Crad
April 14th, 2010, 12:48 AM
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10,000
Oh snap, I just got 30 free lives.
Because I'm one to copy other people, I figure I'll make this post detailing my online life in an elaborately thorough manner; all the cool kids with no lives are doing it!
Lets start off from the VERY beginning.
Gametalk
My very first message board, back when the whole concept of the interwebz was still being decided upon by our top nerds, and the horrific events of Y2K were still fresh in our minds and our computer's illy-stored date. The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask was just out, and being the trooper I was, I jumped at the chance to discuss to people from other countries the epic adventure of Link and his questionable taste in dress tunics. Needless to say, none of you know me at this point, except that oddly enough I did go by the name of Crad; my first internet moniker. I was only 12 here, so lets fast forward a bit to my first moderator job.
Cellphones can play games!? Fresh off the first terrible BREW title, Gametalk quickly adopted a 'Handhelds' board. Strangely enough they offered it to a precarious little scamp such as myself. Nintendo had just announced Animal Forest+; which quickly became my little hangout despite not being released for another 2 years. And shortly after I received my second moderator spot at the Nintendo DS board (code-named the "Developers System", everyone was excited to find out more!).
Oh, then I got into Yu-Gi-Oh; by this time it was mid 2003 and Labyrinth of Nightmare was just released. I spent a lot of time hanging out in the Dueling-Cards board on Gametalk, but then I was recruited into...
The Rare Hunters
Hey; I remember these guys! They were a queer bunch; and if you were even remotely obnoxious, arrogant, or just stupid, you were here. Of course I fell into the latter category.
Not a whole lot happened here to be perfectly honest. I was running a Gren Maju OTK deck, much to Joe's chagrin (he has stories). This was when I originally joined YF; I believe in mid-2004, as part of a warring effort by RHs that never took off. I didn't become active until much later, but it still counts.
Some of the people there were a blast. There was Matt, BlackHeartz, of course. The two Mikes, RHX and TheUnknown. Sam (saga) and Ash (rei); whom I swear are clones of one another despite being from two different countries. Black Paladin, or rather Bipy, was there as well; I didn't get along with him much. There was Jeremy, soullesshunters, and Fred, Pepsi. And there was a completely psychotic attention-whore named Tela. Not dishing on Tela, but she really was an attention-whore; she'd actually get the guys on the board to 'worship' her as one of her 'knights'. Needless to say, we ended up at odds for a while, until we started talking and eventually became good friends. Hmm, there are probably many other people I could mention here, but many of them are long gone, both online and from that easy-to-recollect area in my memory.
Then comes Sentinel, but if you're here to hear his story, well you're out of... ... ****... well you're lucky that his story ties in closely to mine at this point!
Anthony was a blast. He does kind of command respect wherever he goes. Anyways, I'm not sure how he remembers it, but I treated him rather harshly when he first joined, and it wasn't until he started e-dating (uh oh) Tela that I started to actually talk to him. Eh, he wasn't that bad. Okay, he was awesome. Still, as I became friends with him more, I found that I had to defuse more fights between Gwen and Anthony than a 16 year old should. I Mean, seriously, I ended up consoling / calming down both of them. Being the middleman in a relationship IS NOT FUN.
Finally a bunch of **** broke down, and Tela and Sent left AS; and myself being their naive young friend joined with. All fun and games at this point!
Alpha Syndrome
Okay, before Anthony says anything. I claim credit as the third pillar for starting Alpha Syndrome. I know, you originally made it for Tela and yourself, but I was there during the whole thing. From the name suggestions, to the discussing about going to YF for it (as you were recently made Moderator; or was this before?). At one point, to my own humor, I got Tela freaking out that she just started a clan named after an STD XD
So? What can I say about Alpha Syndrome. It had a lot of walls. I was in charge of the ladder, which was done ENTIRELY in text. And there was a member whom we randomly decided to call Bob. Oh, how I miss Bob and our hilarious chats with him. He'd be proud to know that GraveKeepers are actually good now. Pat (Chopp) was there, as was Joe (B l i t z). In fact, a lot of RareHunters members were on both RHs and AS, which was a bit of a focus point for some strife.
