The Passive-Aggressive FTC'er You Know

alcosatz, Fri Jun 29 2012, 06:02AM

That's me.

If my booze-addled mind serves me, I left the clan on good terms years ago (2008 or so?). Now that CS:GO is only a few months away, I want back in so that I have '[FT]' in front of my name while I make your lives hell with my team balancing mod, BUCKULNADEs, and stunning wit.

Joking aside, it looks like we're trying to reinvent/revive/re-whatever the FT clan, and I thought it would be a good exercise to re-introduce myself. This may also prove useful for others folks trying to join the clan. I see absolute zero threads here (in the "Fish Tank Community Introduction" forum) so I'm either making myself look like a very foolish applicant, or something is kinda fucked with this forum (thanks Nostie?)

Anyway, FT was the tingle in my dingle for years. Running FTC (the office server) and helping out with the FT social clan was something that, on balance, I am very proud of in a nerdy sort of way. Definitely had some ups and downs (some quite dramatic) but it was worth the price of admission (paying for your goddamn office server for a few years), at least.

Here's my re-introduction:

My name is Alex and I live in the Richmond, VA area. I'm a Unix/Linux sysadmin and have been so for 10 years. It pays the bills, and it's definitely a career that I am happy with. I just bought my first home last summer and I am pleased to say that I have not killed myself after learning just how much home ownership actually costs.

As much as I loved cs_office/FTC, I am a party-based, single-player RPGer at heart. If it's a D&D and/or RPG put out by Bioware in the past 20 years then I've probably played it. I try very hard to accept the current offerings of first/third-person RPGs that are out there but I just can't do it. 3-6 party members is where it's at you fuckers. Stop with this Curt Schilling "Kingdoms of Amalur" bullshit and put out a decent party-based RPG. Ol' Curt should stop being a teatard who accepts government loans to start his now defunct gaming company!

I suppose that's a good segue into politics: I tend to (almost always) have liberal views, certainly on social issues, but applaud moderates of any party. If you want to argue with me about politics then that's cool with me. Luckily I haven't run into any neocons in the Tank. Let's keep it that way because if any of you start quoting Bill Kristol or Charles Krauthammer then I willl withdraw my application.

Moving on to music: Not a lot of excitement here in the past few years. I listened to a lot of stuff by NiN, Manson, KMFDM, Metallica, Megadeth. What can I say... I enjoyed what the 90's had to offer. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Blood Red Shoes, Halou, Warpaint, etc. It's very different than what I started with so I like to mix it up with some Venetian Snares. They have an album called "Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole." Very fun IDM stuff (great to listen to at work!), and if you like that then follow up with a band called "Stunt Cock." 'nuff said.

Pop culture, books, comedians, etc; Continuing with the nerdy D&D stuff, I read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi books growing up and that has persisted. Not sure why because typically these books are poorly written, but I can't help myself. The few recent exceptions have been the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin. I'm not saying these books are literary masterpieces, but definitely worth turning all 5000 pages of them (so far). Moving on: everyone should listen to what Bill Hicks has to say. His commentary on politics is timeless (er, at least for the last 25 years or so) If you can't stomach that then try Patton Oswalt. Both are comedic geniuses.

Other than that... sports? I'm a Colts fan--born in Fort Wayne, but I spent very little time actually living in Indiana; however, I have actually lived in the Indy metro area. I lurve me some NHL action and I'm a St. Louis Blues fan. People always ask me why and I have the same lame answer: Brett Hull and Al McInnis were hockey gods when I first took an interest in the sport.

That's about it. I look forward to engaging in stimulating discussion/anger-therapy sessions with all of you.