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by
Joe - jgand@pcfootball.net
8-14-06
Finally…
BIGDADDYCOOL…
HAS
COME BACK TO PCFOOTBALL!!!!
Well,
I hadn’t really gone away, but you know how it is…
I
finally did some long-overdue housecleaning.
No
I haven’t erased anyone’s info if they happened to be on
the banned list. I mean I finally went into my column archives
and re-did a lot of the pages that were in there. I finally
got rid of some of the old graphics and re-did the colors so
that no all of my columns can be read.
I
also did something else while I was at it…
…I
took a trip down memory lane.
It
was for the most part a trip that made me smile. It was a trip
that took me down the path of the early days of this site and
what we had hoped to accomplish here.
As
most of you know, this site was started by Bret Bednarz in
response to his banishment from MaddenMania.com. This site was
founded on the premise that it would be an entirely
free-speech board where everyone could say what they wanted.
Now true, there were some pitfalls in that policy but everyone
would agree that this site was a fun place to come to.
I
also started taking a look at some of my past columns. I had
to smile and sometimes laugh and/or roll my eyes at some of
the things I wrote about:
-
The
second column I wrote about where I was on September 11th,
2001 and what I did to honor the Police and Firefighters
who lost their lives there.
-
The
column after that where I told the sad end of one of the
best football games ever to come down the pike: The FBPro
series.
-
Tracking
the feud between this site and MaddenMania, and with David
Branda in particular.
-
My
annual Good, Bad and Downright Idiotic yearly re-caps.
-
Buying
the site from Bret.
-
EA’s
deal with ESPN. What, me worry?
-
The
legislative efforts to take the fun out of our gaming
hobby and to legislate who can and can not buy and/or play
certain titles and the efforts to reign them in.
-
Hot
Coffee and the fallout – thanks again Rockstar!
I
looked over some of these columns and I realized something:
I
had a lot of fire in my belly!
Which
is why getting old sucks! It seems like I haven’t had a
whole lot to write about lately which is why my last column
seemed to be milquetoast in comparison to my earlier efforts.
So
I am going to do something that is going to shake things up
around here.
See,
I remember the old days when this site first got started. I
remember how fun this place used to be and how much fun we all
had together.
However,
one of the biggest regrets I have ever had is that not
everyone could get along with each other. The scism between
Bret and BigBaldBen and then JaquilineStrapp is one of the
biggest mysteries to me. I don’t know what happened between
them and I shake my head every time I think about it.
As
a result of the feud between Bret and JStrapp I am now on the
outs with JStrapp as well. Mostly it is because I turned over
control of the forums to Bret when I started my new job last
year, and he then banished all of the people who had banished
him. Honestly, JStrapp has every reason to hate me right now,
and I would not blame her if she never forgave me.
However,
I have gotten to the point where I will be taking steps to
“bring back the old guard” as it were.
Lately
I have been thinking about declaring a general amnesty for all
posters who have ever registered here. That means throwing
open the doors and lifting the bans from anyone who was banned
from the site. This was something that I had thought about in
the past but was talked out of it for one reason or another.
Well you know what? Time has passed and I don’t think
anybody can say that they are the same person that they were a
couple of years ago, can they?
So,
at the appointed time all those who were previously banned
from the site will be able to get back in – that includes
the partnership that bought the site from Bret; that includes
posters like GoChiefs, that means everybody.
And
if you find that your account is gone, then go ahead and
re-register. If you have any problems? Let me know, I’ll do
what I can to fix them.
So
when is the appointed time? Well, I have selected a time to
make this all possible.
I
have selected September 11, 2006 as the date in which this
will happen.
A
lot of you might be saying that I shouldn’t pick that date
considering that it’s the 5th Anniversary of the
attacks, and that throwing open the doors on that day would be
akin to a spamming and flaming attack on this site.
I
say no.
I
say that it will be an opportunity for us all to heal, as a
site and as Americans, to come together on that day to heal
the divisions that have been forged over the years on this
site. Yes there have been problems in the past but now I want
to work on them, ok? And I would like your help in doing so.
Now
I can hear some of you out there saying, “well Joe what’s
Bret going to say about all of this?”
Honestly,
I’m afraid that Bret is going to have very little to say
about any of this…
…because
I haven’t heard from Bret in a number of months, and I’m
starting to fear that something has happened to him…
…something
terrible.
Now
I don’t know anything for sure, but I have tried to contact
Bret over the past few months to no avail. The fact that I’m
not getting anything back is starting to worry me. I don’t
know what has happened to him.
I
don’t know if he is alive or dead.
If
it is the latter then I will be very sad to hear about it
because I considered him a friend, and I will eulogize him and
memorialize him on this site.
So
Bret, if you are out there, then here is your chance to not
only make contact with me, but to also try to talk me out of
this scheme of mine which some might call “hair-brained”.
You’ve
got until 11:59 pm on September 10th to try to
convince me not to do this. Because at 12:00 am on September
11th, on my signal, I shall unleash hell…
…and
may God have mercy on our souls.
And
in closing, allow me to paraphrase another square-circle icon
and say to all my freaks out there…
BIGDADDY
COOL IS YA HOOKUP!!!!!!
HOLLA
IF YA HEAR ME!!!!!
Until
next time.
P.S. Since I wrote this I discovered that I am not able to
make the changes that I wanted to. For some reason I am unable
to change information in people's accounts to make them active
again. Something is broken in the forum system that I am going
to have to have fixed if my plan is going to work.
So I am asking for some assistance out there in matters of
php repair and/or upgrading the forums to the current version.
Anyone with any ideas on how these problems can be fixed can
contact me via the forums or at jgand@pcfootball.net.
If you want to try to help us out with a monetary donation so
that we could buy an upgrade from vBulliten and have them
install it (about $135.00) make a donation via the PayPal
button.
Any help towards the betterment of the site would be
appreciated.
Until next time...
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