Nice read, goat. This is a long read, so I gave you some music to listen to. Questions like the one you just asked are always difficult to answer...a lot of stuff comes to my mind. I've loved Halo since I first popped Halo: CE into my xbox (it was the first game I ever played on xbox). The music was amazing, the gameplay was fun, and playing as Master Chief sort of helped me escape reality for a while which was fantastic. I didn't have many friends and I was bullied a lot, so playing as a unstoppable force and saving everyone was a nice change of pace. For a long time I never really thought about the men and women behind Halo, just the game. But then when Halo 3 came out and I was in 8th grade I finally realized, "this is what I want to do with my life". I wanted to make games. I had always drawn master chief and even drew my own spartan I named "Steel Titan" because Halo inspired me and then I realized that I wanted to make games and I wanted to help create games with the people who made Halo. So, I discovered Bungie and I knew I wanted to help inspire people the way Bungie inspired me. I wanted to help create an amazing universe for people to fall in love with. Most of all, I wanted to help kids who had a rough childhood escape their realities for a while just like Halo had done for me. Bungie, to me, is my inspiration and my drive to achieve those goals. I didn't realize that they were more than game developers until I found Bungie.net. My story of how I arrived here is like many other stories, I came here for my Halo 3 stats and for that cool nameplate. Even though I had purchased Halo 3 when it was released I didn't have a 360. I had to wait 2 years just to play it and to experience Xbox Live. I missed the glory days of Halo 2 online, I wasn't going to miss Halo 3. So, I checked my stats and I changed my nameplate but oddly enough I didn't even realize that b.net had forums and on top of that once I found out I didn't even know where to start. I had never used an internet forum before. Time passed and I lurked and posted now and again, watched, and slowly became confident. When I started coming more frequently I saw Bungie interact with the community and I was amazed. We could interact with the people that I admired so much? I thought that was amazing and I had even more respect and admiration for Bungie then I already had. The community has also grown on me. As I became a frequent user I began to recognize people and I even began to make some friends. It was great and it was something I wanted to help build and improve. I've always felt that if I'm going to spend my time doing something, I'm going to give it my all. For video games, I thought that if I was going to spend countless hours playing them I was also going to be the best at them and kick other people's asses online. For the community, I felt if I was going to come here and interact with strangers on the internet who have the same passion as me I was going to do my best to make friends, connections, and see different views I couldn't get from my small but growing town. I felt it was also important that as a member of this tightly knit community I should do my best to find ways to contribute and bring us all a little bit closer. I love you guys and I think the community we have here is amazing, and it is also something I haven't seen anywhere else. I am willing to bust my ass to make money just to attend PAX and hangout with the community members that attend. I want to get to know more of you and make even more friends here. If you think I'm BSing, I'm not. This is probably the longest post I have made that wasn't part of something like the Communisack (which is currently on break). Sorry for the rant, I'm done now.