Comments on Comments

Puglet brought up an interesting question. In her comment, she pondered why she stayed with AOL. Which brings up the question, why do I stay with it? I don't need it. I have Road Runner service with my cable modem. But when I started on AOL 9 years ago come December 31st, it was a wondrous thing. I couldn't make heads or tails of the internet thing, let alone gopher and archie and all the other "characters." AOL made it so damn easy to get online, albeit in AOL's own little realm. But they did have a gopher interface and message boards and email and I got hooked. And then the World Wide Web kicked into gear and the internet got easy, but I was already addicted to AOL.

Back then, the writers boards on AOL were hopping, happening places. I learned a lot. I had fun. In recent years, activity on those boards has tailed off, but I remain, verbally jousting with the other folks who've stuck around. In the meantime, AOL offered other enticements.

I first got comfortable blogging on AOL, back in March. Before that, I had a LiveJournal blog and had no clue what to do with it or how it worked. By learning on AOL journals (a service they started a year ago), I was able to move on to figure out LiveJournal and be ready for Blogger. I still have AOL journals because they offer free ftp space with each screen name and that's interchangeable across the names. I have 7 screen names, so 2 mb each does add up. It's great for my photoblogs there. And my email addresses are well established now. And I like AOL's interface for the usenet message boards I read. So I remain on AOL, while moving my main blogging elsewhere. And while I might someday get pissed enough to leave it, that day is nowhere near the horizon.

Re: Blogger and Comments. I know a lot of folks have switched to using a comment service like HaloScan. They're easy to use, except when my popup controller blocks them. And maybe folks don't comment much here because they think they need to sign up for a Blogger account. So, I want to remind folks that that isn't true. Not on this blog or my other BlogSpot blogs. I have them set to accept Anonymous comments. All I ask is that you leave a name. First name or nickname will do. And unless I run into the comment spam other folks have had problems with, I will continue to allow anonymous commenting here.