You might ask, after looking in the dictionary under "killjoy" just what was I thinking when I picked my name, the one I am known by on many of the BBS's around Santa Cruz and now this, Stuart ][ in Boulder Creek. I want to affirm my happiness of having such a well constructed and well stocked--with such wonderful people--so near my home, and not just over the phone. StuartHolm is probably not ten minutes from where I am right now, which is sitting in a none too comfortable chair in front of this slightly flickering screen, saying another hello to you all. Knowing full well that I will be meeting a lot of you at the future Stupots, because I expect to be arriving with no preconceptions about what you are like in person. I know if I have preconceptions I will be off, most likely. Some of you, from your writing, I deem to be very caring members of our society. I don't think one of you is an evil creature full of malevolent attitudes toward the continuance of Humanity as a whole. [Get off the soapbox, KJ] Anyway, I chose my name under some rather peculiar circumstances.
First, I have been a computer devotee for around eight years--that means that I have owned one computer or two since I was ten. That was four years after I first moved to Boulder Creek from San Luis Obispo (however you spell it). I had problems, you see, I wasn't the largest or most aggressive of young children, and so as a consequence of that I withdrew to my books, learning, and computers. All sort of escapes from reality for me.
After a few years with computers, working off the money at my Uncle's ranch, on Highway 236, up in the mountains, and working awefully hard on becoming successful with computers, I did. I was finally an adequate programmer. I was hired by Behavioral Engineering, situated in Scotts Valley, to help them with their C-64 programming, which I did and made a couple thousand dollars. I almost had a contract with Broderbund for a program of mine, but the deal fell through with the fallout of B.E's GSR (a galvanic skin response device). This damn GSR would have made me megabucks! So much for becoming a millionaire with computers.
With the money I made I bought a nice monitor, a printer, and savings account which I later used to go on a trip to Europe--last summer, in fact. Anybody want me to tell about that? It was a hillarious journey. Oh, yah, and I bought a modem. Horray, finally Killjoy's getting to the point.
For years I had this modem, shoved in a drawer, underneath the outdated tape drive and a few Compute magazines. Oh, I had tried to use it, but when it came to having fun, there just wasn't any. I had no numbers except for Compuserve, a minute half an hour's worth, which quickly ran out. My career with modems would then have ran out were it not for Exodus. He bought a nicer modem than mine, and I found out that a friend of mine had a lot of numbers for BBS's around Santa Cruz. I got a big list of them and , with trembling fingers, dialed the first number which I was given. It was 462-3832 for the Temple of Zuul--call it, if you haven't already.
My excitement grew as the damn thing hung up on me before I had a chance to save a note to the Sysop, so my first name was lost, and I didn't choose to use
it again.
I called the Temple again. It was a heavy moment when I was logging on. I couldn't think up a joyfilled name which would describe me. So I started to type anything, fast. "K...I...L...[right here my fingers played a trick, my left index finger missed the R and my right index finger hit the J, don't ask me how]J...O...Y. I looked this over and was startled to see Kiljoy instead of Kilroy. So, for the tremendous anti-climax of this essay, I added an L and that is that.
Thank you.