Spiders don’t bother me though. I leave them alone and they leave me alone."

[Well, the thing is that most centipedes and spiders aren't dangerous, they're actually helpful in keeping down the population of harmful bugs. Arachnophobia is one of the more common phobias, however, and Australians have caused car accidents from being alarmed by the large, but relatively harmless, spiders there. Phobias by definition aren't rational. Technically, in fact, a phobia is classed as a mental illness.]

A response to N Barsky's post by P.C. Paul
“Well, I'm a real fast typist. I take after my dad. If I don't account for errors, in fact, I can type almost as quickly as I think, and this ability is immensely useful for freewriting and for notetaking. I got the laptop a little over a year ago, but it would have been so useful in the early years of college. In my first semester at UMBC, I enrolled in two history courses. One I got an A in, because I was able to keep up with the lecturer. The other I had to drop, because I couldn't keep up with her. I tried recording the class on audiotape, and that technique can work very effectively so long as I'm willing to put in hours taking notes from the tape later. But I'm just not an auditory learner," Barsky said.

[You’re fortunate to be a fast typist. The tape recorder I used to use a great deal especially in places like philosophy and History where it’s all talk and I had some fabulous notes from there which I no longer have. I had some fabulous History teachers who lived and breathed the stuff. The best was my Russian History professor. He was teaching not from the western view of Russian History but the Russian view of Russian History as he was educated (He born and raised in Russia) so he knew things that weren’t in our books. Plus we were supposed to have gone to Russia on a mere $1600 for two or three weeks and I mean all over Russia as he had family and friends we would stay with. The field trip collapsed because Gorbachev was in power and as the days progressed things were becoming highly unstable over there. Russian history dictated not to go over then because the instability is part of the pendulum swing of Russian History.]

Barsky continued, “Last year, however, I discovered that I could get through a lecture class entirely with my laptop. It was the Shakespeare course, taught by Dr. Edinger in a lecture hall. He allowed very little discussion, most of what you had to do was just take down whatever he said and regurgitate it weeks later on the open-note midterm. This technique was not particularly appropriate to an English course. I have to give him credit, though: he was very effective. His lectures were anything but boring. He made the information accessible; it was like the Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare. After I was finished the course, which I got a B in, I realized two things: (1) If I had figured out earlier how to use my laptop to an advantage, I would have gotten an A (2) If not for my laptop, I'm not sure I would have passed the course.”

[Fascinating. I still have to take the Shakespeare course. I saw what Yolanda was going through and I want to avoid the professor like the plague. Regurgitating Shakespeare suit me just fine. I got more than a healthy dose of it with a 12 grade English teacher who was fabulous and I got enough of it in 2nd semester composition and Old English Lit. I’m sick up to my eyeballs with Shakespeare.]

"I don't how well voice dictation works, but my father who knows a lot about this stuff thinks that any voice recognition software largely sucks, and probably will for some time. Back in 1988, me and my family went to this place in Florida called "Xanadu, the House of the Future." Our guide was a tall, black, deep-voiced guy, looked like a drill sergeant, and among the features of this "house" was a $1,400 computer named Godfrey that responded to voice commands. You'd say "turn off the lights," and it would. But to activate the computer, you first had to address it by name. Our guide demonstrated. He said, "Godfrey!" The thing wouldn't turn on. He changed his voice slightly. "Godfrey!" It still didn't turn on. As we in the audience were stifling laughter, the guide finally found the correct intonation and the computer sprang to life," said Paul.

[So evidently as much as the software companies would like us to think its great it still have a long way to go.]

“I also had IM in mind, and I've used ICQ, as well as Yahoo messenger, a long time ago. I think that IM has an audio chat, and even a video chat, but the people I've IMed so far have not had a microphone or camera set up. I did once chat with an Israeli because of this website that tries to improve people's foreign language skills. The aim was that he would help me improve my Hebrew, and I would help him improve his English. The trouble was, his English was already much better than my Hebrew, and we only did this chat once. But it's a neat idea, if it can be expanded upon,” Barsky said.

[I remember all this stuff and I’m sure it’s a lot better now but it does come down to “Do you really need it? Does it actually do work for you or is it just a toy? I think it becomes a crutch for some people who refuse to socialize in the real world. I know one wife walked in one day and was on the verge of getting a divorce if her husband did not get off the computer.]

Barsky continued, “On message boards, as opposed to chatrooms, people like this can influence things for a long time. The "professor" I was telling you about, on the Fight Club board, is still there now, as far as I know, still bullying people. Anyone who gets in his good graces, he initiates into this little team he calls the Space Monkeys (patterned after the movie) all of whom will band together at his command to rain insults on "trolls," a term they tend to apply loosely to anyone who expresses a variant interpretation of the movie. I, of course, went to the top of their "troll" list as soon as I wondered if the "professor" was really who he said he was. That ugly thread is by now long gone, though I saved a copy to my computer. Don't even think about asking me to send you a copy so you can read it."

[That thought didn’t even cross my mind, “asking to see it.” I know all too well how the story goes.]

"I have shown people excerpts from it, but most people have far better things to do than slog their way through the entire thing, which went on for several weeks. And I gotta admit, I enjoyed every moment of it, because just as you hate chatrooms, I HATE BULLIES!” [Hahahaha, that’s funny.]

"And it's fun to take them down in cyberspace, when I don't have to worry about getting some 6'4", 250 lb maniac angry at me. I also wouldn't worry about getting stalked: these multiple-identity trolls are too cowardly for that." [Hahahaha, that’s funny too.]

"Well, the thing is that most centipedes and spiders aren't dangerous, they're actually helpful in keeping down the population of harmful bugs." [That’s why I leave them alone.] "Arachnophobia is one of the more common phobias, however, and Australians have caused car accidents from being alarmed by the large, but relatively harmless, spiders there. Phobias by definition aren't rational. Technically, in fact, a phobia is classed as a mental illness." [No they are not rational but who said “humans” are rational, besides everyone has them.]

Did you develop a different persona/identity around the name you chose? Yes read on. Does the chat name you used reflect you in any way?
Yes, Flipper is who I cannot be.

Second, how did you choose your chat name?
This is an except posting from ENGL 407 explaining who Flipper is/was and answers everything you NEVER wanted to know about the persona Flipper:

Now to the next level. I found this forum. I took the liberty to use the old nickname no one would recognize and use that as a Poster name so when I posted I always singed Blackhole. This forum was kind of weird. There were no controls in place to prevent people from changing their posting names as they saw fit. Obviously this leads to flaming problems. I always posted as Blackhole so people could get to know me and would talk with me. You post often enough and behave yourself you are eventually accepted into the community. Eventually I had to get an anonymous email address so people could contact me. I set up the name Blackie Blackhole because “Blackhole” was already taken and I didn’t want any number crap. I had already decided that this would be an alias le plume name for my writing within this space. So the Familiar Name was Blackie and the Surname was Blackhole.

