July 8, 2005
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Watched disc 1 of BBS.
It's a huge documentary put together by a guy I know as Sketch.
The story here is that I was at Scarecrow video, hoping to rent the new DVD of Point Blank, but they didn't have any copies left. Who knew it would be so popular? It turns out there's a new DVD of Bullit, so I opted for that instead. On my way to the counter, I saw Sketch's movie there for rental, and when you see a movie by a guy you sort of know, about a hobby that consumed many years of your life, you go ahead and rent it, along with Steve McQueen.
The movie itself is a lot like BBSes were: Kind of tedious, kind of quirky, requires commitment, unevenly edited, but with moments which transform the whole endeavor into something worthwhile.He's just taping people talking about BBSes, without steering the conversation at all. It's all in the editing. So imagine, if you will, a 6-hour documentary where people talk about their hobby.
Dude also runs Textfiles.com, which is the definitive archive of all the old text files and quite a few messages from BBSes. Read for yourself.
Xanga has a lot in common with the old BBSes of yore. That's one of the reasons I've stuck with it, I think. In fact, stjnky used to run a BBS, and he's the one who sent me to Xanga. The circle is complete.
Oh, and if you click through the 'Currently Watching' link, you might be priviledged enough to see the $200 super special K-RAD EELEET autographed version being sold by wickedwizards (just launched). I cackle with glee.
Comments (3)
I met my wife on one of those old BBSes of yore! (The Point, in NOLA... see lame current incarnation here.)
Thanks for the stjnky ljnk... I need more subs
interesting...
They were truly pioneers - I always wondered who the real people were behind the Boards. Wasn't too awfully damned long ago either - just sitting around drinking a beer the other night, marveling at how far we've come from my first computer (486, 33 mhz), first modem (9600), having to read a book to figure out all the settings just to get connected right. Remember file transfer protocols and DOS screens and the magical feeling of being able to reach out into a "web" and access so damned much information.
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