I’m a little fuzzy on the exact timeline, but I’m pretty sure it was 2001 when I first found the George tickets on the original site, based on where I was working at the time (contract desktop support at HP Vancouver). I managed to severely degrade tier II support for a good hour by sharing the link with my team. A series of discussion forums and domain/hosting changes and occasionally drama would ensue over the next few decades.
It felt like we had been a going thing for forever when I met The Keeper of Tickets and his lovely wife in person and we drank heavily and I tried to talk him into just deleting everything without explanation. (I am not a good moderator, almost by definition.) I think that was 2005.
I remember following the ticket updates (back when the site looked like this) for a while before Lee floated the idea of starting a forum. I was one of the early joiners, but I don’t remember how early.
I’m trying to sort out when it was that I joined the forums. It was in the phpBB days for sure, had to be 2002 or earlier
I looked back through my emails but the first mention I found of anything CoG-related was in 2006, in reference to the events around someone who we don’t talk about anymore
The earliest memory I have of CoG is finding some stories by Johnny Bravo somewhere and then back-tracking to CoG. I wasted the better part of a day (or more!) reading everything.
It was at least 2001 if not earlier, because I joined before I got married and that was late 2001. But I don’t think it was while I was in undergrad, and I graduated Dec ‘99. Good ol’ EZBoards.
I’ve dropped off for stretches, but have fond memories of the old IRC gang. There’s a few people who I miss from those days and really hope are OK. The current crew seems to be mostly taking care of their shit. (Which is self-description, not an insult.)
I cannot remember when or where, but I found the link in a magazine and browsed the Chronicles, then joined the board a while later. Prolly 2010 or thereabouts, not sure.
We’ve had a lot of people over the years who joined for various reasons. A concern for not mangling the English language is a common reason, although I can’t speak for @MSUAlexis .
I stumbled on the CoG website and thought the tickets were hilarious. And I like talking to people so I ended up on the forums. Ex-DH works in IT and I and the kids like computers and tech and stuff so I stuck around. Also, people here aren’t total idiots when it comes to discussing tough topics. Basically I got grandfathered in from the original boards.
I was on real early I remember when it was mentioned that there would be a forum and I thought it would be fun, but left for a few years and missed all the drama. Still don’t know what happened there.
I’m trying to remember what year we met up in Cleveland. MsTanja, The Silver Brumby, her husband and a couple others I can’t pin down.
