I guess the high point of my site was back in 1999 when updates would come every few hours. An idea would just magically appear. Articles wrote themselves. Ideas were coherent. Everything still fit. The few who visited my site loved the style. People would randomly e-mail me just any little thing, and I relished every moment. My NES website brought me glamour and joy.

Then life butt in. And I turned it away whenever I pleased. I took an hour or two a week to work on the site. It was fun. Not roller coaster fun, but NES fun. The reason I play video games is to forget everything and just wallow in the imaginary world I'm presented with. The Old-School Gamer was my way of feeding off the fun. I got more bang for my dollar when not only would I play a video game, but satirize it and generally blather on about nothing. And I could still ignore the real world when I wanted to.

Lately, it's been impossible. Good ideas have been few and far between. Joy was no longer the reason I updated. I updated because I felt I had to. But today, for some reason, I no longer feel like I have to.

I sat down to work on the site because I said I would. And I found myself typing this. I suppose that makes it a random decision. And random decisions are subject to change. (There, I left myself a loophole, if I decide to change my mind).

I don't want to stop updating this website. I don't want to continue. The desire to stop updating always crops up when I'm trying to work. The desire to work crops up when I'm taking a shit. I'm sick of it. So, I'm going to just drop it.

When I started OSG, I was spitting in the wind. It was an experiment. I whipped up some crappy half-assed site over a weekend and left it. It eventually grew. It gerw bigger than I had planned. It grew bigger than me. It grew until it was no longer remotely like it used to be in the beginning. No more reviews. No more codes. No more hints. It was a blob of random articles that had-- at some level-- something to do with the NES.

And the NES scene rejoiced.

I was a refreshing change from the snorefest with the tacky humor page. I was the humor page. I was the rip-roaring kid with a joke for everything. I was the guy who took a still from Earthbound and put it beside a still from Little Nemo. I made conversations between NES characters. I made Mario drown in a pool of semen. I drank beer and flaunted it all over the NES scene. I was important.

Now I feel like just another guy. I'm not the amusing town drunk any more. Just the local alcoholic. I'm an excuse not to make a Tips&Tricks section. I'm a name tossed around in chat rooms. I'm a device.

I was lucky enough to turn bullshit into a popular NES page. I strived to get to #1 on Duderanch's top 20 NES sites. I got lucky and hit it off with the paNESian press. Tom let me work on NEScrophilia. Linque let me work on the NES Triforce. I loved the NES scene.

I love the NES scene.

But something happened. I make an excuse: I don't have a computer. But I have a computer lab. I can go there any time. I just don't have the burning passion any more. This was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm just glad I lasted so long.

I have a few regrets. I regret I never finish anything I start. I regret the paNESian didn't grow into something better. I regret starting the name of my site with an "o" (Despite being in a class with Ogre's Planet:NES) because I'm always so far down on links pages. I regret posting on the message board when I was drunk. I regret not being of Dief's Links page.

Mostly, though, I had a good time. I accomplished much. I enjoyed the chat rooms. I think I made a good name for myself. Yeah, I'm a joke. But I'm a damn funny joke.

And I definately don't want to hand my site over to anyone. I don't want to see it die, but I'd rather kill it myself than watch someone else kill it. I'd like to see certain things about it carried on, though. Maybe I'll sell all my sections on e-bay or something. Or maybe I'll pawn off my shrines to people who care about the games. I really wanted to see my brilliant FF1 shrine idea realized.

I think we all saw this coming anyway. Let's face it, I was making more excuses than updates. I really wanted to hold out until April. Then I could do this whole thing on April 1st. One last joke for everyone.

It's funny how there's a fine line between wasting time and wasting too much time.

I just had a thought. Maybe I could turn this into a publicity stunt? Maybe I could just pretend to leave, and have a fake person take me over? Maybe the Orange Whale would have is way?

Yes, his name is "Orange Whale", Winner.

Nah. Too stupid. Though it would fit in just nicely, it's too stupid.

I'd like to take this space to say that Tom is my hero. He's my sickly, drugged out, depressed, wigger hero.

I still love the smell of NES in the morning. I still buy NES games. I still giggle at the crappy ones, and obsess over the good ones. But I no longer feel like typing about them. You all have fun reading websites and creating your own. I've been doing it too long. I can't wait for JD to ask me for my files. Tell Suzan I love her. Send money. Where's the beef? Goodnight, nurse. I'm sorry.

--OSG