Next ladder rung. Blackhole had my own real life persona. I wrote I my own voice and said whatever I would normally say in a public forum on the Internet. I am making this distinction because there are things I would say on the Internet being a virtual space and because of anonymity I would never repeat in a Public Brick-n-mortar space. (This refers back to one of our earlier readings of how communication changes with the safety of anonymity.) At the time I was being treated for depression so I didn’t have too many good days. A great deal of the writing was quite dark at times and hard. Many people liked it because they liked the Anne Rice sort of thing. But this persona also scared away other people who I wanted to talk to. There was a woman from Australia in there who had a terrific imagination. I noticed her posts, she noticed mine and we started posting to each other. She would drop one strange paragraph, I would drop the next. This would go on for days and from the number of posts going on people began to take notice and open them. The first couple of posts would make sense then the imagination would escalate. She would play off me and I would play off her. This was not a contest of who could out wit or outdo or who had a further imagination. Actually it turned out to be two middle aged people battling depression and two people trying to escape the crushing weight of the world and an opportunity to escape the living hell in our own heads for at least two hours a day. I would get some laughs from her creativity and hyperactive imagination and she received the same. These narratives or yarns would spin completely out of control. It was like two five-year-olds on the computers when the parents weren’t looking. As I said, the hypertext subject always indicated that something strange was being said. Her posting name was Spinny which was also her real life nickname. They called her Spinny because her circle of friends said when you attempted to have an entertaining conversation with her you were guaranteed to walk away with your head spinning.

As I said there were other people I wanted to talk to and the Blackhole persona had its constraints. I.e. to have crazy out of control language fun like a five year old the Blackhole persona was not going to work. I needed a new character. I needed a light-hearted, happy go lucky silly character that everyone liked and no one would ignore. I had read Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Science Fiction, Philosophy, Religion, Political Satire) where mice were the most intelligent creatures on earth, dolphins were second most intelligent, and humans were third. (Don’t ask about the mice that will take pages to explain.) There were some humans who were saying it was a mistake to have ever come out of the trees. I subscribe to the theory he mentions that it was a bad idea we ever came out of the oceans. So from this point of view who is having the most fun? The dolphins. After all they get to play in the wakes of ships, muck about in the water, and have fun all day is what Adams said. Therefore the dolphins are the smarter creatures also because they had enough sense to NEVER come out of the ocean. So there is this theory that dolphins are smarter than humans, dolphins like to play all day long and are having more fun than we are and there is the Blackhole/Flipper theme song. Now I have connected all the dots or at least some of them. Of course, Flipper gets introduced into the forum s a new persona and says hello to everyone. He talks like a little kid… loves to use his elipses... haha... and laughs every few words or so... haha... like a little kid. He’s never angry, mean, sad, bla bla bla and fools around with everyone. People begin to ask questions and his persona begins to develop around the questions. So Flipper becomes a happy go lucky Rummy who likes to scour the Caribbean for sunken ships with bottles of rum and get drunk (I don’t drink at all), listens to Reggae music, likes to play in the wake of ships, talk to people in posting forums on the Internet with his waterproof laptop with a flotation device, and who likes anchovies. Flipper eventually becomes a soul mate of a woman named Shel because this is the only human name he recognizes from his home perspective (shell). Flipper isn’t a great speller and thinks Shel is shell, the thing that washes up on the beach and not an shorted version of Michelle.

Flipper is an alter-ego of what I can’t be as a middle-aged man with affordances and constraints the world places on me. There are ways I am expected to behave in ways I have to behave. Flipper has affordances and constraints that are different than mine therefore Flipper can say and do things I can’t but there are things I can say and do that Flipper can’t. Jumping out of the box only places one into a new box with different affordances and constraints. Flipper is a persona that allows me to play with children and a significant other behind closed doors. Basically, the more complex the mind the greater the need for play.

Flipper allows me to step out of my various adult roles and have some fun because people recognize the persona as silly play and either walk away or play along. Flipper has been around since 1996 when I first went online and has been fleshed out into the real world in some theme parties like an indoor beach Reggae pool party in January. Consider it the poor man’s trip to the Bahamas. Flipper hinders communication because his mentality is that of a five-year-old. “Hey, I’m just a dumb kind and I want to have fun.

Flipper on the Internet has been around the world and visited a great deal of people that lived near rivers and were not land locked. The most peculiar place Flipper was was a virtual pool party in Australia. He swam down to Australia, then slipped through some of the main drainage pipes somehow worked his way into the public freshwater system and popped out in Spinny’s pool for the party because she said she would have Rum. Don’t ask, I haven’t asked either and I don’t think I want to know how Flipper ever got into the public freshwater system. I told you this is a well-developed character/persona.

Bill Chewning walked up and nicely asked if he was a shark (Flipper the Sock Puppet). You don’t EVER say the word “shark” around a dolphin. You want to see a happy go lucky animal go postal just say the word shark to a dolphin or as he made the error of doing call a dolphin a shark. Dolphins HATE sharks. Dolphins will go on the offensive when they see a shark and as a pack will continually ram their noses into the shark. As large as they are and as fast as they can move, momentum = velocity X mass so an impact from a dolphin has to hurt. Multiply that by a pack of dolphins and you are not going to stick around long. Flipper bit her tongue and realized it was an honest mistake and said to Bill that she was girl dolphin. That was the end of that.

That summarizes Flipper.

If you didn't actively involve yourself in either chats, please explain why as well.
This was not a reflection on your presentation nor anything you guys did. I just HATE chatrooms. I am okay with synchronous one-on-one chat and asynchronous bulletin boards I like even better. Here we used to weave entire narratives between four authors at times. Large chatrooms make me nervous. I can’t get a word in edgewise because I am not a good typist and when I want to respond to something its 15 lines up so by the time I get my text out they are just words hanging in space like talking to myself.

Flipper was told to stay on topic twice. He couldn’t stay on topic in the academic room because a 5 year old dolphin has no idea what you are talking about. By the time I figured out how to get into the Wildcard room the conversation again was impossible for Flipper to understand. 5 year old dolphin who knows nothing of pop culture. Flipper is like a 5 year old with a keyboard. He likes to play and say silly things taking nothing seriously. People on the Internet used to drop him emails and posted to him regularly because he was predictable. Anything he said was always silly and fun. Flipper likes to play. The problem is you have to play with him like a little kid and not an adult. I gave you the name Flipper with the intention of no one recognizing Flipper’s voice. No one would expect it.

