poll: BBSes?

Today's photo is from the St. Lawrence Market. I decided to brave the blustery snow yesterday morning because of a craving for fresh-baked sesame bagels from St. Urbain Bakery (thanks to my friend John Chew for getting me hooked on these). Before I got to the bakery, I visited the bakery on the first floor (in the photo) and bought some mouthwateringly good sunflower spelt bread.

Stage 2 of of our move about to begin. Hudson Movers will be descending on our old place later this week to take away the rest of our apartment contents to put into storage. Jeff has been doing a ton of packing for the past while, usually after work.

I've been doing some packing, but I'm not much help because of my tendinitis. Even folding and packing clothes is tough on my tendons; as a result, I can only do a little at a time. I hate this, of course, but can't do much about it except try to be patient.

Jeff, by the way, has been incredibly patient through the whole process, and understandably is pretty exhausted by the end of the day. Many thanks to our friends Scott and Walter for helping out the other day, and to my friend Luisa for helping me with purging/packing the pantry and fridge tomorrow after she finishes work! Doing the pantry should be interesting and probably a bit scary since I haven't done a proper purge in a long time.

A short while back, my friend Harald reminded me of the "chkmef", a BBS-type message board that he had set up for friends, and that reminded me of all the hours I spent on BBSes back in the day when there were BBSes.

POLL QUESTION: Did you ever use a BBS? Which ones? My family hosted the "Bricmef" on our TRS-80 Model III. The software was written remotely by friends (a fascinating process to watch on our end), and the message board was actually where Jeff and I first "met." :-) It would be several years before we met in person, and years more after that before we became romantically involved. Go figure.

I also remember the "Micmef", hosted by my friend John Chew, also a message board for our particular group of friends at the University of Toronto. Years back, Reid and Luisa gave me some old printouts of some old Bricmef posts.

And of course I remember GEnie...does that count as a BBS?

And another poll question: How many of you HOSTED BBSes?

Apologies for the somewhat distracted and highly unedited nature of this post. Jeff and I are leaving in a few minutes for more packing/moving in a few minutes...

January 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

300 baud Hayes Smartmodem

View from our window this morning. That's the CN tower in the center.

Yay, we have DSL!

Yes, I'm a spoiled technonerdgirl; I still remember how excited I was when I picked up my very first 300 baud Hayes Smartmodem at Arkon in 1981 (I think it was '81) with my friend John Chew. We immediately went to our respective homes, of course, and tested our modems by dialing each other up and typing contentless messages. :-)

A survey: How many of you others out there had a 300-baud modem?

Jeff sitting in front of his own teenage portrait at his mom's place

My next adventure was venturing up to the fitness room on the 33rd floor the other day. Geez. Gorgeous view of the city and the lake, lots of well-maintained equipment, and a HOT TUB. Best of all, no blaring televisions...each cardio station is hooked up so you can change channels without getting off the equipment, and you listen via headphones, so you don't disturb your neighbours.

Still, I opted for my iPod instead, listened to the wonderful Tolkien song CD that Allison put together for me (thanks, Allison!). Had a good run, too. Don't know about the rest of you, but I start feeling restless and crabby when I don't get enough exercise. With this workout room only a 2 minute walk away, I now have no excuse to slack off. :-)

Househunting continues. The houses are starting to blur together for me, except for one whose owners obviously liked Lord of the Rings a LOT...I've never seen so much Lord of the Rings merchandise in one place. This immediately made me feel much more warmly about the place, of course; good thing Jeff was there to remind me that the owners would be taking all the LOTR stuff with them when they moved out.

January 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments