DAC: Where are you from, how many siblings do you have, how is your relationship with your parents?
GM: Kashlukland, two siblings, good relationship with my mom, she's awesome and I love her, dad died ages ago so nonexistent relationship with him at the moment.
DAC: How was your childhood, happy?
GM: Not happy, ever since I was a kid I've felt out of step with the world, it's like the society and environment is a radio station and I'm not really properly tuned into the channel so everything sounds a bit garbled and terrible and I could never make sense of a lot of stuff, and I was pretty depressed most of my youth. Other than that it was alright I guess, I come from a pretty small town and have always been pretty introverted so I just played computer games a lot and later on posted on DAC and talked shit on #fallout and hung out and got drunk with my friends and stuff like that
DAC: Do you keep plants or pets?
GM: I have a few plants that are constantly on the verge of death. They're nice to have around but I don't mind if they die either, I would just consider it a beautiful reminder on the temporary nature of life. Memento mori and so on. Pretty allergic to a bunch of animals and I have some ethical issues with keeping pets in an urban environment with regards to their territory and range, and I'm not interested in having a spider or some stupid shit like that, so no pets.
DAC: How did you find DAC?
GM: It's a bit of a convoluted & boring story but here goes. I joined a Fallout: Tactics clan before the game's release because I was a huge fan of FO1&2 and a tactical combat game in the Fallout universe sounded pretty damn good to me as I'm a big fan of the Jagged Alliance games as well. Pretty sure this was also before they decided to go with real-time combat instead of turn-based; that decision was a letdown but I still played some matches for a little while when the game was released. Anyway the clan had its own website and forum, and that's where I started making the Toxic Waste Boy comics (this was around 2000/2001). They somehow found their way to Kreegle (the boss man of DAC at the time, we're talking GameSpy era DAC now), he took a liking to them and posted them on the DAC front page, so I visited the forums a few times to check out the feedback but didn't like the terrible forum software. Maybe I had visited DAC for news or something before that but that was my first real connection with the site. Pyro/Megatron was one of the people who enjoyed the comics and that's when I sort of made his acquaintance for the first time as well. So that was 20 years ago, christ.
At some point another Fallout fansite called vault13.net became kind of a hub for the clans and the biggest ones, ours included, got their own subforums, so the clan moved to V13 and I started posting there. V13 had very much a similar vibe to duckandcover.net-to-be. Eventually V13 closed down and many of the regulars migrated to either DAC or NMA, and I was done with the clan nonsense by then. I think the "new" DAC and V13 must have coexisted at some point because I don't think there was any big gap between my posting on V13 and DAC (I did some research: The new DAC forums opened on 18 April 2002, and V13 closed for good on 24 May 2002). Anyway this was when DAC left GameSpy, and I vaguely remember the grand re-opening of DAC. I joined on the very first day of course because I'm hardcore like that. The forums have stayed basically the same ever since, but back then someone even made a forum theme that resembled the old V13 forums which I thought was a really nice gesture. It was all black and green and far superior to this shitty theme, back then all the cool websites were black.
I also created & ran the Wasteland subdomain of DAC where we uploaded the comics and all the silly stuff with Megatron like the fake STALKER and New Vegas fansites, it was basically our own playground for our creative projects and collaborations. Megatron was responsible for all the best content there though. I don't remember how this came about but I was friends with Kreegle by then so I guess he just gave me a subdomain and let me do my own thing. I had been learning HTML and CSS since I was a kid, and it was nice to build something that people actually visited for once.
It's funny to think I've done all this stuff and that I've been both an op on #fallout and a moderator on DAC even though I consider myself pretty much just another shitposter, any of you guys would have probably done a much better job than me.
DAC: What drugs have you tried, what do you prefer? How do you buy them, is it from the same source over the years?
GM: I can't be bothered to come up with a list sorry, I guess I've tried basically everything that I've found at least somewhat interesting and have been able to acquire without much of an effort, so pretty much most of the usual stuff. I prefer hallucinogens, anything that expands my horizons a bit. As for the sources, MR Snake is my man, look him up FBI
DAC: How old are you? How is your health?
GM: I'm 35, pretty healthy, could be better could be worse, I'm not fat or anything. I haven't exercised much since summer so I've developed slight back/neck pains due to my line of work but nothing that can't be solved with a bit of gym and/or yoga. My diet is pretty terrible though but somehow I'm still in a pretty good shape. I haven't caught any colds this past year which is unusual for me as I do get sick very easily, maybe it's because of all the mask / handwashing business.
DAC: What is your ideal life, if you had funds secured how would you enjoy your existence ideally?
GM: Short answer: Nirvana
Long answer: I don't really like the concept of ideal life, life is just life, it's better to be free of any attachments or expectations, fuck the hedonic treadmill. Even if ever I achieved any sort of "ideal life" that I had envisioned, I'd probably not be much happier than I am now anyway. Like one study showed that lottery winners and paraplegics both pretty much returned to some sort of a "baseline" level of happiness after something like a year after the incident/accident. But the biggest problem is the "enjoy your existence" bit with which I've always struggled; the thing is I'm very good at being discontent and overthinking things, and my whole life is pretty much one long existential crisis (there have been good times and bad times but it's something that very much defines me for sure). Meditation and psychedelics help.
DAC: What are your hobbies?
GM: I have these bouts of mania almost, where I get super into random things (I've spent a considerable amount of my free time on these interviews and going through old posts for example) but they rarely hold my attention for long. But the past year has included at least: going to the gym, yoga, making music on my computer (I also play a bit of piano), drawing, writing, reading / listening to audiobooks (mostly non-fiction), interviewing DACKers, lately I've been making 2D animations as well, I was really into photography for a bit... basically I just do whatever I feel like doing at any given moment. I think it's more to do with constant self-improvement: I like learning new stuff and if I get bored with one thing I'll just do something else for a bit. As you can see it's mostly pretty solitary stuff, like said I'm very much an introvert.
DAC: Tits or ass?
GM: That's a tough one, I'm pretty divided on the subject. I'm big into anal but I would say great tits are more aesthetically pleasing than great butts. I can't really choose, I need the whole package or at least some sort of a decent compromise between the two.
DAC: Have you've ever walked out of a mall into a huge parking area and realized, you'd forgotten where you parked your car?
GM: I've never owned a car, but the times I've borrowed one, pretty much every time yes
DAC: https://youtu.be/9S1EzkRpelY
GM: That's a lot of questions, hopefully I got the order right:
1. I just answered this
![:angry:](//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@latest/assets/svg/1f620.svg)
2. No
3. I've always been more of a living-in-the-moment guy, I don't really give a shit, I just want to do stuff that makes me happy so I don't really get attached to things because they probably won't hold my interest for long anyway as mentioned earlier
4. No tipping culture here thank god, so 0
5. No
6. I couldn't really hear the stair question. So, maybe?
7. I dunno, any amount of money would do, I'd prefer a more interesting incentive, I have all the money in the world man
8. Probably not since I have never hunted and I wouldn't consider it a trophy had I not hunted it
9. Still no
10. I prefer salty things like potato chips or "crisps" if you're Megatronian
11. Nope
12. I did an online hearing test that plays different tones some years ago, and apparently my hearing is pretty shit, but then I knew that already.
13. I was hoping to finally go to Hong Kong last year but all travel plans are on hold for the time being for obvious reasons. They're ripping down the old neon signs at an an alarming rate, was kind of hoping to witness that whole aesthetic but I've probably missed it by now. But there are many other reasons to visit, for example I love the verticality of the city, look up "Michael Wolf: Architecture of Density", I'm awestruck whenever I browse through those photos, too bad the physical book has been out of print for a long time. "City of Darkness" is another great book, it's about the Walled City of Kowloon that's long gone now but it's a beautiful book and the whole concept and history of the place is just so bizarre and interesting. So yeah I wanna go to Hong Kong
14. Not at all, I don't remember a whole lot of stuff anyway
15. I love to stay at home
16. I have not
17. I'm pretty careful yes, thankfully most of that stuff is already digital around these parts but for example I have my accounting sorted in separate folders by year and month in the Cloud
18. Haha, lately my computer has been setting the time to random times for who knows why, so yeah. But it's probably a virus not a sign of sentience
19. I've visited Chinatown in Manchester, not sure if that counts as a "major city". I've visited a major city in China, does that count?
20. Many times
21. A couple of times
22. No, I think I would be pretty unsuitable for that sort of a job
23. I had not noticed that, no. Unless you count the type of food they serve a "theme", then yes.
24. Of course
DAC: What three items are guaranteed to be in your bug out bag?
GM: I first thought it said butt plug bag, and that one is much easier to answer so I'll say three butt plugs. I'm gonna have a jolly good time when the society collapses I guess.
DAC: What is a music album you could never live without?
GM: I don't know if there is one; looking at my Spotify playlists, there's very little stuff there that I was listening to like 3 years ago, and I have a bad habit of listening to an album until I get sick of it for a really long time. But if I had to pick something I'd probably go with something / anything by Bill Evans (preferably his solo / trio stuff), mostly because I think harmony and its contextual nature is the most interesting thing about music and he was a genius when it comes to that stuff, but also because his playing is pretty much perfect in every way.
Here's a great example (just skip the bass solo bullshit fuck that)
DAC: Are we alone in the universe?
GM: Aren't we all ultimately alone in the universe?
![:wink:](//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@latest/assets/svg/1f609.svg)
A very open-ended question so I'll give you a very closed-minded answer... NOT! Haha just a little joke. As for "is there sentient life that coexists with us within our tiny corner of the universe that is reachable at least in theory (fucking Hubble constant sheesh)", the chances seem kinda slim; I'm being kinda carboncentric sure but would we be any less alone if there was some silicon based freak of Prosperian proportions living on the moon if we'll never be able to even comprehend its existence anyway. Same with the expansion of universe: if there's life in some distant galaxy that's impossible to reach at this point, does it even matter what the DACers there are up to? Maybe, maybe not I don't fucking know. But just to make this answer even more of a clusterfuck, I think panpsychism is the most elegant and parsimonious answer to the hard problem of consciousness, so in my mind (:blargh:) matter or even the universe itself has intrinsic conscious properties, or something to that effect. So in a sense, we all are together in the universe; isn't that nice?
DAC: Is everything a simulation?
GM: Nice one I friggin love the Matrix! What if I told you... that Zhuangzi came up with pretty much the same idea years earlier in his movie "the Butterfly Effect"?
![cool B)](./images/smilies/glasses.gif)
One thing I've always wondered about is what if Neo would have eaten both the red pill and the blue pill? Maybe he would have embraced his masculinity and gone on a raping spree with his raging boner. As for the question, last year I read an article that summarised Nick Bostrom's (the guy who popularised the simulation hypothesis, along with the Wachowski sisters, those beautiful rastafarian albino twins) argument something like this: either the likelihood that we live in a simulation already is very high, or the likelihood that we'll ever reach a level of technological competence to run said simulations is very low. So that's a definite maybe from him, whereas it's a definite yes from the albino camp. Pick your poison or pill or whatever. To me this is kind of in the same category as the question of free will: does it even matter? We can't trust our senses anyway (see Zhuangzi) and I'm gonna waste my days posting on DAC or doing some other dumb shit either way. But I think the possibility of it boils down to whether or not you're willing to accept infinite regress (if we are in a simulation, there would have to be a "real world" running it right? But it could be just another simulation and so on, it's turtles all the way down cowabunga motherfucker). I do like thinking about these kinds of things but simulators aren't my top priority, I'm more interested in the consciousness, the intrinsic nature of reality and that sort of stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_XaJdDqQA0
DAC: Who was phone?
GM: Princess Nokia
DAC: Yes or no?
GM: Sorry but I have to go with maybe, not a big fan of binary thinking. Which would be kind of funny if we're just a bunch of 1s and 0s in the Matrix anyway. :albino:
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There's a few more interviews that I'll put up once I get the answers back, but that's it for now, maybe I'll do some more in the future if any other old-timers stop by. Basically I spent about a week at my computer pretty much just living in the past when doing these interviews, and in the end found myself refreshing the forum page throughout the day just to see if anyone had posted anything, just like back in the day, so I think I'll stop crowding the forums this much for now.
Thanks everyone for accepting to do these interviews, hope you found them entertaining / interesting / valuable / whatever to some degree.