Author Topic: God, I Miss This Place  (Read 20252 times)

PrincessNadia78

  • Chronicler of Time
  • Acacia Deva (+500)
  • *
  • Posts: 544
  • I didn’t “pick up” anything! It’s common sense!
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #60 on: January 31, 2018, 05:49:29 pm »
They did blogs, when they were simpler. LOL I had so much fun doing that and I learned a lot! Perhaps I'd be a bit more advanced had I continued to pursue it... ah well. Now I have annoyances like work and responsibilities. LOL

Mauron

  • Guru of Reason Emeritus
  • Errare Explorer (+1500)
  • *
  • Posts: 1763
  • Nu-chan
    • View Profile
    • Maurtopia
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #61 on: January 31, 2018, 05:56:15 pm »
I had one back in the day. I don't remember if I bothered to modify it or not.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #62 on: February 01, 2018, 12:48:48 am »
Xanga, MySpace (when it was only bands), the whole shebang. I'm guilty of also doing the whole HTML-lite and whatever customization Xanga offered back in 2002(ish).

Learned SQL after college, and only ended up using it for a year. Would love to sit down and learn C++ but so little time, and what little time I do have has gone to learning Japanese. Picked it up as a hobby about a year ago, but didn't get serious until I went to Japan for three weeks back in August.

Mauron

  • Guru of Reason Emeritus
  • Errare Explorer (+1500)
  • *
  • Posts: 1763
  • Nu-chan
    • View Profile
    • Maurtopia
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #63 on: February 01, 2018, 04:07:36 am »
Japanese would be a useful language.

How was Japan?

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #64 on: February 01, 2018, 11:20:50 am »
Amazing. Far exceeded my expectations. I spent a week in Tokyo, five days in Osaka, five days in Kyoto, a day in Hiroshima, and three days on the Izu peninsula (Numazu and Mishima) for the oban festivals.

I'm not quite a weeb, but I looooove Japanese culture. I have since I was a kid. Being there only enhanced my love for the people and country. I would move there for a few years if my wife and kids would be willing, but alas, my wife is against the idea.

Great food, cool people, and I can't wait to go back. Already trying to plan a trip in 2021 or so.

Mauron

  • Guru of Reason Emeritus
  • Errare Explorer (+1500)
  • *
  • Posts: 1763
  • Nu-chan
    • View Profile
    • Maurtopia
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #65 on: February 01, 2018, 03:11:06 pm »
Sounds like a fun trip!

Random Factor

  • Earthbound (+15)
  • *
  • Posts: 28
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #66 on: February 02, 2018, 05:50:26 pm »
It's hard to truly miss what's still around. You spend too much time dwelling on 'glory' days and good times, then you might be holding your selves back from moving on to enjoy new ones as they come without comparing them to the past.

PrincessNadia78

  • Chronicler of Time
  • Acacia Deva (+500)
  • *
  • Posts: 544
  • I didn’t “pick up” anything! It’s common sense!
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #67 on: February 02, 2018, 06:35:50 pm »
My brother lived in Japan for a year and before that I know for sure he took one trip there, possibly 2. I can't remember. He loves it there. I would love to visit there too, I love Japanese and Chinese writing and art. And I love cats and Hello Kitty. LOL

Honestly I feel the best games were in the Chrono Trigger era, when they had to rely on gameplay and storylines instead of graphics. Now everyone put the money into the graphics which, in my opinion, has led to more lackluster storytelling. This is just my opinion of course, but it's why I keep playing games like Chrono Trigger even if I've beaten them hundreds of times.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #68 on: February 03, 2018, 03:07:20 am »
Quote
It's hard to truly miss what's still around. You spend too much time dwelling on 'glory' days and good times, then you might be holding your selves back from moving on to enjoy new ones as they come without comparing them to the past.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's really the right context for what kicked this thread off. Sure, it's nostalgia. But I don't think anyone missing a golden era of activity here on the forums is causing anyone to miss out on other opportunities. It's not like there's a forum monopoly on the internet, hahaha...

But I do get what you mean as a general fact, and in that it can absolutely be true!

Random Factor

  • Earthbound (+15)
  • *
  • Posts: 28
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #69 on: February 03, 2018, 04:26:54 pm »
Quote
It's hard to truly miss what's still around. You spend too much time dwelling on 'glory' days and good times, then you might be holding your selves back from moving on to enjoy new ones as they come without comparing them to the past.

I mean, I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's really the right context for what kicked this thread off. Sure, it's nostalgia. But I don't think anyone missing a golden era of activity here on the forums is causing anyone to miss out on other opportunities. It's not like there's a forum monopoly on the internet, hahaha...

But I do get what you mean as a general fact, and in that it can absolutely be true!

