To be precise, he wasn't quite in on the origins of mudding--not public muds, anyway. Closeting himself in a local Caltech mud for months, he finally one day discovered PernMUSH thanks to Amberyl's advertisement in alt.muds and became a rider. Having seen everything on Pern about ten times, he got bored and began playing an LP, Overdrive, where he made wizard and got bored, whereupon he began playing Pern again, where he saw the same things again, only six hundred times more often. Nevertheless, as Newton put it, a body in mudding tends to stay in mudding. Just pretend he's enthusiastic, and all will go well.
He owns a new guitar. Page him about it. He also cycles a bit. Page him about it. He plays in a garage band. Page him about it. He enjoys dining out at four in the morning. Page him about it. But he hates talking about himself, primarily because people tend to wander away earlier than is permissible. Maybe you shouldn't page him. He's liable to tell you how wonderful LA is, after all.
Someday he will probably meet all these disreputable people he associates with over the net. Meeting mudders, though, is a Tricky proposition for him. Better to let him do the asking. Like hemorrhoids, he will come to you if the conditions are right. Better yet, view his gif from ftp.math.okstate. edu and pretend it is snickering deeply. Z has just spiritually visited you.
Nowadays he holds down a full-time job in the sense that he gets to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day. Mostly, he muds. Lest you envy his salary/net ratio, you might want to consider his midnight to 8 am hours first. You'd think with a degree from Caltech he could do better. ('Slacker' would score 39 points on a triple-word score.)
Nothing interesting ever happens to Z, no matter what Hunter S Thompson says.