[--------------------------------------------------------------------------] ooooo ooooo .oooooo. oooooooooooo HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #750 `888' `888' d8P' `Y8b `888' `8 888 888 888 888 888 "True Stories of IThinkICon" 888ooooo888 888 888 888oooo8 888 888 888 888 888 " by Various Artists 888 888 `88b d88' 888 o 7/24/99 o888o o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8 [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] lies or a conreview. by: teerts dont associate me with you. dont associate me with me. the stupid shit that people do when they gather in groups never changes. even these people who think they are above it, revert back to school-yard behaviour (except for the punching and kicking the shit out of each other). pretense, posturing, and arrogance; guess one can never really avoid those at a gathering. cliquing was not as bad as could have been, though. when altrocks and i first found the ho(e)tel, we went in only to stumble upon a scruffy neko in a london calling tee and a mighty tall blond monster. "quarex" hissed altrocks in amazement at the recognizability of he. in a mighty, booming voice, drew projected "HAHAHA YES..." thus, the farcical battle began. >set wimpy 20 you will run away like a little girl when your hitpoints reach 20 >wear cloak you reach into your bag of holding, pull out the cloak, and put on the cloak of invisibility! >wield sword you unsheathe and wield the bastard sword! >grab poptarts use poptarts you open the seal on the wrapping, and throw the poptarts at the mighty Quarex's feet. >tell quarex 'eat poptarts, muthafucka!' teerts tells Quarex: "eat poptarts, muthafucka!" Quarex bends down and grabs the poptarts. >attack quarex you swing your sword at a distracted Quarex, removing his head! Light spills from Quarex's neck, making the room brighter. everyone in the room dies. so much for your cloak of invisibility, asshole. ok, so what really happened was that the bastard sword broke upon contact with Quarex's neck. he said to me "HAHAHAH SILLY MORTAL. IF I DID NOT HAVE TO MAKE A PILGRIMAGE TO WAWA, I WOULD KILL YOU, BECAUSE I HATE!" "quarex! what is best in life?" he replied "TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THE WOMEN!" "that is good." i then said. i demanded "where is mogel's room, tell me!" he walked away laughing at me his Quarexlaugh "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" neko told us "326, but everyone is in 332, summer's suite." "thanks." then we made our way to the 3rd. many interesting people had gathered, loudly, at the best western near 22nd street in philadelphia in room 332. when i first walked into the room, i did not know what to think or what to say. a roomful of strangers looked back at me; only a few of whom i could recognise or even guess their identities. swissphil, mogel, cait, tasha, styx, phairgirl, jubjub, nybar, `six`, and harvk0re. as for the other 237 people, i was clueless. 'hi, i'm mogel' said mike from below. i look down to see a mogel on his back, contorted, looking up at me. 'hi mogel, why are you on the floor?' 'you look big from down here.' 'dont look up my pantleg, mike.' 'hi, i'm swisspope.' 'shhhh!!!!' 'shhhh!!!!!' 'shhhh!!!' '!!' (he didnt have much to say, he was busy keeping people quiet.) :satyr-day 'let's go get food!' 'ok.' 'where's drew?' 'drew's in the shower.' 'hrmm, maybe you should leave him your key.' 'ok! brb!' *scribblescribble* "drew, take key. went for food." summer, alicia, geoff, jeff, john, scott, harvey, leah, and teerts went to get food. south street was decided upon. we saw a place called johnny rocket's...a shitty throwback to the 50's and 60's. they had a t-shirt on the menu. a tee shirt. why? i thought it all pretty ... 'i think zibble is french for asshole.' 'there's no french about it.' i reply. ridiculous, but my grilled cheese sandwich was pretty good. after food, we walked about on south st and bought things. ali paid someone to poke a hole in her...hahah foolish things... so later this eve most of us sit around and do some american-style binge drinking. it is good for our health, no? so people sat around playing the people-in-groups game. g0ff, neko, altrocks, and i played cosmic encounter. it is neet. neeter still, though, is watching mogel play his own version of the game. mike was not very coherent. 'hi, i'm alfons, and i'm not sober.' 'where is the party?' 'look at the underwear on my head.' 'ok alfons!' anjee's dad's appearance made my night. sometime that nite, i think before anjee's dad's appearance, i went for a walk. sickened by everything and all the happenings, i decided that some quiet time would be good. i left the hotel in search of adventure, encounters, and experience. i found none of those. instead, i ran into a homeless man in front of wawa on my way back to the best western. he remembered me from the previous night and asked about john. john had said that if he was sober enough he would bring his car by to be washed by the two guys who hang out in front of wawa. for a fee, of course. the houseless man was very polite. so i made it back to 332 and soonly after went to sleep...ok, so i sorta passed out on the bed...something for which seaya was not too happy :) but eventually i came to and crashed on the floor...mm...flooor...ok then i awoke to a pezmonkey running around saying g'bye to drew. it was early. 'wake up mothafucka, con's over!@' shouted nybar and jubjub at altrocks, who was sleeping on their floor, as they commented on how he would not awaken at their earlier jeers. words of dill-pickle penetration... jeff and i grabbed our stuff (most of it, anyway) and headed for reading. my mind still reeled with the sweet resounding of the words 'wake up mothafucka, con's over!@' we had a car accident on the way and died. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "What are you trying to do - blackmail me?" -=-=-=-=-A review of I Think I Con-=-=-=-=- Presented in exciting TEXT format by NEKO. "Bitches, come and get some!" was one of many rallying cries in my family's 1991 Plymouth Sundance heard over the weekend of July 8th-12th. This line -- classier than many spoken in my car -- came from Reggie and the Full Effect's wonderful 1999 album, "Greatest Hits," which I had conveniently dubbed for easy car listening. The trip began its planning stage around the beginning of July, I think, when I asked my parents if I could borrow the third car to drive to Philadelphia. Once I promised them I would not smoke in it, they granted me the car. The rest of the planning was done pretty much without me. I thought I had some control over what was going on, and then one day Murmur emailed me and gave me directions to his apartment in Columbus. Apparently Quarex had arranged for us to stay there, but nobody told me. My plan was also to drive straight through from central Illinois to Philadelphia, leaving after work on Thursday evening. Quarex' plan was to stay in a hotel in Akron, OH, of all places. Apparently his parents told him that they would fly him to Philadelphia if we did not stay in this hotel. Hey, they paid for the hotel. If they hadn't, I think we could've lived without Quarex and his 100% riffs tape! But maybe not. So the day finally came. July 8th. I was going to leave work at noon, and pick Quarex and Swisspope up shortly thereafter. But then my roommate's car broke down, so I had to drive him to work. And I had to return the video we had rented (Bottle Rocket, I think). So I didn't get to take a shower. Oh well, even the best layed plans often go astray. When I was at the video store, I asked the guy how to get to the address Quarex had provided me with. He had no clue, he claimed to be bad with directions. Some burly guy offered me directions that, if I had taken them, I think I would've ended in the completely opposite place from where I wanted to be. So as I was crusing up the road looking for the place the burly dude had told me to turn, I got nervous. So I looked at my handwritten list of important phone numbers, addresses, etc. that I had prepared especially for ITIC. I picked up my cell phone and dialed the number at the top -- Quarex' I thought. I dialed the number and asked for Drew and the person said, "Drew doesn't live here." Shit, I thought. I thought I was so fucked. Then the person on the other end said, "John, is that you?" I responded in the affirmative, and realized I had called Swisspope! "Hi Phil, how do I get to Drew's?" He told me, and I sped off into the afternoon sunlight looking for Quarex. Upon finding Quarex' poorly labeled apartment building, I pulled into a bank parking lot across the street and dodged traffic to get to Quarex' apartment. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. So I pushed the door open and went inside shouting "Drew!" until finally someone showed me where I could find Quarex. Quarex then grabbed his things and we walked back to the bank parking lot. Some kind woman there informed us that if we didn't get off the property soon we would be towed. I explained that we were leaving, but she re-emphasized that we would be towed if we didn't leave. So we left to find Swisspope. And find Swisspope we did! He exited his house with a phone bill in hand that he needed to mail right away (apparently, in Swisspope's part of town, they don't collect mail or something). We sped off in the general direction of Wal-Mart to get cigarettes and other assorted things. Then the bright idea of eating hit us. We went to the perenially busy Taco Bell and decided it was too busy for us, so we went next door to the McDonalds. Fuck the man, you know. The McDonalds was strange as it was decked out in sports memorobilia. I am really sure lots of sportsmen eat at McDonalds. Breakfast of Champions, you know. We then went to Wal-Mart, where Swisspope bought cigarettes, Quarex bought Yoo-Hoo, and I bought Dr. Pepper. We were now ready for a road trip. We left at about 2.30 PM, only 90 minutes after we had intended to leave. We drove through Illinois for awhile, seeing signs for gunssavelife.com and then we hit Indiana. Indiana was a cool state. There was lots of road construction and that was pretty cool because we'd see signs for something unimportant but worth stopping for like White Castle or GAS, and then the exit would be blocked. Indina was pretty cool, though. We finally stopped in Indianapolis, the first of many times the gas ALMOST ran out, and got gas. I pointed out a sign to Swisspope that made us very upset. It read something like "Camel cartons, $17.99". Each of us had paid 10 bucks more than that not so long ago, so it stung like a fresh wound reopened. Then we ate at White Castle, which was pretty fun. I mean, the burgers were tiny!!! tee-hee! And I had chicken rings, which are basically like chicken strips, only rings. Wacky White Castle!! Anyhow, Indiana went on for another couple hours, with us stopping at every