Blogger Archive: TraderJake 
Oh dear. It's been a while. How are you fine folks doing? I'm doing wonderful, but a part of me is sad. See, we have this wonderful IRC chat room, and unfortunately it's lonely in there. There are only a few of us that go into it, and that makes us sad.
See, you don't need a specialized IRC program to get to our chat (though it won't be bad if you do). We have an applet here you can use. Of course, you could always find us at #rfgeneration on Quakenet. We reside there. Maybe you'll find us talking about video games. Perhaps you'll see an extension of our unrelated thoughts thread. But you know, if more of us were to frequent the chat, it could be a very interesting time.
So, won't you join us in the chat? It doesn't hurt to join! Quite painless, really. We love the chat! Won't you love it too?
Click Here for our Chat Page
Well well well... I was watching Lady Gaga's music video for Telephone, which yeah, it has a good story and I like the song. What of it?
Anyways, there is at least one video game reference in the music video. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find the reference!
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/EVBsypHzF3U&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/EVBsypHzF3U&rel=0</a>]]>
Hey! It was April 1 yesterday! A high holy day at RF Generation! April Fools! To those of you that missed Zombie Generation, sorry! Thanks to all those that helped out, specifically, Mike, Eddie, and Den! They are the best! We love April Fools, and without them it'd just be me working on April Fools, and we'd get something like Pretty Generation... pretty as a posy...
Keep it tuned to Channel 3!
MIKE FOX! YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EASY DIDN'T YOU?
Forcing me to hand the site over to you wasn't cool. Driving to Maryland shortly after and bludgeoning me so that I couldn't reclaim it was even worse.
What... what you didn't know is that I didn't just die. Rather, I joined the legion of the undead. Those random forum posts were me from beyond the grave. I thought for a while that maybe my demise was for the best, but no, I see that I was wrong.
I craved more than brains. I've craved more for over four months. I've brooded, thinking about what devious action I could do to take back what is mine. Then, it came as a pariah.
THIS SITE IS MINE! I RECHRISTEN IT IN THE NAME OF THE UNDEAD! ZOMBIE GENERATION IS BORN! JOIN THE LEGION OF THE UNDEAD! JOIN THE DATABASE OF THE UNDEAD! WE WILL RULE THE DAY AND NIGHT! TOGETHER, WE WILL FEAST UPON THE SOULS OF THE LIVING! IT STARTS WITH YOU, MIKE FOX! DOWN WITH YOU!
From beyond the grave, keep it on the database of the dead.
Sorry about the downtime. The SQL server unexpectedly shut down. Without that up, well, the site doesn't work. Anywho, we're back up. Hooray!
Keep it tuned to channel three!
You may have noticed the different images up top. It's a day to reflect for many of us, as for a lot of us we lost a friend, leader, and webmaster. Four years ago today, our friend was tragically taken from this earth.
You may have never known Michael Collins. Mike was the first webmaster of this site, and his spirit and dogma is what shapes the current site as you see it today. While other people have kept this site going strong since Mike's passing, it was Mike that set its vision and goals. We are a site for the community, and always will be. We do this for you as this is what Mike would have wanted, and it is what is right.
Memories of times past will never subside. We lost a friend, a friend that many of you never knew you had. Without Mike this site would probably not existed, and we are forever indebted to Mike for that. This site is truly his baby, and we are forever indebted to Mike for what he helped to create.
Mike, we all miss you. You may be gone from this earth, but your spirit continues to live on. We will never, ever forget you.
You know what? We have a chat. Normally it's fun, and it's absurd. Recently, however, things have gone by the wayside. I've not quite whored out our chat as much as I used to. Did you know that the last time I did one of these posts was in April of 2009? Back then, Jay Leno was still the Tonight Show host! And today, he's on the verge of becoming it again! How weird that these things come out to be. Anyways, I'm not the only one that's noticed that the chat has fallen to the wayside:
[23:45] Roehm21: dammit hang on
[23:48] Roehm21: Ok I think I got it now
[23:52] Roehm21: Where the hell did everyone go?
[23:58] TraderJake: the land of makebelieve
[23:58] Malygris: It's pretty awesome in here, lemme tell ya
[23:59] TraderJake: it sure is
[23:59] Roehm21: lol
That's right.... Where the hell did everyone go? Won't you join us in the chat? We have imaginary candy.... JOIN US, WON'T YOU???
Click Here for our Chat Page
Sorry about the downtime this morning. We had a log overflow and it has since been cleared. We're smooth sailing again now. For those of you who we greatly inconvenienced, we'll try not to do that again.
Keep it tuned to channel 3!
As many of you know, RF Generation was founded on April 28, 2004, by a wonderful group of people. At its insight, we were a tight community of gamers, collectors, and average Joes that loved the community we had. We still love the community to this day.
Many of you probably don't know this, but I was not the original Site Director. In fact, I wasn't even an original staff member. Site Director... was a position developed by me in late 2006 as a way to ensure that we had a group of people that would work together to keep the site moving forward. Prior to that we had a webmaster, and the original webmaster was none other than Michael Collins. We miss him dearly, but since his passing a lot of us stepped up to keep the site growing, and grow it did.
