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Wumpus plc under new management
"Wumpus plc" was first a set of 5 ultra simple web pages, made in 1995. I needed to learn some HTML, and I had some pictures of my cat, and I'm the kind of person who has to make something in order to learn how to use the tools for making that thing. I can't just read about it and do some proof-of-concept exercises; I have to have a project.
I had them up for a little while, and I got interested in a little agency-funded arts magazine, so I worked on that. I made resource pages to accompany magazine articles, and little by little I built out more. I registered a domain name, and for a while, I had personal pages at ~caitlinb and various other things at marmoset.com. Recently, the friendly friend-founded ISP I was using got bought by a big, faceless corporation, and I fled to Speakeasy. I now have two domain names, marmoset.com, my freelance base of operations, and theanteroom.com, a sort of defunct-projects graveyard, although I had high hopes for it initially and do host a couple of friends there.
As I migrated, I tuned up what had turned into a crude but serviceable marketing-site parody to reflect a change in management. The Wabash Cannonball died in 1998, and I'd gotten a new cat the very same day. I named her The City of New Orleans. The shelter had been calling her "Quivers," which seemed too sad -- I thought she could support a more stately name. I wasn't much of a picture-taker, and she was a high-maintenance pet, so it was a while before I incorporated her into the site. Her biographical sketch tells the story:
The City of New Orleans was appointed on July 1, 1998. Previous accomplishments included getting fleas and pink eye at the San Francisco SPCA. She was later discovered to have a metabolic disorder. Miss Orleans has dedicated her tenure to raising awareness of medical disorders with behavioral consequences -- such as metabolic disorders that appear initially to be indiscriminate peeing throughout the house.
Welcome to the Web, Ms Orleans.
June 13, 2001