I sometimes back up and sort out files in my computer as a symbol of my need to sort my scatterbrain. It’s my way of procrastinating what actually needs to be done.
When I retired my old sites at Tripod (and earlier on at Geocities), I didn’t actually delete any file hosted there. It took me a long while, mainly because I have three of them there which I keep forgetting the logins to, and also because there were so many files accumulated there between 1996 to 2005.
They were gems. I LOLed so hard as I browsed through my Portfolio section, particularly the JavaScript games and Flash movies.
And because I’m so generous, and because I’m so smart, I’ve decided to restore my old Portfolio section. And because I’m very thick-skinned, feel free to laugh at my expense. But please remind yourself that those work were made between 1996 to 2005, more than a decade ago. At the least, you can call them old-school, if not pathetic.
The web pages are uploaded as-is, so a hard hat is required. Replace all links that points to ltimbah.tripod.com to oldies.webgrrrl.net and things should run.
Here’s an overview of the LOLs you can expect
1999 Multimedia Presentation for the launching of the Sabah State Chief Minister’s Official Web Site
If I can describe this in one sentence, it would be: OMAIGAD THIS IS CRAPPING SO EMBARRASSING AAAAAAH *SMASHES ELBOW* *SLAPS FACE* *PULLS HAIR*! Every time I look at it, I feel a mix of pain and laughter broiling in my stomach. Excruciating. HEY, no one knew how to use Flash in Kota Kinabalu decently during those days, OKAY?! It was a big deal!
Backstory: Other than what’s mentioned in the page’s description, I believe it was — if I remember correctly — actually the first multimedia-based launch gimmick ever pulled by the Sabah Government, and one of those rare ones in Malaysia itself at that time. The web site itself was a breakthrough in making the Sabah Chief Minister the first head of State with his/her own official personal web site, ahead of all others in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Guess who built that pathetic web site? Actually, don’t guess. Everything about it sucks. Everything I did in 1999 sucks. That’s when I realize that front-end web is not it for me. I suck. I suck so bad. So bad that it’s laughable.
This was also when I met face to face with the Chief Minister at the time. It was then that I realise, politicians can only be as good — or bad — as the people who support and work for them.
But I digress.
1999 Wheel of Fortune and Misfortune
This. This is too pathetic and funny to even be embarrassed about. After all, it was made for fun.
Backstory: I sort of wanted to push it a bit and put my quirky sense of humour (read: sarcasm) in it. The names really are displayed at random using Action Script. The only thing lacking about the wheel was its ability to remove names after it was selected. So what happened was, people who were lucky, got terribly lucky, and those who weren’t lucky, got horribly unlucky.
BONUS: 1996 JavaScript Games for the 3 Most Excellent TV Series in the World
I only realised I still have these games up after going through my portfolio! This one isn’t linked directly in my Portfolio page, so you need to click on the title above to visit. These games make me go nostalgic for my college years when I so fangirled three TV series: Home Improvement, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and The X-Files (I ship Scully so much).
Backstory: JavaScript and CSS were starting to get widespread support with the introduction of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. These made me hooked to web development even more. I also discovered the power of copy-and-paste, and found out how empowering it can be to share and open your codes for other people to use. That has always been the basis of what the Web is: openness and sharing.
Go ahead, visit my old Portfolio page if you’re curious, and have a good laugh. Let me know in the comments section if you have any LOL moments in your life that we can pry into. Remember to replace all links that points to ltimbah.tripod.com as oldies.webgrrrl.net.
Check out my other posts: « Setting up SFTP-only access with SSH Key authentication on CentOS / WordPress as a Mini Site: 2017 edition »