We're not the little community we were in 2004. These days, we've got many, many members who use us as not only a game and hardware reference but also as one hell of a collection tool, coded by my good friend Eddie Herrmann. We've added a lot of things to the site since that fateful day in 2004, and in doing so we've grown dramatically.
We used to be on a shared host. We've since crushed that shared host and then in the course of 3 weeks crushed the VPS we were on. These days, we're on a dedicated server with an 85 dollar a month bill.
We used to not have a submission system for regular members. Back in the day there were the wonderful "Submit Missing Games Here" and "Submit Missing Images Here" threads. Oh, they were lovely things, and that's how you guys were able to submit content.
We used to not have a hardware database or variants. Since then, we do. The system to submit such things has seen more revisions than Michael Jackson's nose.
We used to have one programmer that programmed everything in Perl. After our proprietary file based database began being corrupted under heavy load, I stepped up to assist in transitioning the site to MySQL driven, learning PHP in the process. These days, We're entirely mySQL based with some file based caching for our more intensive scripts.
We used to have a different site design. Check it out on the web archive. These days we have the current template, and maybe someday in the future we'll change it again.
Oh memories. We've grown so much, but in the process those of us who run the site have grown older and busier. You may notice that two of the four directors, Tynstar and Tan, are no longer directors. Life has required them to move on. Similarly, countless staff members have moved on to the site to bigger and better things. We thank them for their grand service.
Now, it is with a tinge of sadness, and also happiness that I must announce that it's time for Eddie and myself to pass the torch onto someone else. It's been a fun 3 or so years, but our age and schedules are finally catching up with us.
It is my pleasure to announce that Mike Fox (NES_Rules) will be assuming the role of Site Director. He's been one hell of an asset to RF Generation, and I know that he'll be one hell of a Site Director. I for one am happy that he took this role, and I thank him for taking the torch and running with it.
What does that mean for the site? Well, that means that Mike runs everything now instead of me. It also means that Eddie and I will be taking a lesser role in the operation of the site. While we will be sticking around as the technical crew that keeps the site up and running and also quashing programming bugs, Mike will be the guy who ensures that the site continues to grow. I know he'll do a great job.
So, on behalf of Eddie and me, I welcome Mike to his new role. Thank you Mike, you're a great asset to RF Generation, and I know you'll be fantastic.
Some things defy explanation. This video is one of those things. Did you ever think you'd see a pixelated Mario urinating behind a pipe? No? Well, it gets stranger, much stranger. I could explain all the wonderful / weird things that occur in the video, but perhaps it's just better for you to take a gander yourself. You'll find it in its relatively NSFW glory, after the jump.
Continue reading RFG Aside: One of the Weirder Things of the Internet
It's been a while since I last thanked you guys for your submissions, and trust me, we are greatly thankful. Without your submissions, our site wouldn't grow, and that would just lead to a greater obscurity than we already have. We don't want that. Did you know that in May we had 7800 submissions? Damn. That's a lot. Even wilder is the fact that we had over 5300 images added in that month. Pretty wild, if you ask me. As a comparison, in April we had 3106 submissions, which, while respectable, is greatly trumped by May's submissions.
What does that mean? Well, it means that some of you play to win a contest. And one of you did. Who is that winner? Well, we've tabulated the scores, and even with a halved score, Ga5ket is the winner! He kicked ass and took names with submissions over the duration of the contest. In May alone he had 3212 submissions, of which almost all were image submissions. Truly, he played to win. Ga5ket, do yourself a favor and PM St0rmTK421 with your shirt size, what you want (not to exceed $60) and details about getting your spoils to you.
Of course, some of you also played hard, and I'd like to give kudos to those who gave a valiant effort. y2ritchie, VACRMH, and Lios (even with the murderous -74 karma), you all did well. Of course, the last person in that list would have done a lot better had his karma not been so low, but yeah, don't worry, maybe next year.
There were countless other individuals that made submissions, and we are greatly appreciative for the contest. From all of us at RF Generation, thanks!
Wow, it seems like only yesterday, really. Interestingly enough, it's not. In fact, it's been 5 years since we launched. How time flies. Sure, a lot has changed since June 8, 2004, but we're still the same site at heart, and we'll continue to be the site that exists for you, our community.
Of course, some contest ended today. It seems as though in recent history contests start on April 28 and end on June 8. Some sort of symbolism, I guess. I hope you were taking part in that. The winner will be announced soon, basically as soon as I finish recoding the contest tallying script for submissions. Do you think I simply keep manual tabs on such things? Nah.
Hooray! Five years! What's not five more! To the future!
Music is a lovely thing. It really, truly is. Even after four long years of marching band, I still hold a love of music. Music is embodied human emotions, and can be quite moving.
There are some fantastic themes and songs within the Super Mario Universe, and a lot of them are pretty damn good. You're free to disagree, but if you do, pfft I say to you. Nah, I kid, I love all of you. Platonic, of course, but yes, MUSIC!
