Gilliam Fnordling

Apparently this is an ancient alter ego of Chihuahua Grub.

I met with him recently during his crazed and lengthy trek across the continent. He was passing by Vegas and alerted me to the possibility of a meeting. Perhaps a quick lunch while he sped through my state on his way to visit with friends in Arizona. I agreed, for we had shared some delightfully ribald conversation in the Cbox and I was positively frothing with envy at the NYC bunch and all their glorious fun.

He requested a meeting time and place. I suggested the Crown and Anchor as a bistro that boasted both good food and convenient proximity to my place of employment. So here I was, off to meet a complete stranger whom I had first contacted through the internet. I had done this once before with little repercussions other than a miffed klingon.

Previous successes aside, I was concerned that I was swiftly setting myself up to be the subject of an after school special. It's all well and good to reveal the intimate details of your colon surgery to someone in the anonymous realm of the internet, but the situation radically becomes less anonymous when you agree to meet that person in, well... in person.

I had no idea what this guy was like. Hell, I didn't even know with any certainty that he was a guy. It very well could all be an elaborate charade to harvest my organs and wear my ass as a hat in some strange Orwellian ceremony of vengeance. I wasn't prepared to give my precious organs away to just anyone. I needed my ass. I'm a young man and I still have a lot of sitting to do.

And so I landed upon the idea of using the poor mans Magnum, P.I. to gain a little info on this person with the odd name. I did a Google search on his E2 alias. I was immediately rewarded with thousands of returns from the same domain. That was all E2 info and I already knew all of that. A few domain restrictions later and I was rewarded with a few positive hits.

The more quick witted of you will quickly realize that checking some ones background based upon an assumed alias of a person you believe to be involved in a hoax of doom, may not be the best kind of detective work. I'm not Batman. Regardless of the dubious nature of my investigation I was rewarded with small amounts of information that would possibly yield diagnostic information on the personality of Mr. Chihuahua Grub.

Of course it did not. I was presented with several sites that had messages from a man calling himself "Chihuahua Gilliam Fnordling (with an umlaut over it) Grub." These were usenet messages from groups like alt.religion.kibology and alt.folklore.computers with titles like "Dentists for Manatees and Christians with Guns." I was not reassured.

But I was intrigued. The text I found was clearly the work of the same fevered mind as my pouty lipped E2 sidekick CG. IF not the same fevered mind then at least the same fevered maternity ward. I had not eased my mind but I was more curious than ever. I had also failed to uncover a clear photo so that I may recognize my dining companion and avoid any embarrassing and uncomfortable restaurant searching. Fortunately he had described himself as having "Spiky short red hair and Elvis Costello glasses." I figured I would be able to find with little trouble.

The meeting was without slaughter or even the slightest hint of maniacal laughter that would indicate a criminal mastermind bent on turning my lungs into sausage. I did ask him if he knew anyone named Gillian Fnordling. He laughed, one of those little chuckles you belch out when someone pulls forth hauntingly embarrassing memories from a past you thought well buried. The same kind of laugh that accompanies your mothers gallery of naked baby on a bear skin rug pictures.

"Yeah, I've heard of him. He's proof that I was in high school. What, did you do a Google search on me?"

I hate doing this. This "noding about nodes who node nodes who like noders", and then there's the whole "hideous deep dark past" factor.

But I feel this is necessary.

I was a little... off... in high school. A social outcast. I went to my senior prom alone. In a kilt. It was that bad. I had this escape, though: a wide world just inside my door, BBS's and, later, telnet chatters and USENET and this insipid portion of the internet we've all become familiar with, the World Wide Web. I didn't do drugs, so I had to do computers instead.

This was my first mistake.

The origin of the name is unimportant. It comes from late night computer games, time for bed, a quick name for a saved game. It stuck in my head, though, and I was using it everywhere I went. I was even trolling with the goddamn thing.

and then it happened...

There were imitators, unnatural men who wanted in on the "Chihuahua Grub pie". They appeared out of nowhere, it seemed, but were everywhere. They were trying to steal my identity, outposting me in every forum, bastardizing the original name so fast and so often, that I had to follow up with similar strides just so I didn't fall behind and lose my identity forever. Soon enough, I, and all others of me, were known as "Chihuahua Gilliam Fnordling-5 (with an umlaut over it) Grub". It was criminal, ridiculous. It had been taken far too far.

it was only then that i realized i was wrong. i had been the imitator all along

I dropped out. I actually wouldn't come to this revelation until years later, when, in some anonymous midwestern diner, I would meet Chihuahua Grub, the Chihuahua Grub, addled by inhalants and crippled by an impossible age. He would explain to me the memetics of the words, how he was stolen in every town he traveled to. It was a preposterous phrase, "Chihuahua Grub", at least two meanings. It begged for things to be added to it: names, nouns, nuances. Hence the Gilliams. Hence the impossible numbers. He had met all of these Chihuahua Grubs before, he had warned them all to stop.

He would never remember who he was again.

I just did the Google search that Sponinroon mentions above. There are articles from alt.religion.kibology, from demon.local, from alt.computers.folklore. Articles on Reno. Articles on trolling. I could have, at any point in my life, been familiar with these subjects, but I don't in any way remember writing these. I was stolen, just like Chihuahua Grub. I'm waiting to be stolen again.

If you meet Chihuahua Grub on the road, KILL HIM.