My name is Lawrence Roth and I use Rothline.com to communicate about my interests in books, computers, movies and anything else that keeps me entertained.

Rothline is a fictitious name that originated in 1985 when my siblings, friends and I used some VCRs and a camcorder to make home movies. We edited those movies by connecting two VCRs together. For one VCR to play and the other VCR to record there was a button titled “Line” that had to be pressed.

Jokingly we referred to this amateur editing process as the “Roth-line.” Rothline became the name of our home made movie production team. We even made a poster, which we framed, that displayed the name, “Rothline Entertainment.”

In 1995 I registered the name Rothline as a company name with the city in which I lived. My idea was to start a retail business selling movies, music, and video games. Around the same time I had developed an interest in computers.

I told a friend of mine about my new interest. I had actually gone through college with limited exposure to computers although I did attend a computer class and I had used the college computer lab. It was when I first entered the workforce that I was exposed to the daily use of a computer. I was impressed and I wanted to learn more about this amazing technology.

This friend recommended that I apply for a job at local computer company that was hiring. The only position in which I had qualifications was the Sales Assistant job. That was okay with me and I applied for the job. I was hired and I started working there two weeks later.

The advantage of working for this computer company was the free computer based training courses this company offered to employees. I took almost every computer based training course this company offered.

By 1999 I had established a solid knowledge of database and spreadsheet software. I was pleased that I was able to make a transition into the computer industry. By 2000 I was learning about another new technology that had been around for a few years. This time I was becoming obsessed. The Internet was absolutely fascinating to me.

I wanted to learn how to make web pages and display them on the Internet. To learn the basics I took a course in HTML. Later I started working for an e-commerce retailer.

Rothline was going to become a website and I registered the domain Rothline.com on May 30, 2001. I used my website to start posting my reviews of new movie releases.

The dot com bust hit around this time and I as well as many others were laid off. It was disappointing and although tempted to find work in another industry I could not let my obsession with the Internet just die. I struggled for a few years working as a Web Development Contractor and later I worked full-time as a Webmaster for another online retailer.

In 2003 I had tried to make Rothline.com an e-commerce website selling movies and video games. I had also tried the eBay thing selling movies and video games with limited success. My full-time work prevented me from being able to spend much time maintaining Rothline.com.

Rothline.com became more of an experimental website than a real website. I would use Rothline.com to develop my Web Development skills. Now I am developing Rothline.com into my version of an online periodical.

The Rothline Circle Logo

The Rothline logo is a circle with an uppercase R in the center, a red swoosh on the left, a blue swoosh on the right, and green in the middle.

I decided I wanted red, green, and blue for the logo colors because I had seen a video projector that combined those three colors to create a color image. I wanted a circle because that is the shape of a projector lens.

The left and right swoosh was inspired by the Yin Yan symbol from Chinese philosophy. The left swoosh was colored red and the right swoosh was colored blue. The green color needed a place to go so it was stuck in the middle.

The uppercase R is of course the first letter of the name Rothline. The original version was made out of construction paper. The graphics for the logo have improved over the years but the basic design has always remained the same, except for one thing. The first version was made with the name “Rothline Entertainment” in mind becuase I was making home made movies with family and friends. Therefore the original version had the letters RE in the center of the logo. The letter E has been removed and just the letter R remains.