Not calling out the poster. I wanted to take a break from reading how some of the more serious posting (enjoyable reads, especially about the South China Sea) and give people a chance to know how I came to be here and what I remember happening almost six eek: ) years ago. Hopefully some other people from then will weigh in. AntiSonic, Kagy, SpaceCity, Turbo, this is your chance to reminisce... The Rockets (or Rocks, as Clutch called 'em more often then) had just traded for Barkley and certainly there was less to read in those days on the internet than now. Off to Yahoo I went to find info on the trade. Of course all that was available was espn.sportszone.com and some long URL from some n00b site housed in Massachusetts (I think?). So I get to this site, this "Clutch City Online", and read a great fan-based account of the trade. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't eloquent. It was, however, entertaining as all hell and put into words the excitement that I had for the upcoming year. Clutch has had that style since I've been around. Back then it was quite common for me to jump into IRC during the games. Vega was around back then, too. A volatile temper, but an incredible sense of humor. The hijinx we got up to in IRC had me laughing so hard I'd wake the neighbors... every Rockets game. I remember Jeff a bit, too, though he wasn't involved as much. I think at the time he was running his own Rockets site, as was SpaceCity. Clutch and I used to ICQ til late in the night as if we were long-distance relating teens. There was a BBS back then. I guess. Nothing like the behemoth now. It was a little freebie perl script. God was I a **** back then. Arguing on the the BBS like I ran the place. I think I probably ran off Cincinnati Kid (though he was an alarmist) because I was such a jerk. Clutch should have thrown my ass out on the street. The way we gauged the growth of the site then was how popular IRC was. I know there are sick amounts of people there now, especially on draft night. Back then, though, we were excited to get 30 on game night. In retrospect I think that was pretty damn good considering it was only about a year into the launch of the site. People were loud in IRC, too. We had to +m the channel during the waning seconds of a close game. If the Rockets pulled it out, someone would type Geno's postgame interview with the Rocket hero. If we lost, we bickered for half an hour. The time I convinced Clutch we should have an email listserv. It went over like poop in a pool. Hell, Jeff and I even got into a flame war over the Jazz's failed acquisition of Rony Seikaly. He was pissed that I was making fun of their misfortune. I told him to chill, it wasn't as if I was playing for their charter to crash. Any chance you might be willing to change your tune on that now, Balke? I went to XP about a month ago and lost over 4500 messages (that's right Clutch and Kagy and Will and Jeff...) exchanged between us over the last 4+ years because I was too hasty and forgot to backup my Outlook Express files. I'm not thrilled about it as there was a history book waiting to be compiled. The wars with webhosts, the arguments over gun laws (I got my ass handed to me), the drunk stuff I used to send at 2 AM after a bender, the "I had an EMILY" emails, the amazing wit of Kagy and Will... 4500 messages gone. This is the way I remembered the early days of the site. Seeing what it *was* back then compared to what it is now never ceases to amaze me. Kudos big man. ... and special mention to Jeff for all his work in helping to keep the team where it belongs.
*ahem* Post of the Year perhaps? (suckup) Cool post keeley. Do you think Clutch or Jeff kept any of the old records?
I don't think so. I remember telling them how many messages I had a year or two ago, and the way they responded let on to the fact that I was sitting on something they didn't have.
Boy if this isn't a cheap way to get votes in the Best Poster contest, I don't know what is... j/k. Nice read Mr. Keeley. As for losing all those emails... I hear ya. That's tragic. By the way, we're still lucky to get 30-45 people in chat nowadays. Of course, when we're winning we're up around 60 or so. And of course on draft night, it was up around 250 the last chat...
Great post, keeley. In seeing this, I get this mental image in my mind of you, Clutch, Kagy, Will and Jeff as little kids, all wearing jerseys with your name on them, sitting on a bench in front of a bunch of computers (just like that Rockets jersey with the Rockets players as kids, wearing their jerseys).
Hey Keeley! Nice post. I think the most important conclusion from over 4500 messages is: ManU still sucks. Just as England´s national team!
Yes I guess that triple that Man U won 2 or 3 years ago meant nothing. MAN U BABY !!!!!!!!! Oh...and a little for Man City too. DaDakota
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, keeley. I lurked more, posted less back in the day. Sucks to hear about the messages though - some sort of documented history would rock.
Hey Keeley, if you saw my post, i had the same Outlook issue. If you wanna try what I did to get my emails back, just ask
If you're referring to our exchange on this subject, the only area you got your ass handed to you in was being a complete, utter *******. I had you beat in that category. I regret those emails as much as anything else I've sent in my six-plus years on the Internet. A friend of mine turned me on to the site. I have no idea where he found it, unless the URL was posted on the inside of his colon (permantent case of head-in-ass syndrome). The first thing I read on the site was "Super Mario's World" and I was in tears laughing. I was hooked. I can't remember why I emailed Clutch in the first place, but he seemed to enjoy my jokes enough to encourage me to write a column of my own. And I did. I wrote almost 10 of them over the next five years. That still puts me nine columns ahead of Keeley though!
I started out visiting the chat room about 4 years ago. I would try to get audio of the game, (Gene Peterson Rocks!!!) more often than not there was none. Antisonic did the play-by-play in the chat room. RoCkO, RockHead, Keeley, Azim da Dream, stan and a few others (forgive me) were regulars. Most nights there were 5 or 6 of us diehards in chat. Clutch even popped in once in awhile. Nowadays most everyone in chat can see the game. Back then, only 2 or 3 people could see the game. The rest of us relied on the ones who could see it, for detailed analysis of the action. There were some awesome discussions during those games. It was those discussions, the play-by-play and the humor that kept me coming back game after game. It was like you were sitting at the game with a group of people who felt the same way you did about the Rockets. Since I moved away from Houston I never thought I would experience that again. I was wrong.
It has been 3 years since I found this site... Found it while surfin the 'net in 6th grade during an inside recess... Did a search on Pippen Houston trade rumors and found a cool site called ClutchCity.com and remember the site havin 700,000 hits and was like DAMN! and been comin here since
keely: I don't remember that argument AT ALL!!! That is hilarious. Wait a minute, maybe I should. Maybe you're a punk ass. On second though, **** YOU!!!