Of the two rooms, which did you feel more comfortable interacting in?
If I was to break Flipper’s persona which I had no intention of doing for anyone then I would have remained in the Academic room. Why? I do not know a thing about pop culture anymore since I began attending UMBC in the fall of 2000. I can’t afford anything, I can’t go anywhere and TV sucks, so does the radio, so what’s left? Not very much except the Internet.

As I watched the conversations I immediately recognized Steven as fallenangel1 and Naphtali as I think he said the name was Hebrew but I thought it was some Shakespearian/Elizabethan name. Go figure? This was easy because they did nothing to disguise themselves. If I gave you the name Blackie_Blackhole or Blackhole as 99% of the Internet knows me I would have been myself. Maybe if I was under that name I may have talked. Maybe. But I HATE chatrooms.

Was the culture different in each room--one more academic/conservative and the other non-academic/relaxing?
Yes the culture was different in each room. I didn’t find anything academic about the academic room once Steven and Naphtali began to ignore the rules and talk about what they wanted to talk about. The three of us are always talking about… well we are. I draw these type of people to me and they draw me to them. Life is too short.

Conservative is the wrong word. More like philosophical involving intellectual pursuits. Non-academic/relaxing? I don’t find anything relaxing talking about pop culture. It winds me up and makes my blood boil. I find the intellectual pursuits stimulating and more relaxing because there is always a space of silence necessary for reflection. Empty space can be a good thing.

Did you have a pre-judged notion of what each chat room would be like before entering and how did that change after entering the chat?
I had no pre-conception before entering the room. I just found the space stressful just getting there. Once I was in and told twice to stay on topic I was stressed enough to simply disengage. I HATE CHATROOMS.

After the online chat session, did you feel more connected to your classmates?
Hahahahahaha! That’s funny. I feel connected to my classmates because we depend on each other in a work environment. I feel connected to my classmates because we accept each other for good and bad. I feel connected to my classmates because we like to talk all day long about things so heavy they fall through the floor. I feel connected to my classmates because we have worked side by side through several classes, several projects and running an operation plus speaking to each other outside of the campus space. A chatroom sure wasn’t going to make me feel more connected. If we don’t connect outside of the classroom we’ll never connect. I think in some cases when you work side by side with people you see a professional side but you also see how the person deals with stress. Stress can bring out some interesting sides to people.

And finally, please TELL US who you thought were behind the chat names on Tuesday and how you came to this conclusion/decision.
As I watched the conversations I immediately recognized Steven as fallenangel1 and Naphtali as I think he said the name was Hebrew but I thought it was some Shakespearian/Elizabethan name. Go figure? This was easy because they did nothing to disguise themselves. If I gave you the name Blackie_Blackhole or Blackhole as 99% of the Internet knows me I would have been myself. Maybe if I was under that name I may have talked. Maybe. But I HATE chatrooms.

Steven threw out “Ghost in the Shell" and then "Tachcoma." He KNOWS I LOVE Tachcomas but that is because I want to develop an AI research team (Artificial Intelligence Research Team). I also love the Tachcomas because they talk like little kids, they have little kid’s voices, behave like little kids but with super intellects. Hey Tachcomas just want to have fun! They remind me of Flipper’s persona. Actually they remind me exactly of Flipper’s persona. The more complex the mind the greater the need for play.

Naphtali I recognized because he was himself and we know each other well enough I would recognize him.

Also, if there's anything you want to add, FEEL FREE TO DO SO!
I HATE CHATROOMS!!!!

The crux of the biscuit you see is in the conceptual continuity of the apostrophe.

Flipper: Okay, Bye! … Haha.

A response to P.C. Paul's "Brace yourselves gang... Its Flipper... Haha" by N. Barsky
I couldn't really follow your whole explanation, but then I see there's a lot of context you aren't giving us--I understood the sock puppet reference because I was there, but many of the people in this class won't know what you're talking about.

I did get the gist of it, though. What you're getting at is role-playing. When I was discussing Gee's book with Matt earlier in the semester, we both agreed that, in a sense, we all play roles all the time, not just in video games (or on the Internet). We have the roles we present to our close relatives, our distant relatives, our friends, our acquaintances, our employers, our enemies, and so on. I'm sure that I act a little differently depending on whether I'm with Orthodox Jews, non-Orthodox Jews, or non-Jews; even my language differs slightly. So, in a sense, we become different people in different situations.

I, however, do very little to change myself when I write online, maybe because I've developed a powerful voice in my writing that, in some ways, expresses my inner self better than when I'm talking. And I've ended up using this voice even in the real world. So I don't make as much of a boundary between my real-life persona and the one I use on the Internet.

The only time I've experimented with roles is in public speaking. And you saw that a little during our presentation. I felt like one of those stutterers who doesn't stutter while they sing. I've been in a Toastmasters club for about a year, and one of the things I noticed is that I project a slightly different persona when I'm on stage than in other situations. That DJ-esque "goooood morning" that you saw at our presentation was developed the night before while I was rehearsing. I didn't have any conscious strategy in mind, it just sort of came out of me. Maybe I was over-compensating because of my laryngitis.

It's a lot like acting, which I suspect I'd be good at. The reason I'm not like that in real life is that I'm too honest. But when I get on stage, something else takes over: it's like I'm playing out my daydreams.

Paul said, "At the time I was being treated for depression so I didn’t have too many good days. A great deal of the writing was quite dark at times and hard. Many people liked it because they liked the Anne Rice sort of thing. But this persona also scared away other people who I wanted to talk to."

It's the age-old fascination with depressed artists, from Edgar Allan Poe to Kurt Cobain. Much of art throughout the ages is based on dark themes. It engages us more powerfully than mundane or positive stuff.

"I had read Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Science Fiction, Philosophy, Religion, Political Satire)," Paul said.

[You make Adams sound a lot less fun than he is.]

Paul, continued, "I HATE CHATROOMS!!!!

[I actually found the session relaxing, despite the fact that keeping up with everything in both rooms was overwhelming, and also despite the fact that the scroll bars kept doing this annoying thing where they would scroll up instead of down, hiding each new line of text. The reason I found the session relaxing was simply that it was less stressful on me than coming to class, having to get into my car and drive for twenty minutes where I would then have to find a parking space, and I would also have to bother about my physical appearance and voice (my laryngitis was still lingering a bit). I could just sit there in the privacy of my home and not worry about being judged or graded or anything. All I had to do was say whatever came to my mind. And if I didn't say what was appropriate or follow what people were saying, who cared? It's only stressful if you make it so, if you feel under pressure to conform to a certain standard. I felt relaxed because I simply didn't have to do much to participate, unlike in the real class.]

