I had used the main site for Neopets info and guides and such for a while, but I finally registered with the forums on September 23rd, 2003.
I was looking for help for the Mystery Island Mystery. I started posting in the plot threads and groups of us broke off into AIM plot chats. I remember Magenta was in mine and I was so proud to have made it into her chat because she was so well-known. lol Only so many could be in each chat because there was a maximum limit, so we relayed messages between several. We figured things out quickly and I ended up as #200something to solve the MIM from the teamwork. It was so fun and the people were so great, I decided to stick around.
In fact, Alex was one of the very first people I talked to back then. She messaged me on MSN and here we are, 4 1/2 years later, still good friends.
Right from the beginning, I held my giveaways. lol I remember a couple months after I joined, someone tried to impersonate me on MSN and scam people. D: hamstershredder, iconoplast, and I posted up and warned people, though. We were quite the trio back then.
Actually, icono joined one hour after me. It was funny because she's in the next timezone over, so on her computer it said we joined the same day, but on mine it said she was one day later.
The more you know!
*cues shooting star and rainbow*