I finally received my account approval for the forum website, NeoGAF, and as such I now have the privileges and perks that come with membership. I can select an avatar, post messages and make replies in the forum, send private messages, subscribe to specific threads, etc. As a regular lurker of this online community that enjoys the kooky banter between the members, I am over the moon that I can now contribute. So I logged in to NeoGAF, ready to make my mark. Hungry like the wolf to find a thread that I could leave my epic first post on… and I walked away empty handed. I couldn’t find anything, not a single topic that I wanted to talk about or that I felt that I had anything positive to contribute to the conversation. In a nut shell, I got what I wanted, and I’m super happy that I got it, and now that I have it I can’t find a thread to post in. Like a dog chasing my own tail, I have caught it… and now that I have it, I have no idea what to do with it.
When I alluded earlier to the fact that NeoGAF was a tough nut to crack, let me put things into perspective. I first applied to become a member of NeoGAF way back in May of last year, because at the time there was a topic that I had a lot of knowledge about and I thought I could really move the dialogue forward into new and fun directions. After the sign up and email verification process, I waited for a while to be activated, but much to my dismay I did not hear back from them immediately. a whole 2 months later I was notified that I was not approved because of an issue with the type of email account I was using. FYI, NeoGAF will not approve new accounts that use free email services (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc.), so I gave them my primary email from my website through my domain. Apparently, even an email from your own domain is not adequate enough as it would have to be an email address from you Internet Service Provider (ISP). Fun fact, until this whole fiasco, I did not even have an email address through my ISP because I didn’t have any need for yet another email address. So I created an email account through my ISP, which now receives messages from precisely 2 senders: my ISP and NeoGAF. Months went by, and I heard nothing from NeoGAF, all the while there were a ton of threads and topics that I would have loved to have joined in on. I sent a couple of emails to the staff at NeoGAF and still heard nothing. Finally, I signed up yet again in October of last year (because I figured after 5 months, the likelihood that they were ever going to approve my original account was equal to exactly nil) with an all new user name, but with the same email address from my ISP and in January of 2016 – exactly today – I was granted permission to have junior member privileges… and of course, there’s not a damn topic or thread that I have any interest in right now, because of course there isn’t. I’ve had a sensible chuckle about my dilemma for a better part of the day. Rarely do I find myself uninterested in talking about video games, comics, movies and current events, but apparently today I’m just not feeling it.
Essentially, I feel like this:
“Now it’s over, I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want, or I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do…”
Also, I love They Might Be Giants and you should too.
Double secret also, I know I said I wasn’t going to post on Friday anymore, but this whole ordeal just made me laugh too hard. The absurdity of life and whatnot. Moral to the story: look back on things like this and laugh, cuz life’s too short. Enjoy your victories, even when they are painfully boring and woefully ill-timed. I’m sure that NeoGAF and I are going to get along just fine in the near future.
