Geocities, soon to be RIP

My life is over.

OK, not really. But my internet life is turning a corner.

Back in 1998 a fellow moved into my building who brought with him... a computer, and in the computer was...a modem. And with that modem came...the internet.

And my life was over. Instead of drawing my comics, or looking for auditions to go to, I started surfing the internet, looking for wabsites about my various interests, downloading pictures, following links, and more.

Then I found Geocites.com.

Wow! I can have my own website! For free! I soon found other free website servers, Freeservers, Xoom.com, etc, but none had so user-friendly an interface and as warm and fuzzy a sense of "community." You picked a "city" based on the content of your site, and were assigned a choice of "streets" and "addresses." Then you could see what other websites were on the street to find other websites of similar interests. I chose "Athens," and of my choice of streets, I selected "Styx/3301" because the name sounded cool and the number was similar to the address I grew up on. You can still see the original homepage I built at http://www.geocities.com/zorikh/home.html.

In time I discovered that the amount of space you got on Geocities was far, far less than what I needed for what I wanted to put up. I was posting pictures of the Pennsic War, pages of my comic art, my acting resume, lists of medieval movies with Amazon.com links, SCA armor resources, promotions for shows I was in, stuff about my father, CJP LaCoudre, pages of the Amazing Grendel Conspiracy, my pictures of the 9-11 attacks, the French Army in World War II, and keeping an on-line journal, years before "blogging" became so last year. So I started several new Geocities websites for each of my various interests.

Now it seems that later this year it will all go "poof!" You know, I had, from time to time, wondered about the permanence of on-line content. So much of today's culture, and so much of my life only exists in electronic format, a good EMP will detroy it all, like an electronic burning of the library at Alexandria.

Captain Zorikh ALL OVER I-Con this weekend!

Captain Zorikh ALL OVER I-Con convention next weekend!


That's right folks, there's hardly a corner of I-Con in which the Captain will not be found in this year!

First, on Saturday, there will be the annual lecture on the history of Armor and Chivalry at 2:00 PM in room A322 of the Field House at Suffolk County Community College Grant Campus in Brentwood. http://www.newyorkknights.captainzorikh.com/

Next, The Death Star Repairmen will be performing a full hour of music at 6 PM in the Islip Room of the Holiday Inn, Ronkonkoma. Http://www.captainzorikh.com/dsr

For the first time in five years I will not be performing in the Cabaret, but I will be helping judge the costume contest in the Masquerade Saturday night sometime between 10 PM and 12:30 at the Crystal Room of the Holiday Inn, Ronkonkoma.

Then I will be rushing over to screen the latest version of “Combat Twister and the further battles of Kim Fu Yu and Jenny Rancid” at 1:00 AM in the Renoir Room of the Islandia Marriott Hotel as part of the “I-Con After Dark” programming. Http://www.captainzorikh.com/combattwister

The next day, Sunday, I will be hosting the “Top Ten” discussion panel, an amusing hour in which we will be creating “top 10” lists about everything sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics, medieval, and more!

Finally, immediately following that, on Sunday at 3 PM, yours truly will be lecturing on Captain Marvel Culture, the history of the many Captain Marvels, in room A315 of the Field House at Suffolk County Community College Grant Campus in Brentwood. Http://www.captainmarvelculture.com

And in between all those times I will be in the dealer's room selling my latest CD's, comics, videos and more!

Then its back to the real world, where we are still working on the next Captain Zorikh thing, “Redemption,” the movie that will do for submission grappling what “Rocky” did for boxing, “Karate Kid” did for youth karate, “Bad News Bears” did for little league baseball, and “Role Models” did for LARPing! Http://www.captainzorikh.com/redemption.

You can check out all about the convention, including admission directions, and other programming by going to http://www.iconsf.org.

See you there!