so, I'm bopping through my LJ friends page, poking my nose into what they're all doing, and I notice that suckpump has a reply from meatpie, who I remember from back in the day when I read alt.music.nin religiously. So I check her friends list, sho'nuf, there's stark and lupa and a whole bunch of people I met back at nincon '96.
wacky. it was about a month ago that I stuck my head back in there, and noticed the newsgroup had really gone to hell. None of the old gang was posting, really. That kinda sucked. They were all pretty damn cool people, and I probably shoulda done more to get to know them. Hell, I was even in DJ's sig for a while. And now, there's no nincon this year--apparently canceled due to lack of interest or something, it wasn't clear what. It wouldn't been the same without the blue-black brigade driving down from Madison, but I'm sure it would have been cool.
(side note: I wonder how many of the blue-black brigade still have blue-black hair. probably none)