Granted, I have changed tremendously over the past decade. I used to collect Video game music. Now I collect tarantulas. Who would have thought ?
Would you get a Mexican Redknee tarantula as a display animal to show off say… in your living room ? This is the classic pet tarantula, heavily featured in '70s horror films and made a brief appearance in “Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark”. Remember that scene in the beginning with large spiders all over Indiana ? Those were Mexican Redknee.
Mine is always out on display. But my more colorful Mexican Fireleg tarantula steals the show. Because she’s much more pretty
Anyways, would you get a tarantula as people would get tropical fish ?
I don’t really remember now for sure, but there are two likely reasons. Lunairis was doing a lot of re-modeling and customizing of sprites. He either did the one I use on his own initiative or maybe it was my favorite character from that game and asked him to work with that one? I feel like I had some input on the hair/clothing colors.
It’s not all paid for as of now. There is a program for federal-based student loan debt called IBR or income-based repayment. It caps your payments at 15% of your AGI and any amount not paid off in 25 years is cancelled. I strongly recommend looking into it for anyone with student debt problems as it makes your obligations manageable. Be careful if you’re married though, because one year I filed taxes jointly with my spouse, which then treats our joint income as if it’s all mine for payment calculating; which resulted in a monthly payment that was almost half my take-home pay for the month. But if you’re on your own (or use filing separately status for taxes) it is the only way to relieve the burden. In a few years my wife’s income will change which will help speed up the repayment so I don’t anticipate using up the entire 25 year window. I have some private loans which don’t qualify for this program, and those have to be paid too.
But I was determined not to have to “sell out,” there is just a trade-off involved.
Either by choice or obligation! I went to see Fast & Furious 6 just now because I like movie explosions, I do the dishes because I ‘should’ do them. My parents played the guilt card with me a lot when I didn’t want to do stuff as a kid, so now I end up feeling bad if I don’t pretend to fake good manners on occasion.
Probably my fondest memories are either the long nights staying up late chatting with people, the first time I saw Mr. Saturn’s site layout load indicating that RPGC was ours, or when Mazrim told me that he put Alexandria together to do something nice for me. In terms of what I’d have done differently I probably regret the bickering the most, especially with Sinistral, although we both share the blame. Crunchy peanut butter definitely.
I would definitely get tropical fish before I got a tarantula.
Less a ‘ask you anything’; I just wanted to pop in and say thanks Merlin, to you and several others (but I have the opportunity to speak with you the least), for in part being the maintainers of a cohesive place which I, for many years, greatly enjoyed. I am happy to say I still keep in touch with many former RPGCers, and I think to some extent RPGC was an early incubator of- and more personal kind of- the broader forms of communities we see on the internet now.
I absolutely agree with this, I remember being blown away when I first started realizing communities like this existed. I think a surprising number of people inhabited little nerd enclaves like this one for a few years.
… I DID! I had completely forgotten about that! And you still have it! That is awesome. This just put a huge smile on my face and made my day. I also wanted to send Sorcerer some Mario-shaped candy I found in China, but I think there were some problems with it because they were food items and therefore never arrived because they never passed the US border. Damn you and your strict customs regulations. Also, I AM staff. whacks your head with a rolled-up newspaper Not a very active staff member, but staff nonetheless!
…I really should’ve bought more of those.
It’s funny to see how over time, Chuh became the ultimate hipster. A walking, talking Fedora (and he already was one before it was cool). Who would have thought?
I had completely forgotten about that! And you still have it! That is awesome. This just put a huge smile on my face and made my day. I also wanted to send Sorcerer some Mario-shaped candy I found in China, but I think there were some problems with it because they were food items and therefore never arrived because they never passed the US border. 
Damn you and your strict customs regulations. Also, I AM staff. whacks your head with a rolled-up newspaper Not a very active staff member, but staff nonetheless!