rest stop so Swisspope and myself could smoke. I noticed that states go by much quicker in this manner. Near the end of Indiana there were all sorts of signs for TOM RAPER'S RVs. I wouldn't buy anything from a man named raper, but I guess the folks of Indiana are of a different sort. Then we entered Ohio, which sucked from start to finish. Finally we made it to Pennsylvania sometime Friday afternoon. We drove through Pennysylvania, stopping at every rest area, until we made it to New Jersey sometime between 7.30 and 8PM Friday night. This was due to a navigational error or miscommunication between Swisspope and myself. Once we realized we were in New Jersey, we exited at Trenton and stopped at a Best Western which was adjacent to a WAWA. It must be an east coast thing. We eventually made it to Philadelphia and made a grand entrance. Since I had pretty much not used irc for the past 6 months or so, I didn't really know who anybody was. Fortunately, alcohol was at hand, so I felt comfortable within two or three hours or so. The only exciting thing I did in Philadelphia was walk to Zipperhead. So now I will talk about why everone at ITIC was funny. Miasma was funny because he had a goatee and looked suave. Jubjub was funny because he was so thin. Nybar was funny because he wore a Taxi Driver t-shirt. TanAdept was funny because I beat him at his own game. Styx was funny because we talked about emo. AltRocks wasn't funny. Cap'n Sparky was funny because I don't remember him. Firewater was funny for the same reason. The Jester was funny because his dad made him go home early. Phairgirl was funny because she gave me aspirin when I got a hangover before I even went to sleep. Hardcore was funny because he apparently has a photo album of peoples' breasts. Six was funny because she has carpal tunnel syndrome. Mogel was funny because he was vacant. AIDS was funny because he was a pedophile. Hawk and DB70 were funny because, uh, see Firewater. PezMonkey was funny because she was never in a room for more than five minutes at a time. AnonGirl was funny because apparently the pickup line, "Hey Audrey, I see two of you!" worked on her. Art was funny because all his mack techniques failed. Caitlin was funny because she was friendly towards me even after I told her every band she liked sucked. Tasha was funny because she got really drunk and showed everyone her cleavage. Belial was funny because he is a part of the Blade Nation. Grey Hawk was funny because see Firewater. Mindcrime was funny because see Belial. Bexy was funny because she was a girl with the Blade Nation. Trilobyte was funny because he stayed in his room the whole con. Tortoise was funny because damnit, I can't think of any reason why Dylan was funny. Ashtray Heart was funny because he danced. Darwin was funny because he talked to me for an hour about yoga and healthy food and then I bought a hot dog at WAWA. Kaia was funny because she didn't remember my name. Anjee was funny because she didn't want to sleep in my room once she found out Seaya was sleeping there. Teerts was funny because he has a nose ring. Jamesy was funny because he was an asshole to AltRocks. SwissPope was funny because he said, "I am starting the timer on my watch. When I only see one of you, I will stop it." Quarex was funny because he spent an hour in the bathroom every day. Kasey was funny because the guy he does a zine with runs a record label and I recently got the record they put out. Seaya was funny because she has never slept with a man or a woman. Did I miss you? You must've been off the charts of unfunniness. Then on Sunday Jamesy came with us on the way back and we had a fun filled ride to Murmur's house, almost running out of gas multiple times. At Murmur's house we ate Gumby's pizza, which was pretty shitty, but it was like $7.99 for an extra large. Murmur ate some of it, which was pretty lame, because Swisspope and I paid for it. Oh well. Monday we ate at some shitty restaurant in Columbus and Jamesy and I passed off Obloid Cash. Then we drove home and listened to Quarex' 100% riffs tape, identifying each riff as either gay or straight. We made it home and that was that. Yay for Ithinkicon. Come to Campfest. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] --Ashtray Heart I am going to write the first ever last ever con review. 1. Yes I dance like that 2. Would you like to see some ID? 3. I was nice to everybody at the con except Phil, who I was a rude asshole to, but I didn't mean to be a rude asshole. It just came out that way. 4. I thought Phairgirl was gay. 5. No, seriously. She had like rainbow stripes on her pants, I thought that meant you were gay, and she listened to like chick music like Liz Phair. 6. Anongirl would not be allowed to smoke cigarettes in movies, because she makes it look too good. You can't smoke cigarettes and make it look good these days. 7. Thunderbirds are GO! 8. My most enduring memory of the con will be hearing John Coltrane being played on the intercom at a grocery store. When I worked at a grocery store they never played cool stuff like Trane. It was always awful musak, and never even stuff like Pink Floyd's "San Tropez", no, it would only be "Imagine" and muzak versions of Led Zeppelin's "Thank You". So rest snug and securely in your beds knowing that no matter how groovy and cosmic anything you did this weekend, it still falls short of hearing John Coltrane in a grocery store. 9. You can't decide whether or not to vomit by flipping a coin. 10. Alpha Phi Omega is apparently jam-packed with homosexuals. This has got me interested in them now. I was in Key Club in high school and they were evil scumbag hypocrite yuppies. I am not an altruist, but if they don't suck as bad as, say, Discordians I might have to have truck with them. Homosexuals are like cool, especially if you're not actually gay or anything. 11. Only one of you so far is going to get invited to my wedding if I have one. But you might make the guest list later. 12. CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM! WE WANT BARABBAS! B.A. BARABBAS! 13. My tummy hurts. Owie. 14. I'm quitting my job and moving to Germany. 15. Divination via Boggle or via the entrails of Geddy Lee- it amounts to the same thing. 16. My size 30 pants don't fit my anymore. Damn. 17. Turn it to channel 13/and make me watch the rubber tongue as it comes out/from the puffed and flabulent Mexican rubber-goods mask! 18. The "Out Here Over There" bootleg sucks, especially compared to "Grow Fins". 19. I GET TO KEEP THE TOWEL! I GET TO KEEP THE TOWEL! 20. There is a time to create, and a time to destroy. 21. I learned that from Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes has rivets. There are no cats in the Bible, though. 22. But if a seven-headed ten-horned ten-crowned beast ever shows up and kills 1/3 of everyone, I'm gonna convert to Christianity. Yeah. 23. "Gee," said Miss Hawkline, "I'd really like to get fucked." 24. Everything I had heard of one other person at the con knew about, but only one. Cases in point: Maschina, Richard Brautigan, and Suspiria. 25. Why do they call it "miracle whip" if you can't even flog somebody with it? 26. Some people have no appreciation for genius, especially when it comes in the form of creepy loud heavy breathing. 27. What _is_ that gunk on my CD case, man? 28. I will never be Thomas Pynchon. I am no good at all at hiding when people come out to take pictures of me. 29. Yep. Time to dye my hair again. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "I Think I Con, 1999" --Caitlin I got there. I talked to styx a bit. I made jubjub carry a cooler out of my van. wait. strike that. reverse it. Anyways. then i drank a bit of beer. then art kept making these goofy winky eyes at me. then we wrestled. then everyone left and he smooched my neck and i said "HARK! THEREFORE MY BOYFRIEND WILL SHOOT A LASER IN YOUR EYE!" then i ran away. then i drank more. and went to sleep. next day, i went to south street and bought stuff. then i talked to styx more. then i played boggle and drank. then i did some other stuff. then AIDS stuck his hand in my pants in the suite and i giggled. we got dooooown, niglet. (in between all of this i drank more and told tasha repeadately to pull up her shirt.) somehow i ended up in mogel's room and seaya asked me to link with her. then i slept then woke up and left. i said goodbye to AIDS with a GLEAM IN MY EYE. and then art followed me like a puppy to my van. jubjub also carried the cooler back down for me. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] The Weekend of Inexplicable Demonization OR: WAWAS FER HROSES By: Quarex Wake up, Quarex! Almost 11! Neko is going to be here between noon and one, so you have to get going. Okay, there, you took a shower. Good fucking job. Now, how about you eat something? Good, eight slices of sourdough with various condiments. That ought to hold you for a good five minutes. Or five hours, depending on the temperature, of course. Hmm, it is almost one, and Neko is still not here. My goodness, Quarex, why are you on irc? Surely you can find something better to do than that. Oh well, I suppose the point is moot, since now that Neko has arrived, you pretty much know what your plan of action is. Get the hell out of your apartment, get your shit into his car, and get moving. Oh good, Neko is illegally parked, and just got yelled at by some woman. Well, in any case, you really need to go get SwissPope! You remember where he lives, right? You used to go over there a lot before he moved away for school, remember? Of course you do. Left, right, left, right, here you are. Get Pope in the fucking car, already, man, you are running late! Okay, so you have to go to Super Wal-Mart and Cigarette Express. You can do that quickly. Hey, this is a pretty decent tape Neko is playing. Maybe this will be a good trip for you after all! There you go, now you have a six pack of King-Size YooHoo. What the hell are you honestly planning on doing with that? I bet you will just end up leaving it in the corner of your suite or something. Oh well, get moving! Here you go, on your way out of town. Conversation seems to be pretty entertaining, huh? This trip is going rather well for you, indeed! Long trips certainly are much shorter when you stop at every single rest stop so your car-mates can smoke, are they not, Quarex? Since you are never even in the car for more than forty-five minutes, it just seems like a bunch of short trips around town! Heck, you are in Indiana already! Indiana is like a completely different world! All the roadsigns are made of shinier material, people run blindly across the streets of every city you go through, and they have WHITE CASTLES! WOW! You better stop and eat at one, Quarex! You will regret it if you do not! Mmm, White Castle "Chicken!" Nothing better, right? Right! Head 'em up, move 'em out, Raw-hide! Stop at another rest area. . . and another