So I am going to try and do this again. The last explanation I started got lost somehow. This blog actually began on 1/1/11, but this is a do-over.
There has been some talk on the threads about my alter ego 2012 so I thought I would start a blog about my escapades, but not post it, until someone actually asks me. "Barbie, are you 2012?"
When I began my HarDHar profile, I just pulled an old profile off the Wii and changed the name. I was simply messing with everyone because I knew I would be called out immediately because of the racers index. Imagine my surprise when the old profile had never made it to the index and HarDHar made a big stir. I thought it was pretty funny, but I also know the deductive reasoning that that goes on in these threads, so I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone would ask Barbie "Is it you?"
What started off as a day of fooling around under the radar, became a fun game of 'who can catch me first'? I have been leaving clues ever since this oddysey began. Once, early on, I flashed the purple lobster at Dynamo accidently and played in Plat. Canada with Snooog. But the most important clue being in my very first blog when I spoke of how much excitebots has helped me through some very traumatic times over the past year and a half. And then a few days before Christmas, I posted the news that after a long illness, my father had passed away. I wasn't looking for sympathy, I was just leaving another clue. It wasn't that Barbie wasn't playing as much, it was just she was kinda having an identity crisis.
I wasn't feeling so HarDHar anymore, thus the name change to 2012, black roach, world icon. All doom and gloom. You know, the whole end of the world scenario, Mayan calander, end of days.
Things took a hilarious turn the other day when 2012(with a trick I learned all on my own Top) beat Topstar in Bronze Scotland and Top wrote "Who are you?"
I also gave a major clue to Big Air the day Bots101 won her 100th poker win. Bots101 had gotten disconnected right at the finish line, so when we got back to the lobby, I changed my bot color to Bots101's color to stall and wait for her to come back into the room. When she did return, I also noticed it had credited her with her 100th win so I began celebrating with her.
One day Dynamo flashed the lizard so I hurried up and flashed it back and left to go to poker. He did come meet me for poker, so now 2012 had a different signal for poker than Barbie. I was also very tickled when Dynamo posted the lizard sign for the rest of the board so I could now communicate with more members. THANKS DYNAMO! Even with the name change you are still my buddy!!!
All of these silly "Shenanigans" have all been done in fun, and again, have been extremely therapeutic in avoiding lifes dilemmas. Thanks again fellas for helping me through another very difficult time without ever being aware of your contributions.
I'll post more as it happens.
Tuesday 1-4-11
2012 reached a couple of milestones today. One being 700 excite wins and the other being 100 poker wins. I believe I was racing snooog(stats and icon matched) last night after he changed his name to Don!key. Don't know what that name was all about, but he raced me several times in poker until I reached 99 wins and then he abruptly left. Guess he didn't want to contribute to 2012's poker milestone, but thanks to my good buddy Dynamo, I achieved the 100th this evening and funny thing is, Snooog was in the lobby after the race :D
2012 just made the poker achievement thread. WOO WHOO!
No hints today for the fellas other than my poker racing **** I'll give them something later in the week before the tournament on friday. Let's see what happens.
01/17/11
Well well well. Checked the threads this morning and NoGood wrote " Been to the future(MMXII) and discovered the truth" and now everyone thinks 2012 is really NoGood and even asked why he kept it secret. His reply was very ambiguous and he didn't actually say he was 2012 or I would have had to post this blog earlier than anticipated. But in response to Tops question, It began as a joke, turned into a mystery, and now has become my regular racing 9's profile. I figured I would have one 9's profile in regular and 1 in poker.
The other day Cody asked 2012 to play poker by changing his name to poker??. After a couple of races, he bailed and came back into regular racing with another name change, so I bailed and came back with NOPoKR? He continued to bail and change his name to ask me questions, so just to irritate, I changed my name to CRYBABY. WOW did that work. He wrote something very ugly about 2012 in the threads and said 2012 owed him an apology. I apologize Cody. I was only trying to create a "punk" persona to deflect any suspicion away from Barbie. Last week, when Barbie and Cody were having a few words, Barbie wrote "Don't be such a crybaby" to give yet another clue and even referred to myself in the 3rd person thus showing there was more than 1 name for me.;) All of this has apparently gone unnoticed, but it hasn't kept me from giving clues. I thought maybe the poker races might give me away after I changed to the lobster when Top was in the room, but no one said anything. So I will keep giving clues unless someone actually tries to say they are 2012 and then I will go ahead and post my blog.
