User:It's dot com

Hey there every peoples. My name's Ben, better known around here as It's dot com (you can also call me Dot com if you want). I'm an X17-year-old graphic designer/computer-systems manager from Texas, USA.

About my user name

My first experience with homestarrunner.com was, appropriately, the First Time Here? page. About fifteen seconds into the intro, Homestar utters his classic line: "Oh, right... homestarrunner.net: It's dot com!"

From that instant, I was hooked. I knew this site was the place for me.

(You may notice on the First Time page that the text appearing on the screen is misspelled "Its dot com" (without the apostrophe). I got it right for my user name and in the image on the right, because everybody knows that if you want it to be possessive, it's just "ITS," but if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's "I-T-apostrophe-S." Scalawag.)

What I like to do

ADM This user is a wiki admin.

SYS This user is a wiki sysop.

This user can help you get a leg up on the pile.

01101000 01000001 01100011 01001011 01000101 01110010 This user writes extensions to improve the site.

This user drops a train on vandals and trolls.

This user probably thinks about good edit summaries more than the average user.

The first email this user saw was japanese cartoon. He has rarely laughed so hard.

This user thinks Marzipan's Answering Machine is hilarious and underrated.

This user loves Cheat Commandos.

If you want it to be possessive, it's just I-T-S, but if it's suppposed to be a contraction then it's I-T-apostrophe-S. Scalawag.

This user's favorite Chapman is Matt.

This user's other favorite Chapman is Mike.

This user appreciates the work Karen does.

RC This user is a Recent Changes junkie.

This user enjoys doing Gnome work.

This user is an umpire.

> Click here to email this user

This user owns a Homestar running T-shirt.

This user owns a Homsar T-shirt.

This user owns most of Set 1 of the Collectible Figurines.

This user owns a Kick The Cheat. It's probably the coolest thing ever.

This user owns Everything Else, Volume 1.

This user owns Everything Else, Volume 2.

This user owns Everything Else, Volume 3.

This user owns strongbad_email.exe Discs 1–3.

This user owns strongbad_email.exe Disc 4.

This user owns strongbad_email.exe Disc 5.

This user owns Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits.

This user owns the Teen Girl Squad Sticker.

This user owns the Strong Bad Patch.

What I probably look like
(I'm the one who's not Tom)

I am one of the administrators here. My contributions come in lots of shapes and sizes, but in general I:

• Patrol the recent changes
• Before it was decommissioned, I kept an eye on STUFF and performed routine maintenance there
• Fight vandals
• Perform gnome work
• Begin new pages and encourage their development, including transcribing toons whenever I get the opportunity
• Participate in discussions important to the wiki
• Beautify formatting
• Assist those in need, especially welcoming and mentoring new members

If I can help you or if you have a comment or question, leave a note on my talk page. I'd love to hear from you.

Favorite quotes

Sometimes I even work the following quotes (often including the inflection) into everyday conversations.

• "That's just nonsense. Are you trying to make some sense?"
• "Hey, Strong Bad, I'm inside your house." "Oh, that sucks."
• "No probalo."
• "Oh, I doubt it. I drove."
• "There's only one planet now?! What happened to the rest?!"
• "Ow! Those things are bad for you."

Pages and things I'm proud of

• Extensions I've written:
  • The Cheatbot
  • Strong Bad Email check
  • Autopipe/autoredirect
  • Automatic links for new users
  • Personal-images management
  • Automatic columns generator
  • Random Homsar quotes (various versions)
  • Added permanent instructions at the top of the sandbox and introduction page
  • Added notices on The weather in London and the sandbox talk page whenever anyone tries to create them
  • Various other maintenance functions
  • Developed the WikkiTikkiTavi-style skin and interface extension for use as a site-wide Aprilween prank. (Thanks to Phlip for writing the formatting and main page.)

• Transcribed (or helped transcribe) the following:
  • secret identity
  • portrait
  • lady...ing
  • DVD commentaries for emails 126–130
  • Puppets on the Road

• STUFF reform
  After a lot of planning, STUFF went live on June 17, 2005, and it lasted for nearly three years before finally being decommissioned in favor of regular talk pages. Thanks to all who supported my design during the test stages, especially Jay and Tom, who helped steer me in the right direction code-wise and with some of the implementation. See also the original proposal.
• My first page
  Rock Opera Context was the very first page I created for the Wiki. Don't think for a moment that I did the whole thing myself — it was a HUGE group effort. But I was the one who set up the page, created the link to the email rock opera, established the general format, and got the ball rolling on filling in the words. As the page was shaping up, I helped fix things here and there whenever necessary. One of my favorite things about the page is that as you read each line, you can remember and enjoy the essence of all the emails in the space of only a minute.
• 110 sbemail redirects
  We decided to create Strong Bad Email redirects like this: sbemail1 → some kinda robot; sbemail2 → homsar; and so on. I personally set up 110 in thirty minutes! (There were 133 emails at the time, if you wonder. And for you math majors out there, I did an average of one every 16.4 seconds. Man, I was flying.)
• New email styles
  I didn't come up with the idea or make the graphic, but I had some good input once the idea was rolling. When it came time to go live with the styles, I personally converted the most emails to the new format (Jay and I each did almost exactly half, but by my count I barely edged him out). I made sure to do at least one from all three computer eras, and I think I did all the Tandys. I also did the special cases in the bird, weird dream, anything, and other days.

Interests outside H*R

• Major League Baseball, especially the Texas Rangers Baseball Club
• Graphic design
• Some of my favorite TV shows:
  • The Office
  • Arrested Development
  • Seinfeld
  • Scrubs
  • 30 Rock
  • My Name Is Earl
  • Family Guy (pretty much the first two seasons only)
  • The Simpsons (not so much the later seasons)
  • Heroes
  • 24
  • MythBusters
  • ER (but in the last year or two, this one's completely fallen off my radar)

Reminders to myself

• "It never hurts to double-check" — Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development
• Check the contribs
• Check the edit summaries