rest area. . . well, Indiana's rest areas are at least pretty fun to stop at, right? Right! Aww, Indiana was far too short. Now, you are in the lovely state of Ohio! Ohio, land of smoke, factories, and, . . . factories. Who the hell is that Tom Raper guy? Why are there huge signs reading "Biggest dealer in the Midwest" with the word "Raper" on it? Does this not seem offensive to you? Oh well, better to not question these Ohio savages. Their rest areas are even pretty boring, huh. After a mere ten hours of driving, you seem to have made it to Akron! Here, you will spend the night at a lovely Best Western! What is this? The receptionist says they are auditing something, and cannot check you in for another half-hour? Oh well, it is only 2 A.M., who gives a fuck. You can wait. Finally, you get to your room, and go to bed. How exciting! Goodness gracious, Quarex, for brevity's sake, leave out everything else but the con! Jeeze, you fucking windbag! Okay. Agreed. However, it is worth mentioning that you just got lost in New Jersey somehow, even though you came from Illinois, and it is not at all en route to Philadelphia. In any case, here you are, in the Con's Hotel! Hooray! Why, is that Caitlin and Tasha you see in a van? Actually, no, those people look absolutely nothing like Caitlin or Tasha. However, soon enough, you will see all those people and more! Walk walk walk walk walk, you love stairs! Here you go. Somewhere on this floor is an entire room full of people you only know from scattered .jpgs, or not at all. And here you are. . . WOW! THIS IS SO FUCKING FUCKED UP! LOOK AT THIS SHIT! ALL THESE PEOPLE I ONLY KNEW FROM A WEBCAM OR A PICTURE HERE AND THERE! ALL IN THIS FUCKING ROOM! This rules. Oh man, this is cool. Now now, you, stop interrupting. There is Tasha, and Anjee, and Caitlin, and Mogel, and G0ff, and Art, and Dylan, and Trilobyte, and Phairgirl, and whoever else was in the room when you first walked in! Wow! How amazing! You feel like you are just watching all of this, too! How cute. You do not at all feel like you can even interact with this party! Hey, everybody, move to Phairgirl's suite! It will be a great time, no doubt! It sure is much colder in this room. You probably like that, huh, Mister Shorts-in-the-Winter. Idiot. Things are calming down a little bit now. Oh, Christ, Quarex, could you not be the obnoxious bastard just for once in your life? Yes, everyone knows you are loud, you do not have to keep being loud. Well, okay, you probably only know how to be loud. That is forgivable. What a great time you are having! Talking to all these people you never knew in real life! And some you did! This is so fun! Hey, Lindsey is here! Awesome! You have not seen her in almost a year and a half! Ah, Lindsey. She rules, huh? Wait, what did she just say? Having sex? They have? Really? Oh. Hmm. That is bad news to you, right, Quarex? So, there I was. Walking down the hallway with Lindsey, from Mogel's room to Phairgirl's suite, and she casually mentioned how two certain people had been having sex for quite some time, and I had been deliberately misled about this fact. Since the girl involved in this situation was someone I had trusted implicitly with not only my emotions, but my moral compass as well, and she had proven to not be nearly as much like me as I had thought, a lot of bizarre things ran through my head. Why did I get mildly preachy about how people should not have sex? What am I really even talking about? Yeah, sure, I hate humanity. But I love people. I dig all of these people I am meeting at the con. They are no longer just handles, but now people with real names, that I even used in some cases. No longer AnonGirl, Miasma, or Teerts, but now Audrey, Brad, and Carlos. Tasha is just as fun in real life as she is online! Anjee has such a great laugh! A drunk Jarett is telling me how I exhude everything good about life! Lindsey, oh, Lindsey. Why did she tell me that? I could have assumed, but I never would have thought about it otherwise. So, then and there, I decided my morals, too, were going right out the window. As I lay on the carpeted floor of the suite's bedroom, trying to drown out AltRocks' voice, all kinds of things raced through my mind. Most of them are incredibly inane. But the fact that I was wasting my life by having all these fucked up morals was prominent. Finally, something resembling a life-altering moment! I have never had one of these before! I woke up the next day, feeling much better about myself in general, and made sure things stayed that way. There was no-one about when I got out of the shower, so I went to Mogel's room, where no-one answered my knock. Trilobyte's door was open, and Art was inside. I talked to him for a good half hour, which was cool enough, as last time we had seen each other, we were almost at each other's throats. Brad strolled in shortly thereafter, and we took turns pretending to ogle the eight year old girl swimming in the pool. Before we got the chance to give fully into to our faux pedophelia, Ashtray/David also came in, and we got the idea to perhaps go do something. What we did then is lost in the annals of time in my mind, but it was no doubt fulfilling. That day was chock full of all kinds of great fun. Caitlin grabbing Tasha's breast on camera, Caitlin making out with Anjee on camera, Caitlin. . . okay, well, Caitlin does things like that. Kaia and I talked for a few minutes, which was peculiar and completely natural at the same time. I think every time I end up for whatever reason in the same place as Kaia, we have a very brief discussion that in some way changes a view I had. I mentioned something to her about how I had just had a hard time getting someone to be serious for a picture, and she instantly somehow read through that, and said, "You really dislike that people cannot take you seriously, don't you?" And, indeed, though I had not thought about it much, that did seem to be a problem. Lest this sound too much like something I would have read in DTO years ago, though, I will cut out on the pseudo-philosophical stuff, and just get back to the con. Harvey and I hung out for a while. He showed me a few miscellaneous pictures of his friends from Jersey and the girls that they had sex with. Even some pictures of naked women. Wow! Naked women at a con! Well, pictures, at least. So we went to Wawa, and talked more about sex, and naked women. He suggested I get Alicia drunk and try to make her be naked, as apparently that is what she does. Alicia later explained to me that last time she got drunk, she got naked. So it looked like that was true, after all. Brad and Alicia were flirting a lot, and seemed to be getting along really well. It is always interesting to watch people get used to each other like that. Attraction leads to touching, and that leads to more touching, and that eventually leads to going back to your hotel room with somebody else. I pretty much get stuck at the "touching" phase, which amusingly happens with me even before the "attraction" phase. What the hell does it matter, though? Carlos and I briefly bonded over realizing we had to keep typing more and more text into G0ff's file to make it 251k. Tragically, our one chance at the big-time was cut short by me having to go do something else for no good reason. I briefly chatted with so many more people than this. . . of course, I never learned some of their names, unfortunately. Cap'n Sparky, my biggest fan. I barely got to talk to him, though, which was too bad. That would have been interesting. Belial, Blue(?)Falcon, Mindcrime, BeXy. . . I only got to make them smile in a picture that did not turn out anyway. I could have done much more. I could have had a lot more conversations with a lot more people about a lot of other things. This could have been a chance to see that people were all really much more alike than I thought, to see that people are all just all right by me. And I did, to some extent. It just could have been better. So, I took a bunch more pictures, hung out with all these great people, and then had no regrets when it was all said and done, other than perhaps I should have said goodbye to David, since he is just so cool. I even got to hug Tasha! And sleep in the same bed with Leah! And hear about Caffeine's ill effects from "Darwin!" And have an incredibly drunk John tell me how I should give all my change to this homeless guy! And change my entire life! Everyone there ruled. Well, 99% of everyone ruled. And RottenZ certainly should have been there. As should Jook, Kyusaku, Soybean, Zaff. . . lots of people. Every one of them just as great a person as the last. But there is one thing for sure--my life will never be the same again. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] The Green Dragon Dies or How I spent my weekend in Philly by: AIDS Yeah, let me tell you aobut that straight up PHILADELPHIA shit, dog. When she did come stinking of rum, your mom started to run, and I blared across the sun. "Damn, slim shady, you a basehead." Uh uh. "Why you look so wasted?" Uh uh. I tapped on her drum, and I asked her how come. No, I didn't, actually, but I did ride with a bunch of Rhode Island patriots, wild with the celebration of independence day, straight into Philadelphia, with a few pit stops. Well, let me tell you, Darwin was cold and he had to use the bathroom, and he made me turn off Captain Beefheart, and the food at Wendy's sucked, and I lost at bowling, but at least I beat Kaia and got the nickname "Gutterball", and that was the whole trip to and fro. Heave and ho! So what do you want me to say? We got the Hotel and all the doors were locked, but we found our way in, and I restrung my banjo in the lobby while Dawn & Darwin made some love to the women behind the desk, checked us in, and CHECKED US OUT, but I did not care for any eyes laced in ebony, not this night, no. We got to our room and someone found MOGEL and I was there and I was nervous and I was scared and I decided to put on my disguise. So I went upstairs, but it was too late to meet Tasha or Caitlin, and Anjee was busy on Styx's bed, so I found my brothers Nybar & Jubjub. Jamesy had come down earlier and escorted me up, and he was shockingly nice, and I liked him quite a bit. We ran into Styx, Swisspope, and Pezmonkey in the hallway, but I lied to them all, and identified myself either as DARWIN or HYPERTRONIC, and my hat read "HACKER" and my glasses obscured my face. Around this time, Jamesy had confirmed I was not gay. I COULDN'T SEE WHEN IT STARTED SNOWING. We were in rooms and I met a bunch of people that all blurred into an undulating wave of flesh. We woke up Nybar. He had been Silly Cat Silly Cat Silly Cat. But he wasn't too silly, and he wasn't a cat. We went somewhere else. So much flesh, so many people. Quarex is an excellent fellow, full of infinite jest and robust nature. But, you know, we travelled on and then I waited for