Okay, a bit of an understatement. Things weren't good between RHs and AS. In the Staff Lounge, Anthony, Gwen, and I would discuss what to do about it, going so far as to call them spies. I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous! In the end, during a discussion with Anthony and Tela, I raged. And man did I rage. This was during a time of deep inner reflection; in other words, I started walking home from school every day, and had 45 minutes of time to think. Needless to say, I considered Joe and Pat my friends, and when Anthony banned them for being RH spies, I went berserk and banned myself. Real schmott, amirite? Hilarious though.
Not sure what happened after that. But from what I heard it went downhill from there.
Yugioh Forums
Oh, this whole time runs parallel with the Alpha Syndrome timeframe, but extends much longer.
I became active here when I was 17 in mid-2005. That's approaching 6 years for you young whippersnappers. Everything had this scary "I DON'T KNOW YOU" gloss to it, and I didn't start really posting until I found the VideoGame section. From there it was heaven. I serenely caressed the sexy curves of the board, taking part in discussions, offering my views towards the latest game. I was in a paradise of sorts. Well, not really.
Anthony had just started Alpha Syndrome up, and about two weeks in he suddenly released news of a glorious new InvisionFree board for us to play around in! I visited YF a bit less, but still often during this time.
Once I left AS, I started to become truly active in YF. And even started up my premiere Yu-Gi-Oh team, Tempest! It bombed! I later started up a few under different names such as Twilight Nightmare, League of Fancy Gents, and even Beta Strain (after AS officially dissolved). Still, I ended up coming back to Tempest; it was a fun team, filled with my friends.
Sentinel and I continued to butt heads; we were pals, but I was up in his face constantly. Much like Dave, except without the whole bipolar thing. I annoyed him a ton, but we also had a lot of good times during this. I still remember getting this hilariously long and thought-out private message from him saying that he was no longer my friend, then hanging out with him like 2 days later. But seriously, he's a really good guy, and should message me more to hang out.
The rest of the story here is up in the air. I've been around here for what seems like forever. Have left a few times; due to moving, due to a conflicting attempt to serious up with my career, and due to sheer chagrin towards certain members. Still, I very much consider YF my home. I love this place, and enjoy talking to a lot of the newer members. I was previously made moderator once, but ended up leaving due to distaste I had towards quite literally 'everyone being a ****ing moron'; but it happens.
The rest is all history.
Duelist Central
This was the coolest board ever, but the owner, Grant (Deception), left it to die. Dude, had you listened to those around you, Duelist Central could've been brilliant; instead you merged the site with Rain's board, inevitably killing both.
Real Life
Wait, there's a real life now?
Lets start with education:
Growing up, as my birthday was on December 21st, which happens to be the cutoff for admissions into my school district, I winded up being the youngest in all my classes. Randomly, I was placed in the Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, which to this day I suspect was because I memorized my multiplication and division table (from 1 to 12) in grade 1 (they were on the back of my math notebook). Nonetheless come Highschool I was a full-fledged underachiever in the sense that I didn't do any homework and instead just showed up to class, learned the material, and did the tests. This pissed my math and physics teachers off a lot, not to mention my parents. I'm quite proud of my uncanny ability to do the minimal amount of work possible.
Following Highschool, I took a year-long community college course in Computer Science -- had an amazing time there, namely because in-between classes we'd have massive 20+ player LAN Call of Duty 2 games. Shortly after graduation, I moved out to Vancouver, BC on my own and was enrolled in The Art Institute of Vancouver - Burnaby's Visual & Game Programming course. From that, we started with like 40 people, and ended up only have 6 graduate. Since then I've taken a few additional courses at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), and have plans to continue my education up to a Computer Science degree.
Meanwhile, I am currently working two jobs. One is working at MatrixStream Technologies, a High Definition IPTV company, where I work on embedded linux development as the de facto lead programmer (the previous lead programmer left almost a year ago, since then I've adopted all his work and responsibilities). The other job is freelance, designing and developing minigames for a currently yet-to-be-released children's browser MMO in my free time.
So yes. I maek gamez and awesomz.