A response to N. Barsky's post by P.C. Paul
Barsky said, “I couldn't really follow your whole explanation, but then I see there's a lot of context you aren't giving us--I understood the sock puppet reference because I was there, but many of the people in this class won't know what you're talking about.”

[Well the original post is about 4 pages long before it even begins to answer the questions in 407 and I tried to edit the post as best I could but I know the text is so dense some sentences probably got away and make no sense or are nonsense. :- ]

“I did get the gist of it, though. What you're getting at is role-playing. When I was discussing Gee's book with Matt earlier in the semester, we both agreed that, in a sense, we all play roles all the time, not just in video games (or on the Internet). We have the roles we present to our close relatives, our distant relatives, our friends, our acquaintances, our employers, our enemies, and so on. I'm sure that I act a little differently depending on whether I'm with Orthodox Jews, non-Orthodox Jews, or non-Jews; even my language differs slightly. So, in a sense, we become different people in different situations,” said Barsky.

[I guess that is what you would call it. Role-playing without all the controls placed on one by someone else’s design. It really takes a great deal of imagination and when one plays fair with the character/persona they have developed the character now has affordances and constrains just like the rest of us. The end result was developing 27 different characters in the room because not one character could play all the roles. I thought it was a lot of fun because I maintained this for about two years until the room collapsed.]

Barsky continued, “I, however, do very little to change myself when I write online, maybe because I've developed a powerful voice in my writing that, in some ways, expresses my inner self better than when I'm talking. And I've ended up using this voice even in the real world. So I don't make as much of a boundary between my real-life persona and the one I use on the Internet.”

[I understand what you are saying and Blackie Blackhole is myself for best and worst. Under “this” name there is no difference between the online persona and the real life persona whatever that may be because every day we spend our lives changing hats. The older one gets the more hats you wear which Gee had outlined more than a few times.]

“The only time I've experimented with roles is in public speaking. And you saw that a little during our presentation,” said Barsky.

[Yes I did see that. You stepped outside of yourself and into a new role as an actor does. Sometimes dress and costume also helps one to get into the role.]

"I felt like one of those stutterers who doesn't stutter while they sing," said Barsky. [Hahahaha, yes I know what you mean.]

Barsky continued, “I've been in a Toastmasters club for about a year, and one of the things I noticed is that I project a slightly different persona when I'm on stage than in other situations. [I think we all do when we are placed in the spotlight. You have to understand that all these people sitting out there are here to see you and you are expected to entertain.”

[I used to sing in Chorus and Choir and when we practiced we were all one thing. Performance night we became something else or kind of like Kirk Cobain (and I absolutely despise this man) in Teen Sprit, “Here we are now… Entertain us...” which is EXACTLY what an audience is there for even if its academic.]

Barsky also said, “That DJ-esque "goooood morning" that you saw at our presentation was developed the night before while I was rehearsing. I didn't have any conscious strategy in mind, it just sort of came out of me. Maybe I was over-compensating because of my laryngitis.”

[I thought that was fabulous! And the persona was exactly what I would expect. If you’re to be a television game show introducer or lead man your job is to get the audience revved up and excited about being there. It’s a shame your voice was out. I don’t think you over-compensated. Remember, I taped the performance, when I get it back from Shipka you have to hear this because our peers were genuinely responding to your persona. In the last “I got it” someone heckled you and you shrugged it off well. You really have to hear this tape because the whole thing worked and wasn’t over the top. I just wish we had several video cameras running to record what was going on in the space as we presented. Goals and Choices would have read quite differently if we could have analyzed motion, body language, etc. I don’t know how you looked at this in Goals and Choices but I did mention this and how I wish we could have made this possible.]

“It's a lot like acting, which I suspect I'd be good at. The reason I'm not like that in real life is that I'm too honest. But when I get on stage, something else takes over: it's like I'm playing out my daydreams,” said Barsky. [You very well may be good at acting I think it is worth trying but I would also consider the film critic also. I was going to say something else about it is a safer path but the Hell with safety, safety is why most of us never accomplish anything.]

[At the time I was being treated for depression so I didn’t have too many good days. A great deal of the writing was quite dark at times and hard. Many people liked it because they liked the Anne Rice sort of thing. But this persona also scared away other people who I wanted to talk to.]

[Well two things happen here. One you find yourself racing against the clock because you don’t know when the next wave is going to cripple you so you try to do more than you can while you’re well. The second point is most people are afraid to go send the messenger of the mind running into those real dark hallways and force the messenger to fling open the door to some of those closets that refuse to open. In there are all the skeletons, bones, spiders, and cobwebs of memories we don’t want to look at because they were so awful. I find those to be the little gems that need to be exposed to the light. I noticed Sarah Miller is very good at this and Jonathan Deane. They also delve into areas most people would rather look the other way.]

[I had read Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Science Fiction, Philosophy, Religion, Political Satire)]

“You make Adams sound a lot less fun than he is," said Barsky.

[Sorry. Also Megan is a Galaxy Hitchhiker you know. Read the posts…]

[I HATE CHATROOMS!!!!]

[Right there… “keeping up with everything in both rooms was overwhelming” that’s exactly what I feel, it information overload until you get accustomed to what people are saying and then as in a large party in real life you begin to select conversations you chose to participate in and negate the rest around you as “white noise.” It becomes “selective hearing.” I find a chat room similar to large parties in real life. It takes some time to orient one’s self with the people in the space before you know who you can talk with, who you want to talk with and who to avoid.]

Barsky continued, “...and also despite the fact that the scroll bars kept doing this annoying thing where they would scroll up instead of down, hiding each new line of text.”

[As you see I like bulletin boards better. I use them in such a way that the person I am speaking to can see their context and I then break up the text choosing what I care to respond to and you are doing the same thing. It becomes more like a conversation even though it’s not in real time. I’ll walk away from this go off and do some things in real life and then return later knowing there will probably be a response to this response until such time that either one or both of us have said all we’re going to say on the subject or for that matter any subject because you know someone can say one sentence which changes the focus completely and starts a whole new conversation going in an entirely different direction.]