my man, and when he arrived I said, "I want your LSD," and he said, "At five in the morning in a hotel full of ugly geeks?" and I said, "Yes, yes, please, give me the warez, I need to be HST Courier elite." I had assured JUBJUB and NYBAR that they too would partake of the substance and so they followed me down that rOAD. So we dropped and we dropped and someone was drinkING GHB and someone else was screaming about Tekken 3 and I still kicked ass at it, and then the fists lighting blurred and I had to lie down on the bed next to KAIA, and someoen spilled water on me and I thought I might have pissed myself again, and then I couldn't stop looking at hte ceiling because it had become intricately wrought with IRON from medieval fiefdoms, and somewhere I took a bath in diet pepsi and when I blinked everything would go black and i was fucked and then I followed nybar into his room, but we needed mogel to tell us where it was, and Ashtray heart and altrocks and teerts was there, and they were asking who had sex and jubjub went foetal, and I had to leave, and I made mogel come with me, and I offered him a chair to stay on if he wanted but he went back to his room and I went to sleep and hten I woke up and I had a yo-yo wrapped around my neck and I thought I was hallucinating bugs, but I wasn't, and I took it off after I fell on the floor like a wounded badger. Then I woke up and it was 3:30. I uh went with the RI/MOGEL/DELAWARE crew to get some food and then we ate next to the Rodin Museum, but I didn't think I wanted to see the sculpture, which turned out to be wise, because we ended up back in the hotel room. I turned on the TV and I watched some shit until finally I found SCROOGED, which I really happen to like, mainly because of my hardon for Bill Murray. Oh yes, it's christmas time again. Jamesy came to the room with a cast of thousands and I wanted to find tasha, so we did, and when we did I said, "WHERE IS CAITLIN????????" and she said, "I think she's trying to dry hump art in the boiler room." "Oh," I said, "and where, my dear, would that be?" She brought me to mogel's room. I think I had been in talking blues mode before that and when I met caitlin I went totally insane and started screaming about laser tag and joel slaughter and how I wanted to slip a knot around her throat. Styx asked me to please stop talking about laser tag, and then ran out of the room. At the time, it appears he did not know who I was, due to my earlier disguise and deviant behavior. But I kept screaming at caitlin for quite a while and then I think she left, because the next thing I remember is sitting next to anjee and trying to battle her in a duel of mortal kombat. She was crying because she left her magic mushroom power up at home, and I couldn't conscience kicking her ass if she was still a 98 pound Billy without his Shazam. Uhm, the next thing I remember after that is going to watch Darwin spazzing out in the pool, and trying to get keys to his car. Anjee dissed me at some point during this, but had been replaced with TRILOBYTE and NATARAJA, and I think at this point I knew I Needed kaia, so I went for her, and then caitlin gave me some sort of body embrace in the hallway. Jamesy was there, too. So, er, we got the turbogfx-16 out of the car and I gave it to trilobyte. He said "Thanks, man!#!!@#@!" and promptly disappeared back into the Amiga 2000HD aether. So then we went back to phairgirl's room and /this/ party is incredibly hazy, because I can't tell you how I got from phairgirl's room to Chinatown, eating chinese food with the RI/KAIA crew, but somewhere in that period I grabbed caitlin's tit while pushing her off anjee, and I think she grabbed my ass, and I'm sure I talked to anjee for a long time. When we came back from Chinatown, I left the somber RI crew behind and migrated north to Phairgirl's sweet, where the ACTION was. I think I insulted altrocks some, and then I freaked out on hardk0re, because he was thinking about war, and I psi-corp'd it out of his brain, and I told him about being in the SHIT. I think I threw him off the couch and sat down next to caitlin and started telling her that altrocks was her ultimate sexual destiny, and that she had to let him expand into her uncharted horizions like Lewis & Clarke. Next thing I know, I'n diggin' her back out in the dug out. All good things, and Nybar did come a calling, "Aw shit, boys", so we locked the door and got down, and I'm not going down to the well no more. No, I ain't goin' down to the well now. Caitlin was my gansta bitch who loved robbin' shit, and she TOOK IT. That's right. My virginity@!$!@!$ It was all a slow descent from there a slow slow slow descent from there. Who cared anymore? I certainly didn't. I think I met caitlin's mom, and I god damned know that anjee's dad had some underwear on his head and vaguely resembling Jamie Summer getting trained on the tour bus. Actually he seemed more like an Octoberfest reject come straight from the resurrected hell of his own making. He was drunk he was drunk he was drunk and I was not. I was drunk only on love and the delights of the flesh. There was some hijinks in the THE THE THE hallway, mainly just me darwin, kaia, anjee, styx, kaia, kaia, kaia, caitlin, kaia, maybe tasha, people. Nothing good. Art was pretty drunk. He was drinking in the hallway style. But then we kept moving and going and I was in mogel's room. Mogel was there, I think, but maybe he wasn't. He might have been drunk as hell in Phairgirl's suite. Styx was there. Anjee was there. Altrocks and ashtray heart were there. Everybody was sitting around. Then there was some soulful folk sessions goin on and all I could think to myself was "uhh... here I am listening to people singing BLACK BIRD amongst others." Somewhere round this point jubjub was busy sucking down more GHB. More nad more and more and more GHB Back in the Phairgirl room, mogel was getting strangled by Quarex. Darwin was drunk. He was DRUNK as a SKUNK. I left him somewhere and me, Kaia, jubjub, and Uh NYBAR went on downstairs to the room, just to chill, and I think ol' Jamesy Jamesy came with, because I spent quite a bit of time talking to him about DECWOLF and Usenet and Linux and sucky jobs, and all manner of things. Yeah there was some good stuff goin' down in that room. I realized after a while that Darwin was GONE and hadn't come back, and that all the fools around me were too high to perform a search and destroy mission, so I went back into the shit. Yeah, I was in the shit. I found him in Styx's room. Styx was on his bed with Anjee, and they were looking like someone had been talking to them for quite a while, and lo and behold, they had. Altrocks was there and so were some other people, I think maybe hardk0re and ashtray heart, I don't really know, but they were there. Peace to the devils. It took me a while to get darwin out of there, and he had about 10 drinks and a fucking bottle of Tequiza without anyone worm, but he drank it. We were all there. Yeah, finally I convinced him not to drink and then I got him down to the room. On the way I confessed my HOOKUP with caitlin, and he said, "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH SHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT" I think that aptly summed it up. We got downstairs and Darwin started ranting at nybar and jubzie about hip-hop. FOR SO LONG. I talked to jamesy so much, and we both agreed, that indeed, Darwin was right when he said KRS-ONE was "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE". Kaia was just kickin it high styles on her bed. Fine yes fine. Jamesy and I got sick of how dope the scene was, so we went upstairs to Phairgirl's sweet suite for a while, and it was just her there, but we had a decent covnersation and I finally retreated back to the ROOM of DOOM, and everyone was there. Nybar and Jubjbu decided they were gonna go elsewherez after a while, so it was just me and the Double Couple. I went into the bathroom to piss and I heard their voices going low low low low low into the basement, and I started reading the liner notes of a Parliament album, and there was a quote by George Clinton said something like: "It if ain't nasty it can't be good, and ain't nothing nasty that ain't good." I came out and found our old Spanish friend Don Juan El Humperino in full effect, and having nothing better to say, I said, "If it ain't nasty it can't be good, and ain't nothing nasty that ain't good." An awkward pause, so I, AIDS, offered again, "Well, I'm gonna go look for nybar and jubjub, but uh, I don't know if they're awawke, so if they aren't I'm gonna come back, but uh, you know, what I'm trying to say is just keep your clothes on for ten minutes." Ha ha ha ha h ah aha ha ha ha We all laughed! Ha aha haah ahah ha ha Then I said, "If it ain't nasty it can't be good, and ain't nothing nasty that ain't good." Yeah. I left and started wandering around the hotel room for a while, and finally, yeah, finally I found jubjub and nybar, but first I accosted a group of kids who I thought were with the con but weren't, and they said something like how the Hotel was out of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "THE SHINING". Then me and the boys decided we needed to spend 5 hours waiting for tasha. We aited for tasha in the hallways, we waited for tasha in front of the museum, we waited for tasha with the o.d.b.. Finally we just decided we couldn't take sitting around like idiots in the hallway anymore, so we went to their room and sat around looking at the body of altrocks. Around this time nybar started trying to fuck altrocks, trying to rock that jew like he was usin' him, and just sticking a dill pick in that butthole putting a Dill flesh cock in that bellybutton, making it making it making it no stop never no, he's gonna fuck altrocks like the bitch that fat piece of blubber is. I'm going to fucking hunt him down with the Pesquod and I'm going to fucking harpoon that piece of shit to death kil kilk kilk il,killkil yeah we're gonna m,urder that fuckign fat piece of wahel sheit raeefhefuyef aeyasejefaihjuaefjiofdaijoudfijofsdiojasdfijofasdi ojfzxdijouv oufd awefhahaiuhfauhahfsaufasuo sdfijhsfadjoisgadioasfiojsr usag ihuasdfi huasdf uhsfadhiup asdfiuhlfasdpi uasdfiuhp sfad ipuhsdfi huasdf Yeah, then we were waiting for tasha again. So we started counting how many times we heard showers coming from the room next door. Three times, oh my god, they must all be showered and dressed, we can make love to them! We can hang out and talk to someone other than each other! Holy christ! They will be the only salvation of this entire miserable wreck! Only in their faces can our promised land be found. Unfortunately, they werent' awake and we had just been imagining the showers. They were coming from other parts of the hotel. Art came and we were art for a while but he didn't seem to like being with us very much but we made him go and wake them up