01/20/11
Although I do love racing anonymously, I'm considering telling the fellas about this other persona and it's mainly because of Poker. I love regular racing incognito, but when it's time for poker, I would like to go in as Barbie to help get to my 9's. I can't flash the lizard in regular and show up as Barbie....Or can I?? Now that I've written that out, I think I will do JUST that and then see who guesses it first. That will be my dead giveaway. I say it will be Dynamo. He's always been a great poker buddy. I'm sure he will probably get the connection. Gonna go see right now who is on.
01/21/11
I flashed the lobster at Big Air today when I was 2012, but showed up in poker as Barbie. Ratspot was there also and Big stalled the lobby with the chicken to let 2012 join. I flashed him the black lobster to hint I was 2012, but I think he thought it meant I was getting mad at his stalling. He didn't post anything, so I don't guess he made the connection. I did the same thing this morning to Cophed. If I keep doing this, it shouldn't be long before someone finally asks me if 2012 is Barbie, especially since I don't want to waste any more poker wins on 2012. He was cutting into my poker 9's too much.
01/22/11
Maybe it's because I'm being sneaky, but today when Big Air posted "JOOM, PM" and Joom posted "got it and back" I wanted to say, "what's the big secret fellas" I mean I have been giving them clue after clue, but no one has made the connection or they just aren't saying anything. I even flashed the lobster to Topstar today as 2012 but showed up in poker as Barbie. I figured if anyone would say something it would be Top. Also today, I was in regular racing as 2012 with Legs and 3 others, and the computer randomly picked Plat. Guat. I bet 2500 as did legs, but I beelined and DQ'd 3 of the 4 racers and still won the race and legs got her first 2500 loss, I went to the threads and told the fellas about giving Legs the loss, but I neglected to mention I wasn't Barbie. I was kinda hoping maybe Looney aka Legs would pop up on the board and bust me out. Well, guess we wait a bit longer on posting this blog.
01/25/11
I've been trying to get everyone to guess my secret, but so far, no one has said a word. We had a beelining bowl on Sunday, Jan. 23rd, and when Snooog posted his friend code, I noticed the 4 middle numbers were 2012, so I said, "Hmm, interesting" to see if anyone else would bite, but no takers. Snooog replied with, "It's my Indiana FC" to which I replied, "Just wondering if it was prophecy or revelation". Still Nothing.
There's a conspiracy afloat here folks. I think the guys are ignoring 2012 to try and make him come forward, which at this point I figured I would just keep flashing poker as 2012 and showing up as Barbie until some one finally gets it and says something.
Speaking of saying something, I also figured since I was revealing the identity of my alter ego, I would also share a few more revelations that might answer a few more questions and stir the board up just a tad.
First big mystery I would like to solve is the disappearance of Danno. Yes, Danno is Dead, the profile deleted long ago, but his inspiration was still around, but only incognito. I know all this because I am married to him. I've mentioned on several occassions about my husbands involvement, but what everyone didn't realize was, He is just as addicted to this game and to the happenings on these threads as I am. We are both so addicted to this game that....*HERE COMES ANOTHER BIG REVEAL*....We had to buy a 2nd Wii. Actually, We had one on loan while the owner was trying to find somewhere to live. We ended up with it for about 6 months and found we couldn't live without it, so when it went back to it's owner, we purchased our own..*Getting this connection Top?* I am not only married to Danno, his aka would also be Miley aka Bots. Topstar once asked why Miley would spend so much time building up her profile if she knew she had to give back the Wii. The answer to that is because Miley started off as a big Joke. He just wanted an irritating girlie name and he thought of Miley Cyrus. TA DA!
I am just as competitive as the rest of you and I have taken great pleasure over the years at beating my husband at EVERYTHING. Yes, I said it and I'm not sorry. He stopped playing games of any kind with me, whether board games, video games, or cards, a long time ago because of his frustration at losing all the time. I suppose I could have let him win a game here or there, but Hey, what is winning if it isn't earned? He isn't my child, he's my husband. But Excitebots has brought back our Wii time :lol:
01/28/11
DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!! WAY TO GO CODY. IT'S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE FIGURED IT OUT!
Now the cat is out of the bag and after Tops Milestone extravaganza, I can work on my 9's in both profiles. I'm trying to get close to 4000 in regular excite, but Poker has been too booming.
So there you have it fellas. Anything else you want to ask me?????

