1999 Year In Review

Last year I backed off the traditional top ten list because of all the internal strife which would have dominated it. This year the problems were personal in nature and too important to be ignored. I guess I could’ve looked for happy news, but frankly, there wasn’t that much. Some of our lives went better on a day to day basis, but some of us had severe problems.

Top Ten List

1-3 Tricia’s life — She gets three spots and I don’t want to try putting them in order. She found work (good), got married (very good), lost her job (bad), lost Muffer dog (bad), lost her daughter (indescribably bad) — I’m sure I’ve left out some, but it was an astonishing series of pluses and minuses, meriting an unprecedented top 3 slots

4. Beav leaves home — Beavis found religion and his dad and stepmom didn’t like it. Beav had to choose between his comfortable life and his religion — he left his computer and DSL behind and moved out. Personally, I’d rather face the lions in the arena than give up my ‘puter. We miss you Beav.

5. MrBu gets a job — A highlight of the original Top Ten, unfortunately had to return. Yes, the job sucks. Yes, I hate it. But without it, I wouldn’t be here.

6. Lynn’s back — Operations 1 & 2 didn’t work. Lynn showed faith in Western medicine by letting them cut her again, this time it was fusion, involving moving her organs out of the way and then trying to get them back where they belonged. I have enough trouble doing that with an end table when I vacuum. At this point the operation seems successful, but the recuperation has been slow. Hang in there Lynn.

7. Rohan’s app — It’s called the Champagne Image Assist and it’s the first program to be written by a chatster, betatested by chatsters, and partially named by chatsters. He’s found a backer and is ready to take on the Paint Shop Pro’s of the world.

8. MHz heads North — leaving a Canton station for Ft Wayne, then on to Kalamazoo. He can’t go any farther North in this country, so now he’s looking for a radio station in Florida — where he has plenty of room to go North. That’s show business.

9. Iggie gets married — Iggie is more a “chatster emeritus” these days, but she met Chuck online and several chatsters got to attend, so what the heck, she counts.

10. MHz becomes an entrepreneur — okay, he isn’t gonna get rich from AllAdvantage, but he’s roped many of us into it and you can buy stuff with those $35 checks.

As with Katmando, Nicole’s passing is too big to be part of a list. It was an unfathomable event. The announcement, sent to the mailing list, was as painful as anything I’ve read. She was one of us for too short a time, but she won’t be forgotten.

I guess I could write the same things I wrote last year about attendance. I won’t bother, the channel struggles along, not what it once was, but still home. Occasional new blood comes in, sometimes they stay a grief while, like xyk, other times, like dnr, they’re regulars in every sense of the word. Stop by, old-timers, it’s nice to see you every once in a while.

1999 Chatster Of The Year