Bruce Baugh introduced me to the
Internet. We were both living in Portland in the late 80s and very early 90s. I
remember Bruce showing me that his computer was dialing up a system that let it
link to other computers all around the world. I’d sort of vaguely known that
something like this was possible but had left it to others. Bruce was one of
those others. For reasons that might have had something to do with what was
working at the moment, Bruce demonstrated his computer’s worldwide connectivity
by finding out what the weather was like in South Africa. At that second. Well, actually it took a minute or two
and Bruce commented on the computers his query was routing through. I was
impressed. I didn't know what to make of it, not really, but I was impressed.
And within a few months I had an AoL account and was participating in the
gaming forums, which in combination with contacts made through pre-internet Alarums & Excursions surely led me
to work professionally in gaming.
I didn't have a television back
then (or since . . .). So Bruce was also the man to introduce my girlfriend Lisa
and me to Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The first episode Lisa watched with us was the epically brain-damaging episode bludgeoning through the movie Manos: the Hands of
Fate. If you aren't familiar with this film I’m not going to be the one
guilty of linking to it.
When people joke about the early
days of the Internet—it’s a series of
tubes—I flick past the subject’s personal association with a murderous
dwarf, a high priest’s orange robes that flare out into giant hands, and
slap-wrestling semi-nude female cultists.
About half-right, in other words.
Bruce. Thanks for everything.
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