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Subject: 5th Anniversary of ASC... TODAY!!!
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 12:56:50 +0000
From: John Chunko <jchunko@catalogcorp.com>
Organization: UUNET
Newsgroups: alt.smokers.cigars
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Congratulations to us!... it's been 5 great years... ASC was formed on 3/10/94. The "newgroup command message" which "created" ASC as a newsgroup, was sent by David Barr (barr@pop.psu.edu). Dave issued the newgroup command on behalf of Rex Wockner (rwockner@netcom.com), who came up with the notion of a cigar-oriented newsgroup, and most selected its name (i.e., alt.smokers.cigars). Dave was a USENET-savvy associate of Rex Wockner, who helped to technically facilitate the group's creation. Rex Wockner, a reporter of some national stature, is the true "father" of ASC. Rex is now only an occasional poster to ASC. Over 200,000 messages have been posted, to date, to ASC... by contributors from around the world. The newgroup command message which formed ASC was sent on Thursday, March 10, 1994 at 11:30:16 AM. ASC will be 5 years old this coming March 10 (an obligatory high-holiday for all orthodox ASCers). The un-official mascot of ASC is a semi-mythical sheep named Annabelle. Annabelle is said to be of the inflatable variety... however, this might be hearsay. Annabelle is most frequently associated with the beloved ASC character Mig (miguelit@ix.netcom.com). It is more likely that Mig is the "official mascot" of ASC. The un-official word of ASC is HERF. Herf is a unique part of speech. It can be correctly used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an infinitive, a prefix, a suffix and an explicative. The arcane word "herf" first entered the ASC lexicon on November 21, 1996, and was quickly elevated to frenetic and common use by ASCers. The Prince of Skeeves (aloysius@gte.net) exposed ASC to the word herf in a casual posting to the group... however it was ASCers, as a budding collective, who took the word and made it divine. Herf is now virulently spreading to worldwide common use as hip cigar parlance. Here are some select demographics, from a survey of ASC readers I conducted a while back (n = 189):
Most critically, ASC has become a non-cyberspace phenomena... or more properly, a hybrid phenomena that has successfully married cyberspace to the real world. ASCers get together in droves, virtually every week, and at numerous locations nationwide... to herf together. In early 1995, ASCer Matt Green (wineboss@telerama.lm.com) inauspiciously "organized" the inaugural ASC "crawl" (another ASC buzz-word), which brought a group of diverse ASCers together to enjoy each other's company while they walked from cigar shop to cigar shop in New York. It was a memorable event. ASC events now form continually, year round... a literal myriad of formal and informal get-togethers, crawls, herfs, cigar tours, tastings, dinners, concerts, charity benefits and even the annual national "Boondoggle" held in Las Vegas, which will be attended by hundreds of ASCers in 1999 (at the MGM Hotel/Casino, on July 17 and 18). So, when you all tell your kids their bedtime stories on ASC, you can say it has been a short history so far... but incredibly rich. It's filled with personalities and diverse ideas, angst and fun, unbridled sharing, wonderful new friendships and high energy camaraderie, love fests and flame wars, sheep and neologisms, bits, bytes and crawls, and... more potential for pure entertainment and personal enhancement for its devoted readers than most any thing that's come down the pike in years. Regards,
...JC
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