Growing Up

[MatthewV]

I like seeing how this community has changed but stayed the same throughout the years. The internet is not constricted with geography-- allowing our members to stay in touch even as lives change. "After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same."

I see this when we celebrate marriages, job advancements, and birth of children. The forums are also used as a place to vent off some steam when the bad choices of others come our way.

There is a balance between adventures and keeping still. Traveling the world would expose me to many different cultures, places, and ideas. But living in one community for a long time would allow me to appreciate the changes and growth in the area. There is beauty and a subtle joy from seeing a tree that was once a sapling. I am looking forward to seeing the labyrinth continue to exist.
and for our invisible text readers, this thread will be a mature hotseat.
So what about me? I have been spending too much time thinking about where I have been, where I am going, and how people interact. I feel that I have made many profound understandings-- hypothesises about the future will bring, the lives people really should embrace, the indirect results of our actions, and unconventional changes to make people happier. I am not surprised that people find my ideas and guesses to be arrogant and foolhardy. Yet, more often than not, they seem to work. I really wasn't any different ten years ago.
Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to!
Soon I will be working to establish a pottery. It will be called Kakapo Pottery and part of the overall mission will be to conserve and restore wilderness in New Zealand. In a year or two, I hope to make a "mug a day" thread for feedback and promotion. A similar idea created an amazing collection of good-- and mediocre-- fractals.
and questions with offensive answers may be ignored
So thank you everyone. This little spot on the internet is a happy part of my life.

[The Great Crep'er]

A beautiful post. Your ideas are expressed so thoughtfully and are often shared at a universal level. I'm willing to bet, whether it is this forum or not, that every GLer has a sense of wonder and amazement at a common theme or place in their history that has evolved and matured over the years.

It's great to see such a deep appreciation for the inside culture (hence the Kakapo) of a public forum so easily accessible to the public, and that an activity that is commonly looked at as wayward and wasteful (spending time on the internet) has brought you closer to a piece of your fate tied with an admirable cause.

Although the invisible text strikes as somewhat implicative and convolutes the subtext, at least for me. Yet, in its own way brings another personal nature from within MatthewV.
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Potato. Belgium. Eight. Random Lynch # Mafia awaits.

[itisally]

We live in a time that is fast paced and mobile. It makes it difficult to put down roots and maintain relationships. This "place" has come to provide that in a possitive way; a way that so much of the internet has neglected.

I have come to appriciate the varied points of view and the motivation it gives me to think criticaly about my own views and live with more purpose in my life.

SO MattV... How do you think the lab has changed or influenced you?
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[MatthewV]

In some ways I feel the Internet has been bad for me. As I have a need for social contact and human interaction parts of that contact have by time at a computer instead of people in real life. At one point I posted on Facebook something to the idea "the Internet has been taken over by extroverts". But this community is more a collection of introverts in my mind. Or at the very least a place I have become comfortable with.
I visit any other forums. Facebook, email, and occasionally AIM are the only ways I communicate online. I used to play Myth online also.

So my post comes from realizing how much the GL is part of me and mostly likely always will be. The influences have been widespread and almost entirely beneficial to my life. Or I guess they are beneficial-- I like who I am and where I am going. Is writing this post a good use of my time... no..? well..? yes it really is.

[MNOWAX]

I have always had a fond memory of this site, it is one of the rare places i still visit on a daily basis for nearly seven years. I have come to know a lot of you just like family. A lot of us grew up here, I know I did.

Even though life changes, pieces seem to stay the same. This is one of those pieces, and I'm glad to call myself a member of the GL.

So Matt, You're not alone. This little oasis of happiness is a bounty for us all. This is a productive bit of time. This is like talking with your family and friends. How is that ever wasted time?
Plus, it means you can shill your pottery, we need a site.
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[MatthewV]

One of the reasons for finalizing a name is because I need to make cards and a website to promote myself. So I am looking for someone to frame out something I could populate. I would want to do most of the graphics... well... maybe just some of the graphics myself. A problem of time constraints conflicting with knowing how Photoshop works! I enjoyed making webpages long ago... but I know my methods are now outdated in today's world.

I feel like an old man saying "back when I was making web pages my ways worked. I don't want to learn the new ways."

So yeah, I would trade pottery for a website frame that I could populate easily in non-web based environment. I would want source files more then a finished product.

---
I am strange!
I am smelly!
I am flightless!
I am nocturnal!
I am a parrot!
Hurray for kakapo! and five reason to support me!

[Scurra]

[Jedo the Jedi]

When I reflect on the GL, I realize that I became myself here. Debating over religion and listening to those more wise than me on a variety of subjects, I learned that I'm not as smart as I think I am, but listening is a very quick way to learn.

But enough about me--this is about you!
I thought hotseats had gone the way of the dodo.
What's your favorite GL memory?
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Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[jesternl]

For me GL is the first (and maybe the only) place where I have an emotional attachment to people whom I've never met in real life. I have felt in some cases more sadness and joy over things here than for things in the real world.

Do you remember what particular thing it was that brought you here?

[MatthewV]

When hotseats were popular, I wanted to do one. But I knew nobody would care. So recently I began to do the things I did back when I had no responsibilities in this world. This pertains mostly to my art. But part of the art is a lifestyle.

Many great GL related moments. jeepfest certainly stands out. Seeing the artwork I made on the front page. But the one moment that really shines for no good reason is :_ and how it makes me laugh even today.

[MatthewV]

I used to participate in Ambrosia Software's message board for Escape Velocity. But I was part of a dying breed in 2002 as people were moving toward EV Nova.
The main page puzzle was twelve poems scribbled on a bathroom wall. Alas, it appears in need of a reformatting. I think there was once a picture but maybe not.
I loved Kevin's usage of Bryce 3D. And the puzzles I couldn't solve irritated me in a way I enjoyed. In real life at the time, no one except my older brothers were better at solving things. I was a big fish in a small pond-- and a tiny fish in the ocean!
Now I realize the logic puzzles I love are a little bit of skill and part brute force. Word puzzles still baffle me.

So the one particular thing would be the graphics used on the puzzle and in the site design.

[Macros]

The GL is the first forum I really was a user of, it introduced me to mafia amongst other things.
Id say it also broadened my mind a bit on literature and films front when I was younger. When I started working and the like I fell away but having been part of the GL left it a lot easier for me to adapt to another forum I started frequenting a few years ago related to a series of books, also coming back here and seeing familiar names was.. Comforting i think, i haven't properly lived at home in Ireland for several years now and havinthe other forum as a constant is reassuring, so i guess seeing the same people here now makes me happy that there are some long term thing in the short term modern world
Or something like that.
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oh hello

[Macros]

The GL is the first forum I really was a user of, it introduced me to mafia amongst other things.
Id say it also broadened my mind a bit on literature and films front when I was younger. When I started working and the like I fell away but having been part of the GL left it a lot easier for me to adapt to another forum I started frequenting a few years ago related to a series of books, also coming back here and seeing familiar names was.. Comforting i think, i haven't properly lived at home in Ireland for several years now and havinthe other forum as a constant is reassuring, so i guess seeing the same people here now makes me happy that there are some long term thing in the short term modern world
Or something like that.
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oh hello