AOL has informed me that they are no longer going to offer Usenet Newsgroups as of “early in 2005” — apparently that’s going to be in February. Since Usenet is one of 3 things I do on AOL anymore (the others are IM one of my blog readers and read The Knot), I think it’s time to bid AOL adieu.
What most of you don’t realize is that I’ve been on some form of AOL (originally PCLink) since perhaps 1991 continuously. I remember when there were only a few chat rooms open in People Connection and NONE of the room names were M4M. My mother and I (especially Mom) used to host or score games in the Games Resort. I once hosted for four straight hours in Teen Chat on Thanksgiving. I was the forum leader for Teen Scene until my senior year of high school. Every boy I ever dated seriously I met on AOL (all 3 of them, plus the Oklahoma Pervert). Now, People Connection, the Games Resort, Teen Scene/Chat and each of those boys are gone from AOL. It’s funny – using AOL or the Internet was really very groundbreaking back in the early ’90s but I guess in keeping AOL for so long I was becoming a dinosaur.
So, here’s the plan: I’ve downloaded Forte’ Agent, a newsreader. It’s not as user friendly as AOL’s awesome newsreader but it’s free. Sooner or later I’ll email everyone relevant when I finally do make the phone call to cancel AOL and let you know of my new email address. And now I’m going to have to learn about all these technological things I’ve avoided. I’m lucky because I have Gene to troubleshoot technical issues for me (such as, I can’t get to newsgroup messages using Agent) and I feel fairly certain that if I choose to use Outlook as my mail program that it will be fraught with issues as well (yes, I do use Outlook at work – what of it?). Is it too late to be Elaine@Gmail.com?
And before I finish writing for the night, thank you blog readers for pushing my hit counter over 1,000. That’s very awesome.