In the last OTT, toward the end, someone mentioned Saucy Jack not responding anymore, and that possibly he'd quit the Internet. There was also speculation that maybe he had taken a turn for the worse due to disease.
I just wanted to say that I think this incredibly strange, namely because the same thing happened to me once with another online group I used to hang around with. There was a well-known person that everyone gravitated towards, who ultimately announced one day that she had some sort of life-threatening disease. She then talked about the day she was going to stop coming onto the Internet altogether. At the time, we had a forum and a chat room that everyone would converse in, and she was a regular a both.
I can't make it sound too melodramatic, but she actually picked an exact minute she'd stop posting. One user created a countdown for the moment, and did something very eerie/cool with it: spliced in music from the old "Radio Zelda" website (the viral one that had been created to promote Majora's Mask), which cycled between a bunch of static and announcers saying things like "we've only got a few hours now...." Again, incredibly creepy, but also sadly alluring.
The night it happened, I was on my way out with a friend to Austin, TX to see his girlfriend. He had called me and said she was going to be in town (they both went to UT), and he wanted to go there to see her (I forgot why exactly he needed me to drive there, probably his car broke down or something). We were at his house with someone from the board/chatroom messaged me and explained the situation.
I'd known this girl's online personality for a while, and we'd chatted in several instances in the past. The messenger begged me to come into the chat room and talk sense into her. I did, and initiated a private chat with the girl for a long time.
She just kept reiterating over and over that she loved us all and that it would unfair of her to continue to come online everyday, when one day she might abruptly stop. "I don't want everyone to just all of a sudden ask where I am."
The countdown site was still running. We watched it slowly count down to zero.
In the chatroom, a furious flood of messages appeared - "Don't leave us" and "Come back" and "We love you" and other such things.
Then, just one message left.
"Disconnected."
It was one of the oddest experiences I've had online. Painful and serious, yet still...just....couldn't quite explain it.
I experienced something similar with a local radio station shut down. On their last night they played Stairway to Heaven as their last song. The announcer came on and said "Thank you for listening to 92.1 the rock station. Good night." After a few minutes of silence, nothing but static.
I'm not really sure why I just related both of these stories. I guess it's just that I seem to have an uncanny ability to be in a place where some user (of some sort) just disappears after a while, and there's too much speculation on what happened to them.
I dunno. I hope this post doesn't bore anyone, even if it is in the OTT.
Slightly related/last OTT: My school forced us to buy scan trons and blue books. I have several bad memories of being late to the exam, and having to run clear across campus to buy one of the goddamn things because I'd forgotten I didn't have any....
Edit: Brak was part of that other online community/crew/what-have-you. I don't know if he knows what I'm referring to or not, but I'm guessing he does.