in january of 1999 my friendship with zim began with a rather silly post which i made to the list.

we live a good ways apart so our friendship is conducted over email. we talk about... uh, all kinds of things i guess, very rarely about our cars.

zim does not anthropomorphize his beetle as many other people on the list do. he does not really seem to suffer from nbad. ostensibly, he's on the list to get technical information about his car. however, i find it hard to believe that anyone would stay on the list for a year and a half simply to get technical information (since the majority of posts to the list are not about technical concerns).

this suspicion on my part is supported by the fact that zim did have an emotional reaction to the death of katie perry. (in fact, i think katie's passing helped a lot of people understand what the list really does mean to them.)

i think we talked about his relationship to the list when he came to visit in february and i'm pretty sure he admitted that there was more in it for him than just technical information but... well, i don't remember the conversation too well :)

[note to self: ask zim about the list again...]

zim won't be going to r2k, but i hope to see him again some time this year.


a little extra note about zim. it's May now. he told me that after he'd deleted about eighty unread list digests, he decided it was time to unsubscribe. his life has changed a lot since we first met and he spends a lot less time in front of a computer-- which as far as he's concerned is just fine.