Nibble's Ego Page

Nibble's obsession with computers began in the late 1970s when he was subjected to the unyielding shame of learning BASIC from a borrowed TRS-80 Model 1 programming manual. Before gaining his first legitimate access to an actual working "computer", he passed the time by scribbling geeky little chunks of code on notebook paper.

For four years starting in 1979, Nibble enjoyed the company of a cluster of fellow teenaged computer dorks at a lily-white ritzy-ratz private high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The digital "wilding" in which he participated during this period was unfortunately restricted to a PDP 11/34A in a basement-level corner of the school's campus. Most of the members of this nerdish clique went on to successful postgraduate work and/or high-paying careers in the burgeoning computer industry; the majority of their non-computer-oriented peers from this period are stuck in dead-end jobs and marriages and find themselves contemplating suicide as they realize that they wasted their limited quota of "glory days" by harrassing nerds and geeks back in high school.

Shortly before his high school graduation, Nibble was blessed with a computer of his own. The period immediately following is characterized primarily by a callous disrespect for the intellectual property rights of others. It is during this period that Nibble adopted the cryptic nom de guerre by which he is known today, partially in an attempt to "be cool" and partially in the misguided belief that doing so would help him avoid prosecution in the event of his capture. This handle followed him onto the net, if only because it's easier to be a smartass in front of thousands of people if you don't use your real name. (Nobody comes to your house and shoots out the porch light.)

During the mid-1980s, Nibble meandered halfheartedly through classes at the University of New Mexico and held down a series of meaningless drudge jobs in the service sector of the economy. His positions included several of those detailed below:

• Stockroom Clerk, Shoe Department, Sears Roebuck & Co.
• Midget wrestling promoter, Cozumo de Solar, Mexico.
• Grunt/Assistant Manager/Manager, Tall Tales Comics.
• Bass Player, Trends In International Design, 1984-1985.
• Assistant Book Manager, Hastings Books/Music/Video.
• Chief of Production, Warner Bros./Seven Arts Entertainment, Inc.

From 1988 through early 1997, Nibble paid the bills as a software geek. He now whores out his meager Internet skills for money.

Nibble's life is occupied by the following activities: buying and listening to all kinds of music, decorating his house, bowling, screwing around with his pals, playing racquetball, collecting books, playing Descent over the office Ethernet, suffering over all the net services he provides and maintains, watching Claire Danes bite her lower lip on old tapes of My So-Called Life, designing record sleeves, pondering the foibles of mid-century American commercial architecture and design, sleeping, going to free sneak previews of movies, wondering why it is that when he goes to free sneak previews of movies he always ends up sitting two rows behind a particularly frightening ex-girlfriend, and imitating the smooth sounds of lovemaster Barry White in the shower. He is a senior editor for the Michigan-published X Magazine, which has run several of his interviews with hotel-room-trashing pop icons.

Letters of praise, gifts, and meaningless whining about Nibble's online behavior can be forwarded to:

Ernie Longmire
P.O. Box 93775
Albuquerque, NM 87199-3775

Most such offerings, while appreciated, will go quietly unacknowledged.

So Ernie, where's Bert? ho ho