Since unions will soon be gone with GameSpot's redesign, I would like to take the opportuinity to say goodbye and farewell to them. Over the past year and a half which is the only time I've been really active on GS, I've enjoyed posting in unions to talk with many of the users in them. I even started playing video games online with some of them, and that is something I did not do with anyone prior to becoming active here. My life also got better knowing I had communities like GS unions to go to, so they will definitely leave a void in me. I am recreating one union that I have leadership status at, and hopefully those of you who stayed active in it here at GS will migrate to the new forum. All of you who are in that union will be getting a telegram once I get everything set up there.

I still believe GS is making a mistake by getting rid of unions, but at least now the union leaders can host their communities somewhere where they can control their own destiny and not have to worry about it getting erased.

If I am active on GS after the redesign, I'll return to my pre-December 2011 status for sure, which means I will rarely post and possibly have a long time period of not posting at all.

For some reason, there's times where I am not pumped at all to play video games and it's like I have to force myself to play. It's not at all that I don't like video games, because I wouldn't be on this site if that were the case. I know I work two jobs and get tired from that, but you would think I'd want to play games to relax after work. Sometimes I don't even want to do that, it's like I just want to watch TV or YouTube after work most nights. I honestly do not know why this is, or why I can't stay pumped when it comes to playing video games anymore.

Anyone who I might owe a game night to that hasn't gotten it, I promise you'll get it in the near future. Hopefully my enthusiasm will come back.

In July of 2005, I first registered to GameSpot as a member in order to easily keep track of upcoming games I looked to get in the future. I also used TV.com a lot back in the day, and since that site was also a CNET site aligned with this one, I discovered this one as one of their "partner" sites. Since then, CBS Interactive has bought GameSpot and therefore it is no longer associated with TV.com or GameFAQs.

Now it is July of 2013, making it 8 years today that I first became a member. Although if you count years I've actually been an active full time poster, it would only be a one year and a half anniversary. I'll still count this as 8 years though because my join date will always reveal how long I've been a member. :P

Celebrating 8 years as a GS member:

Also, I decided to buy these movies when I saw the DVD's in a couple of my local stores. For those who watched 80's movies, you might recognize them well. ;)

I may have posted in a few unions recently that I had been less active due to not feeling like I'm doing well enough in life within the past month. For now, I have found a way to deal with that, and I will just try my best to be content with whatever progress is being made and work as hard as I possibly can to strive for more. One thing is for sure, I can't remain in my current situation my whole life, so I'm going to have to figure something out. Either get a promotion at my current job, or just go to school and try to get a job in my own field (cooking). I've really been thinking about doing the latter, as I have always liked cooking and have always been good at it.

Also, GS seems to be in its buggy stage again, so I probably won't be posting as much while this glitch persists. I will still check up on things and post here and there, but it won't be until the glitch is gone that I post as much as I normally do again. This will give me some time to play on the PS3 and catch up on games I haven't beaten yet.

Around this time last week, I hit 20,000 posts which is quite a milestone and a lot of people don't even stick around long enough to participate in enough conversations to hit that mark so I do consider it an honor that I made it this far. :)

I also reached Level 40 a while ago but I wanted to include other stuff in my blog as well, since I didn't just want to post about me leveling up. I'm currently 91% on this level though, so that means I am almost to Level 41, and I won't be posting another blog about my level until I get to Level 50 since I only post for milestones and not for every level-up.

I also bought two movies recently, one I have seen a few times but didn't own (Days of Thunder) and the other one I have never seen (Tomb Raider). Here's pics of the movies, and hopefully everyone has a great day. :)

Lately, the weather has not been able to make up its mind as to what it wants to do here as some people here have gotten a little bit sick due to the weather changing. I've been able to avoid that myself, but I do not look to knock on wood here.

But this week, the weather seemed to be a bit less cold and today was nice out for the entire day! Hopefully this is a sign that Spring could finally be here and I can go back to washing cars outside at my police station job, as well as break out my riding bike and start riding again! :cool:

I'd like to go outside as much as possible this year!

So, that time of year has come again. :P What did you all get, or do during the Christmas break? I myself got an iPad (which takes great videos and pics by the way) and made a new friend, so I had a great break so far. :D I do wish I'd have had more happen, but if nothing else at least I caught up on gaming. Practicing for 2013 lol. :P

Also, we got about 6 inches of snow last night as we were under a blizzard warning and power outage warning (the power stayed on though so all is good here), so I guess this is Part 2 of my town finally getting snow (Part 1 was posted in February). :P

As you can see, we got an entire cover of snow lol. You can't see the ground and you have to take the roads really cautious.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year! :D

I meant to post this blog on November 13th since that's when my birthday is, but I didn't make it on GS that day so I'll do it now. I am now 23 years old, although sometimes I do feel older than that but I guess working more than one job will do that to you lol.

I was really surprised by my family, as I was sent $50 in a card. I thought, "Hmm, should I save it or get games with it? I can save up the money I get from work so games it is!"

I never thought I'd find myself with so little to write about, but I have to end the blog here since there's more to come that I haven't gotten yet from other family members but will recieve in the next couple of days. I'll be sure to mention it when I get those gifts. :P

As most of you probably already know, GameSpot has created a new system for leveling up and the details of it can be found here.

I think this is the best change GameSpot has made in a while because of the fact that the past system for leveling up depended more on how many pages you viewed rather than what you do on the site. Now they have it set up to where you earn points towards your level up by posting, adding games to your follow list, rating games, earning emblems, creating new threads and even being followed by other users. I like this new system better because it's based more on what you do on the site and not how much you browse/lurk.

What are your thoughts?

Today is my seventh anniversary here on GameSpot, and I almost forgot to make a blog about it. But luckily, I remembered to do this while I am now browsing the site so let's party! :D lol

I think this is an appropriate cake to celebrate with, don't you think? :P

Hard to believe how fast these years have gone by. I was only 15 when I signed up on this site and had no knowledge of how to make icons, banners, userbars, signatures, any of that stuff. Now it's pretty much the opposite, with me being 22 and knowing how to make all of those things now.

Have a nice day all! :)