Shoutouts
None yet, this is a large list, so give me time
10,000
Oh snap, I just got 30 free lives.
Because I'm one to copy other people, I figure I'll make this post detailing my online life in an elaborately thorough manner; all the cool kids with no lives are doing it!
Lets start off from the VERY beginning.
Gametalk
My very first message board, back when the whole concept of the interwebz was still being decided upon by our top nerds, and the horrific events of Y2K were still fresh in our minds and our computer's illy-stored date. The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask was just out, and being the trooper I was, I jumped at the chance to discuss to people from other countries the epic adventure of Link and his questionable taste in dress tunics. Needless to say, none of you know me at this point, except that oddly enough I did go by the name of Crad; my first internet moniker. I was only 12 here, so lets fast forward a bit to my first moderator job.
Cellphones can play games!? Fresh off the first terrible BREW title, Gametalk quickly adopted a 'Handhelds' board. Strangely enough they offered it to a precarious little scamp such as myself. Nintendo had just announced Animal Forest+; which quickly became my little hangout despite not being released for another 2 years. And shortly after I received my second moderator spot at the Nintendo DS board (code-named the "Developers System", everyone was excited to find out more!).
Oh, then I got into Yu-Gi-Oh; by this time it was mid 2003 and Labyrinth of Nightmare was just released. I spent a lot of time hanging out in the Dueling-Cards board on Gametalk, but then I was recruited into...
The Rare Hunters
Hey; I remember these guys! They were a queer bunch; and if you were even remotely obnoxious, arrogant, or just stupid, you were here. Of course I fell into the latter category.
Not a whole lot happened here to be perfectly honest. I was running a Gren Maju OTK deck, much to Joe's chagrin (he has stories). This was when I originally joined YF; I believe in mid-2004, as part of a warring effort by RHs that never took off. I didn't become active until much later, but it still counts.
Some of the people there were a blast. There was Matt, BlackHeartz, of course. The two Mikes, RHX and TheUnknown. Sam (saga) and Ash (rei); whom I swear are clones of one another despite being from two different countries. Black Paladin, or rather Bipy, was there as well; I didn't get along with him much. There was Jeremy, soullesshunters, and Fred, Pepsi. And there was a completely psychotic attention-whore named Tela. Not dishing on Tela, but she really was an attention-whore; she'd actually get the guys on the board to 'worship' her as one of her 'knights'. Needless to say, we ended up at odds for a while, until we started talking and eventually became good friends. Hmm, there are probably many other people I could mention here, but many of them are long gone, both online and from that easy-to-recollect area in my memory.
Then comes Sentinel, but if you're here to hear his story, well you're out of... ... ****... well you're lucky that his story ties in closely to mine at this point!
Anthony was a blast. He does kind of command respect wherever he goes. Anyways, I'm not sure how he remembers it, but I treated him rather harshly when he first joined, and it wasn't until he started e-dating (uh oh) Tela that I started to actually talk to him. Eh, he wasn't that bad. Okay, he was awesome. Still, as I became friends with him more, I found that I had to defuse more fights between Gwen and Anthony than a 16 year old should. I Mean, seriously, I ended up consoling / calming down both of them. Being the middleman in a relationship IS NOT FUN.
Finally a bunch of **** broke down, and Tela and Sent left AS; and myself being their naive young friend joined with. All fun and games at this point!
Alpha Syndrome
Okay, before Anthony says anything. I claim credit as the third pillar for starting Alpha Syndrome. I know, you originally made it for Tela and yourself, but I was there during the whole thing. From the name suggestions, to the discussing about going to YF for it (as you were recently made Moderator; or was this before?). At one point, to my own humor, I got Tela freaking out that she just started a clan named after an STD XD
So? What can I say about Alpha Syndrome. It had a lot of walls. I was in charge of the ladder, which was done ENTIRELY in text. And there was a member whom we randomly decided to call Bob. Oh, how I miss Bob and our hilarious chats with him. He'd be proud to know that GraveKeepers are actually good now. Pat (Chopp) was there, as was Joe (B l i t z). In fact, a lot of RareHunters members were on both RHs and AS, which was a bit of a focus point for some strife.
