««- · CWU MEMOiRS 0x9C · -»»
========================================================================== 0x9C - Kiuruvesi - wArlord - 1999-08 - 258 lines ==========================================================================
The third and final year of high school is about to begin. And Frontline BBS, is still in operation, for the fuck's sake. Even though I got no thanks or praise for its upkeep, and nobody seemed to even care if it went offline for a few of weeks every now and then.
It was so different before. A couple of years ago, Frontline was on the dial-up list for dozens of users every night, and the line barely had a few minutes of downtime before the next user came in. During the glory days of CWUnet, we even had to put a 15-minute time limit on basic users during peak hours, just so everyone who wanted in could get a turn. And if Frontline went down for some reason, someone would definitely be calling Hirvonens' home number the same evening, asking what was wrong.
It's crazy how that golden age was so recently. Now, whole days can pass without Frontline receiving a single call. Time limits are pointless to set, because hardly anone will use up their time anyway. Three hours or unlimited, no difference. Most of the active users of the time have moved on, and the few who remain call even less often. And if Frontline doesn't answer, nobody even bothers anymore; they just head over to the damn Internet instead.
This summer, I was staying with my parents in Hautataipale for a couple of weeks, and while I was there, a thunderstorm in Kiuruvesi had fried a critical fuse at the machine-building firm where Frontline's server was housed. Of course, it was vacation time, and nobody out there noticed. It wasn't until Frontline had been offline for FIVE DAYS that Jyri called my parents' number. "Could I speak to the honourable system operator Juhani Hirvonen?" He hadn't noticed it until then either, because he barely calls Frontline more than once or twice a week, even though he's still one of the most active users.
Well, off we went in my dad's Volvo towards Kiuruvesi to fix the problem. Now I've got my own driver's license, thanks to him, so he won't have to be my chauffeur anymore, but he still grumbled about those "damn electronic-mailbox things" being a real pain. And he kept asking when I was going to get my own car. I said back that I'll see about it when I've sorted out the important expenses first, some patience damnit. And then he mentioned Kopsanen's old Datsun that was supposedly be for sale, but then he remembered that the Korhonens' son (Masa) already bought it. But he still pushed me towards dropping that "electronic-mailbox thing" so that I'd have the money for a car. No way, hell no! Running Frontline is a matter of honor for me; I'm not letting go of that easily, goddamnit!
I always have to convince people, with some swearwords if necessary, that my BBS-keeping job is important and even sacred. It represents a dying tradition that needs to be cherished, even if it sometimes feels a bit pointless in the face of all the hustle and bustle about the Internet. Sometimes, though, I just want to throw in the towel for good, but so far, I've managed to find ways to keep the board alive for some more time.
For example, last year it looked like most of the messages on Frontline were just endless back-and-forth reminiscing between Jyri and me about our junior high days. I decided it was time to launch a proper nationwide advertising campaign. We'd appeal especially to those modem-users whose main BBSes had shut down or were just on their last legs, and who were looking for a relaxed, old-school BBS to fill the void in their lives. I posted ads on Fidonet and every other nationwide message network I could find, no matter how dead they seemed. I also called a few of the most active boards in each telecommunications area still listed on the 24H list, and left them an ad. All in all, the campaign brought in several dozen new users, maybe 5-10 of whom became regular message posters.
But the spirit of Frontline changed a lot with the new users. In the golden age, Frontline's active users were almost exclusively from the Kuopio telecommunications area and fairly "normal" youngsters who talked about school, music, confirmation camps, military service, and, of course, all sorts of computer hobbies. Now, it seems like those "normal" hobbyists have all permanently fled to the Internet, and only the weirdest subculture freaks and lonely riders are left. I guess we always had some of those, even within our own democrew, but now I feel like I'm the most normal guy in the bunch, some kind of a freak show ringmaster.