“The reason I found the session relaxing was simply that it was less stressful on me than coming to class, having to get into my car and drive for twenty minutes where I would then have to find a parking space, and I would also have to bother about my physical appearance and voice (my laryngitis was still lingering a bit). I could just sit there in the privacy of my home and not worry about being judged or graded or anything. All I had to do was say whatever came to my mind. And if I didn't say what was appropriate or follow what people were saying, who cared? It's only stressful if you make it so, if you feel under pressure to conform to a certain standard. I felt relaxed because I simply didn't have to do much to participate, unlike in the real class,” said Barsky.

[I can understand your point and it’s quite valid. On the other hand, I walked in already at maximum stress level because before the chat I was working on the 324 Presentation so I could put it to bed to work on the research with Crystal and Elizabeth Piccirillo to do some research to present in 407 for 10 minutes on the question of “Communication through Fashion” to 324 Authorless Text to put it to bed to work on the 407 research/methodology proposal to put it to bed... to... this is starting to sound like a really bad version of cause and effect in some children’s book that I have forgotten.]

A response to P.C. Paul's post by N. Barsky
Paul said, "Remember, I taped the performance, when I get it back from Shipka you have to hear this because our peers were genuinely responding to your persona."

[I definitely would like to hear it, though I'm certainly going to cringe from hearing my voice as it sounded back then.]

[I never said I wanted to act, I just said I could see myself doing it. My biggest dream is film criticism, though I'm also eager to see where this public speaking interest is taking me. It will be useful in any number of jobs I take.]

[One of the biggest challenges for me as a writer and speaker is that the experiences of mine that would probably prove the most interesting to other people are the very ones I least want to divulge. It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to come up with topics for speeches at the Toastmasters because I have repeatedly dodged talking about anything personal--the most I ever gave away was that I'm afraid of centipedes and that I failed my first college course. Other people at the club have talked about stuff like being sexually abused as kids. If they can do that, then I certainly should be able to talk about some of the difficult stuff in my childhood, which pales in comparison. I am a skillful communicator, but too often I use my communication skills to put a barrier between myself and the people I'm communicating with.]

A response to N. Barsky's post by P.C. Paul
"Remember, I taped the performance, when I get it back from Shipka you have to hear this because our peers were genuinely responding to your persona."

Barsky said, "I definitely would like to hear it, though I'm certainly going to cringe from hearing my voice as it sounded back then."

[I think hearing the tape can be arranged. I just have to wait for the tape to be returned as it is a one of a kind. As far as your voice, yes it was bad, but you went on regardless which is what counts.]

[That is never easy for anyone. Shipka shared some works from project she used to do with us in 407 re-something a personal history and the papers they wrote were just fabulous in the work they did. I can also understand why she stopped giving out the assignment because as a reader when you have to read through all these stories it has to have a detrimental effect on one’s emotions. Shipka shared three of them with us so maybe I can share those with you when you’re listening to the tape. There are some really great ideas in here for writing 'New Media.']

[I would also like to say to write about such stuff takes time in the sense as one matures and distances themselves from the moment in time it becomes easier to write about. You become less emotional and more objective. As I said it takes time. I wrote two last year, one about my growing up and one about the death of a dear young friend and I found with distance, they were easier to write. The problem with them is they became way too long. Since writing them, I have been returning to them one a year in an attempt to reduce their size which has proved difficult. The other problem is somehow I don’t find them unique which bothers me. They seem like the same old redundant stuff but on the other hand, because they are the same old redundant stuff I think that is what the reader connects with, that we all have these stories in our anxiety closets and the themes are the same but the situations and perspectives are different. I think it’s the similarities and the differences that draw the reader in. The problem I find is trying to say it differently than the last one I read. I read a great deal of this stuff as Bartleby submissions and most fall flat as the same old redundant sh#$. It is rare for one to rise above the stack that sounds different. The same problem arises with the father, mother, grandmother, grandfather essay also. You read one you’ve read them all. Rarely does one rise above as unique with something new to say.]

"Answer" a response to N. Barsky's "Question" by P.C. Paul I knew this was going to come up. I went to copy both but the stuff runs off the screen. I went to the option to capture and save it all and that’s how they make their money offering a free chatroom. They would allow you to save a full transcript if you paid them $9. The presenters might have a copy because they probably would have polled their resources for it and probably would want it to analyze or Goals and Choices but… probably not likely you’ll get a copy of the transcript. Matt might have something or part of something if you remember he was looking at some of it I think when we were in the Writing Center. Good luck in your quest.

A response to P.C. Paul's post by N. Barsky
Oh, I got the last part of it, but as you say you can't go back further because you have to pay. I wish I had recorded it as it was going on, and I hope someone else did. It would be interesting after we all reveal who we were to reread it with that added knowledge.

A response to N. Barsky's post by P.C. Paul

Barsky said, "Oh, I got the last part of it, but as you say you can't go back further because you have to pay. I wish I had recorded it as it was going on, and I hope someone else did. It would be interesting after we all reveal who we were to reread it with that added knowledge."

[Yes, yes, yes! How stupid of me to think of this after the fact. I could have been copying and pasting from the beginning, taking snapshots and pasting them together to remove redundant lines later. I agree I was also interested in looking at the transcript afterwards not only to look at the personas but also to look at the conversations as you know someone would say something and then there would be a response to that 5 or 10 lines down and you know that is frustrating for the respondee because "In space no one can hear you speak."]

[We should have had a prompt about using bulletin boards considering you and I are filling this one up by ourselves… Haha. I love bulletin boards… :o) ]

         I don’t know quite what I was expecting when I found out that the topic would be chosen based on anything people wanted to talk about in that room. I expected that they wouldn’t be geared towards directly discussing the articles we were assigned to read, but I somewhat expected the topics suggested would follow along those lines somewhat. Apparently I was wrong. lol For most of the class period we discussed movies or current political issues, at times both. Some people chose to discuss “Stick It” and “Flight 93 (if that’s the exact title, sorry),” others talked about the impending KKK demonstration on a Civil War battlefield and how they felt about it, and at one point the conversation turned towards people’s feelings on soldiers and their voluntary participation in a war and its outcomes.

         At times I found it hard to make a comment, because the topics changed so fast that before I had time to type a response everyone was talking about something different and it would have seemed out of place for me to refer to an old conversation. I think that’s why I chose to make only a few comments every once in awhile. I mostly got involved in the discussion on soldiers, although I have no idea who I was discussing it with (I think WonderWoman?). It’s hard for me to say I felt more connected with my classmates since I had no idea who I was talking to, and I remember commenting that I tried not to think about who everyone was since I knew I’d be wrong.

