Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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I THE MIX Monday, Jan. 23,2006 M —I 1 1 m .1- T 1, m A, m Page 5 Special to THE GAMECOCK Goofy Photoshopped snapshots are a central part of SomethingAwful.com, a popular Web site devoted to humor. Something awfully funny After being fired, Web site designer creates humorous page Jeremy Turnage FOR THE GAMECOCK In 1999, Web developer Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka began work on an Internet side project. After being fired from his job at GameSpy.com, where he had been working on the PlanetQuake Web site, Kyanka began pouring his resources into making a new Web site, and SomethingAwful.com was bom. While the site has had a long and tumultuous history, its humble beginnings were as an avenue for Kyanka to discuss things that irritated him. The site actually began as ARCCentral, Kyanka’s personal Web site. During this introductory period, Kyanka created some of Something Awful’s first features. Among them was a character by the name of Jeff K., a stereotypical teenaged computer user who utilized terrible grammar and spelling skills to communicate his exploits in the computer world. Jeff K. became a mainstay of Something Awful, and many of his more infamous misspellings such as “teh funnay” became part of the Internet lexicon. Forums were quickly introduced after Something Awful went live and became one of the most popular features of the Web site. Soon after, Kyanka shocked Something Awful’s entire fan base when he announced that a one-time activation fee of $9.95 would be required to view and post on the forums. While many users debate the reason for this fee, Kyanka has said that it was imposed to cover bandwidth costs, and not as a moneymaking scheme. He said bandwidth costs for the site reach into the thousands each month. Something Awful contains a myriad of features to read and browse through. The Front Page is one of the site’s many popular features. While the Front Page topic is different everyday, users can spend hours laughing at the funny news posts. The Comedy Goldmine is a part of the site where the forum’s funniest and most popular posts appear. Many of the features on this part of the site are funny stories, Photoshop entries and MP3s, but this feature usually contains some of the site’s most comedic offerings. The Art of Warcraft is an ongoing series of writings that discuss the immensely popular online role playing game “World of Warcraft.” One such topic was the recent patch notes of the game, which are notorious for being extremely lengthy and often including clever DUirUL • 6 Plamen Petkov / KRT Mobile ESPN cell phones with up-to-the-minute sports content will be available in stores on Super Bowl Sunday. You have one voicemail, three basketball scores ESPN, Sprint Nextel introduce cell phone dedicated to all things sports, all the time Eric Benderoff CHICAGO TRIBUNE CHICAGO — During a recent road trip across Michigan, it was impossible to find a radio station broadcasting the NFL playoff games. But there was no shortage of stations carrying the ESPN radio network, where the hosts talked non-stop about the games you couldn’t hear. As soon as one station would fade, another one popped up down the dial. The ESPN brand is everywhere these days. The sports titan has seven U.S. cable networks, a popular Web site (where it is among the few publishers to successfully charge for some content) and a decidedly old-school but very bright magazine. Now, ESPN is getting ready for the national rollout of its own mobile phone. Already for sale on the ESPN Web site, the phone will be available at Best Buy stores starting Feb. 5, Super Bowl Sunday. Mobile ESPN will air a 60-second spot during the game to promote the phone. The phone is part of an emerging trend where big consumer companies extend their brands by providing phone service through an agreement with a wireless carrier. In this case, Sprint Nextel provides the network ESPN uses. Sprint has a similar deal with Virgin Wireless and last year announced plans to work with Comcast Corp. and other cable companies to provide wireless phone service. Also, Apple Computer Inc. could be considering a phone service, according to recent filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “It’s an exciting time,” said Manish Jha, .senior vice president and general cspn • 6 Dan Honda / KRT CAMPUS Neurologist Dr. Michael Stein, right, with patient Leslie Davis, in Stein’s office in Walnut Creek, Calif. Migraine sufferers find hope, support Neurologist, ‘migraineur found patients' group; research leads to possible treatments Joan (Dorris KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — When Leslie Davis’ headaches were at their worst, she was in severe, pain four days out of every seven, week in and week out. Nothing seemed to help. In 10 years, she tried 20 different treatments, none of which made the pounding, sickening headaches go away. Even now, Davis suffers from “three-day” headaches about twice a month. As bad as the pain was and is, it was the lack of understanding and acceptance among some friends and acquaintances that left a lasting scar. Those who doubted the severity of her headaches seemed to think she was embellishing or that she was a chronic malingerer. They thought she used her headaches as excuses. its very trustrating, Davis said. “If you have a broken arm, everyone can see it and can understand why you’re in pain. With migraines, you can’t really see the pain inside.” The combination of physical and emotional pain eventually led Davis to co-found what has become the longest running headache support group in the nation. Davis and Dr. Michael Stein, a Walnut Creek, Calif., neurologist who specializes in the treatment of headaches and migraines, launched the support group in January 1996, hoping to bring together headache sufferers and let them know they weren’t alone. John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek offered the use of a meeting room. Davis and Stein prepared handouts and information for what they optimistically expected would be a crowd of about 30. Instead, 120 people M1UWCU Up. “The auditorium wasn’t in use, so I said, 'We’re taking it,’” Stein said. For many, that initial meeting was the first time they’d ever spoken in depth to people who understood exactly what they were going through. They didn’t have to defend themselves or explain why the pain sent them to a darkened room, or apologize for the dinners they missed or the family gatherings they had to cut short or the school functions they couldn’t attend. They talked about their physical ailments and compared notes about what things triggered their headaches. They discussed remedies and talked about the things that worked for them, or didn’t. . And at the end of the meeting, everyone agreed: They needed to do this again. And they have. That first meeting has spawned almost 90 others. At first they met once a month, but a few years ago, they cut back to every other month, always on the second Tuesday. On Jan. 10, they' celebrated the 10th anniversary of group, which remains strong despite factors that have led other groups to dissolve. 1 he group now has more than 300 members, some of whom live in other parts of the country. The list of people who have attended at least one meeting numbers more than 1,100. Five of the meetings each year are devoted to a guest speaker; the sixth is just a chance for migraineurs — as they call themselves — to talk to each other. Much has changed for the better for migraineurs in the past decade, not the least of which, said Stein, is the level of acceptance. “One of the biggest advances is people realizing it is a medical, not a psychological or emotional, problem,” Stein said. “Just because you can’t measure the pain or see a scar doesn’t mean it’s not real.” An estimated 28 million Americans suffer from migraines, and the loss to businesses climbs into the billions of dollars each year as employees miss time at work and decrease productivity. Researchers also have turned their attention to migraines, not only toward treating the pain but towards discovering the causes. Research had in the past been limited, partly because the headaches are not life-threatening. Research today is focused on the link between migraines and other conditions, some physical, some psychological. Doctors still don’t understand what causes a migraine, but they are coming up with some fascinating discoveries, Stein said. Among migraineurs there seems to be a higher than-normal occurrence of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive HCRDRCHC • 6 I