Frontline is full of all sorts of crazy misfits, dropouts, punks, Satan-worshippers, drug-fuelled tracker-techno composers, role-playing obsessives, neo-Nazis, and conspiracy-theorizing evangelists. And, of course, Amiga enthusiasts, ANSI artists, and other scene kids fiercely loyal to their causes. I guess I'm in the "loyal to a cause" crowd as well, as the bulletin board system operator I am.
On the one hand, the users' attitude towards Frontline is much more energetic than it was before the campaign. Many people really put their heart into their messages, almost as if rebelling against the low-quality drivel on the Internet. On the other hand, there are also plenty of people who use their energy on inventing as clever and elitist hidden insults to the other users as possible, and those who just spew out half-assed messages to fill up the arenas. But I'm not going to complain about them anymore. Every new message is precious these days, even if every message poster has their own special idea of how BBS communication works.
Those days are gone when you'd call someone a "peelo" if they didn't put a space between the period and the comma or a blank line after a quote. Nobody even bothers to nitpick about those little things anymore, unless it's sarcastic. Luckily, this sloppiness doesn't apply to "top-posting". If you write above the quote, just like all the stupidest morons do on the Internet, you'll still be certain to get straightforward insults. On the Internet, that kind of misbehavior is already so common that nobody even bothers to mention about it anymore.
Besides the message posters, there are surprisingly many leechers and file guys these days who don't even message. Couldn't they get those files much better from the Internet anyway? I once chatted with one of those file guys when I happened to be in the machine room at the same time he was online. It turned out he was a pretty young guy whose parents would pay his phone bills but wouldn't agree to get him "an Internet" at home. Well, at least that's some kind of a reason. Let the juniors leech my files, for all I care, especially since they're often the only users during the day. I somehow find myself happy about every call these days, no matter what kind of leeching clown is calling.
I really miss the days when CWU folks used to actively call the boards and the 97X/017 area's "boardscene" was vibrant. Even trying to rally them on IRC doesn't help anymore; Kassu is completely fed up with the BBS world for good. Samppa, Heidi, and Meka don't even have landline connections anymore. Meka is a working Helsinki yuppie nowadays, so he doesn't care about it at all, but to the first two I still occasionally send QWK packages as email attachments. Unfortunately, the reply packages I get back from them are usually pretty thin. Dikkis calls on some random weekends but doesn't even bother to download message packages, just writing some drunken ramblings in a completely unrelated area. Jyri is the only CWU guy besides me who still bothers to write messages, and he doesn't call as often as he used to.
What's really worrying is that more and more users are falling under the spell of fixed-line Internet connections. At least in Helsinki, Oulu, and Tampere, you can get those lines in more and more areas, and now I've heard rumors that Kuopio will also start offering "cable modem" connections to student apartments in the autumn. Where am I supposed to get new regular users to replace those seduced by fixed Internet? Should I just give up on my principles and put Frontline on Telnet? I don't think that would even help, because a lot of Telnet BBSes are just as dead as those running on a phone line.
Jyri often proclaims that calling Frontline is a matter of honor for him, and that he won't stop as long as it responds to modem calls. And he's not going to shut down his own private board either, even though it's supposedly pretty dead these days. But we'll see how well he sticks to that once the magic wires reach his apartment. We've seen cases like that before: first, you're fiercely loyal to the BBS world, and then you just kind of forget about it.
What's so appealing about the Internet anyway? There's just something inherently better and more tempting about those IRCs, newsgroups, and all the world's WWW nonsense than about traditional bulletin boards. I think those "Internet services" suck because you never know who's using those and from which part of the world. Everything is just boundless "ocean of information" in every direction. Bulletin boards are much clearer and more cohesive systems, with their own atmosphere and coziness. Some people always praise how good newsgroups are for messaging, but that's bullshit; it's so hellishly difficult to even generate a QWK package of those! Not to mention those damn spammers you can't even ban in a decentralized network.
