Subject: Who are you people?

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 21:15:35 -0500

So here at the end of the year comes time to ask a question that I've
wondered about for a while: who is out there in the fictionary mailing
list?  I suspect that in addition to the names I've become familiar with,
that there are two types of lurkers: old regulars who haven't played for
a while, and folks we've seldom or never heard from.  But in any event,
I've been playing this game for close to eight years now with a bunch of
strangers.  So I'm curious as to who you all are (whether active or not)
and how you got hooked up with this eclectic bunch, and whether you all
know each other.  I'll start.

I'm Jean-Joseph Cote (most people call me J-J), and I'm a 41-year-old
software engineer who lives in Massachusetts (although I started playing
Fictionary during my four-year stint in Boulder, CO).  Elliott invited me
to play; I know him from when he was briefly slumming in the world of
engineering before he started grad school -- he signed on to do some tech
writing for the company I work for, and wound up writing software (Clive
still uses the Excel partlister to this day, Elliott, but the weird
memory card interface went down years ago with the tattoo remover).  I in
turn pulled Hutch into the game; I know him from orienteering.

So.... who are you?

Jean-Joseph

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From: "David Randall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 12:14:09 -0500

David Randall.  30.  Swarthmore College grad.  Via the Swarthmore
connection, which I think means Jimmosk originally told me about this list
when it was being set up.  History graduate student studying early modern
England.  Aspiring novelist.  Prolix or terse by turns.

David

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From: "coyote's very young apprentice" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 14:07:49 -0500 (EST)

Kir Talmage, mid-30s. Vermonter, Swat grad, swapan. Came to this
fictionary via Jed, if I recall correctly, but haven't contributed in
a while. I know more Jeds than most. Wanna-be idealist, and part time
designer/builder/baker of houses, web sites, changeling subplots, and
bread. Tendency to drive too much. Have never been to Mozambique,
Indonesia, or Russia.

Yet!

------------------------------------------------------------

There is no bad weather; only bad clothing.

Scandinavian Proverb (and it rhymes in Swedish & Norwegian)

------------------------------------------------------------

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From: Snibor Eoj <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:45:03 -0500 (EST)

Joe Robins, 26 years old, another of the Swarthmore contingent.  I heard 
about the game from either Jim or Elliott, I'm not sure which.  I'm a 
software developer living in glorious (ha!) New York City.  I'm currently 
working for a consulting firm that you've never heard of.

Snibor Eoj

[email-masked]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm a member of the Non-Sequitur Association of America
  "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make
   a silk purse out of a pig in a poke."  - Opus

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From: "Amy L. Swift" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 21:28:17 -0500 (EST)

Amy Swift, just turned 25, Swat OughtNot.  Brandeis biochemistry grad 
student taking a year to be a Tufts lab tech.  I think I joined when there 
was maybe an open invitation on the SWIL chat-list or fun-list a couple 
years ago?  And I've meant to start playing more ever since...

-Amy

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From: Jennifer L Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 22:40:37 -0500 (EST)

Jen Smith.  31.  Former Vermonter, with stints in central NY, western
Massachusetts, and California.  Now teaching linguistics at UNC Chapel
Hill.  Elliott is responsible for introducing me to the game, too
(that makes at least three of us?).  I played a few rounds some years
ago, but I'm afraid that nowadays I'm just an enthusiastic lurker.

The first word after I joined was 'jequirity'.  I still like that word.

---

From: Joshua Mackay-Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:52:13 -0800 (PST)

Joshua Mackay-Smith.  Just over a month shy of my
thirty-fourth birthday.  Former resident of Virginia,
now in Belmont, Massachusetts.  Former researcher and
writer for an art gallery in Middleburg, VA, now a
temp, looking for something similar to my former job
but not holding my breath.  Generally a lurker but
occasionally an active participant.  I don't quite
remember how I got onto the list in the first
place--possibly through Melissa Shaner.

jdms

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From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 17:31:57 -0500

I'm Pierre Abbat, just turned 39, and I'm a software engineer with a strong 
minor in hardware, currently drawing lots with enough web programming/system 
administration/programming to keep my head above water. I grew up in 
California and Ohio, but have lived in North Carolina long enough to call it 
home. I found the game through Jed's column and joined during the game of 
gleek.

phma

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From: "Melissa D. Binde" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 02:18:10 -0500

I'm Melissa Binde, two months shy of my 27th birthday.  Originally from
Allentown, PA, I'm a Swarthmore graduate (i.e. came here through jimmosk/Jed
Hartman.)  I work as a software development manager for Amazon.com in
Seattle, WA.

I'm not good at staying with hobbies for long, but some of the
longer-standing ones include scottish dancing, roundsinging (and writing),
and now quilting.  And work, of course, an ever-popular all-consuming
hobby.

I keep meaning to play a round of fictionary here (since I joined with
(s)culch in 1/01).... but I do enjoy reading it!

My life's aspirations include changing my boss at work (which will happen
next Tuesday -- yay!), travelling to every continent except Europe (I'll go
there last; I've done NA, South America, and Asia so far), and developing a
fabulously brilliant reputation that I can use to perpetrate a tremendous
hoax on the world that is revealed to be false only after my death.

-M.