When I began this game, I was Jaxsnana but later changed it to Badnana, but I was only renting the game so I wasn't even thinking about stats or 9's or bets loss. I was just enthralled by the fellowship of other racers. It wasn't until I received the game as a gift and started playing regularly that all these other things came into play and even then it took it all awhile for it to start to make me wonder. That is when I decided to delete Badnana who already had over 1200 wins and started Barbie to try for the 0 Bets loss(we all know how this story is going). I also created an alt named Banner who has/had over a thousand wins also just to mix things up a bit. His beginning was before the interest in 0 bets loss. My evolution through excitebots is ever changing even to this day. There is always something to learn, stat to keep, race to run, but none of this would have continued if I hadn't found this board to renew the passion. I've made many friends and memories. God Bless each and every one of you who have made my journey through excitebots so interesting.

Today I was racing some newbies and I was thinking about different racers approach toa room like this, and I realized that I can't turn off my motherly, nurturing instincts. Oh don't get me wrong, put me in a room full of good racers and there seems to be an automatic switch in my head that turns from "HELP'EM" to "SMASH'EM", but in a room like this morning, I was doing everything I could to help them win, like no spinning, taking alternate routes, etc.., because I wanted them to have that feeling we all remember when we beat someone good, Of course I had to throw in a few high scores so they could see how good I really was, but I also didn't want to discourage them from trying. I hope they had fun this morning and will be hungry for more, but they can forget about any special treatment if anyone challenging is in the room. :evil:

I'm inviting everyone to start an emailing campaign to Nintendo to tell them what you think about Excitebots and what you would like to see in the next version. I even invited them(Nintendo) to check our forums here, as well as the other websites, so they could see exactly what the people are saying and what the people want. There was even a place on Facebook for excitebots, but noone had posted there for some time. I sent messages to several off of FB's Excitebots profile inviting them to the forums here. Come on folks, Let's make our voices heard!

www.nintendo.com

So, I started thinking about all the things that have happened to me and/or my family over the past year and a half and was amazed at just how much excitebots has been apart of it. I've been dealt a few blows over the past couple of years and there was even a period there where everything happened at once, but the one constant has always been my love for this game and the friends I had made racing online even before I had discovered(actually, I was lead) this forum.

