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"The complete history of UKchatforums.com"

I often think about the history of these forums, and how things used to be. That's not to say they've declined in quality over the years, but as with most things, you keep them going long enough and you'll find people complaining that things ain't what they used to be.

Anyway, I got to remembering some of the good times while bored at work today (a regular occurence) and yeah, it might be a bit sad, but some of the memories really did make me smile. UKchatforums.com must be my most visited website ever (still my homepage) and despite it just being a collection of poorly-designed .gif images and text-speak, sometimes it genuinely manages to make me laugh out loud (LOL).

So... in the spirit of one of my Shiznit lists, I want your top UKchatforums.com moments of all time, from throughout history - it can be favourite users, brilliant moments of realisation or just your favourite threads. I'll get us kicked off with a few memories that brightened up my day.

THE BELLDANDY SAGA - I've never had so much fun berating someone over the internet as I did with Belldandy. Probably still floating around somewhere under a newly mysterious (very probably Manga-related) username, Belldandy was NEVER WRONG. Even if he was, he wasn't. And if he really was, then he'd run away and not come out to play, until the next time he was wrong. It came close to bullying at a few points (I used to get his emails) but it was coming from both sides: Goaty, Light, Pandy, myself and others (all anti-war and common sense) versus the one man righteous army of Belldandy.

The Belldandy saga reached a hilarious conclusion, when on one of his many mysterious reappearances under another nick (HALO Fan), he was sussed by the lot of us and nevertheless proceeded to dispute it for several months, despite have all the curt mannerisms and blind flag-wankery that good old Bell had. It stopped being fun when we finally saw a picture of him on Special Observe, then realised our physical name calling was disturbingly prophetic.

There have been others, but none as more fun to bait as Belldandy.

He makes Crossbob look normal.

@ Ezra.

Lord H - the hater of all things spoof and right when I was churning out a new film related spoof each week.

He even made it as a villain in my Robostaff 2 spoof. Trouble was, he had half a brain, he wasn't some idiotic text talker. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be Stryke under a different name, it was uncanny.

Once he said reporting people for cheating was like ratting people out and anyone who did it should be ashamed.

Right, the stalker story. It's long.

Back when I was in charge of giving out the Gameaday prizes, some guy named Ezra wrote a so-so review and I awarded him the prize. I received an extremely polite email from him thanking me and for running such a great site, told me the game he'd like, asked me when it would arrive, thanked me again, all fairly standard stuff. Seemed like a nice bloke.

Then the next email came. And the next. And the next. This guy is seriously the most polite person I've ever met, he would apologise for the fact he was making me read his thank you emails. Because his writing was okay, he won a few more prizes and got ever more excited with each new victory, exploding with praise for myself and SR. At this point, he was still bearable, just another laugh first thing in the morning when clearing out my inbox.

But they kept coming.

If he wrote a review, he'd email me. If he wrote a review that didn't win, he'd email me, asking (politely) why it didn't win, pledging to try harder next time and sorry again for wasting my time. This continued for an age, every morning a new email, getting ever more friendly (I went from being Ali, to 'my friend Ali', 'buddy', 'my greatest pal' and disturbingly at one point 'my best friend' - no word of a lie) and politely enquiring how I was, how long it took to judge prizes, when would mine arrive and so and and so on. To my credit, I reckon, I answered almost every single email he sent.

Emails weren’t enough. I had phone calls from him (well, one, I avoided the rest, and there were many) and several voicemail messages from him - and his family! – asking to know when his Gameaday prize would turn up. One day, he actually came all the way down from London to the Sawbo club shop to try and pick up his prize – cue a phone from shop staff downstairs and a reaction from me that can only be described as sheer terror muffled through a nervous laugh. Did I go down and say hi? Did I balls. He can drive all the way back to London for all I care, I don’t do meet and greets mate.

One memorable occasion was the day he told me that his prize had arrive at his house with his brother’s name on by mistake (not unimaginable, by the SR warehouse staff’s standards), who picked it up, opened it an kept it. Ezra was, quote, “too polite to tell him it was mine, he looked so happy,” and could he please have another one as he cuoldn’t face tearing his older brother (the one from the phone message) away from his copy of Devil May Cry.

This went on for a while, until the point where I'd be disappointed when I didn't have an Ezra email in the morning. He decided to join the forums (Shadow Demon, someone like that) to give himself a better chance of winning. Oh dear. Bad idea. You lot have no idea the amount of grief you gave me.

"Ali, why do they bully me so on the forums? I only speak the truth. This one user suggests that I am a liar, and that DJ Luck is not my cousin when he is. Please tell them to stop."

Being the bunch of gits you are, you saw his frail innocence and naivety and pounced on it, tearing him piece from piece until every other email from him was bemoaning the fact that someone had said this or that, and could I please do something about it (apart from laugh).