         I wasn’t very original with my chat name; it’s actually the screenname of one of my friends that I thought was funny. I was going to use mine, but then everyone would know I was a girl and Kate Zajdel would know it was me right away because I talk to her online with that screenname. The one I went with was “l like my old sn, with actually starts with a lowercase L and not an i. I thought it was cute. *g* (I thought the little koala smilie was cute too) It doesn’t really reflect me, except that I really do like my sn and couldn’t think of anything I’d rather use, which is probably why my friend came up with it in the first place. I didn’t change my persona any, it was just a matter of convenience that I used that sn. I really do like my old sn...

         I did think it was funny that in the first failed chat a few weeks ago people tried guessing who I was even before I said anything, just based on my screenname. I believe they were guessing that I was Christopher Paul. He was quite amused when I mentioned it to him later on, without telling him was the screenname I was using was. ; )

A response to N. Horstman's "Good project!" by P.C. Paul
Horstman said, “At times I found it hard to make a comment, because the topics changed so fast that before I had time to type a response everyone was talking about something different and it would have seemed out of place for me to refer to an old conversation. I think that’s why I chose to make only a few comments every once in awhile. I mostly got involved in the discussion on soldiers, although I have no idea who I was discussing it with (I think WonderWoman?)."

[Right, it feels like if you say something, you’re off-topic and your words just hang there in space out of context. Maybe we can refer to this as “In space no one can hear you talk.”]

Horstman continued, “It’s hard for me to say I feel more connected with my classmates since I had no idea who I was talking to, and I remember commenting that I tried not to think about who everyone was since I knew I’d be wrong.”

[I agree, I didn’t bother trying to figure out who was who except some voices clearly came through because they spoke as they normally spoke and in some cases the topics they talked about were dead giveaways. I also agree with the lack of connected-ness]

“I did think it was funny that in the first failed chat a few weeks ago people tried guessing who I was even before I said anything, just based on my screenname. I believe they were guessing that I was Christopher Paul. He was quite amused when I mentioned it to him later on, without telling him was the screenname I was using was. ; ),” Horstman said.

[“This” is getting weird. Nicole sound like me, Naphtali sounds like me, Sarah sounds like me, and “me” sounds like me. If everyone sounds like me then who does “me” sound like? Haha. I must be the schizoid man…. :O) Spin, Spin, Spin, People talk to me and they walk away with their heads a spinnin’, My thoughts spin like a top, Ooooops! I’m spinn’ so fast, I fall down. Must be why they call me 'Spinny.' Haha… :O) post in the voice and fond memory of 'Spinny.']

P.C. Paul's response to S. Norfolk's "Online Chat (what a pain)"
Norfolk said, "The only reason why I didn't participate in the second chat room (aka the Wildcard) was that I could not get in the bloody thing. My link led me to nowhere (I guess it was a system error). [I had a similar problem but eventually found my way in.]

P.C. Paul's response to S. Miller's "Lucille"
"I found it a lot more inviting to speak in the chat room rather then in person because I am a visual person. I like to see what I am putting out in the world in terms of a message. I can meditate before responding. I spent most of my time in the Wildcard chat because it gave me the open option of topic. At first the chat room was dominated by pop culture material that is found in teen dream propaganda, or ‘US” magazines at best. I personally did not want to talk or learn about Kelly Clarkson, Nick or Jessica Simpson." [I talk about them all the time… Not!]

"I read the discussion for awhile and then tried to sway it away from what I thought was mind drivel." [Mind Drivel… Drivel for the Mind!!!!]

"I like to debate [So do I.] so I choose topics or issues that most people would have a definite opinion of such as the KKK rally in Maryland that is to take place June 10th. This turned into a discussion of a citizen’s right and the First Amendment." [What else would it turn into?]

"I learned more about my fellow classmates by their political views than pop culture references. I believe that college is the landscape for reform and revolution and right now this landscape is barren. No fruit grows here." [Here as in UMBC. That is because it is WAY conservative. Go back into the Retriever, probably since removed for the naked lady in the window as a social experiment. If that happened on NYU people would have said, "So what else is new. Happens all the time and they would probably give you places, dates, and times for the next show. Sort of "Who Cares, we've seen it before."]

"Too often students approach education as a means to better their paycheck..." [Well that's because the educational system has also designed itself with this intent. To develop little corporate types. Corporate has pushed it on the educational system and the educational system has pushed it onto Corporate. I have no idea where you would find a classical educational system.]

"... and not better the world and improving our political atmosphere requires looking at the issues of today. I was in the reading driven chat for awhile but for me it was hard to maintain two conversations. If I was to comment on someone’s remark I would want to know the complete back history of the conversation so I am not jumping in and spouting out uneducated and none applicable comments or information. It was impossible to state literate in both fields so I stuck to the Wildcard due to the elasticity of topic. I did have a prejudged expectation of the Wildcard room and I was disappointed. I did not go as far as to expect the chat to stay on the topic of the class but I did not anticipate how far it strayed from any academic or in-depth topic. I was shocked that so many participates were completely content to gossip about tabloid topics. I found this an opportunity to try to steer the conversation away from its cyclical path and taking into a different forum. It worked well and the conversation then turned into a debate on the “war” in Iraq." [I think that turn to tabloids in wildcard shut down several people.]

"I would not go as far to say that I felt more connected to my fellow classmates. In fact, I felt more removed than I have ever before, except for “HonkIfUrFlawed”. I was surprised that I had similar viewpoints and opinions as this person… whom I found out later was Megan." [I find Megan a intellectually stimulating person to talk to. She also gets bonus points because she read "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."]

"I chose my screen name, Lucille, because that is one of my nicknames. It comes from the movie “Cool Hand Luke.” [Amazing! Boss Paul will be paying the class a visit. "What we have here is a failure to com-mun-I-cate."]

"I wanted a screen name that was simple and easy to remember for post discussion. There were no numbers and it was not lengthy. I did not create a personality to go with “Lucille” but talked as frankly as I would normally. I believe that I was more outspoken than I am in class by my beliefs and personality never wavered, in fact, this chat would be one of the best indicators of me as a person. I was unsure about the identity of others but I was surprised that a few people matched me with the name. Two or three people know me right off the bat. I did not confirm this but I was surprised. I did not know that my rhetoric was so recognizable." [Well that was because you shot straight from the hip and spoke as yourself versus taking on a persona. My persona would have been difficult to determine because he is a well developed character but has tremendous constraints.]

[I'm surprised the screenname wasn't "Lucrica," well it begins with an "L" whatever that means.]