and then he left, but we waited. Finally, tasha came to our room. And we started to shake with nerves with pure love with absolutely affection with miraculous with miracle with with with with oh my god it was tasha it was the only thing we could ever want the only thing we could ever ever want here she was oh my god we loved her we loved her we loved her we love her she's here oh my god tasha yes please yes yes yes yes tasha thank you god yes yes yes yes tasha yes a burst of sunshine and joy yers tawsha yes yes we love you tasha we love you We went next door, and nybar & jubjub got suckered into carrying some shit, and I was like, "Oh yeah, I'll just talk to caitlin", but caitlin spent about 45 minutes using the hair dryer so I didn't get to talk to her. Finally we took her mom down to the car and put some shit in. I found dylan in the parking lot and he said, "Aw baby, we're going," and I thought, "Couldn't be sooner, dog." We went and found dawn & darwin & kaia and none of those mofos were looking particularly happy so I just started whispering things to kaia, because I know I could get her devious mind working. I went with these fools to bring some shit down to the car. Fair enough, and then we went through the lobby and I ran into caitlin and she had some punk rock clown shoes in her hands, and I said, "Oh shit, that's some shoes," and she said, "eBay baby, eBay baby, I gets down Baby, Uptown baby!" So I think I just followed her around for a while until I had to leave, and I was feeling mighty creeped out because she weren't really talking to me and I was like, "oh shit, girl musta been drunk or some shit, cuz she sure ain't trying to catch AIDS now." But we eventually had to leave cuz I ran into my peepz and they wanted to split, so we DID, but I said goodbye to the jubjub, nybar, tasha, and caitlin crew, and caitlin gave me a rather warm hug, so I just attributed her oddness to a lack of familiarity with daylight. Then we got into the car and I went to sleep. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "Con-a-lingus" by Altrocks Okay... Well, first of all, the con was a success in terms of partying. No one died, no one got arrested, and (hopefully) no one got pregnant. Everyone was alot cooler in person than on IRC, but the entire weekend felt like a giant interactive IRC chat. It was freaky. I'm just gonna go down the list of people I mingled with and such and give my thoughts on them since I went purely for the social aspect. My Room mates: Jubjub: He was pretty cool and all. A little quiet tho`. We didn't hang out much, but he seemd like a good guy. Nybar: Talk about the rapier wit. He was prolly the coolest person at the con. He wanted to butt rape me on sunday morning as a means to wake me up. It porlly would've worked too. Other People's Room mates: phairgirl: her suite of love only had one rule: No dying. We stuck to that, but if there were any other rules, they would've or were broken. She wasn't as antisocial as some would think, and in fact was quite fun to be around. stiks: He was the other coolest person at the con. He is probably the funniest living human being I know. B00BS ! Mogel: He was "totally tweaked" as stiks put it. Mogel was just as freaky and silly in person as he is on IRc, if not moreso. He spent some time freaking teert's head on friday nite, and then Mogel'ed out in his shower at 4 am. He was just fun incarnate. Anjee: She played her guitar alot and sang alot. She does both very well. She also wouldn't say aboot for us and told teerts "fuck you" for trying to get ehr to say it. Anjee's Dad: He had a bra on his head. Caitlin: She was rather grrrr-like to me, but with good reason. :) She also played anjee's guitar and sang alot, which she also does quite well. Those two should pair up and do a duet sometime. Tasha: Hrmmm... I think Lusch is the word I'm looking for. She was completely inebriated saturday nite, and it showed. She was pretty funny just cause of how drunk she was. :) Ashtray Heart: He gets the Best Dancer award for ITIC. His jamming out to Captain Beefheart and Magma totally amazed and amused me. Everyone should see him od that at least once in their life. Quarex: He was the sober and responsable one. Very scary thought. He looks like a cross between Dr. Evil and Sloth. But he's funny shit. Him and mogel wrestled a few times. Mogel lost. :) Anongirl: She was cool. She made a much better Kanadian than anjee. However, we didn't see alot of her after friday nite. She just disappeared for some reason. I wonder what she could have been doing ? SwissPope: He was an allright guy. But I didn't get to hang out with him much after friday nite cause he mysteriously disappeared to. I wonder what he could have been doing ? Jamesy: All I have to say, I said at Johnny Rocket's in Philly, "Zibble is French for asshole." Okay, so he wasn't that bad. In fact he was an allright guy. AIDS: AIDS was much cooler and funnier in person. And he convinced Darwin to stop drinking. An accomplishment like no other. Darwin: He spent about an hour talking to Neko about muscle tone and excercise. He is also convinbced that his drug usage has given him the super-human powers of sleeplessness and an endless stomach. He was pretty knowledgable an funny. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "Nybarhyme" by Nybar *** Rhymed in the manner of The Last Emperor on Secret Wars *** *** Not yet complete *** *** This is just to whet your appetite motherfuckers, you can fuckin' listen to this mp3 *** Verse 1 - I Fuck AltRocks -- Yo this is Nybar, from the Manhattan crew Stoppin' so'z ta spin an ITIC review When I got there, everybody was drinking And that motherfucker AltRocks sure was stinkin' Stinkin' DELICIOUS if you know what I mean So I saddled up and rode him like a machine I fucked his bellybutton, yo my morals sure is lax Doubly so after my gerber pickle took him in the back And to you heads thinkin' bad boys learn their lessons After there was mayo on that sandwitch, I went back for seconds -- Verse 2 - The Con on whole -- Now this is the verse where I not only talk about Audrey being on Phil But also drop mad observations in order to keep it ill Can anyone tell me what went down with anjee and styx? I was distracted by a brother called Ashtray Heart, sucking dicks What else went on in that loud and drunken suite? art got dissed had no chance ta let out the beast 2599 was passed among modem geeks Brother that suite bathroom sho' does reek Yo who's that nigga on tha couch... Aw yeah that be AIDS got his fingah on the pulse of the nation But could his other fingers be in tha pants of caitlin? This shit was going down while I did trip off the acid had my mind in its grip Make me start talkin' about tekken 3 In the fightin' ring where I wanna be Bustin' styles like mah man Jackie Chan Or Krs-ONE I fuck up tha True Ogre with Gon Gun-Jack fly off?- I pelt him with de flan. While I'm atz it... YO! There was this lame character called gun-jack He fly off whenever you hit de mat even when you only in round ONE he want to fly off early, let him use his GUN Nigga. --- Verse 3 - Observations about Darwin's rant -- To Darwin, hey man thanks for putting up with my shit Hollld up, what'm I talkin' about, you made it sound legit With a rant to match mine, that shit went on for so long My advice: instead of drinking, rip a hit from off da bong Still I ain't angry, son it was gratifyin' to see Someone actin' just about as crazy as me Not many can match mah ramblings in terms ah words uttered You're a jabberjaw samurai, didn't even stutter And I can't TOUCH you in terms of crazy stuff done Shit, you were FEELIN' tha KRS-1 Don't ever let anyone say you can't get down Especially bumpin' to tha funky James Brown You fell into the pit of complete insanity, I know cuz I've been there before Hell even without LSD mah foot's halfway in the door Still, I don't often preach at people like tha pope But once again I ain't angry: that shit was DOOPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "Dear Hawk" by Mogel Dear Hawk, My dearest Hawk. I'm writing this letter with my deepest apologies. I am sorry I convinced you to go to IThinkICon. Don't get me wrong. I think you're a swell person and I enjoy your company. It's quite possible that I was too blinded by your cuteness to see the obvious inappropriate nature of your attendance. Quite simply, you had no connection with the e'zine community whatsoever apart from me, AIDS, and Darwin, and I'd imagine that this gathering ensured that. Maybe the problem is really that you spent six hours in a car. Maybe the problem is that we didn't plan to do anything particularly interesting. Maybe the problem was just me. Regardless, you obviously had a miserable weekend and I take the full blame. No, WAIT. NO! I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THIS AS THE END. Obviously spending a weekend in a hotel with 40 drunk and/or Quarex and/or high computer geeks would be a virtual cornucopia of enjoyment for any living human being. Obviously it was just a problem that you didn't know any of these people. That must be it. They are new people. I can understand that. You did meet almost everyone at the con, however, even if for a minute or two. I think it's only appropriate that I introduce you to the people that attended. How about the people that you do know? First, myself. I'm Mogel. I'M A SUCKER FOR YOUR LUCKY PRETTY EYES. Oops. I mean, uh, okay. You know me. I was at the con, yes. I was very anti-social and extremely high and/or Quarex and/or intoxicated for the majority of the weekend, which might have also contributed to you and me not engaging in any WONDERFUL and MEANINGFUL conversation. Because obviously I am capable of that any any given moment. In reality, I'm a pretty unclever and immensely boring dork who has some sort of very minimal iconic notoriety for writing really stupid text files. That sounds unhappy. I didn't mean it. I'M A PRETTY NICE GUY. You also know Darwin. Or should I say... "KNEW" him? a-hee. A-hehehe! Darwin also spent a great deal of time in great discomfort, along with Db70 (AKA "THE HACKER"). Darwin finally cut loose Saturday night getting extremely plastered and lecturing everyone in my hotel room about The True Spirit of Hip Hop for hours. He also taught Neko the value of staying in shape. He also said the word "doooope" an inconceivably high number of times. I love that Darwin. Kaia didn't do anything significant the entire time, I don't think. She's Asian. Oh, and there's AIDS. AIDS, who you've known for quite some time, and I've been talking to since sometime around 1995, I finally got to meet. AIDS, who is possibly my future FILM TOUR DE FORCE ARTISTIC PARTNER. AIDS was remarkably... ungeeky. He was almost too cool for this con. Almost. If not for the vixen from Michigan, that is. So I've covered the people you know. Who don't you know? A WHOLE SLEW OF FOLKS. THERE'S FOLKS FROM ILLINOIS! Like SWISSPOPE, who was visible at the con for a total of 15 minutes all weekend. NOBODY KNOWS WHY. There's NEKO! Sometimes Neko is referred to as "The Lone Lover", because he stalks out his prey (women) and when he finally makes his move, they are swept away. Incidentally, if you ever want to read tons and tons of the intricate details of Neko's life (who doesn't?), you should *definitely* check out FLC: _Funky Llama Club_ for enough Neko to overflow a mutated camel. Uhh. There's also QUAREX! Me and Quarex wrestled. Quarex is very large (head) and blonde and the ground shakes when he walks. We wrestled, of course, because much like X-PAC, I just will not quit. Although I had a series of successful leg drops, Quarex finished me off with a choke slam from Hell. OH MY GOODNESS, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY FORGET ART, DYLAN, AND TRILOBYTE? THEY HAD A ROOM TOGETHER. IT HAD AN AMIGA. AND ALTROCKS. ALTROCKS IS LARGE. ALTROCKS IS LOUD. TEERTS IS SILLY. TEERTS IS QUIET. THEY ARE BOTH FROM SUBURBAN PENNSYLVANIA. MIASMA IS FROM NEW YORK. HE USED TO DRAW ANSI. HE IS SHORTER THAN ME AND THAT MAKES ME FEEL SLIGHTLY MORE SECURE BECAUSE I AM TREMENDOUSLY INSECURE. I FEEL THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE RIPPLING AND OOZING FROM MY FINGERTIPS. BASK IN THE GLORY OF MY TEXT. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN KEEP THIS UP. AAA!! AAA!! (aaa?) THERE WAS A SOAP OPERA. GIRLS FROM MICHIGAN WHO ARE 15 AND 16 MADE ART'S HEART THROB. NYBAR HAD HIS NIPPLE PLAYED WITH. CAITLIN GOT WITH ONE GUY AND DIDN'T GET WITH ANOTHER. I DON'T KNOW WHO IS DRUNK ANYMORE BY THE TIME SATURDAY HITS BECAUSE I AM TOO DRUNK TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AND I'M SITTING ON A COUCH FOR THREE HOURS TALKING TO SEAYA AND PHAIRGIRL AND ANYONE ELSE WHO STROLLED ALONG. WHAT'S GOING ON IN MY ROOM? PEOPLE ARE RUNNING AROUND AT 5AM AND THERE'S AN AIR-HORN IN THE POOL. AND 30 PEOPLE CRAMMED INTO A ROOM AND WOW IT'S HOT IN HERE. I REMEMBER BEING SHY. I REMEMBER PEOPLE GOING IN AND OUR OF ROOMS. I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING SPECIFIC. PEOPLE WERE SHIFTING IN AND OUR OF PLANES AND I WAS JUST SITTING THERE, NOT HERE. I WAS IN THE ETHEREAL PLANE. NYBAR AND JUBJUB WERE GENUINELY VERY COOL ALL WEEKEND AND THEY TRAVELLED FROM NEW YORK WHICH RELATIVELY ISN'T THAT FAR. NOT FAR LIKE ASHTRAY HEART, WHO TRAVELLED ALL THE WAY FROM KENTUCKY. HE FLEW HERE. HE BARELY KNEW ANY OF THE HOE STAFF. HE WAS VERY FUN TO TALK TO AND, OF COURSE, TREMENDOUSLY INSANE. OKAY. OKAY. I AM SORRY FOR TYPING IN ALL CAPS. okay..... okay........ phew. Some more locals that came were Hardcore and Six, who came from the delicious state of New Jersey. I didn't talk to either of them too much, but they did surprise me as being far more normal than I expected. In this case, that is a good thing. Also from New Jersey were Belial, Grey Hawk, Mindcrime, and beXy's breasts. They stayed for about 30 seconds on Saturday. Nobody noticed but me. The Jester, Cap'n Sparky, and some guy with the handle V.A.N.C.E. ("I'm Firewater!") showed up. All of them from Philly and all of them exceptionally nice. I'm glad they came... IN MY MOUTH. AHAHAHAHAHAHAA@#@ Sorry. Uhm, I think I spoke to PezMonkey a total of 4 minutes. She obviously hates my guts. Uhm, I believe Caitlin and Tasha were there... oh yes, that's right. Caitlin's mom was insane. And so was Anjee's dad, who came bursting into Phairgirl's suite wearing women's underwear on his head, piss-drunk. That's my kind of dad. They drove Anjee to Philly. Anjee is insane, too. It runs in the family. Nice girl, though. AnonGirl was also there, I think, although I only saw her for a total of 15 minutes the whole weekend. NOBODY KNOWS WHY. I WOULD REALLY HATE TO LEAVE ANYONE OUT OF THIS. My roommate was Styx. He was the drunk and funny guy. Mr. TanAdept was there and extremely helpful in making this thing happen. 251. CATS. WAREZ. JAMESY WAS THERE. HE WAS AMAZINGLY WELL BEHAVED AND ONLY MADE FUN OF ALTROCKS A FEW DOZEN TIMES. Hawk... are you still with me? Okay, I realize that you're probably not. That's understandable. I tried to introduce you to some of the writers of HOE E'zine, some of the attendees of IThinkICon, but I realized that most of this stuff is pretty damn obscure. It's really just for the writers, isn't it? I mean, what's the point of this review file? I mean, how many of the people reading this immediately did a search for their name? Probably all of them. I don't blame them, Hawk. I don't blame you for hating me. This whole e'zine business has driven a wedge between us and I don't know if it will ever be repaired. This con truly was the strangest gathering of computer people I've ever concocted. A con where the majority of the people didn't know each other in RealLife(tm) ahead of time. This con, OH-SO-CONVENIENTLY HELD 10 MINUTES FROM MY HOUSE, held in the majestic city of Philadelphia, *was* somehow a success. Almost everyone got along and some silly times were had. But for every good thing that happens there is a price. That price is a new born child. *AND* our friendship. BUT LET'S NOT STOP LOVING EACH OTHER, HAWK. LET'S NOT LET ENTROPY HAVE IT'S WAY. LET'S TAKE OUR FISTS, HAWK, AND SHOVE IT STRAIGHT INTO THOSE PIGS FUCKING FACES! ARE YOU WITH ME? [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "IThinkICon Review" - by anjee ITIC was by far one of my favorite internet gatherings. Love, hate, sexual acts, frustration were all present, as well as approximately 40 entirely different personalities. I, after a dreaded 8 and a half hour drive from Montreal, Qc with my parents, arrived at the Best Western in Philadelphia where the con was being held. As suggested, i requested the "ITIC check-in room" number and was on my merry little way to what was later known as one of the 2 "popular" rooms. Of course, when I first entered the designated room, I didn't think I was in the right room. That's when I saw Caitlin's blood red hair and was proved otherwise. Soon enough, more people arrived and Mogel's room was filling up mighty quickly. Some headed out for alcohol, and a portion of the group split and headed to phairgirl's suite of love. AIDS brought his banjo. Ashtray Heart brought an insane amount of annoying music CDs as well as a hardhat so the maggots would not fall onto his head. I brought my guitar. TanAdept brought boardgames and Altrocks (who was later found being rather intimate with Nybar) brought condoms. As predicted by Mogel from the ITIC mailing list before the con, there was hardly any sexual activity. To my knowledge, there was 2 links- one being secret_. Friday night, the majority of the con attendee's were rather drunk and/or tripping, the suite got pretty loud so I eventually migrated to Mogel's room which was, compared to the suite, rather calm. I must have blocked some events out except for Quarex incessantly running into the door in an rather successful attempt to make me laugh. Casey played left-handed on my right handed guitar, as well as signing it with his own blood! Other than that, all I can remember is alcohol alcohol alcohol, loud voices, loud voices, loud voices. Saturday morning, at approximately 7 am Mogel finally entered the Mogel-room. Teerts and Altrocks eventually left, and Mogel took a shower. This is when the remainders, this being Jamesy, styx and I had the oppurtunity to experience Mike _mogel-out_ in the shower. Mogeling out would best be described with squeaks, yelps, followed of what seems to be Mogel playing around with the water and other cute noises of the sort. The rest of the day was pretty much the same as Friday night, perhaps not as eventful though. Trilobyte let me wear his looks-like-its-from- hawaii shirt! A few of us chilled in the hall for a while, and soon Casey and I would head over to Mogel's empty room to read "WHO ARE THE GIDEONS" in the bible. Teerts soon joined in also, and later many many e'ziners flocked back in, disrupting the calmness. Darwin gave rather interesting speeches although i incidently forgot what the hell they were about. AIDS later came back to fetch darwin in order to bring his drunk self back to wherever he was rooming. Soon came Sunday morning when everybody was busy cleaning up the totally wrecked rooms and give goodbye hugs and handshakes. Pretty soon there was only Mogel, Nybar, jubjub, Styx, AnonGirl, kaia and I that were left. We all went to Mogel's, where everybody eventually took a little collective nap. AnonGirl & I took a taxi back to the hotel and stayed sunday night in my parents' room and left as well on monday. That pretty much resumes my ITIC fun-filled weekend. Oh! I forgot about the hardk0re/six/miasma tongue-ear sex and the the non-functional toilet. And Styx deep throated a beer bottle. That is all, I believe. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "I Think I Con, 1999 (Part 2)" by Caitlin Not having the slightest clue what to expect, Tasha and I arrived in Philadelphia at about 1:00 PM. We drove through the actual _ghetto_ of Philly until we found the street the hotel was on. Then we drove down this street about 5 times, finally stopping to ask for directions at a gas station. The weekend was to be one that I'll remem... actually.. nevermind. I had the neatest idea, for a text file, you know, about ITIC, because like... I read a few of them, before the actual release came out, and I wanted to make mine a little different, for variety. So, I'm going to write a paragraph on every person I met at the con! If I leave anyone out, I am truly sorry, this just means you didn't have a lasting effect, or else you just didn't affect me too much. Fasten your seat belts!*@(&#!*&@*!#*! In Random Order: Altrocks: I didn't interact with Altrocks a lot, and I did this purposely. