What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.
I am often in awe at the vastness of space, and I wish I could travel there. I especially like the artwork of John Harris, who has a talent for portraying the hugeness of objects against the greater immensity of space in ways that makes you feel very, very small.
Regarding Stix: I needed a variant of 'spaceman', and wasn't quite sure what to put. I suppose I went for some alliteration, and was probably subconsciously borrowing from a little known band from the 70's and 80's, although spelled differently.
I started using the internet in the mid 90's. I remember a guy at school talking about how cool it was, and how you could talk to people online. At the time I pictured it as some sort of a chat device through a command line. I'm not sure my opinion of that has changed a whole lot, except for the interface issue. I used to access usenet through gopher using a 286Mhz computer with an amber monochrome monitor. The first place I had an account was a bulletin board that hosted discussion forums at whip.isca.uiowa.edu, which I reached via telnet. Although now a bit archaic in presentation, it was still around the last time I checked. And some of the same guys were still moderating the same rooms.
If I were able to pick my username over again, I would probably pick Andy Vine. Not because it's my real name, but because for some weird reason this is what people often hear, when I say my real name. I think that oddity would make for a great pseudonym.
