omegatweeterOG 2003

There was something immediately disarming about Pete Stambouli. From the moment he appeared on eZabel in the spring of 2003 — first as togatweeter, then reborn as omegatweeter with his signature vowel-capitalization — he radiated a kind of wide-eyed sincerity that the internet rarely rewards but eZabel deeply valued. He chose "OmEgA" because it was Greek and he was part Greek, and "twEEtEr" because it rhymed with Peter and someone at school started calling him that. He always capitalized his vowels because he thought it was original, and honestly, it was. When skaorsk8 remembered the day Pete debuted his "more spiritual" new name, someone cracked, "oh yeah? like the Apostle Tweeter?" — and Dan laughed about it for a long time. That was the thing about Pete: he set up punchlines without trying, and laughed at them harder than anyone.

Pete was a senior at North Plainfield High School when he joined, living in a cramped old house he thought was boring, perpetually trying to bum rides to events because the family van's cooling system couldn't handle anything beyond a thirty-minute radius. He found the site through ekulu, was hesitant at first because he "didn't understand any of this site's content at all," but jumped in because he liked meeting people. And meet people he did — across 1,352 comments on three accounts, Pete became one of the most genuinely engaged members of the community, attending everything from the Band From Society shows to apple picking to go-karting to LAN parties. His account of seeing his first rock show is pure Pete: he sat silently next to hunkpapap and thefunkyfresh for ages, too shy to introduce himself until Matt mentioned the word "eZabel" and Pete finally felt safe enough to speak up.

What made Pete special was not cleverness or bravado but a radical, almost stubborn openness. He shared his spiritual journey in extraordinary detail — how his family was on-and-off with meetings, how his first best friend and that friend's mom studied with him, how that friendship fractured and left him feeling used, and how he slowly rebuilt. He wrote about his aunt who had been removed and had practically raised him, the pain of learning to keep distance. He posted poetry that he acknowledged "sounds like emo, although i don't intend it to be" — earnest verses about empty promises and being yourself that fivezero and flomojopoanode received with real respect. When his congregation was reorganized and 85% of the members had to move, he cried after the elder read Acts 20:36-37 and wrote about it that night. Pete processed life out loud, and eZabel was better for it.

He was also deeply, endearingly goofy. His last name got mangled into Stromboli, Zamboni, and Stamboly by seemingly everyone he encountered. His Spanish teacher called him Peter Zamboni. He claimed to have six wisdom teeth, over a hundred cousins, and the ability to hold his breath for three minutes and twenty-five seconds. He shouted "BLUE JAY!" in psychology class and told the teacher he had ADD. He ate expired peanut butter at his cousin's house and marveled that he didn't throw up. In foods class, a power shortage threatened his blueberry muffins and he screamed "MY MUFFINS!!!" He dressed up in an afro and huge sunglasses to sing "The Way You Do The Things You Do" at a gathering, then convinced his presiding overseer to make a surprise entrance fake-playing an inflatable saxophone. malibu once said he came across like a "tight laced white kid" — like Kevin from The Wonder Years — and Pete took it in stride with characteristic good humor.

eZabel Personality Type: ESFJ — "The Caregiver." His journal about getting his driver's license reads like a short film — the nervous morning, the examiner who wouldn't say good morning back, the botched left turn, the parallel parking do-over, and then staring at his instructor afterward with no idea whether he'd passed until the man pointed to the shiny sticker on his permit. "VROOM VROOM!!!" His final long journal, "Good Things Around the Corner," written months after graduation from Raritan Valley Community College, was quietly triumphant: he'd passed English with an A from a tough grader, found a group of nearby friends who looked to him as a leader, landed a job at a doctor's office. The older sister who'd counseled him had been right. His last comment, in November 2004, was about getting into a car accident and noting the car in the article looked way better than his — one final self-deprecating laugh on the way out. Pete's closest bonds were with thatdarngirl, tinser, yodasucka, Dan, and Brian, and they were the richer for knowing someone who signed every message with his real name and genuinely wanted to know if you were doing okay.