First issue: Nov 1977.
I found the Web site one day and signed up immediately. Actually, I first heard about the NPL years ago in one of Hex's Atlantic Monthly puzzles (in their first published collection), in which they use simple rebi as some of the clues and explained the source of the idea as The Enigma. Before I ran across the Web site, I think I'd also seen a couple of references to the NPL in other sources, but nothing which gave me a real sense of what it was; and, truth to tell, I didn't even think of it as something you could *join* – I thought you had to be invited or something. So when I tripped over the site, it was a real revelation – think of the scene in “The Blues Brothers” when the divine sunbeam shoots through the church's stained glass and envelopes John Belushi and he SEES THE LIGHT! I swear I could even hear an angelic choir in the background.
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When I was in college, I would occasionally take time out from amusing myself with comic books and puzzle magazines to head for the computer room and amuse myself with computer games. One day my roommate found me down there and asked me if I intended to do any studying at all that afternoon. I assured him that I had already done some, and was planning to do more, and that just because he caught me playing games, “I wouldn't want you to think I'm just frivolous.” To which he replied, completely deadpan, “Bill, you're King Frivolity.” And you know, the name just felt right – I've used it as an alias for games and such ever since.
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