Well, children are nice excuses ;)
Have fun with the game!

Gah that reminds me of my study debt and the recent one I have amassed making a hasty decision to formalise my herbal medicine knowledge by signing up for a $40k debt at a private college.

In EVERY single computing course I did in college I learned very little and generally helped teach. The problem is so much IT work here is now outsourced and my knowledge wasn't specialised enough to land even the most basic jobs here. Moving to a rural area in 2002 pretty much sealed my fate in terms of getting much paid work in the industry, and all prospective employers wanted certification to prove what I could do. I offered to start for free for many jobs to prove myself and was still declined. Fortunately this lovely area of the world (the Blue Mountains, Australia) taught me more than I ever could hope to learn about the natural world, and that combined with some horrid experiences in the orthodox medical field had me start to teach me to heal myself and help others.

I swore to myself that I will never do formal study again as I learn much better teaching myself. Being diagnosed with bipolar and ADHD and being unmedicated had me realise that completing formal study on someone else's timetable doesn't work for me. Fortunately the uncounted thousands I owe in study debts doesn't have to be paid unless my income reaches a certain level, which I cannot forsee happening at this stage in life.

You are very fortunate to have been able to translate your knowledge into work without formal certification :)

Well said and that is the philosophy I live by also. I was raised in a fairly financially wealthy family and learned that I would have much rather had my father around than the countless dollars he spent on me to show love. I now understand that he was doing what he felt best but that experience and my own experiences with work have taught me that loved ones are THE most important part of life. Money comes when it needs to, and things are pretty tight in our household but I wouldn't sell that love for anything :)

And if worst comes to worst, I am adept at building shelter out of foraged materials, have a great affinity with starting fire(even in the rain), know the land well and can source food, water and medicines if it ever came to that. I don't know what our 4 cats and 3 dogs would do, but they follow us to the ends of the earth anyway(see attached photo of our cats who followed me into the woods everyday when I collected firewood at the last house I lived in)

I camped by a reservoir in 2010 for 6 weeks when I was homeless and had given away and sold everything I owned after my 11 year relationship ended, and that was one of the most liberating experiences I've had. No house, no bills and complete freedom to greet the deer and birds that woke me each morning. It was a 12km(8 mile) walk to town and back to get supplies :)

Thank you very much for your posting! My english isn't good enough to tell you, what I wanna say at this moment, but I am impressed - not even by the cats ;) You're an interesting person and your art of living is adorable. I just wish you could have shared more time with your father.

Family is so important and good friends too - can't buy these "things", and they are everything that counts for me (and our beloved cats my husband and I have)...

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Part 55
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There's a lot I can go into, but I'll save that for future private convo. Suffice it say, from everything I have experienced and learned from the experiences of people I've met, formal education in the IT field is something that rarely gets you places in the business in the US. There's definitely a lot of the Silicon Valley mindset leftover in the industry, that just being able to prove you know what you're talking about more than others is enough to land you a good job. Demonstrate a solid understanding of programming, you can land a $55+/hour gig doing java development (a very in demand position). Same thing with web-dev and design, networking, etc. You may have to work your way up from near the bottom with a large company, but certification means little here. In fact, since usually the IT departments are largely involved in choosing who gets hired to the department in all of my experiences, the dedicated, self-taught, inquisitive mind is much more valued than the instructed mind. Plus, they can use the lack of education to pay you slightly less.

If you ever moved Stateside I could guarantee you a $25+/hour spot with Microsoft with great advancement potential, but I could also guarantee that it would destroy the soul of someone like you. ;)

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Part 56
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Nothing beats an AK-47.

Well perhaps a M1 Abrams.

After reading your debate with vulchor, txnca and IAmSinistar, I'm genuinely curious - what drew you to GOG that made you sign up here back in Oct 2011, and what is it that keeps you here?

Because you 're going to die?
Hmm, yeah, definitely fatalistic, yes.

One last thing and then I'm hanging up my truncheon, for good.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. Despite all that I still enjoy and find Steam to be worth my while.

Also how come the greatest game ever, Custer's Revenge is not availale? For shame GOG, for shame.

Not to put GOGs efforts aside, but have you came across DOTemu? I knew of them before I knew of GOG. There was even a point I thought GOG is a reseller of them. Before them there were non digital old game distributors like Sold Out.

There was a time I really wanted a box, but the industry ruined all the fun for me.
The first time I bought a retail package was from an online Canadian store named TheDragonDen (Great memories from this one), it didn't contain a pretty box but it had manual and stuff and was at the best price at the time. I knew buying a full product gives me a pretty box to put on the shelf, detailed pictured manual and some additional perks like a thick cardboard registration/giveaway/discount card, possibly a full picture game catalog, etc. There were also collector editions with additional perks such as a cloth (not paper!) map.
Over the years the boxes got slimmer and contained less and less perks, until it reached to the point of most only have a dvd box-set with cover pictures and a 4 page manual with installation and troubleshooting instructions. Even those that did contain a 10-40 page manual had the same in a digital file on board the attached media... while the ones that now only have just a download link with key completely defies the point of buying an actual copy in the first place.
By that point I felt buying digital is the only way of getting the real value of what you pay for without disappointment... Since in most cases (special* editions aside) there is no physical copy variant that I will feel worthy for my shelf space

* One of my most beloved purchases is Gabriel Knight Collector set that contains all games and an actual paper book. In recent years I hardly see anything of value in special editions other than some plastic figurine - and for the most part, in the turbulent world of online DLC, in order to have a truly complete product the only option is to go for a digital variant as no early special edition will ever contain future updates and publisher rarely bother with anthology box-sets.

