The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Where were you in your life at the time you joined PA's forum? How do you compare today?
Divebommah
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'll start...though unofficially, I had an older account that got banned due to a not-cool comment about emulation back in 2003ish. Sorry mods!!! 
August 2004. I was 25 and working temp jobs. The evening I created my account I was working the night shift at a property management company, manning the phones in case something awful happened at a Bank of America branch. I was two years married and the dot-com bust had destroyed both my and my wife's freelance writing businesses. The computer they gave me to work on was a P2-100 or something that couldn't play a game to save its life. But that's okay, because I had sold all my games by this point in order to make rent so I didn't have a thing to play anyway. Our bank account was two months from empty. I was pretty miserable. If I'd had a gameboy I'd have sold it, too.
Sometime that night, as I browsed the web and quite literally ran out of Internet to browse, I decided to defy the PA forum mods and create an account again. I cracked open the forums and started reading again for the first time in months. Someone was telling stories about their little Mantis-bro's who killed all the bugs in their home/yard. Someone else was talking about the awesome LEGO spaceships he'd built. Others were discussing games I desperately wanted to play but couldn't afford. I spent the rest of the night, and the next night, lurking. I did that for months.
It felt great. I didn't feel so alone. I lived vicariously through your stories, your walkthroughs, your complaints, you wallpaper threads. It was great. It got me through a tough time.
Ten years later life has had plenty of ups and downs, but I'm way better off than I was. Very healthy bank account, good job -- no, it's a proper career now -- and about to buy a proper home that isn't the size of a shoebox. Shocked how much of this didn't occur to me until I stopped to reflect.
Anyway, really want to hear everyone else's story, too!
August 2004. I was 25 and working temp jobs. The evening I created my account I was working the night shift at a property management company, manning the phones in case something awful happened at a Bank of America branch. I was two years married and the dot-com bust had destroyed both my and my wife's freelance writing businesses. The computer they gave me to work on was a P2-100 or something that couldn't play a game to save its life. But that's okay, because I had sold all my games by this point in order to make rent so I didn't have a thing to play anyway. Our bank account was two months from empty. I was pretty miserable. If I'd had a gameboy I'd have sold it, too.
Sometime that night, as I browsed the web and quite literally ran out of Internet to browse, I decided to defy the PA forum mods and create an account again. I cracked open the forums and started reading again for the first time in months. Someone was telling stories about their little Mantis-bro's who killed all the bugs in their home/yard. Someone else was talking about the awesome LEGO spaceships he'd built. Others were discussing games I desperately wanted to play but couldn't afford. I spent the rest of the night, and the next night, lurking. I did that for months.
It felt great. I didn't feel so alone. I lived vicariously through your stories, your walkthroughs, your complaints, you wallpaper threads. It was great. It got me through a tough time.
Ten years later life has had plenty of ups and downs, but I'm way better off than I was. Very healthy bank account, good job -- no, it's a proper career now -- and about to buy a proper home that isn't the size of a shoebox. Shocked how much of this didn't occur to me until I stopped to reflect.
Anyway, really want to hear everyone else's story, too!
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