This is not Santa Claus in his younger days.
It is not Peter Ustinov or Burl Ives or any other youngster aspiring to success in show biz.
This is Scott Fahlman.
Scott Fahlman.
Scott Fahlman is the person who may or may not have been the first to suggest the use of :-) as a smiley-face emoticon and :-( as a frowny-face emoticon in September 1982, as careful readers of this blog learned from a link in a comment left by Katherine on an earlier post.
When I was a lad, we didn’t have emoticons.
When I was a lad, we had slinkies and 45-rpm records and Brownie Hawkeye cameras.
When I was a lad, well, see for yourself (2:42).
One thing is sure, if one becomes the ruler of the Queen’s navy, one can not also be the very model of a modern major-general (5:00).
There is method in my madness: My purpose in including the links to Gilbert and Sullivan in today’s post was to change any and all artificial emoticons among the members of today’s audience into real smiles.
Now aren’t you glad you dropped by?
And I made you forget all about Scott Fahlman.
