did anyone else my age use limewire as a young child?

i had this tiny purple laptop, barely functional. i think it had windows vista on it, and butterfly stickers on the back. my dad showed me limewire and was like, now you can download that song you like so much. it was fireflies by owl city. but i started looking at old photos of limewire, and it made me nostalgic.

i used it all the way up until it was discontinued, mostly for music but movies here and there when i was feeling impulsive enough to risk watching a cartel beheading. i remember downloading Flight of The Navigator and i waited 3 days to watch that movie. i remember my dad downloading Ghost Rider, it also took days. it turned out to be in german

after discovering uTorrent and thepiratebay, my life was changed.

ahh, the endless porn ads

do you guys remember the speakers at drive thru's before they were all screens? the little black boxes with the red text of your order?

or ordering pizza online to eat while settling into bed to watch Nim's Island.

this age of the internet was when everything felt kind of infinite to me. the sleek, simple & to the point layout, gradients everywhere. everything customizable. Purble Palace. Window's pinball, which i actually downloaded on my pc. what an age to live through

today, i looked outside my window and it was snowing, but my room was more akin to the inside of a fireplace. looking directly at snow outside did not feel cold, and my room was so hot. so i've decided to scrounge the internet for photos that feel cold for you all to enjoy (nobody) (i'm yelling into the void) rather than leave my overheated furnace of a bedroom!

so, please, accept this lukewarm-slightly-cold cup of chai tea in a very dainty mug (it's not reasonably priced, its $6, and the barista has a man bun) and scroll through these images while wishing you had a lover.

these darker & higher contrast images convey a more peaceful feeling to me, i dunno. i want one of these big statues in my yard overlooking a fence at my neighbors so they feel safe

these are just lonely but theyre kind of nice. i love the winter, i always find solace in it, and then the end of january comes and i'm like okay thats enough. and then i suffer through march with the worst case of seasonal depression you've seen because for some reason it's still 30 degrees in the morning. and then when i'm on my way to work i step on black ice and slip and eat shit in the snow wishing i would light on fire

but why do all that when i can sit and look at cold.jpg on my laptop? it's just like the real thing, except i don't have a bruised tailbone & overwhelming shame. I LOVE WINTER!!!!!!!!!!