The other day I started playing the #NoonNgayon (Filipino for ‘Then’ and ‘Now’, respectively) hashtag game in Twitter. The rules are simple, just reminisce about the stuff of “Then” and compare them to the stuff of “Now”.

It could be about anything, from food, to technology, gadgets, phones, music, toys. Anything and everything under the sun, really.

For example, you can tweet “Noon, dial up; Ngayon, broadband DSL! #NoonNgayon”. (Join me in Twitter and don’t forget to add the hash tag)

So down the memory lane I went when Jayvee of A Bugged Life asked me on Twitter if I used to chat in mIRC and if I remembered what my handle was.

My answer, “OH HELL YEAH!”

Brings back memories! /slaps you with a large trout

I spent a good chunk of my third year and fourth year in high school chatting my life away in mIRC. (Now, I Facebook my life away)

My handle then (and I still use it now) was LeeYahGrl. I used to be a regular at #tops and #WaRfreaKz, Undernet server. Why #WaRfreaKz? Don’t ask! But I cringe now remembering the memories of my uberly potty mouth online self, LOL.

I have to say, spending time in that channel helped me release a lot of pent up teenage aggression! Definitely helped mold the stoic, boring calm person that I am now 😉

But nowadays, I don’t really chat. In fact, I hate real-time chatting now! 😛 I just find it so intrusive since communication in this day and age is SO easy. (OMG, PERSONAL SPACE! HAHA)

You have Facebook chat, email, YM, Skype, the list goes on. And if you’re not online, people can easily SMS you, or call you on your mobile phone.

But Twitter, I love. It’s not as demanding.

So, it was because of that simple question that led me to think about my digital life then and how it is similar and different to my digital life of now.

If there was anything that remained constant, it would be my playing of online games;

Ultima Online, Ragnarok Online and now World of Warcraft. When will this end?!

And blogging.

But back then, it wasn’t called blogging yet. I personally called it “Personal Shrine” websites. Websites that I made with text editor and HTML! Sadly, my personal shrines were hosted on Geocities and they were deleted a couple of years back. Got sucked into the internet black hole. Never got to take a screenie. *sad face*

But maybe I should be thankful. With a URL like http://LeeYahGrl.IsCool.Net, the things you can find there will probably make ME blush… with embarrassment. Vanity photos (wait, I still do that now), cheesy quotes, blinking gifs and neon fonts. Ye-hessss. All the elements from a circa 1995 website.

And then the terms “blogging” and online journals came into play.

I made my first blog at Livejournal. At some point, I also moved to Blogspot. Then to Multiply.

And now, here I am, on Geek Girl Manila… and on Facebook and Tumblr 😉

Blogging platforms now are so easy to use. No need to learn HTML!

Wow, just thinking about it, a good chuck of my life was built online, haha! OMG, I’m digitalizing my life away! (Or maybe immortalizing?)

It’s really fun reminiscing about technology then and now. It really has come a long way. Kids today are SO lucky! I would kill to be reborn today 😛

If I had an iPod Touch then, I could have ruled the world! Hahaha 😉