See Part 1Part 2Over the course of 2002 the Yahoo group and the "new" vr battled for authority. By the end of 2002 almost everyone had moved to the new VR, and we had begun to outgrow the free webspace of my ISP. In this time I had actually become something of an "internet expert", and knew what to do next. We had to actually PAY for a server...
On December 25th 2002, I buy vegetablerevolution.com and move everything over. This starts the modern era of VR.
By now, I'm a little older, and interest my interest in VR wanes. My newfound internet skillz allow me to become a senior developer on the forum software I picked in the beginning. I'm more interested in working on their community than the one here. Away from the keyboard I wasn't a dosser at college anymore, I actually had a job, and a girlfriend, and rent to pay. VR became just another bill, and I even started to resent it. I worked hard on things, and people complained. Always complaining, all the time. It really got to me.
On the bright side, VR itself was flourishing. My aforementioned girlfriend was a directly caused by VR. This wasn't a singular occurance... In fact, inspired by
The Ohio State University Sex Map - we compiled our own. It would turn out to be even more convoluted than anyone could possibly imagine... Updated as of 2009 (to the best of my knowledge...)
It wasn't just random sex, we've had multiple children, and multiple marriages, and countless long-term serious relationships. All directly attributble to the relationships VR fostered. And without 'zine, there wouldn't be a VR.
I experimented with new things on the site, trying to capitalise on the newfangled trend of 'blogs' by trying to get the creative writers on here to... write something creative. They never really stuck. VR has been, and I guess always will be, a place to relax. Not a place to "work".
By the time we came into 2007, 'zine was looking unhealthy. Rumours abound that it was about to be cancelled. After a plea from WLW, we managed to save the very thing that brought us together. It would even be dragged into the modern era by having a newfangled thing called a "website" and an "RSS Feed".
By now I was back to hanging out on VR. I'd grown up enough to realise that I hated my job, grown bored of working on other peoples communities, and just wanted a doss about again. Seeing the newfangled stuff coming out of teletext, I whip up a
site showcasing zine, in all it's old school analogue glory. Despite the telext technical bods being a bit slack on the quality of their feed, it works pretty well, saving the copier monkeys a thankless job.
Now, in 2009 there is no saving 'zine. Sad, but hardly the end of the world, the real sad story is WLW, being an actual honest to goodness person, has lost their job. It's a tough old world out there, and we all hope you land on your feet.
So, what will become of all this, now 'zine's over? Well, I'll go over that in part 3.
Fill in all the gaps of what I've said, and gossip as much as you want!