I guess it all started 2 years ago, Christmas 08, when my husband went out and bought a Wii for our 6 year old grandson(we have custody). I remember getting a little perturbed that he bought such an expensive gift without my approval and not really wanting to keep it, but I tried to keep my mouth shut and figured what's done is done and bought several games off of ebay. My husband did some research on the internet(if you knew my husband, you would find this amazing in itself.) and told me to find Excite Truck on ebay which I did. Santa set up the Wii for us that night and must have played some while he ate his cookies. The location of the glass and plate gave it away. Anyways, Christmas day was spent playing the Wii of course and needless to say, I WAS HOOKED! I started staying up to the Wii hours of the morning playing Excite truck. And then in April 09, he went to rent a movie and as he was walking through the video games ExciteBots grabbed his attention because of our love for Excite Truck. We became obsessed the moment we tried it.(I saw it as Excite Truck on steroids) but the true obsession didn't start until I went online. Up to this point, there hadn't been a game that I played that was WiFi capable, and because of that I hadn't ever set it up to receive WiFi. Then about a week into my 2 week rental the first time around, I figured I'd set it up and give it a try. MAN, was that the wrong thing to do that day. I didn't move for about 4 hours and was still playing when my husband walked in the door. He said, "Are you obsessed with that game?" He could see the excitement on my face as I said, "OH HONEY, WAIT UNTIL YOU RACE ONLINE AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE!!!" The thrill of playing with real people instead of the computer was absolutely enthralling. Names and icons became familiar opponents yet comrades in the thrill of accomplishment. Certain names would just send me into what I called amateur mode. JamesSk was the king when this game began and racing him meant you had better race perfectly. In the beginning, he was impossible to beat. I figured he must own the game and really studied the courses, but my time was somewhat limited and I was trying to accomplish as much as possible in the time I was allotted. A couple of weeks after we returned the game to the store, I asked my husband to pick it up again to which he replied, "As much as you have paid to rent it, you could have bought it by now." To which I responded, "Well, if you aren't going to stop at Wal-Mart and buy it for me, at least rent it when you get a movie." He rented and I played non-stop for another 2 week rental. Then I seemed to be over it and didn't play for a couple of months, but in August, for my birthday, My husband had bought me the game with a card that said, "BADNANA IS BACK". I remember thinking, "How Sweet" but feeling like "Nah, I'm over it". I didn't even open the packaging for a few days, because I thought about taking it back and getting something else, but my grandson kept asking me over and over if he could open it, so I finally relented. Thus began my Odyssey with all sorts of aspects of this game. September 27th 09, was when things started falling apart around here and to escape everything going on around me, I engulfed myself in this game. I remember the absolute thrill and excitement the first time I ever beat JamesSk. It was Bz. Egypt and I remember thinking "Must be the tree runs that get him soo many points" I, of course, figured out the combos and spins as well as tree runs, but it was from observing great racers I learned how to dance as I raced along. It can be so beautiful when you run a smooth high scoring race. Plus, there was a certain rush in winning. Badnana(as well as Barbie) loved driving fast. I liked my icon(green spiked smiley) and my name, but I had become a little bored with the game, so I decided to delete Badnana and go for a 0 loss profile like James. That is when Barbie was born. The quest for 0 ended when my 1 year old grandson(also have custody) hit the off button on the extra remote while I was racing. So Barbie stopped betting and just became all about the wins. I also really enjoyed racing poker and it became the one place where my numbers were better than Topstars. Finally I was good at something. :lol:

There have been alot of players who have come through, stuck around, and have become almost impossible to beat and watching the evolution of these players created a respect, admiration, and friendship long before communication ever became an option. Again, just I was about to get bored with the game and life was settling down a bit, My computer illiterat husband walked into the room as I was racing GAMSPOT and GO 2 4M and said, "hey I have heard of gamespot. That is where I researched Excite truck. You ought to look it up." I was racing and didn't want to stop so I just brushed him off, but the next day while I was playing on the computer, I thought, O.K., let's see if there is anything to this" OH MY GOODNESS! What I discovered not only renewed my energy of excitement for this game, It revamped my style of racing to include more points.I was completely astonished that there were others just as much in love with this game as myself, some even more so, to the point of keeping statistics on just about everything. (KUDOS TO TOP! You were born to be a leader son.) I can't describe how giddy I was to actually get to communicate with so many players I have watched grow and surpass myself. I was truely overjoyed because Now all of them could actually know when I HIGH FIVED them after a race. The racers on this board have become part of my family to which I will always be eternally grateful for their help(unbeknownst to most) through some pretty traumatic times. The game, and this board, have helped me to maintain my sanity in some pretty insane situations. All I have to say is Nintendo better get on the ball and hurry up with Excitebot 2 because I feel a storm a brewing again. I have even dreamed about an event for the unveiling of EB2. A massive tournament where Nintendo invites the top 50 established EB racers to compete using the all new EB2 courses. Going in blindly, everyone has a shot at winning. What a promo! Of course they will have to hold 2 tournaments- 1 regular and 1 poker. Doubles your chance of winning, but the idea would be...Look at what a group of individuals who loved the game did, spread the word...and it goes worldwide with marketing like they did for Mario Kart. AHHHH, What a beautiful dream and I will keep trying to wish it into reality.

No matter what is happening in my life, I find peace, love and laughter here and on the tracks. I guess my whole point for this blog is to say EB hasn't been just a game to me. It has been an enormously therapeutic escape from my reality and a wonderfully entertaining addition to my daily routine.

I love you guys!