/Whois - Chapter Three - What a fine @ you've got
My notebook was about two thirds full of information regarding my obsession. In it, I kept the names of all the regulars of the room...their birthdates and status. There was an entire section devoted to acronyms as well as emoticons. Beyond those, one could find basic commands and ideas for future chat toys that I was beginning to get pretty good at designing.
Yes, I took my chat pretty seriously. Especially now that I was an OP. That wouldn't mean much to about 90% of today's population, but back then when you said this word...it was accompanied by the sounds of an angelic choir. Everyone wanted to be one, but only very few were ever hand-picked to wear the @ in front of their name. But what did it mean, exactly? What had you done that was so extraordinary it compelled people you had never met face to face, to give you the power over their room?
It was a popularity contest...no more, no less. Having that @ in front of your name didn't guarantee that you were knowledgeable about every nuance of chat or that you would necessarily make the best decision come crunch time. It simply meant that the current owner of the room liked you and wanted to give you a reason to hang around and make their place your home.
Everyone desired that @ in front of their name. It gave you power. That little symbol gave you the right to pick and choose amongst the chatters, deciding at a whim who would stay and who would go. Now imagine that power in the hands of a bunch of women...
Our room was a gynocentric society. The founders, Kimbrr and Kali were both women and roughly three quarters of the operators in the room were as well. The few men that had risen to the top, were the pick of the IRC litter. To outsiders, we were rather mean...rather cruel...and the more vicious we became, the more badly we behaved...the greater the crowd that beat on our doors.
One of our favorite games to play was "The Lamer Game." I suppose I should explain exactly what constituted a lamer so that you can differentiate between him or her and the average chatter. The easiest way to explain is to give you a basic list of commandments...
Thou shalt not behave like a lust riddled vermin - if we're in the mood for lust, we'll let you know. Not the other way around.
Thou shalt not be boring - It may take us a while to realize you are truly boring and not just shy...but we're smart, we'll figure it out.
Thou shalt not flirt with our men - Self explanatory.
Thou shalt not engage us in private chat without consent - See commandment #1
Thou shalt not hog the screen with ASCII gibberish - We are not impressed.
Thou shalt not retaliate unless provoked - And if provoked, understand that we'll still kick your ass anyway if we feel like it
Thou shalt not make derogatory remarks about the women in this channel - Unless of course they are amusing to us...
This is just a very vague representation of what might or might not offend us at any given time. If you were clever, you'd figure it out...most lamers weren't so clever.
Ever see a cat play with a mouse...or any other form of prey for that matter? At first the target of our interest is batted around a bit, just to gauge the entertainment value. Nothing amuses us less than finding a lamer that won't fight back. Their entertainment value is zero and without wasting one our good pop up timers, they receive the boot.
I was pretty handy with the pop up timers...or kicks, as they were called. Using a combination of commands, text and embedded timers, I was pretty much the channel's kick designer. I had two favorites that I relied upon heavily. I called them "This Little Lamer" and "The Bomb." Once created and filed properly, all you had to do was click on a victim's name, click on the file and then sit back and enjoy...
*Snobird grabs the big toe of the lamer...and begins...
Snobird: This little lamer came to #ourroom
Tick, tick, tick...
Snobird: This little lamer had no balls...
Tick, tick, tick
Snobird: This little lamer is a loser...
Tick, tick, tick
Snobird: We all knew his dick was sorta small (reeeeeeal small).
Tick, tick, tick
Snobird: And this little lamer...
/kick lamer /ban #ourroom
Snobird: Oops...
Of course, nothing promised a better time than a lamer that fought back thinking they could win. For the women of this channel, it was like having our own personal scratching post delivered directly to us. What fun! Normally, it was mental exercise for the entire room...but occasionally a lamer would get personal and fixate on just one of us. And then it was war...
I had my fair share of enemies that I'd sent crawling away from the channel with their tails tucked between their legs. But none was more despised than one particular tramp that poached upon our territory...TexasBarbie. It wasn't enough that I could send her packing from the room and ban her trailer trash ass forever. No...I wanted an even better revenge...and I was willing to wait for it.
And finally, one day...the opportunity arose.
In Austnet, my server of choice, there existed a particular command known as the /kill command. Because there were so many people on the server, it would be a bit confusing to have more than one person known by the same nickname. Therefore, if you planned to hang around for a while and you didn't want anyone impersonating you, the smart thing to do was to register your nickname and protect it with the /kill command option. Normally, the server handled this matter itself by issuing a warning to the chatter that the nickname was already taken. It gave them 60 seconds to change it. The beauty of the /kill command was...you didn't have to wait 60 seconds to boot them from the server if you saw them using your nickname...or a nickname you liked and had registered...or the nickname of one of your friends who just happened to not be on at the moment, in which case you were merely doing them a favor by protecting their nickname...of course....
As I'd hoped, TexasBarbie was too stupid to know about registering her nickname...which of course only confirmed my suspicion that she was merely on chat to peddle her cheap little butt. So early one morning I logged on, switched to her nickname and registered it for myself...along with the /kill option.
*Snobird grins mischievously at Kali and Kimbrr*
Snobird: Ready for some fun...?
I lifted the ban on TexasBarbie allowing her into our presence should she desire...
Kali: She won't come...
Kimbrr: Oh she will...
And as sure as the sun rises and sets...she did.
TexasBarbie: Well whadya know...guess you didn't set that ban for as long as you thought, huh? Not very bright are you snobird?
/kill TexasBarbie
*Kali snorts and falls over laughing*
Kimbrr: Wait...wait...she's logging back in.
TexasBarbie: I must be having some computer problems. Did anyone else get disconnected?
Snobird: Nup...
/kill TexasBarbie
Kali: OMG Sno...I'm gonna pee my pants...
Kimbrr: Incredible...she's coming back...
This went on for about a good fifteen minutes or so before TexasBarbie began to get an inkling of what was really happening to her. To say she was pissed to discover that I owned her nickname is an understatement. She could have taught the guests on a Jerry Springer show some interesting and very graphic terminology.
No such disharmony existed among the usual residents of our channel. You would think with so many dominant women that there'd be disagreements, perhaps a bit of jealousy and possessive behavior when it came to the men of our room. Ironically, nothing of the kind ever became an issue. If a romance bloomed, and it occasionally did, then it was respected. Otherwise, we passed our men around like a favorite toy...and they didn't mind. To be honest...I think they rather enjoyed it.
Despite being married in real life, I occasionally succumbed to my flirtatious ways. Okay, perhaps a bit more than occasionally. It was never meant to be taken seriously and usually never was...otherwise I might have been a bit more careful. By this time, I'd completely forgotten my Obiwan's words of caution. If I hadn't, perhaps things would never have turned out the way they did.
