I met James Hague maybe -- gad -- eleven or twleve years ago, when he sent me an e-mail out of the blue. "Are you the Greg Knauss who wrote Upward?" he asked. "Yeah," I said. "Are you the James Hague who wrote Bonk?"

We had both been in Atari 8-bit magazines, see, and both posted to comp.sys.atari.8-bit. The world was a smaller place back then.

Since he introduced himself, James and I have e-mailed each other -- but never spoken -- thousands of times, on everything from kids to code to, um, more code. We've invited each other to our weddings and talked about jobs and video games and family. I consider him a good friend, and hope one day to get to shake his hand.

Man, I love the Internet.