I was at Pico Day this year. It was my third time making the trip out to the NG office!

In years past, I've written up huge posts that talked about all of the cool things I did at the event, but I don't have the energy for that now. So, I'll just thank @EthanAlways for riding on the SEPTA train with me on the way to the event, @yurgenburgen for being so handsome, @Luis letting for stay at his place for a night, @ColonelCheru and her gang for letting me play Secret Hitler with them, @Zachary and the rest of the Goon Squad Crew (@4cat, @Gobblemeister, @Jay, @EJR, @Minion777, @Ryan, @Shikamarana, and others) for being awesome,  @AlmightyHans for talking in-depth with me about film making, @Deathink for including me in this, and @TomFulp for hosting the event and showing off his wicked cool game.

Big shout out to the local homies I saw while there: @SardonicSamurai, @Afro-Ninja, and @Nalem.

Also, big shout out to @Grub-xer0 for letting me steal his WWE title belt again.

I had another birthday today. I'm getting too old for this crap!

I signed up for an account on Newgrounds.com on this day in 2006. Nine years later, I'm still here and still having fun. Let's see if we can make it to 10 years.

Okay, I'm going to bed. Bye. 

So, last weekend, I got to travel to the NG office this year to go to my second Pico Day party. I don't really have the patience to do a full write-up of my time in Newgrounds Land, but I would like to use this news post to highlight some of the interesting moments that happened:

- Getting to the event was a major pain in the ass. I had to drive 45 minutes from my house to the CVG airport so that I could take a plane from Cincinnati, Ohio to Charlotte, North Caroline so that I could get on a plane to go to Washington, D.C. where I had to use their metro system so I could get on a MegaBus which took me to downtown Philly where I had to use the SEPTA train sytem to reach the Glenside train system where I had to walk to the NG Office. I started at 7AM and didn't reach the office until 6PM. It was an ordeal.

- I got to meet @StrawberryClock, @PikaPetey, @Dudul, @liljim, @Jay, @Shikamarana, @SymbolCymbal, @PsychoGoldfish, @EJR, @RedMinus, @AlmightyHans, @Malachy, @WhirlGuy, @SardonicSamurai, @ColonelCheru, @Sabtastic, @yurgenburgen, and so many others that I'm forgetting to list for the the first time IRL. They were all cool people, but it's always a little jarring to actually meet the human being behind the user icon. I finally know just how lil' Liljim is now!

- I went to WAWA again. Great store. Would reccomend. Good Cotton Candy Milkshakes.

- Got a weather update from @WadeFulp. Also learned that one of his kids will be old enough for an NG account soon. Look out for that!

- Got to eat at the same Chinese food place that I went to last year. Imagine the look on the faces of the waiting staff at the restaurant when @Ryan, @Zachary, @Bill-Premo, @SymbolCymbal, @Shikamarana, @EJR, @Jay, and I strolled in looking to order a shitload of food. It was insanity. We also fought over the check for like a million years. 

- Had a super engaging conversation about Tetris and its gameplay mechanics with @Mike. Do you know how Tetris generates your pieces if a computer, by definition, can't be completely random? It's fascinating stuff and worth looking into. Mike then kicked my ass in Super Puzzle Fighter on the Xbox 360.

- I DIDN'T get to see @Captain or @Timmy at this year's event. Captain claimed that he had broken his arm right before the event and Timmy texted me and said that he was sick on the actual day of Pico Day. Both excuses sound like bullshit and the both owe me an apology and a beer. I still love them, though. @BrentheMan no-showed too, which sucked.

- I had the chance to eat at a really nifty pizza place called Pizza Brain with @Ornery, @lovingthedark, @CosmicDeath, and @Malachy. They had really good pizza and a totally amazing atmosphere. They were also next to an ice cream place that served grape milkshakes. I tried one and it wasn't too bad! I'm sticking with cherry, though. Following all of that, I got to go to Barcade. Malachy and I tried to beat TMNT: The Arcade Game there, but we got our asses kicked and ran out of quarters in like two minutes. Fun times!

