I was not very impressed by the Internet when the Powers That Be at my work hooked my computer up to the bloody thing in 1993. I steadfastly ignored it for a couple of months until one day, our nice Systems Administrator sidled up to my desk and said quietly, "Did you know there's a newsgroup called alt.vampyres?". That was October 1993. And I'm still bloody well here! *grin*

Back then, I was still quite the vampire-buff. I kept fairly up to date on the new literature coming out and managed (somehow) to fill my otherwise drink-addled brain with all sorts of pointless information about beings with pointy teeth. Over the years, my interest has waned a little (or at least become more discriminating). I've stopped spending oodles of cash on crappy novels just because they have a vampire on the cover. The drink-addlement of my brain has caused me to probably forget lots of interesting things about vampires. On the upside, the drink-addlement has mercifully allowed me to forget the never-to-be-regained hours of my life that I wasted reading "The Golden" and "The Last Days of Christ the Vampire". Thank the gods.

I continue to hang around alt.vampyres for the following reasons -

1. Sentiment. It was the newsgroup that took my Internet-Virginity afterall, and you know how it is... you always remember your first.

2. Bloody-mindedness. And in more than just the "see it through no matter what" sense, too. (i.e. I still have quite the rogue boner for vampires and their ilk)

3. People. Some of my closest friends are here - and even among those who don't number in that category, there's still lots of interesting, intelligent and eminently readable people here.

My recycled webpage (including some of my writing) is at http://www.internettrash.com/users/barbarella/