Okay, a bit of an understatement. Things weren't good between RHs and AS. In the Staff Lounge, Anthony, Gwen, and I would discuss what to do about it, going so far as to call them spies. I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous! In the end, during a discussion with Anthony and Tela, I raged. And man did I rage. This was during a time of deep inner reflection; in other words, I started walking home from school every day, and had 45 minutes of time to think. Needless to say, I considered Joe and Pat my friends, and when Anthony banned them for being RH spies, I went berserk and banned myself. Real schmott, amirite? Hilarious though.
Not sure what happened after that. But from what I heard it went downhill from there.
Yugioh Forums
Oh, this whole time runs parallel with the Alpha Syndrome timeframe, but extends much longer.
I became active here when I was 17 in mid-2005. That's approaching 6 years for you young whippersnappers. Everything had this scary "I DON'T KNOW YOU" gloss to it, and I didn't start really posting until I found the VideoGame section. From there it was heaven. I serenely caressed the sexy curves of the board, taking part in discussions, offering my views towards the latest game. I was in a paradise of sorts. Well, not really.
Anthony had just started Alpha Syndrome up, and about two weeks in he suddenly released news of a glorious new InvisionFree board for us to play around in! I visited YF a bit less, but still often during this time.
Once I left AS, I started to become truly active in YF. And even started up my premiere Yu-Gi-Oh team, Tempest! It bombed! I later started up a few under different names such as Twilight Nightmare, League of Fancy Gents, and even Beta Strain (after AS officially dissolved). Still, I ended up coming back to Tempest; it was a fun team, filled with my friends.
Sentinel and I continued to butt heads; we were pals, but I was up in his face constantly. Much like Dave, except without the whole bipolar thing. I annoyed him a ton, but we also had a lot of good times during this. I still remember getting this hilariously long and thought-out private message from him saying that he was no longer my friend, then hanging out with him like 2 days later. But seriously, he's a really good guy, and should message me more to hang out.
The rest of the story here is up in the air. I've been around here for what seems like forever. Have left a few times; due to moving, due to a conflicting attempt to serious up with my career, and due to sheer chagrin towards certain members. Still, I very much consider YF my home. I love this place, and enjoy talking to a lot of the newer members. I was previously made moderator once, but ended up leaving due to distaste I had towards quite literally 'everyone being a ****ing moron'; but it happens.
The rest is all history.
Duelist Central
This was the coolest board ever, but the owner, Grant (Deception), left it to die. Dude, had you listened to those around you, Duelist Central could've been brilliant; instead you merged the site with Rain's board, inevitably killing both.
Real Life
Wait, there's a real life now?
Lets start with education:
Growing up, as my birthday was on December 21st, which happens to be the cutoff for admissions into my school district, I winded up being the youngest in all my classes. Randomly, I was placed in the Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, which to this day I suspect was because I memorized my multiplication and division table (from 1 to 12) in grade 1 (they were on the back of my math notebook). Nonetheless come Highschool I was a full-fledged underachiever in the sense that I didn't do any homework and instead just showed up to class, learned the material, and did the tests. This pissed my math and physics teachers off a lot, not to mention my parents. I'm quite proud of my uncanny ability to do the minimal amount of work possible.
Following Highschool, I took a year-long community college course in Computer Science -- had an amazing time there, namely because in-between classes we'd have massive 20+ player LAN Call of Duty 2 games. Shortly after graduation, I moved out to Vancouver, BC on my own and was enrolled in The Art Institute of Vancouver - Burnaby's Visual & Game Programming course. From that, we started with like 40 people, and ended up only have 6 graduate. Since then I've taken a few additional courses at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), and have plans to continue my education up to a Computer Science degree.
Meanwhile, I am currently working two jobs. One is working at MatrixStream Technologies, a High Definition IPTV company, where I work on embedded linux development as the de facto lead programmer (the previous lead programmer left almost a year ago, since then I've adopted all his work and responsibilities). The other job is freelance, designing and developing minigames for a currently yet-to-be-released children's browser MMO in my free time.
So yes. I maek gamez and awesomz.
Shoutouts
None yet, this is a large list, so give me time