Interview with cookie
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Jimbo and I decided to take the Tube in from Heathrow after a long flight, since it was cheaper than a taxi and faster than those fancy double-decker buses.
"But I wanna ride on the pretty bus!" exclaimed Jimbo.
"I'll stuff you in the boot of the nearest Opel if you aren't careful. We need to meet cookie in 15 minutes."
"Jeez, you don't have to act like such a douchebag with all the local lingo! I get it, we're in London," said Jimbo, tired from the long flight.
"Actually, the correct term is 'berk'," said a mysterious man, stepping from the shadows of the station. "You must be Jimbo and tennisace, here to interview me for the Smogon Gazette, right?"
"Errrr, you mean The Smog."
"Whatever," said a slightly agitated cookie.
Anyway, to start off, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I'm about 6ft, 250lbs, of Ugandan descent, and currently work for the Bank of Uganda facilitating the transfer of monies between our customers' bank accounts. My favourite Pokémon is Steelix.
So how did you first get into Smogon?
Good question. This is where I get to brag about being an old-timer, even though I didn't get into the community properly for awhile. I was around on the Netbattle forums (I remember dudes like Alper and Vineon from there). I joined Smogon because their team rating forums were more active than ours, since the NB forums were mostly dying at that point. Even though I'm user #384, it wasn't until late 2006-ish when I ventured out of the Pokémon forums.
Heh, I didn't know you played Pokemon before. Do you still play Pokemon a lot? If not, why?
Fuck Pokémon these days. I was into it a lot back in GSC and was notable for a few things back then... ADV was cool early on (especially the 200 metagame), but when the OU metagame became a Swampert fest, I turned to UU, which was fun. I didn't get into DP until Netbattle Supremacy because NB is way more user-friendly, but I got tired of it reasonably quickly after it became overrun by Scizor, Salamence, and Tyranitar. For a game with so much usable stuff, it got stale surprisingly quickly.
So as moderator of the MOST important forum on Smogon, how do you keep the Fireboat afloat?
Kept. Firebot has pretty much sunk lately, but weeding out the trouble users by making an example of them or just Firebanning helps. But really, you gotta put in good as well as remove the bad. So I do my bit by editing really bad and log threads into something hilarious, and posting the odd 'big' thread to remind people why I am the moderator of these forums, because you gotta lead by example. It's been kinda hard lately though because I'm the only one moderating, so I don't have a moderator to banter with, etc.
Just then, I heard a distinctly British cough.
Speaking of those big threads, is there a formula to use to make a great Firebot thread? Also, is there anyone in particular you'd like to take the seat with you as a Firebot mod?
Formulas?
cookie shuddered.
If you think there's a formula for a good Firebot thread, you really are doing it wrong. The forum is about spontaneity; it's not a game of chess. A lot of people in the past have been like 'dont blame me i wasnt taught how to firebot!!', but the truth is that you need to just be yourself and not take things too seriously, and if people don't like what you're offering then change or quietly leave. As for your second question, I do have one or two people in mind that I'll be nominating in the near future, but you'll have to wait and see who they are.
In any case, what is your favourite Firebot thread of recent memory?
This. Stellar delivery. I'd offer to have Doctor Heartbreak's babies if I had a uterus.
In the background, I heard moot groan sadly.
So tell me, what is this "lurk" thing, and how do you acquire "moar" of it?
Lurk = go underwater; moar = 10 minutes. If you can survive that, I'll probably be too amazed to care about your posting quality in Firebot.
You recently met a bunch of other UK users, how did that go?
cookie laughed sarcastically.
Getting it together was pretty hectic... between organising accommodation and ohmygodakuchionthetrainbacktoswansea, not knowing where the hell everyone was, I realised that people generally act the same online as they do irl from that day. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, but in future I think I'll stick to meeting up with people I know pretty well, because it was pretty awkward until am and Toothache's Pokémon battle broke the ice near the end.
cookie paused awkwardly, and chuckled to himself about something that happened while meeting up with everyone.
It was funny meeting up with McGraw again, and I might see him yet if he can make it to my theatre production of Macbeth.
Out of all the people on Smogon, who would you like to meet most and what would you do?
I'd probably want to meet thunda and get him to fight Ace Matador to the death. There can only be one effeminately cute London Smogoner.
Now, I've been wondering about this for a while, how does it feel to be the second black mod on Smogon, after Jumpman? Well, third if you count chaos.
Actually, I am the second. Jumpman is a Harvard graduate whose English is better than anyone else's; he's practically white.
Final question: What's the most mediocre Pokemon in your opinion and why?
Finneon. They took Seaking, de-horned it, and gave it diet pills.
Alright, then, thank you for doing this interview with us! Any last words you'd like to say?
Cheers for having me, and: m0nkfish is a gay.
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