I love online chat!

I'm a big fan of online chat, from way back... When my father got our first 300 baud modem, I signed up with Compuserve and was enthralled by the "CB" radio section. With it, you could type and chat with people all over the country, for the price of a local call (and subscription, of course). I thought this was the coolest thing ever. Later, bulletin board systems took the stage, but since most of them only had one phone line, chatting wasn't an option. Then came The Sierra Network. It was primarily for playing games like Hearts and Gin, but there was a chat room where folks could gather and talk. I met quite a few people there and got completely hooked into online socializing. When regular internet access became popular, I joined up with Yahoo and visited their chats often enough to become part of a fun little group called "Bored @ Werk" (work was misspelled because it was a four-letter dirty word). That was a blast, but we all eventually split up. I then travelled to a spot called "Groupboard", which was a nice chat client, but also included the ability to draw on a whiteboard while you talked. Got to see some excellent artists there, and when you were bored, you could just sit and watch people create things. I've got a link for it over to the side, for folks who are interested. Back then, it was mostly a 20+ crowd, and we would stay up all hours chatting and drinking and hassling newbies :) These days, it is mostly frequented by people aged 12-17, and so I have pretty much stopped visiting. I guess I'm just not interested in anime roleplaying or the petty squabbles for power that age group tends to attract. Now, I'm on Secondlife, and it's what I had been looking for all along in terms of online socializing. I couldn't be happier!