As even Shakespeare knew, 'Tis true; there's magic in the web . . .', something that was proved in the most unlikely of places, the flame-filled forums of Slashdot during this past week.
Slashdot founder Rob Malda, better known to millions as Cmdrtaco, chose Valentine's Day to propose to his long-time girlfriend, Kathleen Fent.
No doubt millions of people have done the same. But Mr Malda found a rather more original approach than the dull old analogue, down-on-your-knees method.
He posted his proposal on Slashdot (the man's bad spelling is infamous).
'Kathleen, I wanted to do this in this most potentially embarassing way possible, and I figured doing it here and now, in front of a quarter of a million strangers, was as good a way as any. I love you more then I can describe within the limits of this tiny little story. We've been together for many years now, and I've known for most of that time that I wanted to spend my life with you. Enough rambling. Will you marry me?'
Before Ms Fent had a chance to respond, Slashdot regulars were on to the case and the bad puns flew like Microsoft diatribes at LinuxWorld - 'It's only a token ring'; 'If you two get married, will you be all proprietary towards her, or will she be open-source?'; 'Once you get married, all your base are belong to her [sic]'; 'Will we be seeing child processes anytime soon?'; 'Congrats, you've now spawned a permanent process.'
Just 15 minutes later, Ms Fent made Internet history by posting her acceptance, the first post she has made to the site since she helped Mr Malda design it five years ago.