Here's something to enjoy tonight, Mario songs played by the James Madison University String Quartet. Enjoy!
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/w5WMUnMGcb4&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/w5WMUnMGcb4&rel=0</a>]]>
 You know what? Five years on April 28 we came into being. Five years ago seems like such a long time ago, but it's true. We're really five years old. Are we getting up in age? You tell me.
A lot has changed in those five years, lots for the good, and some for the not so good. Whatever the ups and downs though, the truth is that we're still here and we're still going strong, thanks to people like you. Without you guys we'd be nothing, and for that we're truly grateful.
You know, with our birthday we like to do contests. This year is no different. As for what the contest is... why, it's the PAIN YOURSELF WITH SUBMISSIONS AGAIN CONTEST. We're evil, we really are, and we like to see you work for your spoils. Want to play? Here are the rules:
Submissions, they make the site go round. We just don’t grow if we do not have anyone submit stuff. Funny how that works, and well, we do have one heck of a community that loves to do submissions. Perhaps, with this contest, you’ll be interested in doing submissions as well. Submissions will garner you points, and these how are they are ranked:
Title Addition: 4 Points
Variation Addition: 4 Points
Page Edit*: 2 Points
Review*: 30 Points
Overview*: 10 Points
Image Upload: 15 Points
Submission Review**: 1 Point
Blog Post*: 30 Points
Blog Comment: 1 Point
Forum Post: 1 Point
Forum Karma: See Explanation
*Regarding the asterisk: For page edits, it is noticed that you are consistently only adding one field per edit multiple times for a single ID just to up your points, you will be disqualified. Any review or overview completed will count as a page edit as well the points for an overview or review. To get the points for an overview or review you MUST contact me via Personal Message so that I can keep a tally. In addition, the review or overview must be on the actual game / hardware page. A review or overview of poor quality could result in less points than stated being granted. The same statement holds true for blog posts.
Because we want the forum to be a lively place of fun and interesting posts, we're enabling Karma during this contest. Karma rewards members that make good posts and smites those who do not. Your Karma will play a wildcard role in posts. Positive Karma at the end of the contest will increase your point total by a factor, while negative karma will decrease it. The equation used to decide how karma affects your points will be announced at a later date before the end of the contest.
As with any contest, there is fine print. Any submission that you make must adhere to the RF Generation guidelines / policies. We wrote these policies and guidelines for a reason, and well, we’d like everyone to adhere to them. Failure to adhere to the guidelines could result in a disqualification.
Any point reduction or disqualification can be contested. In the event that you wish to contest, you must explain why the reduction or disqualification is unfair. If you win the contest, we’ll restore your greatness, but if you lose, you shall be pelted with figurative rocks and garbage.
**KICKER! Everyone, except for the directors of this site, is in this contest. There is a catch though for staff members… their final score will be halved. So, that should lead to a lively competition. I think halving their scores is fair, and I hope you do as well. Oh yeah, there is that 1 point for a submission review, that unfortunately only applies to staff members because they are the poor souls who must review your submissions.
What do you win? Well, we’re a poor bunch here at RF Generation, especially since we're on a dedicated box, but we've got a lovely prize for the top winner:
Gaming swag not to exceed $60 and an RF Generation Ringer T.
Also, anyone in the top 5% of points gainers shall get some sort of recognition, to be determined later.
So, won't you get started? The contest starts as of 20 hours ago (midnight last night). When does it end? It ends at MIDNIGHT, JUNE 8th, 2009. (Sunday 12:00AM) So, what are you waiting for? Have your cake and eat it too! Good luck!
 Oh, hello OH NOOOO! Otter. I've missed you so much. Has your need gone away, or have I been lazy? You decide. I'll report.
You know, GTA is a series that tends to be heavy on the mature themes, and in addition to cold blooded murder and sex, there's also the drugs. Generally, all those things exist in the virtual world only, and you get your virtual kicks. But, wouldn't it be interesting if Rockstar gave you a trinket for buying the game? Nah, it wouldn't be good, sex, murder, and drugs are bad, and best should be virtual. Here's for keeping those things virtual.
Well, turns out that when you buy used copies of GTA you increase your chances of having GTA become slightly more real for you. See, if you live in Britain, you have a chance apparently of buying a used pair of GTA games with Ecstasy tables stuffed in one of the game's manual. I bet that could be lucrative on the market, but, drugs are bad, and you should definitely turn them into the authorities.
So, the better question is will some evil British Politician use this story to tie games and drugs? Do playing games like GTA make you do drugs? Well, if you find the right politician, I bet you'll find out adept enough to contort the facts to reflect that. Will it happen with this case? Who knows, but we'll keep tracking this story for developments, because, you never know if games might make you do drugs. Just remember, drugs are bad, even if you do find Ecstasy in your case.
Report: Dad Finds Ecstasy Tablets in Used Copy of Grand Theft Auto [Game Politics]
*NOTE: Drugs really are bad. Don't do them.
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