Miraculous CLAW
By C.H.U. Clyde's Human Unit Queen Midnight and Clyde |
When I first read that CLAW was closing, I was shocked. Then I became depressed and sobbed. In memorial to CLAW, I'd like to tell our (Clyde's and my) story with this wonderful club. It was run by an angel, and was the provider of miracles in our lives.
CLAW and I go back a long ways (in terms of technology anyway) to 1996 when ClydeSight2.0! first appeared on the Internet. We were hardly up and running when we got an e-mail from Queen Midnight inviting us to join. She was as gracious as a cat can be, and offered membership because she felt our site was worthy of note. Little did she know the "notes" that would be coming!
Of course, we had to figure out a password and other membership items (this took weeks!) but we finally got on board. When we did, we discovered a wonderful site filled with many things to do, not the least of which was taking elocution lessons. How could we resist something like that! That was a turning point, because we couldn't get them to play on our browser. In those days, applying a plug-in was a major chore-- 9 times out of 10 they didn't work anyway. But, it was a learning experience to figure them out, and the lessons stuck with us. That was a gift from CLAW, the first of many.
Now, you must understand, Clyde was a very persistent cat, and he never liked to leave a puzzle unsolved. So, he insisted that I struggle with all sorts of plug-ins and applications and helpers to get the elocution lessons working. We never fully succeeded, though, to our delight, we got one or two lessons to play.
In the midst of all that, the miracle that CLAW gave us occurred. You see, in our adventures to download "everything", we discovered MIDI. And MIDI opened the door to Clyde's remarkable talents as a composer. He'd always been frustrated trying to play keyboards with those big paws of his, but MIDI got the computer to play for him, so at last his talent could shine. It took no time for Clyde to forget about elocution in favor of this musically interesting potential. He already spoke eloquently anyway.
So, we turned our attention to MIDI. Clyde had studied composition, and within a few weeks, and a lot of computer time, Clyde created his very first MIDI composition, "Toccata Temporal" (The theme music to the game, Time Travel Clyde). He was so excited that he immediately sent a copy to Queen Midnight. She replied by offering him a crown!
Clyde figured she must have liked it.
