The Old Forum days

I still check the forums daily, but I've always been a lurker. Now that I'm an assistant manager and have a girlfriend, that isn't going to change lol.

I agree with serenity's comment. I can't stand the newbie or flat-out dumb questions in the main collector Facebook group that gets most of DBF's traffic. But I do like the pictures, so I enjoy having it in my newsfeed. If I want to discuss something, I absolutely come here. My Facebook is for my friends, not for my hobbies. This is the place for my hobby. Regarding collecting and my lack of involvement; fact of the matter is, there's just about nothing that's currently being produced that I want to buy. I have only been buying occasional WCF figures, in case I eventually have time and interest to begin customizing again. All of the other new merchandise is too big, small, dumb, or expensive for me to want to collect.

It's nice to see again some people here who have made themselves scarce lately. When I started here, it would be more varied. Now we see mostly the topic S.H. Figuarts! Well I usually stay with my theme, I thank primarily takezo and darksenshi (also roshisurprise, when reading this) with which I best understand me and we somewhat have the same preference. Others of you prefer other members... is also normal. But we will not stay here forever. Unfortunately. We are getting older and preferences can shift. That I now say to the younger among you. I am in age certainly on the scrap heap, but in my head I still feel like a 18 year old! My preferences have also shifted over the years. But yet I came back to collect figures  . Unbelievable... but true! Which one of you has a boyfriend/girlfriend, it enjoys. No one will you be angry when you're not in here. This here is just a hobby for in between.   

But in one thing we agree, we love collect, no matter what! That is why we are here. So it enjoys! Thanks to Branjita yet for this site, where I had my fun in the last 1 1/2 years, and I hope it continues like this. 

U Block Origin and AdBlock Plus are the front runners.

The FB pages lack a sense of community to me.

I wanted to acknowledge a bunch of different things being said in here. You guys are mentioning things I want to respond to, so I'll just type an individual paragraph for each thing.

First is about Ads, all I see are two small panels at the bottom of each page. Are there popup ones too? I have a popup blocker on my computer, so I haven't seen anything besides the ones I mentioned. I hate for anyone to experience difficulties visiting and contributing here, perhaps we can make a thread for recommended blockers and such so new visitors to the site can stop them too if they are unsure? I know a lot of anti-virus and PC security programs include them too, so there's my suggestion on that note.

Second, about facebook and such, I leave that to the younger crowd, that's their thing. While I have a facebook page, I really don't enjoy bothering with it much. It feels like an additional daily chore that makes paying attention to everyone else's life a hobby all its own. While there are personality types that thrive on that sort of thing, mine isn't one of them. On that note, I have noticed that this forum employs a "like" function. While it is nice to get notifications that someone read and enjoyed a post I've made, I feel it is a bit counter productive at the same time. Without further posts to individual threads, the discussion dies down when our responses are just "likes" to everything. That is not to say that I do not appreciate the function (It lets me know what members with similar collecting themes to my own are reading and enjoying what I am posting), but at the same time, it cuts down on the furthering of the public discussions at the same time. Kinda a "catch 22" sort of thing. Don't take it personally if I don't use the function (I don't use it on facebook either), just know if I respond to a thread or post you've made, I probably liked what you had to show or say.

RedStar: You've been great to me since I came back. The first few threads I posted in, you took the time to answer and explain my questions. I appreciated the help in checking out different lines and figuring out what I wanted to collect. I think I am a similar collector to your preferences. I am all about Banpresto stuff, and not really into figurearts or the other lines of figures out there. So, you can add me to the list of similar collectors to discuss with.

Sparky: You seem to have taken on some automotive hobbies similar to my own. What year MR2 are you working on? Those are fairly rare to see these days, and I bet it is a great project car. You also mentioned a Jeep, are you into off-roading much? We definitely can have some interesting talks about cars. I am an off-roading (I have 4x4 pickups) and sports car (Muscle cars are my thing) kind of guy, so while specific preferences are different, we enjoy vehicles in the same broader categories. I'd like to see some pictures of your rides sometime.

Branjita: Been great catching up, and talking about our mutual hobbies again. Thanks for everything you do to keep things running here, and your contributions to the community.

Everyone else: Thanks for helping me transition back into a hobby I thought I'd never return to. Everyone's been great answering my questions and posting comparison shots when I requested them. I gave up certain other hobbies that I lost interest in, so I had room to bring this one back again. I'll probably never collect with the fervor that I did in my younger days, but even a modest collection can be built now with all the different product lines to choose from. I look forward to talking with everyone more and contributing in the months ahead.

I'm still here but I tend to leave for extended periods of time. I try not to but unfortunately it happens.