I agree 100% with everything CapnKrunk says about some of the recent tomfoolery in the community. He pointed out some activity that needs to stop. If you’re like me, we’re not interested in these silly teenage politics, but we are interested in making Podtacular a fun and friendly place where people can make friends and play Halo. Consider this a last stand to make Podtacular what it should be. If you’re a part of the solution, if you’re with us, help me raise the banner and fight back with everything we’ve got… the right way. This is OUR community! Read on to see what weapons you have in your arsenal.

Podtacular: The Next Generation

Are you relatively new here? Or maybe you’ve been around podtacular and you’d like a fresh start? I’d like to personally welcome you to the new podtacular, starting right now. You and I are here to make podtacular a fun place to be or we wouldn’t be here. If you’re willing to rally to the cause and let out a fierce battlecry, you my friend are podtacular. You and I can make this a community that is friendly, welcoming, active, fun, and won’t stand for any bullcrap. We can make this the kind of place you want to tell your friends about, the kind of place you’re proud to be a part of. How do we do it?

Kill ‘Em With Kindness

This is our fight. Here are your weapons. It starts by getting together with others that are part of the solution. Find friends at podtacular that are cool and put them on your friends list. Join Halo 3 parties and build friendships and teams. Talk on the forums, exchange emails, IM addresses, even skype usernames and phone numbers if you want. We need to fight together as a unit if we’re going to make this happen.

Once we’ve made this community, we need to be welcoming to others. Look for the new people that post there and invite them to join in. Send them friend requests and invites, get them involved in conversations on the forums and such. That’s how the movement grows, by showing people that we can be welcoming and friendly. If you want to, join or start projects or groups together, but that’s just icing on the cake. The important thing is to focus on the basics by building strong friendships and welcoming new people.

No Bullcrap Policy

It’s time to step it up and keep the bullcrap out of the community. Warriors, we have to be careful here. We are not the bullcrap police. Don’t go walking around looking for it, that’s like standing by and shouting out where the enemies are when you are needed in the battle. Your fight is listed above, building friendships and welcoming others to the cause. But if you step in some crap along the way, let us know and we’ll get it picked up quickly. Let us know if you see a post on the forums or elsewhere in the community that’s part of the problem. Which brings me to a warning to the bulls with diarrhea.

Last Chance

If you’ve been talking crap, you better take some verbal pepto bismol right quick. For those of you that are not happy here for some reason or another and just love to tell everyone about what you hate about me or podtacular or Dialpex or whatever, feel free to either start being part of the solution or get the f*** out. If you think you can ignore us and we’ll ignore you like it’s been in the past, think again. This is the new podtacular, and when you do these things, you threaten our spirit of friendship. If you take a dump on our community one more time, we will kick your whiny ass right out the door without a second thought. I don’t care how long you’ve been here or what you’ve done in the past to help out or your level of leadership or how many friends you have here, this ends NOW or we will end it for you. No exceptions. My patience is at an end.

The Line Has Been Drawn

So it comes down to this. I draw a line in the sand. You’re either part of the solution, united in this final desperate battle, or you’re off to go somewhere else. Which do you choose? Post a comment if you’d like to join the cause for a friendly and strong community. And start it off right, send friend requests to your brothers in arms that are with us. Even if it’s just a few of us that want to take a stand for our community, we do it together.

United we stand. Divided we fall. Fight back.

Its time for my favorite show, The Callins and Tales from the Fox Hole show.

Callins

With Foo Mo Jive in England this week, why not get the phone and give him a call? Want the number? The number is 206-888-HALO… Yeah call in and tell ask him how the trip was, or tell him how you got an overkill with the lazer on High Ground or better yet, tell him a halo related story. Yeah go ahead you got 2 minutes to share anything you want as long as its halo related. Have FUN!

Tales from the Fox Hole

Tales from the foxhole. Remember that time when you were going up to grab the flag on Sandtrap with 3 teammates and some guy on the other team jumped out and got 3 no scope headshots? Got a cool or funny story like this? Send it on in, we love these! This is one of our favorite segments of the month, it’s like we’re right there wicha. Don’t forget to list your name or gamertag so we can give you credit for those.

The deadline is tomorrow at 6:00PM EST

I’m sending in my XBOX 360 Elite back to Microsoft for it to be repaired. My optical drive has gone out. My consoles acts as if it has no disc in the disc drive.

How prominent is this problem? Microsoft has a knowledge base article that deals with the error — so I’m not the only one who has this problem. Anyone else having troubles with your disc drive?

My drive didn’t totally go out at once. My drive started to fail in early November after the release of Call of Duty 4. For some reason, CoD4 would fail to boot about 50% of the time. Other games played fine. By early January, Halo 3 and CoD4 would fail to boot 90% of the time. Rock Band (and a few other games) would play just fine. By late January, 99% of the time all discs would not work even my trusty Rock Band disc.

I must have tried two dozen “tricks” to try to get my discs to boot. All of them have quit working. With no more tricks up my sleeve, I called Microsoft. After 10 minutes on the phone, Microsoft issued a repair order. I should have another Elite coming back to me in no longer than 3 weeks (1 week for me to get the empty shipping box – 2 weeks for Microsoft to repair the box and send me a replacement).

This will be my 4th XBOX 360 console.

One of the greatest things about the interwebz is its ability to bring together groups of people from all across the world to share their experiences and ideas on any given subject. At some point, these groups and discussions become so large and complex that relationships and communities start to form to hold things together. Within that, people will eventually either step up, or by virtue of their contribution, be considered responsible enough, to take on a role of leadership or authority. It’s just the natural order of things.

These are things I learned long ago. These are things that I know aren’t easy to manage or maintain, but they are a necessity.

What makes a community successful is when everyone, no matter their role or place in the scheme of things, can respect and abide by the order set in place. There will be conflict and there will be strife, but the one thing that remains is that we have to believe that it works. When that is lost, then things can rapidly take a turn for the worse.

This is something I never considered doing, but given some recent events, I think it’s the only option left.

To anyone that’s involved in the current ongoing dispute regarding the Podtacular community’s IRC channel and some of our administration in that area…STOP IT. Really. You’re all acting like children.

Maybe some of our members (including my fellow administrator Dialpex) think that’s a little harsh and counterproductive. Maybe it is. Nevertheless, it’s the truth. If you’re someone in this community that feels it’s necessary to undermine and take shots at the people in charge of things, then you just need to leave. There’s no simpler way to put it. You’re more than welcome to start up your own podcast and web community and see how much fun it is when you dread visiting your own site because of all the senseless bickering.

You might think I’m being melodramatic, I’m not. At some point in the last several months, I think all of us leading the Podtacular charge have grown tired of the unnecessary drama. Foo Mo Jive, JVB and Dialpex are all welcome to speak for themselves, but I can assure you, this community isn’t hardly as fun and engaging for me as it used to be. Call me disillusioned, but even the long-awaited launch of Halo 3 hasn’t done much to inspire my confidence in where our community is heading.

On the other hand, if you’re not involved or have no idea what I’m referring to, then it might be better that you don’t know. Just know that, yes, it involves Dialpex, several members of our community, both private and public exchanges and promotions/demotions that maybe should have/have not happened. For the most part, it’s a truly small matter that has since escalated into something that seems now beyond a simple resolution.

If you’ve taken the time to read this far, then I appreciate it, because that at least tells me that you care and want our community to succeed. You’re more than welcome to comment and even disagree, but remember to take a look at what you contribute to the discussion and evaluate if you really want to be here in the first place.

Thank you.