Speaking of the Internet, I've been annoyed lately by the fact that some "discussion forums" are popping up on the WWW that call themselves BBSs! Like that MuroBBS thing that is part of the peecee-tuning website called Muropaketti that was founded this spring. It's infuriating. I even signed up there just to post a couple of fiery messages, complaining that today's youth don't understand anything about BBSs, and that a janky WWW page that doesn't even let you download a QWK package IS NOT a fucking BBS, damn it! I didn't get a single sensible comment in response. They said that modem BBSs are dead, and that calling WWW pages BBSs is somehow a tribute to them and kind of the same thing. FUCKING BULLSHIT! It's pure historical disrespect and distortion, damn it!
It seems that only those who were involved in the golden age understand the unique quality of the BBS world. Even my classmates have only used MBnet and imagine that all boards are like that kindergarten. I've personally experienced that the Internet is the kindergarten (and also the mental asylum and the porn den), while BBSes are the last bastion of traditional civilization.
Then there are those who don't even want to understand the BBS hobby, like Anna (my fiancée). She always complains when I dial to a board or hang out in the machine room. I've tried to explain to her that I wouldn't need to visit the machine room if I moved the server to our apartment, but that idea got even more vehement resistance. As if I didn't have enough computer junk cluttering the place already. But it's pointless to try to explain anything to her; she doesn't understand because she doesn't want to understand. And she couldn't even grasp if she wanted to, because she wasn't involved in the golden years.
I've been cautiously asking Anna if she would like to come with me to the CWU meet-up in Helsinki in the autumn, so she could get a little taste of this part of my life. But so far, the answer has been a firm no, and she says I shouldn't spend time with that "computer gang" either. She'd rather take me to the woods camping that weekend. I blew up at her, saying that this was the only chance in YEARS to see my childhood friends, and if I don't get this weekend, then she should consider whether our whole relationship is on a reasonable basis. Right now it is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that I'm going to be at that CWU meet-up in the autumn, and this time I'm not inventing any kind of excuse, GODDAMMIT!
Anna's attitude has been puzzling me. My computer and BBS hobbies don't even take up a large amount of my time, but she still complains about them. Anna's attitude has been bugging me, really. Computers and BBS stuff don't even take up that much of my life, but she still has to whine about it. I'm actually spending most of time time at school, at home reading and doing homework, fishing, and going to student parties, and of course, doing all sorts of things with Anna. There's less than ten hours of week even available to even considering BBS-related things. But no matter how reasonable my time management is, she still complains about it.
But who knows. Sometimes, even I myself think that my whole computer hobby is just some pointless appendage in my life, not worth much at this point. If I go to university after high school to study computer science, it'll make pretty much no difference if I have five or eight years of BBS experience under my belt. And if I end up working in computing after graduation, why the hell would I want to mess around with computer stuff in my free time?
Well, Anna thinks it's somehow suspicious that I'm even considering studying computer science, because that's where you get all those crazy mass shooters like Sanna Sillanpää. Seriously, couldn't she come up with a less ridiculous argument? We've argued about this a million times, and now she's changed her mind to say Sillanpää went crazy because she went into a man's job. Let her believe whatever she wants, as long as she stops lecturing me about my plans for further education.
It's possible I'll eventually throw in the towel and focus on adult life and family. Yeah, family life, she's always suggesting we should have a baby! Even though we're barely goddamn adults and haven't even finished our schools yet!! I've always been pretty firm about that: no baby coming into the house until I've done my military service, got my qualifications, and have a job, so at least five or six years from now. So far, that explanation has worked, but who knows how many years I'll be able to get away with it. Maybe in a few years, I'll have to decide whether to agree to having a kid or let Anna find a new boyfriend to fulfill her obsession with.
More and more, I've felt like the only lasting, good relationships in my life are with my old school buddies, the CWU crew. I manage to keep in touch with them year after year, even though they live in different places. We have our disagreements, sure, but nothing as fundamental as the ones I have with Anna or my parents. But we'll see in September if the CWU bunch has actually matured enough over the years to still be worth keeping around as friends.
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