I\’ve gone places, and met people, and done things because of the whole Tron Guy affair that I would have never been able to otherwise. It\’s been a lot of fun, overall. The first couple of weeks, especially the treatment I got on Slashdot and Fark those first few days, were pretty rough, and at the time, I said I wouldn\’t do it again. That was before the good things started happening.

A lot of folks hid behind their keyboards and took shots at me. A lot of folks told me to my face that they thought it was pretty cool and that I should keep doing it. Guess which ones I learned to listen to?

I never sought out publicity. I expected maybe 500 people to ever see that costume, in person or online. I learned how to handle it from some good people, and it\’s an opportunity I wouldn\’t have had otherwise.

People ask me how I can take getting laughed at all the time. I learned that lesson from Jack Benny. Unless you pay attention to it, you don\’t realize, from listening to his radio shows, that he was usually the butt of the jokes. He pointed out that, when the program was done, people wouldn\’t remember that they laughed at Jack Benny…they\’d remember that they laughed at the Jack Benny Show, and if they laughed, they\’d tune in next week – and he comes out a winner as long as they did that.

The same applies to me. I don\’t ming that people are laughing at me, because they\’re enjoying themselves.