spice up your crippling fear of aging by installing ICQ 7

ICQ came back today. At first I thought it was maybe this was part of a promotion for a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Blu-ray boxed set but no, it's actually ICQ. It couldn't have come on a better day for me because my back hurt a bit and when I woke up I had been wondering whether Toad the Wet Sprocket had ever put out a greatest hits record. Might as well completely re-immerse myself in the 1990s and dig my ICQ number out of an old webmail account. I always loved the concept of an ICQ number.Mirabalis, ICQ's developers once hoped that your 8-digit long ICQ number would be become as important as your home phone number. This edition appears to dispense with numbers and what not which thwarts the nostalgic impulse that took me to the download page in the first place but is probably just as well because I stopped memorizing my phone numbers two phones ago.

ICQ, I'm told, is still quite popular in Russia and Eastern Europe where the images on the official Website suggest it is the IM client of choice for girls to announce shoe purchases. This new iteration isn't just for IMs, it also updates Twitter and your Facebook status..

While installing, ICQ asked me to close Firefox, which I trustingly did, only to find upon re-starting my browser that ICQ had installed a toolbar and changed my default search engine to the ostensibly useful ICQ Search. ICQ is so committed to helping you relive the 90s that it installs browser toolbars without your permission. I can't recall the last time I uninstalled something so quickly. Then I had a look around my system to make sure there wasn't a goddamned Bonzi Buddy somewhere.

Leave the 90s back in the 90s.

[I wrote this last week but didn't post it then. I am a man of many mysteries.]