Merry Christmas & Thanks

Well, it's Christmas. Family coming to town from both sides, all that fun stuff. So what did I do Christmas Eve? Finished addressing, labeling, correctly tagging, and stuffing all of the packages with the correct sizes for those long promised shirts for folks that helped save this little page when it needed it. Never packed and addressed so many things, didnt realize it took so darn long. Well, the shirts are all going out at once on the 26th. Here is a pic of a couple hundred of them. Oh and here is a pic of Maarten to make you happy. Along with the shirts shipping out I included this message, but realizing not everyone requested a shirt here is that note for everyone that helped to read:

Thank you. Shack was born in April of 1996 as a hobby of mine. I didn’t think it was or would be anything special, just a place to goof off and learn how a website works. I was using Netscape Gold v2.0 that came with a HTML editor and some web space provided to me by my friend Pat who I had only known through the net at the time. I knew nothing about computers except for how to install DOOM and get network card drivers working. I didn’t know anyone in the "industry" and my only motive was to hopefully inform and entertain a few of my fellow gamers. For years I maintained this page as a hobby.. nothing really spectacular came of it but it was fun. Adding little bits every few days here and there. Then on a whim one day I emailed 3dfx Interactive asking for a demo card of their new Voodoo chipset. I never got a response, but a week later I have a package on my doorstep from them. Whoa! So I’m sitting here with a brand new 3D card and there isn’t really a game out there that supports it. So what is next? I email John Carmack and tell him I have this newfangled videocard and I saw in his .plan update that he’s doing an OpenGL version of Quake I figured needed some "testing". 10 minutes later I’ve got glquake.exe along with some instructions and permission to even post some screenshots. I don’t know this guy at all and he just fires away a beta copy of his stuff to me?! So a day later, Shack (Quakeholio at the time) is the home of the first ever screenshots of GLQuake. That was the day everything changed. My little website was suddenly the home of gaming news. I started getting all kinds of crazy emails about subjects I had no idea about and people asking all kinds of questions that I had no idea how to answer. What’s up with the story? What does that mean? It ain’t me, it’s the generosity of the gaming community that makes this place what it is. I’m just the monkey messenger. Well now, as you have probably seen Shack during the year has gone from floundering to flourishing. Your money helped to float this ship while I was out there doing anything and everything I could possibly dream up to make sure it all kept running and those donations weren’t for nothing. As you also probably know I make all kinds of mistakes on a frighteningly regular basis. I’m just a guy like any other. I am convinced I don’t deserve any of this, but I am also convinced that I will continue to work as hard as I can to at least come close. I don’t know what the future holds for Shack, but what you’ve done has ensured that there is one. Thank you for enabling me to continue to pursue my passion, and to continue to be the messenger.