Back in the day

Happy/sad feels coming by here. I'm sad because I miss the days when S7 / BBFx was bustling. Even when I was inactive because of life stuff it was comforting to know the boys were still on the forums and struggling in clan matches. I'm happy because I'm fairly certain a lot of you have good, if not stressful and time-consuming, stuff going on in your life that takes you away from S7.

Many of us are gone in no small part because gaming has changed, and the way we socialize around gaming has changed. Clans are not really a big thing anymore, and discord et al have made these old forums look like ruins of a bygone era. As impressive as games are now, they don't draw us to coalesce around larger peer groups anymore.

It was about thirteen years ago that a troubled 22 year old stumbled into those BBF forums looking for a group to join in some near-milsim ass kicking on the revolutionary new COD4. This group of old friends took me in and made me feel welcome. During a rough time, I developed relationships online that were healthier than those I had IRL.

I went to video game practice weekly, and it was freakin\' sick.

Somehow attending the gatherings never worked out because of finances or scheduling or logistics, but I was part of a clan that actually got together in respectable numbers on a near annual basis. That's crazy.

I went to Kass and his brothers (forgot his XBL name) house in Everett Mass and hung out (ingested marijuana) and it was freakin\' weird but fun.

I tried to make GTA4 a viable clan game and the bois supported me even though everyone knew GTA4 was not a viable clan game.

When I was in basic training, my wife tried to get an emergency message to me, and when the Army didn't help, (not my recruiter, not my unit, no one) she turned to these forums and still remembers getting help from mcamp and aircav. She's never forgotten that and holds this group in the highest esteem.

When I was in Germany I got invited to the secret squirrel forums and became part of the biggest secessionist movement since 1776.

Then I got busy and games kinda sucked. Then I played a fuckton of Overwatch but it was (understandably) not the clan's thing.

And now I'm 35. I revisit (lurk) these forums time to time to see what's up, if there's any games I'm missing out on, to experience some nostalgia, and to see look back on a version of myself that I can't recognize anymore - a kid who lived and died by how his local sports teams were doing, a kid who thought the Army would fix all his problems, a kid who didn't know if everything was going to turn out OK.

Everything did turn out OK. Since I was last active, I've been lucky, I visited a ton of countries and had some awesome adventures. Ive had a bunch of interesting jobs, a marriage that 12 years in still hasn't gotten old, I got my degree and settled down a bit. I started a career as a Boston Firefighter, with a side gig that utilizes my degree, I bought a fixer upper and learned a lot fixing it up, and Umanga is expecting our first child in a few months, better late than never. I even have a gaming room in my house that is mostly used for porn paying bills but I still get some games in here or there. I actually play a ton of board games nowadays, there are some really great tabletop games out there, and as a whole that industry is experiencing a lot more innovation than the video game industry right now. And my wife digs them so that's a bonus.

Anyways, I don't know why I'm writing this. Consider it an update but also an expression of gratitude for the great thing we once had here thanks to the hard work of members more dedicated than I. Thanks for the friendship and guidance a lot of you guys offered, probably without even knowing that you were doing it. If I knew it wouldn't last forever I would have never missed a single practice, but this sh1t is fleeting my friends.

While I don't expect we'll ever get the old days back, I do expect we will frag again as grizzled old men, telling stories about how we used to miss weeks of gaming because of red rings of death and other horrible things we had to go through back then. I don't know whether I'm getting an Xbox series one x pro s slim turbo mcdeluxe or a Ps5, but I'll sign on from time to time. Hope to run into some of you when I do. sh1t I might even restart my FB account in hopes of seeing Zak selling hot new whips or Marlon keeping the bad guys in line.

My xbl is capnblondebeard and my email is still richie617@gmail.com. Hmu if you're looking to game, or if you're in Boston and you or your kid want to ride in a firetruck lol.

Be well, friends.

Richie