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a few forums at delphi recently moved out to their own space. while i left mine there, it doesn't do much, and i'm not sure if i'll use it again anytime soon
instead, the two forums i frequent are at www.thevhive.com/ now
and i'm fine with leaving delphi behind. but i thought it was worth noting that delphi was big part of my life in recent years, the last 6, roughly 20% of my life to this point
a brief history:
1999, summerish, i link over to an ishmael* related forum at delphi from the ishmael community and while that particular forum doesn't end up being that interesting, i get quickly hooked on delphi, specifically chatrooms, the most active of which turns out to be teen spot, where i end up making some good friends. though i'm a little old for them, at that point in my life, mentally i fit in better with some teenagers than a lot of other folks
so, to the dismay of many i hook up with a girl i meet there, an online relationship that lasts five months, ending after a couple days worth of real world time together, nothing illegal, though. in the depression that follows i drift between a 20-somethings forum and an artist forum, and start frequenting the warren ellis forum (since dead).
2000, summerish, get involved with a girl of legal age, again online, again at delphi. this one goes as far as us living together for 4 of our last 5 months together, the whole relationship lasting, depending on how you count it, either just over or just under a year
2001 summer, i'm assistant manager at that 20-somethings forum i mentioned and i start writing the promo material, getting some traffic in, turning it into a place for actual discussion and debate. then, that whole september 11 plane commandeering incident comes and my politics quickly become a problem for the new yorker host of that forum and i'm out to start my own forum, which goes well for a while. meanwhile, i get involved with sarah, who i know from that 20-somethings forums. by the next march, we will have four meetings in person (she to los angeles twice, me to pittsburgh once, and she to san francisco to meet me for a weekend around APE (more on that in a moment)) and get married. still married, so clearly the third time was the charm, as they say it is
i also get into political writing after the world trade center/pentagon debacle and the ensuing "war on terror", and write irregularly a column (then called rodent bits) i post in my forum on various political subjects. early entries can been seen here. as recent years have gone on, that old column turned into this blog and recently into my second one, more about tv and movies than any poltics, but that's jumping ahead.
same time i'm getting involved with sarah i get to working on an old comic idea of mine, wannabeheroes, eventually to outline 48 issues, draw one and a half and script like 18. and i'm still toying with revisiting this one, but the thing is, that comic and a warren ellis forum thing called superfast got me doing other comics, online ones like the vikariad and others, hence getting interested in small press comics and going to APE in 2002. by the time of 2003's APE, i'd be married, with a third kid in addition to sarah's two and i'd be offering up some comics at my own table, but that didn't go so well, and APE wasn't as good that year, a little too big, so i haven't been back since
but, back to delphi. the ellis forum eventually closes and i drift from offshoot to offshoot, eventually finding myself lurking at the v and posting a lot at tv... and not much else, the two forums which recently moved
but i've skipped another step, a comics related and politics related step: liquid thought. what began as an exploration of symbols in my head turned into a comic strip with a political bent, about a boy a little too smart for his own good. volume three (which ran at comic sherpa over at ucomics.com, can be seen on my website at www.angelfire.com/ca4/muaddib/liquid.html. altogether, liquid thought had somewhere around 300 strips between the three incarnations, but none got much of an audience beyond those reading it at my delphi forum and a few readers at comic sherpa. so, of course, i left that behind like so many other projects, and like i've recently left delphi behind
i made some good friends, a few of which still check in from time to time (notably deb and cheryl), and had some good discussions and met three girls (katie, miranda and now sarah) the relationships with which in various ways helped make me who i am today, so all in all, delphi was a big part of my life, but it's a chapter worth ending
cool thing though, i just realized, my website, though it has changed over time, has remained in the same place at angelfire since april 1999**, outlasting my delphi stint
now, it's time to try moving outward again, putting my writing out where people can see it. lion horse tree is at tor books right now; cross your fingers for me if you do that sort of thing. i'd say pray for me, but that wouldn't help much, unless you actually pray directly to the editors at tor, since that god fella doesn't exist and those editors do. and i need to edit clubhouse blues and send it out, and i need to finish the latest of my gardea stories, "southard, the sands o' red" and edit the previous one, "hindsight" and send it out, cause it turned out pretty damn good, if i do say so myself
all that being said, with sarah by my side and my nerdy online friends at the v hive, and my kids and my lego blocks and cable tv and the occasional movie, life's going pretty well. so, thanks to the part delphi played, but time to get over it
* a potentially lifechanging book by daniel quinn if you haven't heard of it
** the original angelfire site of mine had an essay i wrote drawing connections between columbine and kosovo, so that political thing has always been there