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September 27, 2005
The Dorkward Spiral

I don't really care, but apparently the Lord saw fit for the official Spiral fan club message board and chat applet to go online this past weekend. And boy oh boy, what a message board and chat applet it is! Totally fresh and new and unlike any other Nine Inch Nails-related message board or chat applet whatsoever. Of course, I'm still waiting for the incentive of a free hot oil massage from Aaron North before I sign up for the Spiral, but for those of you who have already chosen to join in lieu of flushing your money directly down the toilet, this new message board and chat applet must be pretty exciting. I remember when I used to get excited about things like that, pretty much around the same time that I found jingling keys fascinating without the involvement of LSD.

You may not have known this, but I possess a number of astounding supernatural abilities. I can talk to animals, I can melt ice cubes with my mind, and I can sit through an entire Joss Whedon-produced TV show without gnawing my wrists open (okay, that one's not true). But most importantly, I'm able to use my knowledge of the past to predict the future with a marginal degree of accuracy. Behold! I'm receiving a vision all the way from the year 2006! It's very hazy, but I can make out what appears to be a desolate, crumbling wasteland, overrun with cobwebs and tumbleweeds. Most of its former inhabitants have long since abandoned this place, but a few have stayed behind, desperately clinging to the hope that their Savior will return to bless them once again with his presence. Oh wait, that's the Spiral board! Just kidding, I'm sure that won't happen. So what if that's exactly what happened with the old nin.com discussion boards. This is different, because this time you have to pay for it!

I figured I should have a look at this new fan club crap, for research purposes. Unfortunately, you need to be a Spiral member to enter the site, which posed a problem for me as I actually have some degree of self-respect. Not to worry, though. Using information I learned from watching the movie Hackers, I was able to l337 h4x0r my way into the site via a top secret backdoor with my Linux box. Or whatever.

Wow, there sure was a lot of neat stuff in there! For a second there, I actually considered mugging some old ladies in order to plop down $30 for my own account. But then I remembered there's a new Family Guy DVD coming out this week, so I decided to save the money for that instead. Anyway, there was a huge collection of about 6 pictures of the band, and a really cool video of fans with idiotic tattoos (how retarded do you have to be to not only get the NIN logo tattooed on you, but get it drawn upside-down?) and Trent saying "Phoenix". Oh my god, his hair fell out! That thrilling multimedia archive is easily worth $30 right there, but I hadn't even checked out the message board and chat applet yet. I could hardly contain my excitement and/or joy.

Wow, what an amazing message board they have there! As I said before, its complete lack of resemblance to any other Nine Inch Nails online discussion website is uncanny. They actually have a forum where you can talk about Nine Inch Nails, a forum where you can talk about the Nine Inch Nails tour, a general catch-all forum, and forums to talk about movies and other things! What a brilliant idea! Maybe someday they'll have a place that offers all that for free, but in the meantime, $30 is a steal.


And of course, as promised, Trent hangs out on the board all the time, chit-chatting with all his loyal, adoring fans. In fact, as of the time of this writing, he's already posted 1 times! His official welcome message was immediately followed by 687 pages of replies by aspiring groupies-in-training. Obviously Trent is busy prancing around on stage every night, but I'm absolutely certain he'll get to responding to each one of them as soon as he has some free time.

Then there's the long-awaited OFFICIAL NINE INCH NAILS CHAT ROOM. If you're like me, you've been spending the past ten years wondering why there wasn't a java chat applet that has been officially sanctioned by Nine Inch Nails. Well, all it takes is one glance at this breathtaking work of art to understand why it took so long. Trent is notorious for never settling for anything but the best, and this applies to his chat applets just as much as it does to his music. Your average rock band might be content to simply give you a plain, boring chat room with only the basic essentials, but Nine Inch Nails is not your average rock band. No sir! Not only is the layout and color scheme totally top-notch, but the official NIN chat room also comes jam-packed with a dazzling array of sound effects that aren't obnoxious or annoying at all! One might think that a nonstop barrage of beeps, boinks and whistles would start to get on your nerves after a couple hours, but it never does. It's clear that Trent spent a really long time carefully crafting the right combination of sounds to create just the right kind of ambience befitting of a NIN chat applet. It makes "Leaving Hope" sound like shit.

Unfortunately, the Rezmeister never dropped by while I was visiting the chat, which I suppose could have been due to the fact that Nine Inch Nails was playing a concert at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver at the time. I'm sure I'll see him in there soon though, and we can exchange casserole recipes and Gameshark codes. That is, assuming I somehow get selective amnesia and forget that I swore to myself that I would never, ever spend another second of my life in that place.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up or hack into www.nin-thespiral.com today! Where else are you going to talk about Nine Inch Nails on the internet?

Your friend,
Meathead


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