BENGARLAND!com

For some reason I’m amused that when I type my name into Google, the first page of results are all random things from the past few years of the internet that have to do with me.

Follow the links and you may learn something new about me, like the fact that I used to run a small Mac-based internet publishing empire and sold it over 5 years ago to a larger company. The site is apparently still up and running although they’ve plastered it with more ads and botched up the display of things. However, I think you can still read the articles and post comments at the bottom of each using custom programming that I wrote… this was in 1998, before there were blogs, and before articles on every website had a “reader feedback” feature. I’m pretty damn proud of it. Also, what you can’t see is the automated publishing system behind everything… I wrote a program where you could input the articles through the website, and it would automatically add the article to the site, put a synopsis on the front page, and send out a notification email to subscribers with one click.

Even though I don’t remember how to code in Perl anymore, and only write web pages when I really really have a lot of motivation, I’m still proud of all the work that I put into making that site what it was. Too bad I burned all the money after I moved to Vermont. I’m not going to tell you how much I sold it for, because it’s embarrassing that I don’t have any of the money left (although I do still have my $700 stereo monitors that make me really happy). I could say, well, I was young and stupid and I’d probably be right… but at the time, I had a hell of a lot of fun spending the money while I lived in New England and I don’t regret any of it.

I also used to dabble in electronic music and owned a Roland Juno-106, Korg M1, and a Future-Retro 777 among other pieces of electronic instrumentation, hence the link to one of my posts years ago on a Logic user group.

It’s also worth mentioning that I modified the electronics on my 777, and had the link to the photos of the mods featured [link to internet archive] on the F-R website up until sometime in the last year or so when they redesigned their website and removed the page. It’s a shame that you can’t get the 777 anymore, because it was a damn fine analogue synth.

I don’t usually tell anyone these things, at least not for a while. Or unless they are particularly nosy. No reason… it’s just my past, and I tend not to talk about it, because there are so many other interesting things in the present and future to discuss. But hey, I have a blog, I’m bored, and now you know.