Now, Loki was having the time of his life with all this. All he had to do was sit there while I read his emails out (confidenti-what-ity?) and laugh at my misfortune. But Loki, the god of mischief so they say, decided to give me the right royal screw job and find another reason for me to endure the relentless Ezra attacks. He found reasons to ban him.

Banning the guy who emails me when his shoes are untied. Banning the guy who probably had a crudely drawn sketch of me (inked in blood no doubt) on his bedroom wall. Gee, thanks guy. Some crappy reason was thought up – I think he threatened to punch someone, or he’d copied bits of a review from a DVD – but Ezra was to be no more. Loki sat back and awaited the inevitable.

The outpour of emotion surprised even jaded old me. It was like someone had just kidnapped his family or something, he was going mental – I would actually have bet money on the fact he was crying when he wrote the next barrage of emails. Seriously, this guy was unhinged, he was begging to be let back on the forums, pledging to change his ways like a man under the barrel of a hitman’s rifle, dignity scattered on the wind, snot dribbling from his nose. He says the phrase “I am lower than dust right now.” He refers to me as “his only friend”. I begin to worry. Loki meanwhile, as my superior, will not allow me to reinstate him. Laugh it up.

The heartbreak and agony slowly turns to unbridled rage, the tiny friendly little pixie suddenly turns into an email-based harbinger of doom. “If you do not unban me Ali, you will be the one who is sorry,” and so forth. I’m still replying, doing my best to calm him down, telling him everything will be okay and that maybe – no word of a lie – he should find something else to do instead. But no, the emails continue – this guy wants to be back on the forums so much, I get the feeling he’d rather introduce Mr Shotgun to Mr Mouth than change his homepage. With Loki still laughing his head off from a relative safe distance, I decide on the sly to tell Ezra he can come back under another name, as long as he doesn’t cause any fuss. Yeah, because that’s going to happen – that’s like telling a stalker you can meet me on weekends as long as you don’t try and stab me.

So back he came under countless different names – every time he’d register, and if he didn’t win GAD first time, he’d come back under another name, in search of that ‘perfect’ account – still Ezra in everyway, impossible to confuse for someone else, same perfect manners tinged with suicidal depression and maniacal laughter (no one used LOL in more inappropriate places than him). Somehow, and I forget how (it couldn’t have been me and may well have been Loki), he won another GAD prize. Big mistake. At that point, people that had been banned weren’t allowed to win prizes again (say thanks to Shaneo) so it was technically against the rules for us to award him another game, as much as it would have been the quiet life. Ezra, to his eternal credit, went through the ridiculous rigmarole of pretending he was someone completely different, despite knowing my name and no doubt some intimate person details. I caught him out, first email with:

“Hi Ezra”

The reply?

“Who is this Ezra you speak of?” etc.

It was exactly like that bit in the Simpsons where Mr Burns turns up at the Town Hall meeting purporting to be called Mr Snrub. Absolutely see-through from the beginning, and all the funnier for it. This went on for several more weeks until we eventually got him to own up that he was Ezra (I think we banned him again for it, haha). At one point he had several accounts on the go and would email me under several different personalities a day in search of that GAD prize on the end of the rope that was proving to be just too elusive.

Eventually, the emails died off and he stopped contacting me, and stopped trying to win prizes. I think in total, over a few short months, he’d sent me over 300 emails or thereabouts, sometimes huge essays telling me what he had for breakfast and how he was going to try even harder to win this time, others short and concise (“How are you today Ali LOL” was one of my favourites) and, disconcertingly, one wishing me a happy birthday. Yeesh.

To this day, I never encountered anyone quite like Ezra ever again, an absolutely bizarre but totally nice guy who’d rather bite of his own hand than cause anyone any trouble. I get the feeling if he ever reads this, he’d probably put a gun to his head and end it all. After ending mine, that is.

His web-site.

Hehe.

Don't forget Gejay.

What?

He still is.

I think he used to be called GO GO SUPER MATTHEW DX and caused hell in the margins

Also, Mattributé used to be Tribute. I think. He changed his name after the fake hack attack.

Another one of Goatboy's outbursts around that time was saying to the 'hackers' that because he was a Notable he could see there contact details.

Edit: Perhaps the wording is better now.

haha The Asian Prince, what a legend. On a similar note, iliekmilk.

I remember when there were no taglines or 'Regular' and 'Newbie' status. Also I think the first banning on these forums involved 'Kazar' who was Time_Warp's brother, he threatened to find out where I lived and smash my head open with a baseball bat....

Grix's FOG animations, Sheepu's web-site about cheese.
The SR stories, oh and Kid Rock and his amazing post boosts for the Sony forums WLT.

I also preferred this place when there was no General Chat, just FOG. Not FOG chat or prime, just FOG.

The three GAD prizes every day, and someone like Grix would win the prize for a thread he posted.

I remember great posts about the Asian Prince.