...;PHido PHreaks textfile branch in association with Octothorpe Productions present: ...;The Saga/Adventure/Tale/ of Wendell Timmerman. [Author's note: The following is a TRUE story. Every bit of it, except the parts where Wendell is alone, is taken directly from life, and those parts of solitary Wendellism have been written by me with Wendell's assistance by telling, or trying to tell, me his thoughts and feelings at the time.] You've read a lot of loser files, no doubt. They started out with the 40 column, upper case saga of "LOSERSHIP", and moved on to Geeks, Ruggies, Leeches, and other supposed non-entities of the modem world. They acquired names that will forever live in textfile history: Matt Ackeratt, Oscar Mears, Disk Rigger, Smith&Jones. And you've no doubt also noticed one thing they all have in common: it's assumed that those people ARE losers, ALWAYS HAVE BEEN losers, and ALWAYS WILL BE losers. We laugh our asses off reading about all the stupid things they do, but we never find out what happens to these people later on in life. This file proposes to remedy that, by telling about a real life loser and his struggle to become normal. In fact, he is now considered very mature and respectable (as respectable as you can get, anyway) in the BBS community. And so the adventure begins... {;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;}{;} :Time: Some summer type month in 1984. About this time was when Wendell got his computer (][+) and modem, although I didn't meet him until winter of '84. However, I, and many others, were plagued by him on what few area boards there were. Among these was Magic Mail, run on (k-k00l) Networx, off a computer owned and operated by the university. Wendell didn't join in discussions that often, and when he did, it was always under his mother's name, which certainly got a floodload of laughs at him. Actually, a slight explanation is needed here -- supposedly only faculty and students of the university could have accounts on it. Wendell got on using his mother's name and ID (she was faculty). The rest of us got on with our real names and didn't really give much of a royal shit, since the sysop was about our age, and later on to become one of us anyway ("us" being the then- core of what was to become Phido Phreaks). This was his first appearance. About winter of '84, I was at a college meeting with a friend who went there and met Wendell, who was there with his mom. He wasn't classically ugly, and he didn't wear coke bottle glasses or anything like that. Average, kind of skinny kid, about 5 foot ten or somewhere around there. Actually, he was kind of good looking, but he just...well, radiated this sort of aura of loserdom. I met him, briefly exchanged conver- sational banalities, and quickly left his presence. (He didn't wash his hair all that often.) Anyway, Magic Mail died out and there were no good boards (elite, or even interesting) around. Wendell stayed out of sight until about... :Time: Early summer of '85 It was about this time that an IBM owning friend of mine put up Fantasy Land, running Fido. This was the first I had ever heard of Fido, and I got very interested in it (this led to my eventually getting into "k-k0dez", and calling out of state legal boards, but that's a different story). Anyway, Paul decided to 80% dedicate the board to fantasy RPG's and set up some slots for campaigns. I immediately filled one with an AD&D campaign loosely based on ElfQuest, and characters began filling it in. Wendell by now had heard of FL and called it. He found out about handles and decided upon "Fafhrd". I was using "Grey Mouser" at this time and got rather annoyed. I sent him mail (which he ignored) asking him to change his handle or get off the board. He found out about my campaign and asked to join. I refused, and he began a rag session on me on the board. After everyone had insulted him and his ancestry at least twice, he reluctantly apologised, and I grudgingly let him in the campaign (after he had changed his handle, to Ego Tripper). I was very surprised at the suceess of the campaign...he played very well, came out a level higher, and seemed like a totally different person when involved in the game. I conducted a few more campaigns and began keeping him in as a regular. FL eventually went down, and there was a total lack of good boards until... :Time: One month later I got my own copy of Fido and set up Thieve's World. (This got changed to The Land for a time and then back to TW.) Wendell got on and stayed reasonably peaceful, until I decided to organize a users' meeting (read: Party.) It was my plan to start with close friends who I knew would party, and continue from there. Wendell jumped on the bandwagon and posted all over town about it. I asked him to stop, rather politely under the circumstances I thought, and he asked me why I wanted to keep it private. He then publicly accused me of being egotistical and elitist, and kept on posting. I deleted his account so that he wouldn't know of any plans that were being made, but somehow he slipped by and found out anyway. The party was set, and so was Wendell. The party was held originally outdoors, but a stretch of cold weather forced us to switch it to indoors. We held it at Common Gadfly's house, which is rather big and roomy, with the added advantage of Gadfly having the entire attic (4th floor) to himself. Nobody was expecting Wendell and we had just gotten halfway into the keg, when Guess Who Yes You Know Who showed up. I was VERY pissed but didn't want to ruin the atmosphere so decided to merely keep an eye on him. It turned out to be a good idea. After getting his first beer down without gagging once (I was surprised) he started liking the taste and guzzling it. People began complaining and making a fuss, saying there was only one more keg left and no weed. Wendell in his buzzed state pulled out a wad of cash and offered it for public consumption. I went on a weed run while a few others went for more beer. When we got back, Wendell was introduced to cannabis and its rather ultrifying effects on the humor center of the brain. People were slamming and he tried to, and got a bloody nose for his effort, which got a lot of laughs. He got upset and went into another room. I went after him and bitched at him for fucking up the good time everyone else was having, reminding him of the fact that he hadn't even been invited -- he had even been specifically excluded. Amazingly, he didn't get whiny like I figured (hey, I was used to the stereotype from all the l00z-r files I'd read) and we had a long conversation which ended in my restoring his account (de facto, not right that minute) and his coming back out. The party went excellently from there and we all dispersed about 4am, with the only adverse effect being my having to drive him home and shove him through his bedroom window. I figured everything was cool by now, but I was still in for a surprise, around... :Time: March of '86 Thieve's World had gone down a few times but was up and running about this time. A few other good boards had come up since then, and 616 was just starting to get interesting, when a character who called himself "Cossa-matic" showed up on just about every board in town, ragging on everone and anyone for no reason whatsoever. He instantly became the most hated user in town, and due to a number of stunts he pulled involving deleting many messages and e-mails on some C-Nets, became the target of many death threats "if we ever find out who he is and where he lives". (Right now I bet you're thinking it was Wendell. Wrong.) Anyway, I had cosysop status on a board called Webster's Third and happened to see an e-mail exchange between Cossa-matic and...Wendell! The gist of it was Cossa thanking him for a few personal phone numbers he had given him and telling him of his plans for MY board, along with a few others. I deleted it and called Wendell instantly. He denied ever giving Cossa the numbers and asked me "What the hell business is it of your anyway?" I was almost too pissed to speak at this moment, but managed to say that I had better not see him or his butt buddy Cossa on any other boards. I didn't speak to him for about three weeks, at which time Cossa's identity was discovered to be some anonymous asshole who isn't really that important to the story. He promptly had foreign phone books sent to his house, had his number changed, calls billed to Russia, and all that other stuff. I kept quiet about the supposed partnership between him and Wendell, but was still very upset that he hadn't considered our friendship that important. He called me two nights later and we had another long conversation. He apologised, and admitted to everything, saying that he had felt everyone else was ignoring him. He had been feeling very suicidal lately for other reasons (family related) and the treatment he had been getting on boards wasn't helping any either (also taking into account that I was just about the only person around who would "condescend" to talk with him. I suggested the following, which took place... :Time: One month later A new character appeared on boards, staying anonymous for nearly three months. This was Wendell, who for the first time was allowing his real self to show through: Intelligent, mature, humorous, and good natured. His know it all, Mr K00l attitude was gone, and when everyone found out who it was, they accepted him. And I guess that brings me to the moral of the story: BBS'S TODAY ARE MUCH TOO ELITIST. Even the public boards cut down someone just because they don't type fast enough, they spell words wrong, or because they own a certain type of machine. The Mentor said in his Hacker's Manifesto that hackers exist in (this is a quote as far as I can remember) "a world without prejudice for skin color or creed". That's bullshit. As long as there is any sort of inequality, there will be different "grades" of people on BBS'S, who don't get along with each other. The prep... The punk... The jock... They all can get rid of their differences in a world where you communicate with ideas and not insults of description. With ASCII instead of mindlessly obscene gestures. And I guess that's the end of the file.