That was the first time I met you, Perkins! I was so stunned, I passed right out.

Ha.Ha.

I've been logging on to some sort of board or forum or chat room for a while now, and aside from M-Net, B.org is the only place I've ever stayed at for longer than six months.

I had the LC, and then I had Fledglings, and now I have Buffistas. Of the three, Buffistas has lasted the longest by several years. (The LC was killed off when Prodigy started charging for bulletin board usage -- today, we probably would have just moved to WX! -- and Fledglings had a dramatic and flamey self-implosion.)

Didn't you come to dinner with several of us before that, at El Cholo, when Aimee fainted?

OMG! That's right! See, it all sort of runs together at this point. Truth be told, I'd already thought about, and rejected, two or three other events (including picking Madrigal up from LAX) as my first post me-becomming-a-Buffista Buffista-meeting event.

The first online people I met were all pre-WWW.

I met some people from my local BBS SFNet, which you could access through tabletop Pacman games which had been converted. I didn't even have a computer, so I'd sit there pumping quarters in and getting to know some locals. That's how I first accessed alt.music.alternative which ultimately lead to me contacting Kim Cooper, my editorial cohort.

First Buffistas were at JZ's S5 finale party. I met her for the first time (and like Nora wound up marrying somebody I met originally at a fan get-together), as well as Lysana and her husband, and Dash and some of JZ's friends.

After that, we discovered that she worked around the corner from my apartment so there were several instances of tape trading for missed eps.

tape trading

Is that what were calling it these days?

Ha.Ha.

Well, it's better than the truthiness.

Is that what were calling it these days?

These days we call it illegal downloading.

My very first f2f meeting of people I met online was when my then boyfriend went to pick up an Amiga he was buying from a couple that ran a local bbs. The next thing I did was fly to Alaska to see a guy I met through yahoo personals, and after that I went to DC to meet with someone women from an now defunct web community. The web community imploded when the woman who started it decided to take her toys and go play somewhere else, but since she ran the place she shut it down, kicked us all out and started over. (the site looked a lot like Table Talk so I was very comfortable when I found that, better than the ubb format which always confused me). I was worried about the Buffistas when TT went to pay because of what happened there -- everyone knew the site was going to be shut down and everyone talked about starting a community elsewhere but no one did anything. I met the women after people migrated to a different site.

The first buffista I met was Hec, when I went to SF -- I met Hec, JZ (and Emmett), Deb, and beth. Then the DC F2F and last year I went to DRagonCon and met Shrift and Dana.

Of the three, Buffistas has lasted the longest by several years.

I think I'm about tied with M-Net for now, but there's no question it's B.org for the long haul.