Really, Scott E. Fahlman?

Apparently, the "digital smiley face" turns 25 today. Scott E. Fahlman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, claims to be the first person ever to have used a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis to form a smiley face:

:-)

Proof?
"Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly."

Fatherly Sentiment?
"It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all around the world," Fahlman was quoted as saying in a university statement.

"I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to view a smiley, in the 25 years since this all started."

Rant?
This is the first I've heard of Scott E. Fahlman, father of the emoticon, but I'm pretty sure that he's full of crap. I don't think the claim that he posted the emoticon "to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982" is a lie, though it is a bit creepy that he recorded the time and date. But the notion that one man, 25 years ago, gave birth to the "turn punctuation on its side to make a picture" meme is based on some flawed reasoning (overlooking the flawed reasoning of "meme", itself). To argue that there was one thought ":-)" that was created and passed on from that moment to all persons is, I think, quite asinine, and in no way how these things work.

When was the first time you used an emote? Was Scott E. Fahlman involved? Had you seen it before or did you intuit the idea that "Hey, :) looks like a smiley face."?