Hi! Welcome! Go Away!

or, if you're visiting from talk.bizarre, allow me to offer a variant of the traditional greeting:

Welcome to Vatican Pacifica. Now fuck off.

You were warned to leave. Proceed past this point, and you waive all right to complain of any further: or, worst of all:

What? Still here? Don't blame me. You were warned.

If you don't know what talk.bizarre is, probably most of the name-dropping and t.b references will go right past you. Skip to my creative writing section, or to my rant about the World-Wide Web; if you don't like those, forget about it.

Note that I specifically said that you risk being bored. If you don't care, or you're curious about why I have such a peculiarly hostile home page at the moment, feel free to read on:

My address is right below if you feel a great need to send me email. (I'm not a great correspondent, so don't take it personally if I don't write back immediately, or at all.)
All text contents of this page are copyright 1994-1995 Pope Anonymous, who is better known by other names but currently would prefer to be... anonymous.

popeanon@lava.net

The story so far

 True confessions time: I used to have a kind of vague, semi-boring, typical WWW document here. The kind that's been described as a "hypertext finger file" (by Crisper than Thou among others.) I gave a little personal info about myself, in a chatty style, etc. etc.

Then, I was browsing the home pages of a couple people I like (Ranjit and CJ, to name names.) I read a couple of rants they had written about how terrible it is that the Web is being wasted on stuff like that. I thought about revising it some at that point. The last straw was Miles O'Neal's dismissive classification in the alleged talk.bizarre web page. That inspired me to three things:

  1. A low-grade simmering rage, lasting for several months;
  2. An anti-rant; and
  3. The elimination of my former home page.
Mind you, it's taken me six months to get around to these changes. I suppose I can't claim to be mortally wounded. But I am pissed off.

I still like these people. (Well, I'm not so sure about Miles, who has an attitude out-of-proportion to the quality of any of the stuff he's written.) But... go to the anti-rant if you want the rest of the story.

Back to my home page/intro

No personal information

Maybe you weren't paying attention. I said there's no personal information. I eliminated it. OK?

(Yes, I did entrap you into following the link. It's true. Go on back now.)

Back to "why I changed my home page" (the story so far)

Back to my home page/intro

The terrible waste of the Web - equal time for the other viewpoint

 I'll give Ranjit and CJ equal time, in case you want to compare their ideas. They've got some valid points. Go take a look first, if you like, and see if you want to come back.
Back to my home page/intro

Are you sick of the Throbbing N?

 Sure, aren't we all?

Alternatives are available for both Windows and Mac users. Windows users just need to patch the resource section of the executable file. Replace bitmaps 379-392 with 14 16-color 30x30-pixel bitmaps, and bitmaps 399-412 with 14 16-color 60x60-pixel bitmaps, and you have a new throbbing symbol while you wait to load your bitmaps. The 14 images will make a little movie that cycles forever.

Not feeling creative today? Try:

The X Industries Throbber
(Sorry, Windows Netscape users only.)

See the radioactive comet hit the Moebius Earth! Feel showers of virtual particles pass through your body! Be programmed by the X Industries subliminal advertisement!
Slow image loads have never been this much fun!

To use this, you need a Windows resource editor. Download the file first (make sure you've set your Web browser to save it to a file.) Then unzip it, then use the resource editor to glom this onto Netscape in place of its existing resources. Enjoy.

Mac users, try CJ's Throbbers collection at spies.com.

Back to my home page/intro