i INVENTED terrible and embarrassing internet postings

Many months ago, I took exception to Alan’s assertion that I had somehow appropriated Perez Hilton’s photoshop stylings. I’ve never read his blog, but I am aware that he crudely modifies files in MSPaint (or whatever) and posts the pictures. Now, I have no idea how long his blog has been around, but I know I’ve been doing bad photoshopping since the mid-90’s. For instance, allow me to present stikdead:



That ANIMATED gif (OMG you can animate gifs! Holy crap - let's have a dork off!) was drawn by yours truly in, I don't know, 1995/96. Yes, this was right after Al Gore INVENTED THE INTERNET. It was like, he invents it. RING-A-DINGY-DINGY.

me: Hello?
ag: Dude.
me: Yah.
ag: Fuck.
me: What? Tipper probs?
ag: No. I've invented something.
me: Global warming cash cow?
ag: No, but good idea.
me: Inward singing?
ag: No. Unpossible.
me: I don't know man. What?
ag: Double-U, Double-U, Double-U.
me: Uhhhh, losing me.
ag: The internet man. I just invented the fucking internet.
me: Sounds . . . cool. How do I interface with that exactly? Teletype? Messenger pony?
ag: Computer machines.
me: Ok. What can I do on it?
ag: Not much, at first. Go into incredibly slow chat rooms and make friends before they get WAY too creepy, read news and post your own stuff.
me: Wait. I can post my own things onto AlGoreNet?
ag: Dude, that's pretentious. I'm just calling it WWW or "internet."
me: My bad. So what could I put on there?
ag: Well, you can write stuff, you know, plaintext. Funny stories and whatnot. Scores for your intramural flag football team, and even post pictures. Pictures which in hindsight will clearly demonstrate why you never had a chance to get any squirrel in college.
me: Huh? Wait. Back up. What was that last part? Why I won't get any what in college? I'm only a sophomore Al. And there are so many ladies here.
ag: Right. I was talking about your friends.
me: Cool. So with the pictures?
ag: Yah.
me: What about one stick figure blowing off another stick figure's head - japanimation style?
ag: Let me code that [typey-type-type] Ok, you can try it now.

And then I drew stikdead. Best day of my life. True story. (At least the part about getting girls. Which I never understood. I mean, I had great features. LOOK HOW STRONG I AM!)


AND bladder control!


And tall hair!


And bad glasses!


And TARTUFFE!


You could have learned all this and more on the Dognutz Home Page.


Ok, first, let me explain Dognutz. Well, there’s not much to explain. A kid I caddied with took to deriding his fellow caddies with the delightfully mocking “dognutz.” Naturally, I started calling my friends the same. It was only a small leap from there to “what should we call our webpages?”. The obvious answer being NOT google, but instead Dognutz.

Having established a name, we installed a web server on Erk’s Compaq in the dorms and ran a web server off of it. Good work dognutz. Now, we need content. So, what do you put on there in 1995? Hmmm, maybe some Dognewz?


The Monotony of Monotony


Well, things with Dognutz are pretty much going according to schedule. Watch a lot of TV...and watch a lot of TV. As soon as Brian gets his booty over to the computer labs we'll get our heads rotating on the title page. It'll be cool - we swear! [Would have been cool, but never happened. -ed.] We (Brian, Jason, and I) just had this really drawn out argument about the merits of animal testing. Jason, revealing a self-esteem problem, considers himself only as important as a mouse. [Kind of an odd dude.] Anyway, I don't think that anyone (with the exception of Ryan - who went home) has been out of the apartment for more than 20 minutes this weekend, so the place is beginning to smell. [Already smelled - terrible.] Hey, it keeps all the chicks away. [Accurate.]

Update Newz...

• In a strange twist, Lee and Stephanie are splitsville. Details are sketchy. [Sluts.]



• Could Hooper and Christy's fairy-tale relationship be coming to an end? We'll find out. [It did and when I came home from class he was breaking up with her in our living room. AWKWARD.]



• Roger made his debut as a stand-up comedian. For ever-important details go here. [That link doesn't work, but it was totally hilarious, I'm sure.] Also, Roger is obsessing over Salley [Hunchback.] and wondering if he will EVER go on a date with her. [No.] How 'bout it Salley? [Even though we were like 1 of 10 sites on the internet there was no worry that she'd actually read that - or this for that matter. Some things you can always rely on.]



• Brian got turned down by a really hot woman, but is determined to press on. [He decided the first girl he was going to talk in his life would be the hottest chick on campus. Usually goes well in bullshit teen movies and nowhere else, this not being the exception.]

Gotta go watch some TV.[Two TVs, no sound, closed captioning on and music playing.]

---

Don't forget this is before like Huffington Post and all that. So this was some hard-hitting shit. Now, naturally, the entire website was not devoted to my lack of skill with the ladies (though that did consume a significant portion of it.) There was also - The Tommy Boy Homepage!

Movie homepages were a big thing back then. You'd take your favorite movie and you'd post a bunch of soundbites and pictures and whatnot and run with it. I had the Tommy Boy homepage and it actually got "a lot" of visits. Of course, that's relative to this blog, so we're talking like 12 dudes a day. But hey, that's nothing to spit at.

But, all of this is kind of tangential to Alan's comment. The real star of the Dognutz Homepage was the Head Pages. The Head Pages were, quite simply, our heads "photoshopped" on top of other stuff. I have to quote photoshop because they were actually "paint shop pro'ed" on top of other stuff.

Please take a look at this:


And this:


And this:


I suspect this is self-evidently awesome:


And help me out here:


And please, please, please tell me why we didn't have ladies ALL OVER US? It's a total mystery. It must have been all the Axis and Allies my dorky friends played that scared 'em all off.

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. As you can see, I am a long-time fan and proponent of shoddy computer art. I've been working not hard at it for 15 long years.