Bio of a BZP Admin

BrickFair VA 2012 was the tenth LEGO fan event I've attended. As a result, I'm accumulated a lot of engraved bricks, most of which have my name, Black Six, and the places I've lived. I need to start mixing things up, and I need your help.

Suggest some fun nicknames, phrases, and other things I could put on a badge.

Bricks I already have include:

• Black Six
• Sixboss
• Mandrew
• DON'T PANIC

Let's see what you can come up with!

Edit: Alright, nice! Here's the current frontrunners:

• KEEP IT CLEAN
• Prince Andrew
• Bossman

Some other ideas I've had:

• Thread closed
• Bodyguard of the King

Against all odds, and at the expense of some sleep last week, I finished both Contact Harvest and The Cole Protocol. Six books in three weeks! Halo Evolutions is up now though, and it's almost as long as both of those books combined, so I'm expecting it to take up this entire week.

Contact Harvest is interesting among the Halo books as it's the first where there are no Spartans involved. They don't even get mentioned at all. It makes sense, since the book takes place before they received their augmentations and went on any actual missions. There's lots of Sergeant Johnson though, and some other characters from Halo 2 and 3 as well. The books really give a lot of insight into the Covenant, especially the relationships between the Prophets, Elites, and Brutes.

The Cole Protocol does have some Spartans in it - the mysterious Gray Team who is mentioned in The Fall of Reach as being too far away to contact/recall. It also features Lieutenant Jacob Keyes and helps fill in the gaps of his life between helping Halsey collect the Spartan candidates and the inception of the 'Keyes Loop' maneuver. There's a lot of different factions in this one, all working together and stabbing each other in the back at different times. It makes for some interesting twists.

Looking at my calendar, I've got six weeks to go until release and five books to read, so I'm feeling pretty confident about making this. Setting goals FTW!

So I finished Ghosts of Onyx last night and First Strike a couple days before that. It makes me sad that Eric Nylund hasn't written any more full-length novels since then, I really loved his take on the Halo universe. He's great at creating characters you actually care about and seems to have a good grasp of military lingo and tactics (not that I know from experience, but what he says seems plausible and doesn't completely conflict with the many former and active servicemen I've interacted with). Nylund is also able to go into the full-on scifi aspect too, when it comes to the Forerunners and what they left behind.

Tonight I'll be starting Contact Harvest. I recall enjoying it and the deeper look into Sergeant Johnson it provides, but honestly I'm looking past that and The Cole Protocol and onto Evolutions and then the newer books I haven't read yet. But there's lots of pages between me and those.

I really hope I can keep up this pace of two books per week, but I'm sure something is going to come up that will keep me from that. Still lots of time until November 6th though.

It's been a week since I kicked off Operation: Reading Rainbow. So far I've finished The Fall of Reach and the Flood and started on First Strike.

Some thoughts:
-Man Fall of Reach is so good. It covers so much ground and does it so well.
-Why did Bungie try to shoehorn in all those retcons in Halo: Reach? It's like Star Wars - it wasn't broke, so why fix it?
-The Flood is definitely underrated. There are some slower parts, sure, but it really adds a lot more depth and backstory to Halo: CE.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the books. If I keep going at this rate I might even have time to reread the comics too.

I realized yesterday that Halo 4 comes out in just over two months! How crazy is that? I still need to preorder my copy and make sure I take off from work. On the plus side though, the footage that came out of PAX this weekend helped me decide that I should go to the midnight opening for it.

But what I really thought of when I had this epiphany was that I'm still three books out of date in the Halo series. I haven't read Cryptum, Primordium, or Glasslands.

I've decided to rectify this by reading through all of the Halo novels in the next two months. I'm already over halfway through The Fall of Reach. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed it.

I'm looking forward to rereading some favorites and experiencing the works of the newest Halo authors.

Just so everyone is aware, the colors for some of the groups have changed. Now that the Reference Team is no more, the Reporters have adopted the old RK yellow. Retired Staff, meanwhile, have taken the Reporter orange. This makes them look similar to OBZPCs but still stand out (as opposed to the ugly-ish gray from before).

Yep, so that happened.

If you had the opportunity to ask LEGO a question, what would you ask?

Similarly, is there anything you'd like to ask TLG's very own Kevin Hinkle? I hear he's a pretty big deal.

Post in the comments or send me a PM with your question. No guarantees that you'll get and answer (or one you'll like) but I'll try.

Tomorrow is August 2, 2012. That will be the eleventh anniversary of my joining BZPower.

It is also the first day of BrickFair 2012 Virginia, the fifth such event held. (Congrats Todd!)

BrickFair 2012 Viriginia will be the tenth AFOL fan convention that I've attended.

Sunday, August 5 is my twenty-fifth birthday. A quarter-century!

Monday, August 6, will mark my eleventh year as a member of the BZPower Staff.

All this right after BZPower celebrated its eleventh anniversary.

It's crazy to think about all that - I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it all.

But I know one thing - I couldn't ask for a better group of people to celebrate it with than my friends from BZPower. I just wish more of you all could be there!

Story time!

Back in the shrouded mists of the past, there was a Bionicle fan named Carl. Carl really loved Bionicle, so much that he began creating his own card game. He contacted LEGO to tell them about his game and to offer it to them to use.

Then LEGO cancelled Bionicle, and everyone was sad.

But wait! The people at LEGO thought, 'Wow, this guy is really dedicated, we should get him in touch with our ace Community Coordinator for North America, Kevin Hinkle.'

And then Kevin Hinkle was all like, 'Wow, that's a really impressive game, have you heard of this thing called BrickFair? There are tons of other fans like you out there and you should go share it with them. Here, talk to this crazy guy from this site called BZPower.'

Carl talked to this Black Six character, and he was impressed with the lad's dedication and enthusiasm. He agreed to spread word of the game and encourage others to learn its rules at BrickFair and play against each other, until only the strongest remained alive. (Okay, maybe not that last part (Two men enter, one man leaves!).)

----

So yeah, if you're coming to BrickFair, and you like games, make sure you talk to Carl and learn to play his Bionicle card game. I hear it will be a lot if fun.

I can't believe how long our little corner of the Internet has been chugging along. I'm kind of proud that we've continued on despite downtime, attacks, and all the changes in our audience and the Internet as a whole.

It made me think about how long I've actually been on the Internet (it's a long time) and the things I've taken part of and the people I've interacted with. Here's a quick list of some of the communities I have been or am still a part of:

• Super Soakers
• Nerf
• Warcraft II
• Star Trek TBRPGs
• Turn-based online role-playing games
• MUSHes (look that one up, kiddos )
• Console portablization
• Red vs Blue
• Halo
• Bionicle communities before BZPower

I look at that list and it's like, 'wow, what have I wasted my time on?' But really, the experiences I had and people I talked to on each of those definitely helped shape me over the years.

Since August of 2001 though, BZPower has been my home-on-the-Internet.

How about you all, have you been a part of other places out there, or has BZPower been your only foray into the wilds of the Internet?