User blog:Musical of Corey/Reflecting on the Past

After reading IC and Googley's blogs, I decided it would be appropriate for me to illustrate what this place meant to me in a blog post as well.

Picture this scene, it was an April morning. A 10-year-old boy sits at the computer (me), shaking nervously. I clutchesdthe mouse as the cursor hovers over the "edit" button on Trevor Verily's page. I knew what I wanted to change, but would it impress people? This website was serious, and what would happen if I made a complete fool of myself? I took a deep breath, and click! The page vanished and a wall of text had taken its place.

"How strange," I thought to myself, "The beautiful blue boxes that contained each and every sim's information was just a facade hiding a deluge of indecipherable code." The wall of text did not hinder me. I anxiously scrolled down to the "Trivia" section. There were only two bullet points under it at that time, I couldn't quite remember what they said, but they'd probably still be there if I checked today.

My hand let go of the mouse and made its way to the keyboard. I made a third bullet point, and began to write "Trevor Verily is the only sim on Trevor island to not appear in 'MySims Racing'". I clicked the "publish" button and waited anxiously to see what people said. Almost immediately, a notification popped up on my computer screen telling me that someone sent me a message. My heart dropped, already? Did they make a judgment that quickly?

I checked my message wall, and a large green speech bubble snuggled on the page, with Leaf the elf smiling beside it. I'm pretty sure you all know what the message said.

From there, everything just..happened. I remember asking Blanky to make a picture for my fanfic in the "shoutbox". She didn't remember to do it, which makes sense because, honestly, all sorts of things happened in that little chatroom. It wasn't until I aggressively asked (more like demanded) once again on her talk page that the picture was produced.

Holden was also one of my first friends here. I remember meeting him on one of Blanky's [http://mysims.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:BlankyXP/Marsupials_will_invade_McDonald%27s. blogs] (conversation starts on page 6) where she had shown us photos of her room/game collection. Blanky was talking about how she occasionally traced the IPs of the user's here. I didn't know what an IP was so I googled it. Apparently it was the "address" of your computer. I freaked out instantly, did these people know where I live? I asked her if she had traced mine and Holden commented "Maybe.." (this was before the reply button). Me, being a ten-year-old, automatically assumed that Holden was referring to me had traced my IP. I instantly transferred all of my "freakout energy" from Blanky to Holden and started interrogating him. He had no idea what I was talking about (obviously) and explained to me that the "maybe" was directed at Blanky. I understood and soon realized that I had written my fanfic and proceeded to pester Blanky on her own blog that it was done and I had linked it on her talk page. Looking back at those comments, I feel so sorry for that girl for having to deal with an immature 10-year-old. So Blanky, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry!

Despite our rough start, Holden and I got along very well (and still do, to this day). He even comically brought up the incident to me several years later, which trigger a my inner-cringe.

I could write about all the experiences I had here, but then this blog would be longer than the Bible. The one that stuck with me the most was that silly little freakout I had. It marked the beginning of this website for me, a new aspect of my childhood/growth. I'm really thankful for all the people who put up with me/were friends with me through the years.

I wish you all the happiness in the world!

– Corey