A response to S. Miller's "Lucille" by K. Zajdel
I like your point about college as a landscape, and this landscape being "barren." I was annoyed as well when the topics in the Wildcard chatroom were about celebrity gossip, as one of my biggest peeves with Americans is their obsession with celebrities (hence the celebrity greeting cards... I was hoping everyone would make hate cards and we could send them out). While I didn't have the same expectations of a completely academic debate or discussion in the Wildcard, I nonetheless found myself paying more attention to the Assigned Reading chatroom when the discussion in Wildcard turned to pop culture. I do enjoy a variety of TV shows and movies, but I really could care less about the lives of the people who make them. I was glad you initiated some more serious topics, like the KKK rally. I actually had a lot to say on this topic (the KKK meets regularly in my hometown), but it seemed that everyone else was ignoring your post and going on about American Idol or whatever else they were discussing, so I felt that I couldn't really respond to you. I can't remember if you participated in the discussion on the war in Iraq, but I was glad this topic was fleshed out as one of my close friends is currently serving there. I definitely would have liked to see more serious topics discussed in this chat as well, but it was Wildcard, so anything goes, and I think people are more comfortable discussing mundane things like celebrities over more controversial topics.

I didn't feel connected to the class because I didn't know who everyone was. I knew who Wonderwoman was, and I figured out who Lucille was, but it didn’t make me feel any more connected to any of them. Ashley Campbell and I talked online outside of the chat, so I knew Wonderwoman was her, but I didn’t’ feel like I could just talk to her to get to know her more.

I chose my name from my old AIM screen name. I used to use the screen name ridiculo, because I used to use “ridiculous” as an adjective for everything. I went back to ridiculous. I chose the number 9 because that is (was, I no longer play) my volleyball jersey for UMBC volleyball. The only person who might have known that was Ashley Reed because she knew my old screen name. I knew she was Serenitie because that’s her AIM screen name. Megan, after class, said she knew ridiculous was me. I don’t know how she knew, but we do talk online outside of the chat room as well. I’m not sure. The way I acted in our class chat room was the same way that I talk online to every one else in daily life. I didn’t choose to act or talk any differently. For most of the class, I had absolutely no idea who they were. I thought Godsgift was Yolanda because they said he/she has a child. I don’t remember anyone else in class saying they have children. As I said, I thought Lucille was Sarah because she was talking about the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and I can’t see anyone else in our class liking them, just based on first impressions and the way Sarah dresses matches up. I couldn’t figure out who Shipka was, although I was trying. I was also trying to decipher between the group leaders and who was behind all of them, without any sort of luck. Quite an enjoyable experience!

My name was WonderWoman013 and I chose that name because it used to be my aim screen name. To make a long story short, one of my best friends used to call me Wonder Woman because every time we would stand in a huddle at our high school volleyball games I would put my hands on my hips and stand like a super hero (or so she thought).

Like I said before, I found the Wildcard chat very interesting because we were able to talk about all kinds of subject matters. The only person I really knew was Emily Berman (Ridiculous) because we were talking online before the class started, and as for everyone else, I tried guessing, but I just ended up being completely wrong so I gave up.

The reason I enjoyed the Wildcard chat so much is because I think people were able to open up more about specific subjects since no one knew who they were. I know myself particularly, I did not hesitate to explain my feelings about war and soldiers etc. because I was not directly speaking to my classmates so I could not tell if they were offended by what I was saying or not. Not to say I would not stand behind my statements if I were talking to someone in person, but the chat made everything easier to say because people were not held back by facial expressions or uncomfortable silences.

To be honest, I really enjoyed all the topics discussed in the Wildcard chat. I love talking about pop culture, just like I love discussing politics and my personal feelings about certain events. I noticed some people complaining about the topics discussed in the chat, but I think the sense of "randomness" was the purpose of the Wildcard chat, and I really think that the purpose was fulfilled because we did indeed talk about some very strange things. I wish the class could've lasted longer just because I think it was a fun experience and I would have liked to find out right away who everyone one was. Since it's been a few days, I can't remember the screen names so that I can make a guess about who there were, but hopefully everyone includes their names in their posts so I can find out if any of my guesses were correct. :-)

I didn’t feel more comfortable in any one room. By virtue of being online, the chatrooms allow you to remain anonymous, and as such, they afford a certain amount of comfort. The wildcard room was definitely less academic - topics of conversation ranged from movies to online relationships, and everything in between. I think that the McKenna chatroom was supposed to be more academic (i.e. focused on the readings,) but people seemed to stray off topic for the most part. The conversation at one point, if I remember correctly, was on what made humans different from computers. I don’t really feel more connected to my classmates after the chat. I’m not sure I would ever feel more connected to someone after talking to them online because chatting online reinforces a sense of isolation and impersonal-ness. I rarely chat online (on AOL Instant Messenger) with my friends because I prefer to hear their voices - talking over the phone makes the conversation more intimate. Plus, like most people, I speak faster than I type so it is easier to convey my thoughts over the phone.

I really could not get guess anyone’s identity based on the screen names themselves or what they said. If I knew everyone in the class better, I might have been able to figure out who said what. For myself, I used a nickname that my grandmother gave me as my screen name: Anokhi. In the sense that it is a nickname, it is true to me as a person. I did not create a personality around that name while chatting.

A response to R. Desai's "My Response to the Online Presentation" by N. Barsky
It's interesting that I did not figure anonymity at all into the equation as to how comfortable I felt. I didn't care whether people guessed who I was or not, and I would have acted the same even if my screen name had been Naphtali. But I've long realized the extent that anonymity affects things on the Internet--it's much of what fuels Internet "trolls," from what I've seen. They feel they can get away with saying anything because nobody knows who they really are.

I participated in both chats equally during the session. I originally thought I would be more interested in the Wildcard room, just because I thought the Assigned Reading room would be too structured and I figured the topics that came up in Wildcard would be more interesting. I switched between the two whenever I felt the conversation was in a lull, or if I wasn't really interested in the topic being discussed (i.e. when people began discussing basketball in Wildcard). Wildcard was definitely more relaxed, but I really liked a lot of the topics that were brought up in Assigned Reading, so I wanted to participate in both.

As for my chat name, I was Dwigt802. This name is based off of my favorite character from The Office, Dwight Schrute. I've mentioned The Office before, so I thought maybe someone might pick up on that, if they watched The Office themselves. My sn was Dwigt, not DwigHt, even though most people just called me Dwight. Dwigt is based off of a spelling error on an episode of the show and it would really be way too much to go into on here, but needless to say, it made Dwight furious. I absolutely behaved as myself in the chat, as behaving as Dwight would have had you all hating me (he is a know-it-all, narcissistic sycophant, but he's also hilarious). The 802 part of my name is just my birthday - August 2nd.

