Who is Talby?

Actually, if you came straight to NNGS-HQ, you're probably asking "Who is Pinback?" since you probably haven't yet checked out the rest of Pinback's Web Central. (Like that subtle advertisement?)

Here's the story. About ten years ago, I was heavy into dialing and running local-area Bulletin Board Systems, which is how most people used to communicate over a computer before the internet got popular. And as a sysop and user, of course I needed a nickname. So I chose "pinback", because it's the name of my favorite character in my favorite movie, Dark Star.

I kept that name exclusively until I first found out about internet Go servers. When I started (not on NNGS), the name "pinback" was already taken. "Darn," I said. Needing a quick replacement, I chose the name of another character from the same movie. It is a character who spends most of the movie sitting in a glass bubble staring out at the stars, contemplating the universe. This sort of attitude seemed to fit in with the "Go mentality", so I decided that the name was quite an acceptable substitute.

The name, of course, is "talby".

When I found NNGS, for some reason, I kept that name, even though I had my choice of pretty much any nickname I wanted. So my name on all the Go servers (well, at least the ones that I'm allowed on, ahem) ended up being "talby", and everywhere else, it's "pinback".

You know, I thought this was going to be an interesting story, but now all I can think is, "Geez, what a friggin' geek I am."

Too bad the nickname "geek" is already taken on NNGS.

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That was in case any of you devious types were thinking of stealing all my cool stuff. So there.
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