on 18 Dec 97, Nick Dastoor/BSHO/GB wrote...

The State I am In (parts 17-24): I confessed to joining in #sinister to some friends last night. They were not

impressed. I think they were worried I might end up married to a club-footed spinster from Arkansaw or something. It was all so difficult to justify to an outsider. Even the mailing list. "What on earth do you talk about?" scoffed Suzanne. "Um" said I.

Ha ha! I haven't even confessed to my friends (except my flatmate who's a 'geek' too) that I even use the INTERNET , let alone am chatting happily away to a bunch of strangers in cyberspace. What would they think? Probably drop me straight away I should imagine, for the net is still halfway between the preserve of trainspotters and computer nerds and a way to go before enjoying any sort of credibility. I made the dire mistake of telling an old bloke at work, who is online at home too, hoping he would have the sense to refer to it only in hushed whispers, but at corporate tea-time the other day, he suddenly piped up " 'surfed' into any good 'websites' recently ;-) ?" to which my workmates turned round and stared at me incredulously, like all my clothes had suddenly vanished or something. I muttered something about my flatmate buying a computer and 'internal modems bog standard these days' , but the die was cast and am forced to wear 'GEEK' tattoed across my forehead for all to see. They don't know what they're missing susannah@tormentor.clara.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------