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that he was so damn annoying, he might even be nice. He threw a condom at my head when Art and I were in Mogel's room. It was just his stupid sense of humor that gnawed at my patience, that's all. Miasma: Brad was actually quite rad! The first thing I said to him is "Wow. You're short!" I think that may have been a bad thing to introduce myself with, but hey, at least I was honest! He gave me an incredible foot massage which was really awesome, because I tend to shy away from feet I don't know. Yeah. Jubjub: Chris is definately one of my favorite people I got to meet. He was pretty laid back at the con, but I'm not sure if that was the drugs, or what. He gave me an organic peach, which wasn't ripe, but it was still really good. He helped me find Tasha when she disappeared into Nybar's room. He is Nybar's brother. Nybar: I didn't really talk to Nybar much either, but he was nice when we did talk. He captured Tasha and took her down into his hotel room of love... where somehow she ended up wearing his boxer shorts and he had on her socks. He is Jubjub's brother. TanAdept: I had met g0ff previously, when he came to my hometown specifically to pet my cats. He's interesting, and he makes me laugh. He has long hair, and a cat named Anna. She is orange. Styx: I had also met Matt previously, when I visited him in Pennsylvania in April! Matt rocks, actually, just so you all know, in case you don't. I didn't talk to him much at the con, except when I would be like "Hey Matt!" and he'd be like "WORD CAITLIN!" well... he only said that on friday, when he was really drunk, but you know, it's all good. I took a picture of Matt's ass. The Jester: I said Hi! and Bye! to him, although we never talked. But, i did remember meeting him, so.... Phairgirl: Phairgirl was neeeeeat! Her suite was where almost all the drinkin' went down, and I borrowed her bed for like a half hour. I hope she doesn't mind. Hardcore: Harvey was really orange!!!!! He was really nice too, he gave me a CD that didn't work. But, I mean, I know he must have worked hard on it, for a long time, maybe, or something. agh. Six: Six was nice! I didn't talk to her much. She puked and flirted with Brad. Mogel: I thought mogel really didn't want to be there, seriously. It made me sad!!!! But, uhhh, it was fun and nice to see him. When I was leaving, he smooshed my boobie. AIDS: I was going to save the best for last, but you know... I'll just put it here! whee! So... I met Jarett on Saturday, since he arrived too late on Friday, and I was already asleep. I saw him, and just stared at him a lot. I don't know why, but I couldn't seem to stop. Instead of staring at the bottles of liquor, or the billions of ashtrays, or the ugly paintings on the walls, I just stared at him, catching his eyes a lot, never feeling uncomfortable, never averting them. But yeah, so we talked a bit, and he was interesting. He kept telling me to get with Altrocks though, to get a laugh out of me. which, obviously, I think i laughed at a lot of things he said. No, I was not drunk, unfortunately. Finally, we decided to go talk more, where people wouldn't bother us. Heh Heh Heh >:) Actually... Jarett is definately one of my favorite people I met too. He was like ... a break in the storm... the eye of my hurricane... and... he's coming to visit in 12 days. *#(!*@()!&*$#(!&@*!&#*(!&@(*!$ PezMonkey: Linds surprised me. I didn't know what to expect when I met her, and she turned out to be just as sweet and stuff as the linds I have known over the computer for 3 years. I never imagined I'd meet her. Craziness. AnonGirl: I didn't see much of audrey at the con. ehehehehehhehehe I did talk to her a few times, which was rad. She was interesting, and was COOL, and all that good canadian stuff. Art: Actually, a lot of my weekend was spent with art. He made it more enjoyable, although somewhat uncomfortable. The first day I got there, several people informed me that he kept staring at me, and that i was being subjected to the usual "art macking" which, at first, didn't seem to be so bad. But, eventually, we ended up alone in a hotel room together, and I didn't know what to do. He was nice, very good looking, funny, goofy...but I couldn't bring myself to cheat on my boyfriend. Although, when I left and went to the suite, everyone was like "SO IS THERE A NEW LINK ON THE CHART?!?!?!" and uh, I got to reply with "why, no! of course not!" On saturday, art and i flirted more, except it was more casual this time, which was comfortable and fun. Art was a really nice guy, but I did hurt his feelings, which was totally unfair of me. I'm pretty selfish sometimes. Sorry, art. Tasha: yeah, I was going to save the best for last but, uhhh... i already used this line, shiiiite nigga. Uhm.. Tasha is my best friend, from WAYNE MICHIGAN, so I don't need to tell you about her. But, I will tell you about her and the con. She was PLASTERED on saturday. It was so amusing. At one point, she disappeared into the abyss of Nybar and Jubjub's room with nybar for an hour. Yeah. She played with his nipples. Nothing more. nothing less. Trilobyte: I didn't see much of tim the entire weekend either! he was playing on his computer a lot. but he did tell me about some restraunt in his home town with art. it was neat! Tortoise: I didn't talk to dylan much either. BUT, his hair is incredible. Ashtray Heart: I didn't talk to him a lot either. ALTHOUGH, he does listen to the best band in the world, Maschina. Darwin: Darwin ranted about vegetarianism and health to me for about a half an hour. It was a really interesting conversation actually, and it was neat listening to him sing pink floyd when he was really drunk. Kaia: Kaia had the most incredible dress on on Saturday. I didn't talk to her much either, except for an occasional smile and hi in the hallway, or whenever we bumped into each other. Anjee: I have met angie once last year. SHE ROCKS. I don't really have much to say, because I am really tired of thinking about ITIC by this time. But, we played guitar and sang in the hotel room a bit, which rocked. She was smiley, and giggly, and fun, and I wish I would have got to see her more! Teerts: He was at ITIC?? ERRR.. just kidding. He didn't talk at all. Not once. I swear! Neko: haha, I first was introduced to him by art, who whispered about how hairy and annoying he was in my ear. but, no, really, Neko was neat. He wasn't annoying at all! he was amusing!!!! Jamesy: At first I saw Jamesy and felt sorry for him. Basically, because the way he was dressed, I assumed that he wasn't in a good money/home situation, and I took pity on him. But, after listening to him talk about his torn up jeans, and ugly Pez shirt, I just figured he dressed like that by choice. Actually, Jamesy was really nice at the con, but I think it was just PR. He was funny when he made fun of Altrocks, though. Swisspope: AT FIRST, is screamed at Phil about singing for me, and he just looked at me weird. I think he was nervous and freaked out by the whole deal. Finally, he drank a bunch and started singing a lot. it was rad. then he disappeared for the rest of the weekend. Quarex: hahaha, besides the fact that he kept sitting on Tasha's lap, quarex did funny things. When Art and I were in Mogel's room alone, Quarex and Styx busted in and pulled down their pants and started ranting about Sega and other game systems. That was the COOLEST thing anyone has every done for me in my life. Seriously. Kasey: He taught me how to play "Closer to Fine" on guitar. Seaya: The only reason art flirted with me is because she ignored him! blame her!! everyone!!!!! anyways, uh leah was really cutesy in real life, especially when she said "Do you wanna link....?" with that cute leah voice and cute leah face. It was tempting, but more awkward then anything. She disappeared a few times too. [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "lazy hazy crazy days of summer" --phairgirl Someone knocked like crazy at my front door. It was a nice silly man who wanted to pet my cats; it was Mr. TanAdept! My mom looked scared as hell, remembering the crazy Chinese man who once bumbled through these doors who also came from the Big Scary Internet, yet politely manages not to explode once he was in sight. Maybe it's because THIS ONE wasn't so damn ugly and stupid and horrible. And suddenly, I am on the road to THE CON: first stop, Chicago. I felt like I was in high school again, thrown back to the days of hanging with the silly people that suckered me into playing Magic: The Gathering and dance around in public singing Monty Python songs and sit for hours watching bad British sci-fi. Obviously, this took some time to adjust; that crazy High School Savings Time carries some serious jetlag. It was all interesting and great fun, though. Spending my time around my hometown talking about hamburgers and marijuana gets really old, and having INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION for the first time in years is always good. It's also nice to gawk at computer parts, pet a very cute tiny old cat with no teeth that likes to lick my forehead (ANNA!), and hear "Fish Heads" multitudinous times until it pours back out of my ears. It was still awkward, though. I was still stuck in Lame Dubuque Mode. The next day, we were off again, this time picking up another not-so-awful-to-look-at-with-long-hair person, Mr. Jamesy, which of course made the trip so UTTERLY MISERABLE that I could HARDLY STAND IT. Because, as we all know, there's nothing worse than traveling in a car halfway across the country with two intelligent long-haired guys. I believe I will digress on my hair fetish for now. There was a lot of talking during that car ride; I don't remember much of it, because plenty consisted of oldschool in-jokes and smart computer things that a lame college dropout like me couldn't begin to understand. I played with Pikachu a lot, and even though I suck at every game I have ever touched except for Tetris, I still managed to feel decently adequate. And, of course, there was always That Darn Cat! Scary Thing #1: The First Hotel Stay I was so tired. I was so paranoid. Do I stay up really late with the crazy guys inventing a Magic game involving cats and computers and warez, or do I simply hope REALLY HARD that I don't snore? That was the scariest moment of my life; the last thing I wanted was for the entire population of people that I had never met in my life to hear about my LOUD OBNOXIOUS SNORING that kept everyone else awake. I couldn't help it, I was really tired, so I fell asleep. I later learned that I snored quietly. I felt much better. Snoring quietly is almost as good as snoring cutely. The next day of driving was considerably nicer, as we arrived in Philadelphia at a decent hour, and stumbled upon the Best Western. It was a considerable feat securing the SUITE OF LOVE, as they first attempted to give me a one-bed room, and then my suite door would not open. The hotel people sent a very big scary African man to knock down my door... and there it was. I had met up with a chunk of people in Mogel's Room 326, which was so completely surreal, mostly because I was being highly social. We later migrated to the SUITE OF LOVE (Rules: No Dying Allowed) and I managed to chat up with a fair amount of the general population. Never mind that my horrid toilet was clogged. I went to IThinkICon and I brought... 