Call Me Laurabelle

Hi. My name's Laurabelle, and this is my web page. More specifically, this is the second version of my college web page. MHC gave me my first real personal network account, with my first real email address (Hotmail is not real email!), webspace, and all sorts of other fun things. Eventually, like many people, I created a first page (all black), and then nearly a year later I changed it around to this fruity scheme. As for content, it's pretty much a personal page gone wild. It's all about me, me, me! I've been criticized for that - even gotten a very nasty guestbook message - but I don't have a problem with it, and neither should you. If you don't like my site, don't look at it. It's as simple as that.

This webpage provided me with an opportunity to experiment with the cool things I can do with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the MHC Document Interface. I think HTML is wondrous fun, especially when I manage to produce spectacular and unintended effects. CSS unfortunately mostly does nothing when I've messed it up, and JavaScript spews out unhappy errors, but HTML, flexible as it is, simply gives a nonsensical page in response to nonsensical code. I like it.

I do, however, have another website, niceperson.org.

Some people have thought that Laurabelle was actually my real name, but unfortunately it's just a nickname that my mother gave me when I was a baby and which I have adopted as a screen name in the past few years. My two-decade history encompasses stays of varying duration in Texas, France (AFS exchange student 1996-97), Massachusetts (Mount Holyoke College - "the world's most prestigious non-denominational convent of over-achievers"), and Germany.

I am affectionately attached to a charming Englishman who tends to respond well to the name of Kevin, though "oi you!" in the appropriate tone of voice works sometimes too. He's even more geekish than I, which is just as well, because it's kind of fun to have a pet geek. :-) We met through the illustrious means of alt.fan.pratchett, a newsgroup for the fans of British author Terry Pratchett, but in Real Life™ we met in Paris, which I think is fun - how many couples can say that they met in Paris?

I have two parents, both of whom are even less geekish than I; if there's something wrong with their computer or a bit of hardware to install, my father has me do it [1], and my mother has just started shopping online. My brother, on the other hand, is a programmer, so I guess we even out.

Many of the graphics on this page, such as the Anthill Inside icon at the top and the charming buttons below, are somehow inspired by or related to Terry Pratchett. The "L-Space Now!" button takes you to the network of websites called "L-Space" from Pterry's conception of all libraries being connected through time and space (it's explained better on L-Space itself, actually). The "Anthill Inside" icon is inspired by the Discworld supercomputer, Hex, which has an anthill for a processor. This is all just an evil plot to get you to read his books, of course. :-) [2]

[1] I must qualify that this is because he doesn't want to bother or because he knows I enjoy doing it, not because he lacks the ability or anything like that. Before I came into my own with computers (and after my brother moved out), my father was the one who did what needed to be done with our computers. He still knows lots more than I do about certain things.
[2] Kevin bought the last two (The Truth and Thief of Time but kept them from me for months - especially tormenting since he bought it the day I left. Grrr.

This alt.fan.alt-fan-pratchett site
is owned by Laurabelle.

This page created and maintained by Laurabelle (send WebMail).
17,143 awesome people have looked at this page since February 12, 2001.
Best viewed with Internet Explorer or Netscape 6.

Last modified on January 19, 2003.