It's amazing how time has a cleansing effect on even the most troubling memories. Let enough time pass and even the death of a loved one's sharp sting can be dulled. What's even more fascinating is how people in general, look back at things and delude themselves into thinking how wonderful everything was back then. How the state of affairs were better than they are now.

Why back in The Good Old Days we had glorious arcades where I enjoyed playing Street Fighter 2 in arcade cabinets. Such a glorious time, my friends. Then again, arcades were rarely the pinnacle of sanitation and cleanliness. More like paisley printed rugs peppered with stale popcorn and the scent of B.O. waffling in the air. Nor were they free and while it was a quarter to play most games, you could run through twenty dollars in no time. Twenty dollars was nothing to sneeze at then, that was money earned doing lawns. No, I much prefer the consoles of today versus arcades. I can look back with fondness but I wont kid myself like most. I enjoy having a system that can run everything in the comfort of my home where an ice cold beer is but a few steps from reach.

Come to think about it, most "Good Old Days" weren't so good at all. I remember my early school years of middle and high school as worthy of that Good Old Days moniker but upon further review, no... it was cool but again, I wont kid myself. The days of finding acceptance to whatever "cool" circles at that time were met with much failure. Being the biggest nerd in the school and all that comes with that title would do that. While looking back I can put things in proper perspective as in those times made me who I am today, I can't help wonder how I might of changed personally if in my youth I did get to sit with the "in" kids at lunch time. Considering most young kids at that age bracket are a bunch of pricks to one another, I wont know. But I do know that while there were good times to be had then, they weren't the bee's knees either.



Which leads me to the point of this blog. Lately there have been quite a few community members reminiscing about the Good Old Days and how everything was euphoric, blissful and carefree way back when. The Good Old Days where you could use colorful metaphors in your blog titles, where raping blogs with flames for whatever reason at the time was the norm, or ripping into new members of the community was not just done but called a right of passage, and having a glut of lulz blogs that if recapped by today's Cblog Recaps standards they would have an overwhelmingly amount of one category over the others. What's even more puzzling is long time members actually quitting Dtoid over recent banning of members that for all intents and purposes didn't follow the rules. Ridiculous.

There is no denying Destructoid was good then, no doubt about it. But it's better now. Way better. As I've stated before, Destructoid hasn't lost it's independent spirit, merely refined it. Opening its doors wider to let even more gamers into its community and making sure they feel as welcomed here, as all its long standing members do. A place that they can call their second home if you will, where they don't have to worry about being harassed, or being put down because they are not the greatest of bloggers, or the wittiest of gamers, because here the welcome mat is laid out to all. Here the cool kids and the not so cool are reversible depending on the day, the blog or the forum post. Here is the headquarters for everybody's favorite passion: gaming. This right here for recreation.

Not drama.