You might be right, but I think it's important to say it anyway even if only one person feels the way I responded to. It's a precedent of 'the needs of the few; the me; outweigh the needs of the many', and certainly, I might have simply felt the need to express the sentiment whether anyone needed to hear it or not. It might have just been for my own selfishness.

Or, maybe, I'm just being another twisted sadist in an existence that seemingly has too many. It's really hard to tell some times.

Lord J Esq

  • Moon Stone J
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5463
  • ^_^ "Ayla teach at college level!!"
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #70 on: April 07, 2018, 04:59:31 am »
Hah, this thread is going stronger than ever lately! Nice.

You know something I miss about this place, and the era it belonged to? Back in those days, on the "message forum" model, you would compose your piece, post it (thoughtfully, one hopes!), and move on to another thread, or step away entirely and go about your other business of the day. And you'd come back a few hours or even days later, and if you were lucky there'd be some interesting replies. No "likes," no instant gratification. Just old-fashioned text: Your reward for a good or interesting post would be interesting replies from other people. Today that kind of engagement is far from the norm. Social media has made most folks a lot more passive in the way they interact with each other. (Not a dig; I like social media; but it's not the same at all.)

Like Radical_Dreamer said upthread, I've never seen another message forum culture like this one, before or since. More than half my friends today are Compendium alumni of one stripe or another. I've earned thousands of dollars as a writer and artist from people I met here directly or indirectly. The Compendium even got me laid--a whole relationship that lasted several years! This was the place where I changed people's minds (not an easy thing to do!), honed my skills of writing and debate, and fleshed out many details in my worldview. I wasn't as active of a poster as ZeaLitY or as committed to updating every facet of the Chronoverse as he was, and I was not easy to get along with if you got in my way (I'm better about that nowadays, in my mid-30s, than I was as a young 20-something), but I was one of the most substantive posters here, and it felt really good to belong to a community where I was part of the core glue. I've only had that experience a couple times in my whole life, and it's really something.

Time passes, seasons change. I've had some high highs and low lows, myself, and I bet some of you have too. There's no going back to the golden era of the Compendium. I'm actually a little surprised (if relieved) the Compendium is even still online at all. I suppose we owe Ramsus for that, and his inscrutable consistency. But what we can do is look back on a truly exquisite Kingdom of Zeal that we actually belonged to--at least the few old-timers who might be seeing this. Though it fell as kingdoms eventually must, visitors from the future can and do look back upon it with awe and great affection!

skylark

  • Poet of El Nido
  • Black Wind Agent (+600)
  • *
  • Posts: 640
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #71 on: April 07, 2018, 02:17:41 pm »
Holy crap, we hooked a marlon this time! :o

Nice to see another alumni back.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #72 on: April 07, 2018, 05:00:53 pm »
Quote
Just old-fashioned text: Your reward for a good or interesting post would be interesting replies from other people. Today that kind of engagement is far from the norm. Social media has made most folks a lot more passive in the way they interact with each other. (Not a dig; I like social media; but it's not the same at all.)

This is a great assessment of current social media formats/trends. I was lamenting elsewhere that the only social media I use is Reddit (although I do have an anonymous Instagram account), and the format is frustrating for me. It's *too* impersonal, there's very little depth and when it there is it is very impersonal and disconnected (although clearly that is not *always* the case). Upvotes and downvotes and all that jazz.

I had a Facebook from 2006 until about 2011, and got off once it started to have a wall filled with clearly placed ads and insane arguments about politics/religion/etc. With all the recent hubbub with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data, boy am I glad I got out when I did. I know it's saved me a lot of personal angst, and not just from the lack of a digital footprints -- the research shows a clear increase in social angst and depression tied to Facebook and similar social media outlets.

Granted, there's no avoiding it altogether.

I think that's what made me come out of my Compendium retirement. I disappeared for years and only became really active again six months ago or so. This post made me realized that I may have come back craving the feeling of community this place offers, even if we are a smaller party than we once were.

Lord J Esq

  • Moon Stone J
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5463
  • ^_^ "Ayla teach at college level!!"
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #73 on: April 07, 2018, 09:26:38 pm »
DID SOMEONE SAY INSANE ARGUMENTS ABOUT POLITICS AND RELIGION?!?!?!!

* carries in a big stack of phone-book-sized documents *

I've prepared eight years' worth of notes on why you're wrong about everything!!! Ahem, Volume 1, Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1, Subsection A: ... ... ...

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: God, I Miss This Place
« Reply #74 on: April 08, 2018, 02:24:16 pm »
I actually remember a few people going toe-to-toe with you back in the day. You tore them up, hahaha... I can't remember if it was worldview philosophy or religion or what it was, but it would have been ripe for r/murderedbywords.