skaorsk8OG 2002

If energy were a currency, Dan Hill would have been eZabel's wealthiest member and still somehow in debt. Posting across two accounts -- skaorsk8 and later superhero -- Dan amassed a combined 8,771 comments, making him one of the most prolific voices on the site. He arrived in January 2002 from Mahwah, NJ, the last town before the New York border, and immediately established himself as the guy who would write 400 words about anything: the ethics of giving money to homeless people, the proper way to propose to a woman, or why EZ-Pass was a scam designed to rob you blind. His username, he once explained, "just happens to appear after you have been drinking and come home and just sit on your keyboard." His homepage was on Angelfire. He was missing half an index finger. He drank only water and coffee. And he had opinions about absolutely everything.

Dan was the group's resident advice columnist, tech support hotline, and party planner rolled into one relentlessly enthusiastic package. He organized the legendary eZabel house party at his place in Mahwah, complete with detailed driving directions that ended with a Palisades Parkway burn: "you should be driving on a real road, not pointless little 'i'm a yuppie look at my BMW' roads." He ran a massive video scavenger hunt across Manhattan with twenty people and four cameras, threw capture-the-flag games in the woods where he wandered off and ended up in a Home Depot parking lot, and once tried to sneak into his sister's belly dancing class with his friend Trevor to videotape it commando-style. His crew was tight and well-documented: forrestina was his top interaction partner, followed by tinser, thatdarngirl, ilikebirds, and fivezero. He was the instigator who once told rocksupastar that Katie had been talking about making him clean toilets, just to watch the fireworks. jay79 served as his unofficial dating scout, walking around evaluating women on his behalf like a one-person pyramid scheme.

His posting voice was unmistakable -- capitalized outbursts, breathless tangents, and the verbal tic of starting sentences with "you know what" before launching into a monologue about Rancid, the evils of soda, or why Dave Matthews Band was just the same three chords repackaged. His music taste was a glorious mess: Wallflowers, Sublime, Tribe Called Quest, Madness, Frente's slow version of "Bizarre Love Triangle" ("without a doubt, my FAVORITE"), and a guilty country phase he caught on a drive to Boston. He once declared that if he ever got married, everyone at his wedding would skank to "The Impression That I Get" -- "even the old sisters in my congregation. They will learn." He championed Dashboard Confessional with the fervor of a man who understood heartbreak, then trashed Chris Carabba for phoning in a live performance. He sold cell phones through Nextel, once helped a high schooler intercept a Fed Ex delivery of a secret phone from his mom, and could troubleshoot your WiFi, diagnose your spyware infestation, and explain the difference between GPRS and CDMA in a single forum post.

Beneath the loudmouth energy was someone genuinely thoughtful. Dan wrote some of eZabel's most earnest advice about relationships -- "GET OUT THERE! GET YOUR HEART BROKEN! EXPERIENCE THE FEELINGS! Dashboard made $$$ on this, so can you" -- and backed it up with real vulnerability about his own struggles with depression and the long stretches of chasing the wrong person. He told an eighteen-year-old yodasucka to save money, go to college, and pioneer, because "that's something you can always look back on." He challenged starshiptrooper for never listening to younger members, laid out a five-point case with prosecutorial precision, and reminded people that empathy means actually listening instead of turning someone else's pain into your own story. He was allergic to milk, which the entire site knew about and never let him forget. ilikebirds once mocked him at a party for not being able to eat pizza, inventing an elaborate movie pitch about Dan crying in a corner with a meatball sub. Dan's response was to compile a list of acceptable cheeses -- all sheep or buffalo-based -- and dare anyone to sue him over its brevity.

eZabel Personality Type: ENFP — "The Campaigner." The superhero era brought a more settled Dan. He married violetboregaurd -- Lauren Morgan -- after proposing at the Grounds for Sculpture in Princeton with a rented limo and a note that said "wear something special for tonight." rocksupastar had been his relationship compass throughout, steering him away from a dead-end crush and toward Lauren before the thought even fully formed in Dan's own mind. Married life channeled his obsessive energy into building a home media center PC, complete with Beyond TV, HD recording, and a capture card setup he documented in exhaustive multi-paragraph forum posts. He and Lauren budgeted with three checking accounts and four savings accounts, planned date nights like military operations, and spent an entire day searching for their escaped cat after Dan accidentally left a window cracked. He was terrified of roller coasters, hated Great Adventure so much he rode the toddler train and still disliked it, and once yelled at coworkers about the superiority of bloodless surgery during a blood drive. He was, in every era, completely and unapologetically himself.