- Played eight-player Super Smash Bros. games with lots of NG people. Nothing like rubbing elbows with @StrawberryClock and @Nogfish so that you can kick @Anti-Dark-Heart's ass because she's spamming the attack button when I'm cornered. JESUS CHRIST KELSEY. (Sorry @ThePivotsXDD)

- @Grub-Xer0 brought his World Heavyweight Championship title belt to the office and I beat him for it. I held the belt for most of Pico Day and was widely regarded as the greatest champion NG had ever seen, but @EJR cheated and took the belt from me for a while. I beat him in a rematch, though, and managed to hold onto the title until I retired. Grub then became champion after he won the Pico Day Royal Rumble. Here is a photo of me with my title.

- At one point, everybody started watching Robocop on the NG's office TV. Let me tell you that there's nothing quite like watching Robocop stab a man while sitting next to @TomFulp and @liljim. 

I'll probably add more to this list when I think of stuff. Remind me what I missed in the comments!

Also, here's a photo of me with @Luis (@Jonas photobombed it. What a prick!)

I got the chance to talk to Tom this week via my show on my college's student internet radio station. It was a blast to record this and I hope you guys might get some entertainment out of it. 

Listen here!

Today is my 22nd birthday and I feel great. Can't wait to see what will happen in my life within the next year! 

I love you all. 

As you guys might know, I went to Pico Day this year. During that time I stayed at the house that Stamper lives at. Near the end of one of my nights there, I was downstairs sitting at his table being drunk and some stuff happened when Stamper showed up. I wrote a note to myself and saved it so that I could remember what went down. I just recently found that note on my computer. Here it is:

Eight years ago on this day, I signed up a Newgrounds account and my life was never the same. I've spent way too much time here as I've watched countless flash animations and wasted hours of my life on the BBS, but I've got to give thanks to this website for the good memories and the laughs.

You guys are all stubborn dickheads that get on my nerves a lot, but you're MY stubborn dickheads and I can't imagine life without you.

ZJ

P.S. FUCK COLESLAW 

So, this past weekend I had the pleasure of being able to go to the NG office for Pico Day 2014. I was planning on writing a big write-up about the fun experience I had while there, but it's all kind of running together in my mind, so I'm just going to list, in no particular order, some cool things that happened:

- Driving to the event with Bill and Ryan. At one point, Bill and I listened to this really crazy story on a podcast about this baby that was born 20 weeks early and had to get operated with a 20% chance of survival and all of this crazy stuff. The baby lived, though. Also, there another story was a guy who started believing in God at an Arby's. It was all really funny and weird. Ryan slept through most of it.

- Drinking a ton of Mindchamber's beer. He brought really good Angry Orchard beer and I drank a lot of it. SORRY MINDCHAMBER. He also was one of the few people who recognized my face when they met me, which made me feel super special. 

- Talking to Wade about his newest hobby: Metal Detecting. He got to tell me about all sorts of cool stuff he was finding over his town, from old pennies to toy cars. I'm hoping he finds a rare diamond that'll give NG a ton of money. If you're interested in following his metal adventures, check this out! Here's an unreal photo of him and I chilling with Zachary:

- Finally being able to meet with Digsbot. We've live fairly close to each other for a while now, so you would think that I'd have hung out with him before, but that wasn't the case and I was happy to finally be able to shake his hand at Pico Day. He was a super classy dude and enjoyed being able to talk him about his thoughts on my hometown and his hopes for the future of NG. I also got to spend some time conversing with Afro-Ninja, who is also from Ohio, which was nice. He has a mustache now, which I'm not sure how I feel about. 

- Listening as Mike talked about how Worms Armageddon was a perfect game and how 3D gaming will have to reach 60 FPS to work properly, which means a lot of those games will have shitty graphics for a while. Mike has a reputation for being pretty smart and I have to say that he didn't disappoint. He also hinted at what the next Behemoth game would be and it sounds very interesting!  

- Chatting with VicariousE about the Colecovision. I'm a huge nerd about history and old video games, so it was really awesome to be able to talk to someone who knew and appreciated these old systems. We also got to talk about old computers and various other things. It was nice to know that Vicarious is as cool IRL as he is online, which is pretty darn impressive. 

- Being able to sit next to my Grub-Xer0 and watch funny spam flashes on the stream that was going on during Pico Day. Nothing better than forcing everyone at the party and on the chat to watch Moral Man on a big screen at the office. Plus, we got to talk about professional wrestling, which we both love. Here's a photo of him and I alongside GoryBlizzard:

- Spending two nights at CosmicDeath's house. Luis, Stamper, Oney, Spazkid, Shadman, and psychicpebble also live there and Mike and RicePirate were visiting as well, so it was a treat to be surrounded by such talented and awesome people. They shot Super Slumber Party there, so it was like being able to walk around on what was essentially the set of a popular internet video. CosmicDeath had to study for some exams, so I helped her with studying. She's probably going to get an A because of me and if she says otherwise, she's lying through her teeth.

