I'm fairly certain that the first email I ever sent to a peer was sent on June 10th, 2000 from my dad's email account. The recipient was middle/high school friend and fellow visual art student Alexandra Matzner. The matter under discussion involved "garnobius128", the first screenname I ever registered with AOL for the purpose of communicating with friends using AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), and easter eggs (i.e., hidden references in a creative work).
Like many 14-year-olds, I was obsessed with Star Wars. But, around this same time period, I once remarked to a classmate that my interest in that galaxy far, far away was rooted in the cinematic experience and not remotely tied to the ancillary books and comics which were popular at the time. This would explain my particular interest in such film esoterica as easter eggs from the filmmaker's earlier work (e.g., a reference to THX 1138; incorrectly cited as a movie George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola made in college).
The entire email is reproduced below:
Subject: Well, here's your answer you've been o so patient about!
Well, the origin of garnobius128 came from when I started to get into AOL AIM. That's right. I saw previous screen names that had numbers next to them but I never realized why they did. Now I do but that was before then. So I thought it was mandatory to put a number. I thought of 128 and stuck it next to garnobius. Now I know why there are numbers next to screen names. Did you really think anyone had chosen my screen name? Anyway, the 1138 came from the same thing as before, except this time it came from George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola's THX 1138 movie they made in college. That was the name of the movie - 'THX 1138'. You probably noticed it from Lucasfilm's sound system THX. That's where George got the idea. Anyway, George in probably all of his movies has the number 1138 somewhere. Remember the line from 'A New Hope'?
Imperial Guard: "Where are you taking this... thing?"
Luke: "Prisoner transfer for cell block 1138."
Notice the 1138. It's George Lucas' favorite number, I guess. So that's where I got it. Ah yes, the infamous 1138! I hope that answered your question. That's it. My hands hurt. I wrote this in 3 minutes.
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