"I was gratified to be able to answer
promptly,
and I did. I said I didn't know."
Okay, before you start thinking I'm some crazy fanatic, I had better explain why I decided to do this web site back in 1996. In no particular order:
To Learn - I wanted to do something fun and not-so-serious that would in the long run, teach me how to develop and maintain a web site, keep my computer graphics and writing skills honed and introduce me to other people I can relate to...it did ALL of that, in MAJOR abundance!
To Have Fun - All my other hobbies and interests seem to have been done-to-death already on the web (and this was back in '96!?!) Besides, I wanted to do something relatively new. After seeing several Poltergeist: The Legacy episodes on Showtime and noticing the similarities between "The Legacy" and Anne Rice's "Talamasca" secret society (go read her Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches series) I really wanted to keep watching it. It's an entertaining show! It also helps that the actor, Derek de Lint, plays the lead character. I had enjoyed de Lint's past acting in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Stealing Heaven (ladies, that one is a definite must-see) and even Disney's The Little Riders. It's always aesthetically pleasing to see a good-looking older guy (my favorite kind, just ask my fifty-plus year old husband) with a wonderful voice. The joint creation of both my P:TL and Derek de Lint sites gave me great pleasure and helped me on my way to doing web sites for a living too.
To Help Others Find Info - Surfin' the Net was a hobby of mine (which became much more than that) and naturally, I tried to search out anything on Poltergeist or de Lint or whatever keywords I could think of...there wasn't much out there way back in the Summer of '96! Showtime and MGM/UA had their promo pages for it but there was no place where fans could get extensive info on ALL the episodes, or the actors/characters. So I decided to fix that little problem. :-) And you can't believe how tempting it is to keep creating new web pages for other subjects when I find lack of info on them too!
To Exercise My Grey Matter - I have to use my imagination and creativity. (I get bored easily, put it that way!) I was a work-at-home-mom from '92-'96 and spent most of my time doing "mom things," I needed a way to just step out of reality for awhile each day and most of the time I did (and still do) that through reading. I have always been an avid reader and so is my hubby...you can tell that the minute you walk in our house because we seem to be running out of bookshelves! I don't know if it is a curse or a blessing, but I read rather quickly. So going through one medium-sized paperback a day is no problem. It can get costly though when I just have to have my favorite authors' novels in hardcover though. So I do lots of re-reading my favorite novels. I am also an artist but my sessions of painting or drawing are few and far between these days. Anyhow, I really love doing these web pages and getting to know other people who enjoy the same things I do.
Etcetera - Eventhough I can be overly prolific with words, I don't even come close to being a "real" writer or a journalist, so you'll have to forgive any bad writing you come across! I write very casually and also have a tendency to spell words/phrases the same way I speak them. (Like gonna, dunno, y'all, etc.) I cannot state how strongly to you via words that I am not fanatic ("unreasonably enthusiastic") about any one thing. I enjoy being entertained by this show and all the main characters. This genre is one that I'm familiar with. Even when I was just eight years old, I checked out as many mysteries and ghost stories out of the school library that I could find...then I had to re-read them when no more were left. Mostly, I just find this combination of a fav show and webpaging to be fun. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it, right? :-)