---

From: Nora Munoz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:00:04 -0800 (PST)

Sorry to be so late with this email.  I am Nora Munoz
a 31 year old development professional in Chicago
(after several years in Philadelphia, which I REALLY,
REALLY miss!).  As you will quickly see, I am one of
the "lurkers" as J-J pointed out.  I have played for
many years, although not so much recently.

Ranjit introduced me to the game.  We used to play
another version with poetry.  Does anyone remeber that
one?  I forget what that was called.  I was better at
that one, which is maybe why I don't play as much any
more.  I went to Penn undergrad, which is where I met
Ranjit.  He went there for grad school, but was
friendly with you Swarthmore types.  (Okay, I was,
too, but only because I went to Sri Lanka with a few
of you - although not any who are on this list.)  I
also know Jim M., who was introduced to me by Ranjit.

That's about it, except for the fact that I have the
cutest poochy in the whole wide world (Ranjit will
agree and attest to that as well!)

Nora Munoz
[email-masked]

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From: Jed Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 15:14:16 -0800

Nora wrote:

>I went to Penn undergrad, which is where I met Ranjit.  He went
>there for grad school, but was friendly with you Swarthmore
>types.

And just to add some backstory, though I realize I'm going rather further
afield than the scope of the original question:

I believe Ranjit's original connection to Swarthmore was via me.  I met
Ranjit when I was in high school and he was an undergrad at UC Berkeley,
because we both hung out on a BBS (electronic bulletin board, kinda like an
early newsgroup) in the Bay Area.  He was going by the moniker The Bellman,
and I had just read _The Hunting of the Snark_.  Later, I went to
Swarthmore, and he went to grad school at U. Penn, and he dropped me a note
in email.  Later still, he introduced us to Dominus (who I think also had
other interesting and roundabout connections to Swarthmore -- and who
certainly has connections everywhere else; nearly every new social group I
encounter contains someone who knows Dominus someway or another, seems
like), who started coming to story readings at Swarthmore.

Oh, and I think Ranjit and Dominus may both have attended CTY, as did
Elliott and various other Swarthmore types, though I disremember whether
any of them knew each other back then.

A tangled web of connections....

--jed

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From: James Kushner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 11:08:02 -0500

At 09:15 PM 12/28/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>So I'm curious as to who you all are (whether active or not)
>know each other.

Sorry the delay in response, but I have a general policy to only respond to 
emergency emails while I'm on vacation. I'm back now.

At this point, I probably count as a "lurker", since I participate maybe 
once or twice a year. It's something I keep *meaning* to get around to...

I'm James Kushner, age 34. I was invited onto the list by Mister Plover 
himself, Mark-Jason Dominus, whom I have known since I was around five 
years old. Currently, I live in Sarasota, FL; I was living in Los Angeles 
when I joined the list, and spent a year in Cambridge, MA before bouncing 
southward.

I have no explicit Swarthmore connection; I was accepted there way back 
when, but decided to attend the U of Chicago instead. (Lucky me; it's where 
I met Nova!) I was in Swarthmore on this recent vacation, as two friends of 
ours (married to each other) live there. She just gave birth to a HUGE (10 
lb!) baby boy, and the timing of the visit meant that Nova and I could 
attend his bris. It's the first bris I've attended since my own.

I also attended CTY, and met Ranjit there.

I am about to start my second semester of law school, at the Stetson 
University College of Law in St. Petersburg (and no, they don't give you a 
hat upon graduation). Previously, I had held several jobs, including stage 
manager, real-estate advertising coordinator, bookstore clerk (for a while 
holding the lovely title of bookstore bookkeeper), and medical research 
assistant. After all that, why not law?

Longtime fictionauts will remember that I had been part of a mailing-list 
duprass with Nova Myhill. We are still happily together in life -- she's a 
professor of English at the New College of Florida, which is why we moved 
to Sarasota -- but have moved to the stage in our lives where we no longer 
share an email address.

Other basic info: enthusiastic amateur musician (drums, bass, slide 
whistle, five-string guitar, and my Dad's old piano will be delivered to 
our house next week). Occasional contradancer. Shape-note singer. 
Vegetarian. Baseball fan and fantasy-league player. Collector of funny 
songs. Player of non-RPG, non-CCG, non-computer, non-historical games. 
Builder of bookcases.

Catch y'all later, and I hope to participate more in the future,
James

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From: Elliott Moreton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:06:49 -0500 (EST)

> Ranjit when I was in high school and he was an undergrad at UC Berkeley,

I remember once after a SWIL meeting (the Swarthmore sf club) you (Jed)  
and I were talking, and somehow Berkeley came up.  I only knew one person
at Berkeley, so I risked it:  "Do you know --" and you broke in with "--
Ranjit Bhatnagar?  Yes."

> any of them knew each other back then.
 
Dominus was my calculus TA at CTY in the summer of 1984.  I could tell he
was cool because he'd read _The Canterbury Puzzles_ and knew about mutated
racing virpin.

em

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From: Mark Jason Dominus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:11:08 -0500

> Dominus was my calculus TA at CTY in the summer of 1984.  

I was a student in the calculus class that summer.  I wasn't on the
staff until the following year.

> I could tell he was cool because he'd read _The Canterbury Puzzles_
> and knew about mutated racing virpin.

I was, however, cool.

---

From: Elliott Moreton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:50:24 -0500 (EST)

> staff until the following year.

Hunh.  I wasn't at CTY in 1985.  Maybe it was two other people.

em