Shout Out! Part Two

Yay! I joined the YMCA! Yay! I went to the pool for the first time in 10 years! Yay! I can still swim, and I still think it's one of the better zone-outs going. Yay!

But....

Owowowowowowowowowowowowowoowwowow.

So, more blogroll, and it's tasty!

Today's edition finds us with the folks who know me best as Randy Wylde. I adopted the second identity several years ago now; must be at least five or six. I was laboring under a ruthless dictatorship at work, lots o' rumors about online identity-theft were making the rounds, and I'd just become deeply dishearted by Salon's TableTalk (TT) adopting a pay-to-play structure, and even more deeply disheartened when the first exodus I followed away from there folded under internal squabbling and disfunction. So...when I decided to try out PeoplesForum, I was wary, and thought it might be a good idea to experiment with an alias.

Over the years, Boo and I have gone through various degrees of seriousness about having children. I can't really call it a regret that we didn't, but things would certainly have been different. Back in the early days of this discussion, we kicked around names, and I offered up "Randy Wylde" as first and middle. Because it sounds like something every young man or woman should be.... Boo, of course, sensibly vetoed the suggestion, since combining that with my actual last name would be somewhat like naming someone "Arbovax the Conqueror" - it has a bit too much freight for the 21st Century. But I've never forgotten the names, which actually come from two boys I knew and admired in my schoolboy days. And it seemed like someone it would be fun to be. From such stuffs is an online persona born.

I must confess I don't know all of these people equally well. PeoplesForum (PF) was a large place (since developing financial difficulties it's been much diminished; the survivors are mostly at DriveweSaid, a new forum which is still developing). I must confess, also, that I've never met a single one of these people face to face. However, many of them must number amongst my closest friends. We chat every day, we quarrel and make up, we make each other laugh. Some of them know opinions that I've never expressed to anyone else. So.

So. Let's start with the gals! When I started investigating PF as a place to hang out, I was mainly a movie buff. The movie forum was the only one I ever participated in at TT. At PF, I knew the forum host from TT, but due to some bad blood, the number of participants was small. So, suddenly I had time to look around and see what else people were chatting about. It was a short trip to the music thread, and I lurked a while to get the lay of the land. My oldest surviving post (many have been deleted) post is from November 2002, and it's lame, and I don't even have any idea what it was supposed to mean originally, so I won't repost it here.

However, near the top of the forum page was a link to something called "Pants Central - A Place For Pants People." Not having the slightest idea what Pants People were, I investigated. Well, who couldn't fall in love with a place where Pants People were contributing on a thread called "Not Without My Lifetime® Original Movie!" I laughed my ass off, and volleyed in a few suggestions (long gone. probably not that funny, either). At any rate, the rest is history.

The host of the Pants People was the Warrior Queen, a formidable woman whose online avatars sported flaming red hair and thrashin' guitars. The few photos she posted matched in ferocity. Now known as Maggie O, she's still a formidable woman. A web goddess, a gifted photographer, a talented musician, and an opinionated bitch (but in the best possible way), Maggie's What the Hell Am I Doing Here? is essential reading. And buy her CD!

Julie Beth is also Pants People, and a talented musician in her own right; currently she's bassist for The Casting Couch. Her blog is called Ill-Sorted Ephemera, and on it you can find out about her recent marriage to (Dutcher (one of those folks I don't know very well), the current travels of The Casting Couch, and her fabulous Stella Scooter, which, although I have a perfectly serviceable and loveable scooter of my own, makes me think I just may need another. I'm thinking the pink is a must-have for a butch number like myself. If The Casting Couch's upcoming tour brings them to a town near you, go, and give her a hug for me. 'kay?

Also from PF music and Pants - Melpster! Whose Monster on a Rope is a reincarnated blog, and we're very happy she's back. If you want the latest skinny on what you should add to your music collection, Mel's your gal. Well, actually she's Joe's gal, except that probably sounds sexist, and therefore Mel's her own gal. But she and Joe have a house as of last week, so I guess now they're both the bank's bitches. What, me? Jealous?

Spidra Webster has one of the coolest online aliases ever, and is also a talented musician (hmm...get the big fucking clue stick, I'm sensing a theme here...), her blog is on LiveJournal which is not my favorite format, but with a name like The Stream of Conciousness Has Its Headwaters In My Mouth, how can you resist?

We'll continue this later, shall we? It's late, and I'm going to feel like a truck is parked on my thorax tomorrow. Wish me virtual Vicodin, and the will to get back in the water. I'll even settle for virtual Tylenol.