Oh man. I should start by saying that I have, as long as I remember, had a computer in my household. Some of my earliest memories involve sitting at our old Mac with it's ghetto printer listening to it screech and scream and thinking "god damn this is an amazing piece of machinery." Though, I was four, so chances are it was more of a series of "ooo"s and "aaaaaaah"s. My dad used to even make my brother and I do games like All the Right Type because, as he put it, these crazy boxes were the future. WHO KNEW.

So the computer-thing has been kicking around for basically my entire existence, which, by the way, weirds me out. I will never know what it is like to live without a computer! I mean, I had an email account (AND BUSINESS CARDS) when I was 8. 8! I went on a trip to DisneyLand with two of my mom's sisters and my cousin Justin when I was 10 and had a cards with my email on them to hand out to cool kids I met at the hotel. (I only met one, and we never talked after we left.)

Anyway, I think the earliest recollection I have of using the internet routinely was in grade 6 when my friend Jacquie and I would email back and forth constantly, back in those days before instant messaging, and would marvel at our ability to communicate without calling each other, even though every time we sent an email we'd have to dial-up. (It took longer, but the novelty was there!) My dad was also really into getting my brother and I into the book learnin, so we had the newest editions of 3-4 encyclopedias at any given time, and were always encouraged to sign online and check the web resources they had. Y'know, back in the day when Encarta was still a reliable source of "up to date" information. (Or at least when I thought it was).

Since then it has been one never-ending stream of messages, emails, wikipedia entries, and ill-concieved websites dedicated to Leonardo Dicaprio. (I'm looking at YOU, Miss Chomyn.)