Dear BYOND,

I'm a bad father. I don't even remember your exact birth-date. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was somewhere around this time, ten years ago. You were about three weeks old and some 5000-lines long when I first met you, flickering innocently on a 386 in my buddy Dan's dorm-room.

"Is it mine?" I asked, suspiciously. More than once in those days of heavy workloads and heavier drinking had I woken up next to a computer and not recognized the monstrosity on the screen. But you didn't look like my work; even at my most inebriated I would never massacre the braces like that.

"Nope," replied Dan. "But I could sure use some help raising it."

"But what about Wavetank?" I said. Wavetank was our current software hobby, an attempt to obliterate the farce that was quantum mechanics. Truth be told, I didn't have much confidence in Wavetank. In fact, I suspected that Wavetank was mildly retarded.

"We'll come back to Wavetank. But I want you to check this out first." Dan had a gleam in his eye and sheen of perspiration that could only be the result of an fiery coding frenzy... or possibly the hot chili lunch served in the cafeteria that day. I had to get involved. My life for a chili dog.

"What does it do?" I asked.

"A lot!" Dan retorted. And he was right! Already talking to other machines (albeit with a limited vocabulary), you were a precocious one. Dan wanted me to teach you about graphics and sounds and all of that good stuff so we could really show you off to the world.

"What the hey, I'm in" I figured I could play around with you for a few months and then get back to my real work. Hah.

"Great! I'm calling it 'Dung'"

"Oh boy."

And that, dearest BYOND, is how you began. Here's wishing you a very happy 10th birthday. I have high hopes for you these next ten years. But maybe you're old enough to start earning some bucks for your pappy, ya think?

Tom

P.S. Sorry, Wavetank. We never did get back to you.