That was asked to someone else but I wanted to share my answer too so... :)

For me, a friend sent me an email saying "Free Tex Murphy games" with a link to GOG.com (which I had never heard of before) back in 2009. It was for the first 2 Tex Murphy games which I did not even know existed prior to that. I had first played Under a Killing Moon and thought that was the first game in the series. So, I followed the link and got the free game, didn't pay any attention to the rest of the site or read anything (my own loss). I just got in, got the game and got out. I did however leave the "subscribe to our newsletter" thing checked I guess when I created my account.

Some time in the future after that, either a newsletter post or another email from my friend notified me of another free game which I went back to the site to grab also. This time I looked around a bit but was still rather oblivious to what GOG really was all about. I noticed they had lots of games this time and decided to peruse them. While doing so I discovered other free games in the store and decided to add them to my account also because... welll... why not, they're free games right? :) However, from 2006 or so up until 2012 much by choice and also by fact that my computer hardware sucked, I was not a video game purchaser, I had given up on the industry due to bad experiences with DRM and poor customer support. But hey free games? What do I have to lose right?

So I started noticing these GOG.com mails in my mailbox more often and thinking "ooo, I wonder if they have another free game this time?" and I'd check more often and sometimes there would be another freebie either added permanently, or a one day freebie deal and I'd get it (although I missed out on several from not paying close enough attention too). Then one day in 2012 while visiting the site with some time to kill I actually started to really pay attention and spotted the DRM-free blurb you get when you are NOT logged in, and when I read up on what GOG was all about and the benefits of the site - it was the first time I ever actually read that stuff and I was really impressed by that. That day planted the seed in my head that "this is a company I think I want to do business with in the future", and so throughout 2012 I followed GOG more closely seeing the really good prices on games and thinking "shit, one of these days I'm going to have to splurge and buy some games to support these guys, this is crazy good deals on DRM-free games".

All it took was one of GOG's super mega promotions to finally put me over the edge from "lookie-loo" to "customer". It was the Fall promo 2012 and I bought a few games one day of the promo, then a few more a few days later, each time feeling really excited about both the deals and also supporting a company that I had come to realize I shared common values with, and that I would like to see succeed and hopefully change the gaming industry. As far of a longshot that that might have seemed to some people or might even seem to some people today, my background is in Linux and I watched over 20 years now as Linux went from being this "hacker system" that people laughed about that secretly ran the printer server in the closet in the basement somewhere but "would never be used in business for real or ever make any money", to being a global monster operating system that is everywhere and in everything now (cell phones, tablets, routers, webservers, everything) and in the process doing almost everything that people said it could never do. So I saw (and still see) GOG as being capable of changing the way things work in the world of game distribution also, and I wanted to participate in the journey as a gamer and watch it happen. So, one promo after another my wallet loosened more and more and I found myself splurging and buying more and more games every time a promo came up that looked up my alley.

Been here now for 5 years, but have only been a paying customer for a little over a year and a half. 303 games altogether in my shelf now, mostly bought but also including a few dozen freebies, gifts, giveaways. Also bought gifts for friends and others a number of times to introduce some other folk to the store or make someone's day. I've had nothing but a great experience both with GOG.com and with the community of fellow gamers out here in the forums.

GOG.com has made gaming fun again, and made the customer experience a great one and a personal one, one that the rest of the industry out there just does not have what it takes. When I buy a game at GOG, I get the feeling that some person at GOG is actually PLAYING a game while they're working and they're actually a gamer and give a crap. When I buy a game somewhere else I get the feeling some accountant with a tie is tallying totals and creating spreadsheets just before going to play a round of golf. Guess who gets most of my gaming money? :)

Anyhow, lengthy share... but I thought some of you would enjoy hearing some of my GOG backstory and perhaps wish to share your own too. Always great to hear how people discovered GOG and what their experiences have been like and whatnot. :)

Take care folks, and game on! :)

Anyone know if Retro City Rampage is coming back on flash?

I bow before the skeleton as that was the best way to put my own experience, other then it being totally different..
Meaning, I could see myself entirely in your shoes and justify all you wrote.
For me it was a bit different though:
I heard about Gog through my gamer friend that talked about the guys that made the witcher and we both like old games.
I missed most* of the freebies even though I try to keep up, while he regularly buys on both Gog and Steam (prefers Gog).
I always wanted to buy games on GOG in order to support those guys and the promos were indeed great, but what drove me to it was actually the community - when I buy a game on Gog I not only fund a gamer (as I feel like buying from steam serves the same purpose [not including titles with horrendous drm I don't want to support either way) I also get a spot in the company of fellow gamers in a vivid and heartwarming, like I never felt before when I bought anywhere else.
This is why I look forward so much for Galaxy, being able to share my experience with this wonderful community - in ways only steam could offer before (but the community comparison of Steam vs Gog is like comparing talk backs on a main street media newspaper article about an upcoming game VS a dedicated forum in a fan site).

* Another point were I wish I was in your shoes as I would love not missing on Free Tex, hoping to get the bundle in this sale then all is good :)
The other two games I really wish to get are Tales of the Monkey Island and the Penumbra I seem to keep missing all the time.