Several months ago, I was pondering about the good old days, as one is wont to do. But it wasn't good enough, I wanted to define exactly when this was.

Turns out, all I was thinking about was in 2006. It was the year I graduated "high school"*, had a girlfriend, but went to a college I didn't really like, and much of the rest of it was working in fast food. I found it kind of ironic that the good old days involved people yelling at me: "I said no MAYONNAISE!" Go figure.

In my spare time, I was mostly playing Oblivion, Far Cry, and Starcraft. Another thing was podcasts. I started listening to the PC Gamer and MaximumPC podcasts, soon to be followed by Game Theory and the GFW Podcast, AKA 97.5 "The Brodeo". I started reading a selection of web comics. Also, Gary Whitta.

I recently looked through old instant messenger logs, and realized that I started to have LAN parties with my friends. One of them had just got done with a house addition (now plenty of space), but by the time I got there, there wasn't any spots left to set up. I eventually ended up in the basement with a TV tray! BEST LAN PARTY EVER! (at least at that place.)

But then Oblivion started to crash, I moved on to Supreme Commander, the Brodeo disbanded, and (eventually) MaximumPC stopped doing their podcasts as frequently. Said web comics were, upon reflection, of questionable entertainment value. I've been nostalgic for the Brodeo of late, mostly just listening to cuts of the Heroes of the Web segments. I got out of fast food, went to a better college, and got jobs that involve less exposure to the insane public.

Now the Elder Scrolls are back in full force, Whitta is back, and Schlock Mercenary is excellent (in stark contrast to Mass Effect).

About darned time those days came around again.

*I was homeschooled, so take the term "high school" as you please.