Back in the day, going to the bank meant leaving the house. Checking the news meant touching paper or turning on the TV. No one bought things at auctions. And, until the glorious age of Internet communication, talking to people meant hearing their voice.

Now that instant messaging has become integral to daily life, it’s possible to substitute an online conversation for many exchanges that otherwise would have required a phone call or face-to-face meeting. But just like in real life, there’s a chance that your chat could go horribly awry – you’ve got an online fight on your hands!

The first step to winning this textual battle is to demonstrate the extent of your anger. Instill fear in the heart of your opponent with the skillful implementation of bold, italic, capital letters!

DaCUSE$44: I think we should see other people.

JMilk%7: OMFG, NO! THE BAND’S GONNA MAKE IT! I <3 U!

And don’t forget the angry emoticons, such as 🙁 (frowny face), :'( (crying face) and >:o (shouty face).

To further express your cyber-hatred, don’t be shy with the ‘Warn’ button. It’s the lightning bolt at the bottom of your IM window, and it lets you boost your enemy’s warning level up to 35 percent. This number is arbitrary and useless until it gets up to 100 percent. At that point, your nemesis won’t be able to type or sign on for hours, and the warning level will take two days to reduce to zero. If you’re really serious about your warning war, enlist some friends to help.

If your adversary gets even more obnoxious, take charge and do some blocking! If you want to annoy them even more (and overwhelm their speaker system), unblock and re-block them every few seconds in mid-conversation.

But whether you win or lose, the key to the online fight is immediate revenge. Make sure to dig up your opponent’s e-mail address, and as they chastise you with their written words, sign them up for every nasty, sickening porn mailing list you can find. And remember to let them know it was you.

Site of the Week: DeadAIM

www.jdennis.net/index.php

Every hardcore IM addict needs a copy of DeadAIM, an unauthorized add-on to AOL Instant Messenger that includes all the features the real programmers should have thought of long ago. The program logs your chats, condenses your countless IM windows and even lets you rename your buddies. It costs $4.99 to download, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get if from KaZaA. Either way, DeadAIM tastes better than the original.

Game of the Week: Emu*Lander

www.leedungarees.com/emulander/

Guide an emu to gold coins and a safe landing as it flutters down from the ledge of a lofty cliff. Why must it flutter? Because emus can’t fly. The subject of Emu*Lander is a large, ostrich-like bird whose aviary foibles make for hours of entertainment and hilarity. Players must use the arrow keys to adeptly manipulate the course of their emu through the sky on the way to a soft landing and the next level. It’s almost as fun as your own set of flightless wings!

Published on September 22, 2003 at 12:00 pm