- SqueakyToad pointing out that I was wearing a brown belt with black shoes. I don't know why, but this still makes me laugh. I'm a big dummy. 

- Chilling on the roof of the NG office with Bob as he told cool stories about raising ducks and learning to drive. He also served super yummy burgers later that evening as Tim yelled about people being too close to the grill. Bob also asked me if I was afraid of getting roofie'd at the party, which should have thrown up a lot of red flags, but nothing happened, so that's good!

- Saying hi to Lloyd Kaufman. I didn't really spend any time talking to him, but I still count the experience as meeting a famout person! The Angry Video Game Nerd, who was listed as a potential "maybe" didn't show up, though. Oh well!

- Getting to see gameplay footage from the new game that Tom and JohnnyUtah are working on. Out of respect towards Tom, I'm not going to spoil anything about it, but trust me when I say that it falls right in line with the tradtion of badass games from the NG staff.

- Being a part of this video that ThePivotsXXD made. It's supposedly going to find it's way into one of his animations, which is super exciting!:

- Going to Wawa for the first time in my life. I had high expectations going into the place and I have to say that it lived up the hype. They mad a delicious sausage and egg meal along with a mega tasty fruit smoothie. I definitely understand why JohnnyUtah said he wanted to die there. Luis made fun of me for not knowing how it all worked, though. :(

- Forcing Tom to sign this certificate that said I've made outstanding contributions to the NG community. He wasn't down with the idea at first, but after I threatened to hit him with a Puddin' Punch, he did what I wanted:

- Seeing DeathInk show up even though he said he wasn't going to be there. He was just trolling everyone! I punched him in the head for making Asslevania so hard, so everything worked out. Just kidding...for now. He also showed off his newest project, Pico Radio 2. It's super sweet looking. 

- Going out in a huge group that included Bill, Ryan, Zachary, Jonnyethco, Captain, Fungasm, Fungasm's GF, Ornery, two girls that Ornery knew, and myself. We all went out to eat to this Chinese place near the NG HQ and you could tell that the people there weren't too thrilled about having to put together a table for 11 internet nerds. We then got to eat some pretty yummy food while talking about such interesting topics as Sonic the Hedgehog foot fetish art in the Art Portal. Following our meal, Ornery took everyone's money and supposedly paid for the bill with his credit card, but I know that was just a big scam to fund his rock climbing trips. Finally, we got fortune cookies. Mine said something dumb about being nice to people. I saved a cookie for Tom and gave it to him later.

- Watching Timmy draw a picture of me getting raped by a bear on a dry erase board in the NG office. I should have knocked his teeth out for that one, but I was pretty tipsy from all of the beers I had been drinking by that point, so I didn't.

- Meeting Tyler for 45 seconds before he left the event. I got a hold of him right in the nick of time!

- Hanging out and talking with MysticSkillz, Emily-Youcis, Saminat, Funy-Mony, Jenjamik, UkinoJoe, TomaMoto, Jaxxy, Nogfish, and SnowBacon. These conversations were pretty basic and mostly filled with your average pleasantries, but I loved being able to put names to faces and hearing these talented people talk. 

- And above all else spending quality time with Luis:

So, that's about it. I'll probably add more stuff if I remember it. If I forgot you, please don't be offended! Tell me about any experiences you had with me in the comments! 

So, I became a BBS moderator in 2013. I've always strived to be fair and active while monitoring the BBS while listening to the people who use the boards. In today's BBS, we need to come together and work as a team. We still have enough people to create a really fun and memorable experience on our forums as long as we all follow some basic guidelines. Personally speaking, I've made sure to use banning as a last resort and have tried to answer any PM that comes my way in a timely fashion.

However, I'm only human, so I'd like to know what you guys think I've been doing well and what I could improve on. I'm obviously not gonna stop following certain NG rules (Your thread filled with goatse pictures is still gonna get deleted), but I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on my modding and the BBS as a whole. 

So, thoughts?