bertine

There is one huge division on my friends list. People I met because I knew because of Robotskull, and everyone else. I already talked about the "everyone else" category. I know there are a few people in this Robotskull list that were not on Robotskull or wasn't really a part of it but trust me, there is a method to my division.

Now, envision a Internet before Livejournal, before Email Roulette, even before blogging was huge. There was metababy. I was obsessed and spent way too much time there. Then I got a "real job" at E. and I didn't have time to spend on the Internet. It was almost a year before I went back and noticed that metababy was no longer there. However, at that time there was a link to a site that had something like metababy, called metapad, on it. This site was Robotskull. Personally I thought metapad was lame and never really got into it but Robotskull was written by this guy named

samn who was a brilliantly funny writer. I started reading it on a regular basis and one day started emailing samn. Two bored office workers spending too much time emailing each other. I looked at the emails I had saved from that time and we sent literally thousands of emails back and forth. Yeah, I save all my emails.

Samn thought me all about text hearts (<3), AIM, and the E/N world. I taught him SQL. Another year passed and he IMs me telling me he had made robotskull a community site and that he had set me up an account. At first I didn't know anyone on it, they all seemed to be from this site IAHB. Then I slowly get to know people on there. First was

bakacore who heard all about my obsession that summer with Tortinos Party Pizza's and picked out the colors for bertine.org. I also spent a lot of time talking to

ispq who was the person that gave me an invite (or whatever it was called) to livejournal. Later I became good friends with

sjpfeifer and we bonded over the dramas of Robotskull. Through Sheldon I met

lowa and met them both when I went to Florida on vacation. Laura was good at saying what I wished I had the balls to say myself.

Another person I met in Florida was

jayp39. I gave him a facuet in the middle of an Irish pub and we all stood in a parking lot until 4 AM talking while it rained. It was a great night and I met a bunch more people from Robotskull that don't have livejournals. Jay is also a programmer. Between him and

lexir0x I don't feel so weird talking about work issues here. I feel like at least a couple people will understand. Lexi is someone that I want to meet sometime because she just seems so damn cool. I am also totally impressed by her company's product.

One day everyone was calling each other on Robotskull and I got to talk to

_fauxreal/

lungbutter. Allie is from the south and has this wonderful southern drawl. I haven't talked to her much since she went to college, she seems too busy to be online much. I have also talked to

alexlube on the phone but he was really drunk and he asked me some weird question that I thought was funny then but promptly forgot the next morning. He used to write this web comic called Killing Time which reminded me of those college years. I miss reading them.

demanufactor lives in wisconsin and one of these days I am going to go meet him. I guess he is super tall and he always seems to have the coolest shirts ever.

glowenfone is in Iowa and works at Papa Johns. I gave him some server space to host his site. I was trying to talk him into coming up here for a visit since I am willing to go to Wisconsin to visit but will only drive through Iowa as fast as I can.

verbalkint900 is the coolest guy because he writes posts like this.

Another couple of guys on my friends list are

jepocity and

ctakahara. Jep reminded me of my brother Eric a lot and what is funny is about a year ago he decided to join the airforce. He is now station in Germany right by Eric. It was interesting to read his livejournal through out his boot camp and AIT. He still reminds me of my brother, maybe it is the hair. Phil talks about music a lot. I read what he says and then look on my mp3 server to see if we have the music so I can listen to it. He is unknowingly the best source of music recommendations I have.

saraphunk rocks. Sara was on Robotskull for awhile but I mostly I started reading her livejournal long before she was on it, and even longer before I had a livejournal of my own. I would read her because she is a friend of Chris. Chris told me that he had a livejournal mostly to amuse her and I started reading it and she plays hockey! I mean, how awesome could a girl get? I continue to <3 her because she was one of the few people that totally ignored the drama of that summer. I keep hoping that she will decide to move to Minneapolis.

visual_insight lives in Baton Rouge. I should have gone and met her when I was down there but I am a shy weirdo at times. She owns a boa constrictor.

ispfemme is someone that has been on my friends list forever but I didn't really start talking to until last week. Weird how that works out, isn't it?

abrknangelwing doesn't really update and I don't know much about her.

chaoticavenger has one of the most annoying user icons on my list but I always know it is her updating. She just turned 18, it makes me feel old. She is, however, the reason I learned that Samn had a livejournal.

muskox was someone I knew on Robotskull but I didn't talk to much there. He started IMing me one day and we added each other to our friends lists. I have learn more about music than I ever thought I would just by reading his entries.

stegosaur is Mike's girlfriend and she left me a voicemail that made me laugh.

What is also great about adding someone to your friends list is that you start reading their comments and you get to know the people that they have as friends. One of the first people I noticed on Mike's comments was

joeymichaels. Joey Michaels was some one I used to read when he wrote for unlovely.net and I was very excited when I realized I could just read him all the time now. His writing is awesome. He also has a livejournal for his cat, Kitty Michaels (

tiffanyd). While you would think cat journals might be annoying this is pulled off very well since Kitty Michaels has so much personality. Finally I really liked the comments

sharya left on Joey's livejournal and I made her a friend. She gives good advice, which usually is more agressive than I would normally think of on my own. I need that. Her cat is

buzzy_mcbuzzer.

That ends the tour of my friends list. I am not sure if anyone other than Jenni found this useful, but I really liked thinking about how all these people fit together. I really enjoy the way people interact to each other on line and just writing out where everyone fits in this world was fun though much longer than I expected.