1. A 12-pack of Mr. Pibb for Hardcore 2. A stick figure nudie deck for Mogel 3. A camera to catch everyone looking dumb 4. NOT MY SHAMPOO because I managed to leave it at MR. TANADEPT'S APARTMENT! My suitemates included Seaya (whom everyone had told me was really annoying, although I thought she was cool and fun and interesting and stuff), Neko (who made me drink bad liquor), Teerts (who was pretty reserved, but still damn cool), and Quarex (who scared the living shit out of me but had long hair so I was very torn). Anjee was SUPPOSED to room with us too, but she wimped out. (To de-complicate things, when I came back to work, I told everyone that I had roomed with a cute little lesbian, a professional drunk, a crazy pierced up guy, and a big scary wrestler that could eat my head.) The first night was still really odd. Luckily, alcohol managed to keep me social and much less inhibited, and I pulled off the Happy Hostess in the Suite of Love thing halfway decently. I also drank gin straight for the first time, and I simply could not get over how badly it smelled like pine needles. I don't really remember much else, except simply how damn cool everyone was and how I was scared to death of the tyrannical coolness that is Quarex, and eventually bunking down on the floor talking to Mr. Neko after a 3am walk through the hotel wearing our skivvies. Day two was considerably interesting; I ventured my sorry little small town Iowan ass out into the big frightening world of the streets of Philadelphia. I wandered aimlessly with Seaya, Altrocks, Teerts, Jamesy, TanAdept, Six, Hardcore, and Neko. We ate at a cheesy little '50s diner, we took a walk to Zipperhead, we laughed, we cried. I was in complete amazement the entire time. Somehow, though, it felt completely natural. Scary Thing #2: The Acid Flashback, Or Something Back at the hotel, it was mingle-frenzy like usual. For some reason, something wasn't right, though. I had to get away from the crowd (which was sad, because Mr. TanAdept was breaking out the Cosmic Encounter and I wanted to play). I went into the backroom of the suite and started freaking out. I could have sworn that someone slipped me some crazyass psychedelics; I couldn't breathe, everything was spinning, it was not cool at ALL. Finally, luckily, I fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I was still in a highly agitated state, although it was wearing off quite nicely. All I remember from that point in time was yelling at Mr. AltRocks for starting shit on fire. I REALLY HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE START SHIT ON FIRE. So, in my only unnice moment, I threatened his life with a nice colorful array of expletives. It felt good to vent. Soon I was better and ingested nice amounts of alcohol. I had to roomsurf to find the proper ingredients to my drink that I invented. It was a wussy drink alcohol-wise, but it was very tasty. 3 parts Diet Coke (because the vending machine was out of Coke) 2 parts rum 1 part Kahlua I made many of these and visited many people, including Mr. Trilobyte in Room 357. He had the BIG AMIGA in his room, and I was in utter amazement the entire time. There were a lot of big brains floating around in there, and there's nothing I value more than intelligent conversation. I was amused for quite a while, before I surfed back into the sheer non-reality that was my SUITE OF LOVE. And now: WHAT I THOUGHT OF EVERYONE. Why? Because it's a prerequisite to any file about meeting a large group of people for the first time, right? Miasma: RAWK. Mr. Miasma was Da Shit. I can't even define it. Jubjub: That's one scary looking kid. I didn't talk to him much at the con, unfortunately. Nybar: His hair was the exact same as my first boyfriend. In fact, he reminded me of my first boyfriend in general, except without all that fucking-my-best-friend shit. The Jester: I'm glad I could meet him for twelve minutes. Styx: Styx was superrad. Superrad. I wish I could've talked to him more, but so many chicks were busy macking on him. Anjee: She ditched my suite! That bitch! (Not really, Anjee was funny and cute, so she's excused.) Quarex: I had been rumored to call Quarex a "supreme hottie" over various ICQ chats. He needs to face up to this fact. Trilobyte: Smart people rule. He would make a really good mass murderer. Ashtray Heart: Suspiria! Doctor Who! Who could ask for more? Grey Hawk: Mindcrime: I remember them being in my suite, all mingly and such. I beXy: wish I knew them. Belial: Teerts: I wished he were more social, because he was very cool when he was talking and stuff. Cap'n Sparky: I felt really bad for kicking Cap'n Sparky out of HOE right Firewater: before ITIC. Luckily he didn't kill me or anything. They were both way rad, and Firewater liked my drink. Tortoise: He had really rad hair. Swiss Pope: Originally I had wanted to hang out with Mr. Swiss Pope more, but he mysteriously disappeared. AnonGirl: She seemed cool for the twelve minutes that I saw her before she mysteriously disappeared. Tasha: Tasha looks like Tasha sounds and Tasha writes! It's amazing! She was great entertainment and I found her very genuine. Jamesy: He says what he thinks. I wish I wasn't such a wuss. (Notice how I never say bad things about anyone?) Goddamn, there were a lot of people. Caitlin: She looks a lot like my sister, but without all the flaky attitude that goes along with her. Honestly, if I would've seen Caitlin outside of ITIC, I never would have talked to her because my sister has traumatized me for life. Hawk and DB70: Hey, I saw them once. Hardcore: He was orange! He was orange in a GOOD WAY! He was very rad, even though he likes Mr. Pibb. Six: Ms. Six was extremely cool. If I had to live in Jersey, I would want to hang out with her. Art: Art was so silly! I wanted to pin a big "silly" sign to his head. Darwin: I don't remember Darwin much: he was here, he was there, he was everywhere! Neko: He convinced me to drink gin, we talked a lot but I was too buzzed to remember what we talked about. I just remember coolness. PezMonkey: I didn't get to talk to her much either. She was an enigma. AIDS: I also wanted to hang out with Mr. AIDS more, because he was quite neat, but he had a hidden agenda for big sex with small children. AltRocks: He had his finer, more amusing moments, contrary to popular belief, just as long as he wasn't starting fires. Kaia: I didn't see her much. She was so cute I wanted to put her in a box. Seaya: If I were a lesbian, I'd do her. But as for reality, she was very high on the radness scale. I wish there were more cool females like her in my stupid hickland. Mogel: Mr. Mogel was so quiet and shy! He seemed cool enough though but I still feel like I never met him at all. The enigma lives on! The night was very social, and more people fought to write for 2599.5. Silly Cat Comix were read OUTLOUD, which was a very special moment for me, since the comix were how I found this nutty crowd in the first place. I eventually ended up kicking everyone out around 5am to attempt some semblance of sleep. However, that never looked like it was going to happen, with AIDS and Jamesy popping by for some fun and enlightening conversation. The next morning, the official END OF THE CON, just came way too soon. Everyone gathered and talked each other into oblivion until we were all kicked out of our rooms and forced to leave. Mr. Jamesy had decided to ride with another tribe, as they were spending the night with yet another scene fiend somewhere in Ohio, Mr. Murmur. So, Mr. TanAdept and I left to drop Ms. Seaya off at the train station, and soon, we were on our way to Indiana, Pennsylvania, and later, back home. Insane facts from my entire vacation: 1. I traveled the farthest of anyone to go to ITIC. 2. Indiana, Pennsylvania has no streetlights. I still can NOT get over this. 3. Upon leaving the SUITE OF LOVE, there were 2 full cases of empty bottles and 3 garbage bags full of trash. 4. After growing tired of the same ten CDs for the drive back to Chicago, TanAdept and I bought ten new CDs. Now I know what you're thinking: The con is now over in your file! What more could you possibly write about? Well, the con lasted a FULL WEEK for me, dammit. The day in Indiana, PA wasn't exciting, as I spend most of the day either writing for 2599 or sitting on the lawn outside of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania talking to Mr. TanAdept waiting for the big scary UNIX machine to stop being stupid and be happy and smiling. It was much nicer this time around, because I had gotten so silly and crazy over my trip that I could be myself, and could finally carry on decent conversation. We crashed the night just outside of Ohio, still in Pennsylvania, in a hotel that had... CATS running around outside! It was a good omen for the remainder of the trip, which went very well. Upon arrival back in Chicago, Mr. TanAdept stumbled upon WAREZ, and the night was completely fulfilled. I sat back and watched, as I am a game moron, and am mesmerized by anything with buttons and a screen. Anna lap-surfed and got some nice new pictures taken, and everything was comfortable and happy. Then I had to wake up at the crack of dawn to ride the oh-so- thrilling Greyhound Bus back to Dubuque. With five minutes to spare, I dragged myself away from the most fun I've had in a long time, and back into THE UTTER FUN AND JOY THAT IS MY LIFE AND MY HOME AND MY JOB AND... UGH. Scary Thing #3: Post-Fun Depression If everyone thought I complained about my hometown before, well, now I'm utterly unstoppable. I'm fed up and frustrated with all the people I know because they bore me to tears and drive me crazy. I really, REALLY miss having decent conversation with sentient beings. And to think, me, as much of a recluse as I am, dying to socialize. I guess I discovered the real reason why I'm so damn anti-social. I can't say that my personal recovery from IThinkICon has been easy. I am sad and alone and full of super angsty badness. If nothing else, it has definitely stuck a fire under my ass to get registered for classes this fall so I can finish my education and get the hell out of this town. In the meantime, however, I WANT TO DIE. Welcome to Wendy's, can I have a ride back to Philly? [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] "My ITIC Review" by Jamesy A terrible tragedy overshadowed any fun I could have had at ITIC. Everyone else seemed to ignore it, but I could not. AIDS and I had become rather friendly, sort of online buddies, one might say. So it disturbed me greatly when no one else seemed to take notice that he must have taken multiple hits of acid laced with something quite awful. Why else would he have acted so insane as ITIC drew to a close? Why else would he have gotten with caitlin? The effects of these hits must be long-term, too, as he is heading to Michigan within the month. So, to Jarett Kobek, to mourn the intellectual loss of one of our great ezine minds, I dedicate the following Pink Floyd lyrics: REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, YOU SHONE LIKE THE SUN! SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND! NOW THERE'S A LOOK IN YOUR EYES, LIKE BLACK HOLES IN THE SKY! SHINE ON YOUR CRAZY DIAMOND! YOU WERE CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE OF CHILDHOOD AND STARDOM, BLOWN ON THE STEEL BREEZE! COME ON YOU TARGET FOR FARAWAY LAUGHTER, COME ON YOU STRANGER, YOU LEGEND, YOU MARTYR, AND SHINE!!!!!!!!!!!! [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #750 - BY: VARIOUS ARTISTS - 7/24/99 ]