My attraction to Internet Relay Chat stems from my love of communication technologies. When I was a kid, I was into Citizens Band radio, and flirted with Ham radio. To this day, I own and use Motorola Spirit two-way radios and always bring a CB set up when traveling the States.

IRC represents, to me, the ability and freedom to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Eventually, I'll have a wireless modem card connection to the Net. With that, and a laptop/battery/solar panel, I'll be able to IRC, NetPhone and WebCam from anywhere on the Planet.

The only channel I really hang out on is #bodyart. I create private channels as the need arises. I only use EFnet servers and have yet to explore DALnet or UNDERnet. The crossover of Usenet posters and IRC chatters makes for fun as you get a dose of the person in real-time and can adjust your perceptions accordingly. Hah. The drama in the digital domain, equals or exceeds, "real life".

I started out using mIRC. As I got geekier and started using my Shell Account more, I was turned onto BitchX and IRC2. I also use the Xircon client at times. I like using IRC2 via a screen program so that I can maintain a presence and keep my nick. Thanks to a few cool people on IRC, I was taught how to maximize the client using scripts and more archane commands. Using the shell has made it so much easier to always have the same, fast user interface, from any machine I'm on. A telnet session is all I need. I've accessed the shell from a Sharp Zaurus terminal emulator backstage in Seattle. That was fun. The Net in yer pocket.

I've also been lucky enough to have friends give me accounts on their Linux boxs, so I'm getting to see the enviornments of different operating systems.

The combo of a WebCam and IRC is cool. I like seeing who I'm talking to and checking out their systems. That Yahoo voice pager is a lot of fun, too.

Here is a screen shot of what a typical Winblows session looks like to me.