I didn't really try too hard to guess other people's identities, but I did guess a few, and these were mostly people who are very active in face to face class, so it was easier to recognize their voice online. I knew Nicky was "l like my old sn" because that is actually a real screenname of a mutual friend of ours. I also figured out that Steven was "fallenangel" because he talked about "Ghost in the Shell" and "Chobits," and I knew he was a big fan on anime. I realized "godgift" was Yolanda when she mentioned having a child, because as far as I know she is the only person in our class who has children. Other than that, I didn't really know who anyone else was, and I didn't really care to guess. I think the anonymity added to the fun of the class and I wanted to focus more on my comments than trying to decipher others.

Having both online chats arranged was too confusing and I was unable to follow both conversations even though I really wanted to. They both were very interesting and yet I was everywhere attempting to interpret the structure of both classes. The overall experience gave me a headache and I was lost .In many of my other classes even though the group threw out comments "randomly" I was very pleased with the end result of the chat.

I could only seldom say a few words and the topic was quickly changed without any warning on both chats. By the time I was able to respond the topic was onto something very strange. I did realize that one of the chats was attempting to stay on topic with the readings but they still ended up discussing other things. The other chat room was off topic from the very beginning so every time I read any thing from that chat I was laughing or puzzled.

Overall the chat was very informative even though the structure was off. I really enjoyed the chat that was done in 407 because I was able to follow the whole conversation and wanted to continue the chat even after the class was over.

I did not feel any more connected to my classmates than usually and I guess I would consider myself a Social Butterfly and in that situation I was lost in a tornado with a broken wing trying to understand everything that was going on but I was not as successful as I had hoped.

I don’t think that I feel more connected to my classmates after doing this. For one, I didn’t know who was who. Also, I think many people were purposely trying to be someone other than themselves. So, essentially, we weren’t communicating with each other. We were communicating with each other’s online alter-ego-one that may or may not have been anything like the “real” us.

My chat name was “Fuchsia_Skunk” and I literally came up with that one night while in bed and I was thinking up funny fake screen names to use in profile dialogues. You know how lots of people have a short piece of dialogue between them and a buddy? I thought it would be funny to make up some of the names, especially since the funny names would make people, possibly, want to talk to “my buddies” and if they weren’t real, they wouldn’t be able to find them. Mwahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! Yeah, I’m dumb. So, I used pink, which is close to fuchsia, as my color, and I specifically tried not to act like myself. I think, toward the end of the chat, I started acting funnier, which is like me. I was cracking jokes, many of which were naughty. So, I am not sure if people were able to guess that I was “Fuchsia_Skunk” and I think some people thought that I was Shipka, but it is still interesting. I wasn’t really trying to guess who anyone was. I wasn’t going to trust anyone’s online representation-since I wasn’t playing myself, I didn’t expect anyone else to be themselves either. Some people gave themselves away, and others seemed very good about keeping their identity a secret. My name doesn’t really reflect me in any way, unless I fooled you--then I’m a stinker ;-)

I had to spray myself with Tag body shots just so people would stand next to me--and those commercials are bogus! Girls don't really attack you and rip off your clothes.

Response to M.J. Bowen's "I had to spray myself with Tag body shots just so people would stand next to me..." by P.C. Paul
Hahaha. You put on your "Tag." Was that a special treat for the day? It's like showering for a cyberdate...:O)

Crystal and I were hosting the readings chatroom and Amber and Kelly hosted the wildcard. Even though I found the discussions that arose around the reading topics engaging, once in a while, I couldn't help but to peep inside the wildcard chat and voice my opinions about Nick Lachey or John Mayer's new album. Popular culture is enticing whether you want to admit it or not. You knoooow it is!

I enjoyed the project--if that had not been stated enough already. There are a few things that I found particularly interesting--I am actually responsible for the history of this class.

1. MULTIPLE ROOMS
What a great idea! The real power of this strategy was perhaps giving the participant a chance to choose the material which he/she decides to focus on. This is a huge leap from traditional class-rooms: a great way to show the advantages of on-line learning.

2. ANONYMOUS
Awesome yet wreckless. The removal of identity was perhaps a way of showing the negative aspects of on-line learning. This separation/lack of identity is what I chose to focus on in my history project. I found it interesting that everyone was occupied with trying to decipher their class-mates.

3. PHYSICAL VS. DIGITAL
I find it really interesting how there is a separation between the physical world--what you do at your house and the digital word--what you do online. Overall I really enjoyed the project; Kudos guys.

Thanks
-noname

I did pre-judge the chat rooms. I actually thought that the assigned reading would not keep my attention. I thought I would find more interest discussing about anything on the forum. That was far from the case. In the assigned reading chat room we were about to have more elongated conversations about relevant things. I felt like the comments I made and the students were actually being read. When I was in the Wildcard chat, I would type some things and get no response. So that drew me back to any participate in the chat room. After the session ended, I wish I knew who I was talking to because I am sure some of the conversations I had might not have been with the students I am already familiar with. I think in all, I did feel a better connection with the students.

My name was Godsgift06. The name speaks for itself. I choose the name because it represents who I am. I figured some students might figure me out because of the gospel CD I brought in for the first presentation. Actually, in one of the chat rooms someone did guess correctly who I was. I tried to lie and say it was not me but do not know if it worked. I also talked about my liking of kids and then someone thought I was Yolanda. I really enjoyed this session. I think talked more in the chat rooms than I ever did in class…LOL

         Frankly I found that the Wildcard group monopolized all of my time. At one point I even said something to the extent of “why people in the Wildcard room kept talking about trivial things like celebrities because there is so many more important things to talk about.” I said this because I was frustrated with the way I was responding to the chat and I wanted to ruffle some feathers. I realize that I should not have taken my frustration out on the people in the chat, but it happened so I cannot change it now. I just wanted people to understand that there is more to like then gossip. There are important ideas out there that people need to discuss and act upon. But instead of taking the ideas and talking them out or putting them into action people are content talking about how many pounds Katie Holmes gained when she got pregnant.

         The whole time I was working under the screen name HONKifyurFLaWed. There is particular reason that I chose this screen name. I just happened to be leafing through my journal and I found something that I had pasted in there with that on it. I thought it was cute so I used it.

So long,

and thanks for all the fish!...

Haha.... :O)

A response to Flipper's "Flipper's Last Post... :O)" by M.C. Bowen
LOL. That's great, Chris.