I'm glad I found this site and Joe Customs earlier in 2009. Regardless of allowing me to reconnect with one of my favorite parts of my youth, it's given me something to do during my unemployment. The drawback is that the money I've spent on Joe stuff prolly should have gone elsewhere, but meh, I'd rather have fun than be bored.
The other thing I really like about these two boards is the way people treat one another. I used to subscribe to a an open discussion forum where someone could post a topic about anything they wanted and others would comment about it. Sounds fine, but it just started turning into a site where people were trying to come up with the best way to insult one another.
A lot of people posted some of their writings on there, myself included, and it really sucked to bust your butt to write a good story only to have a bunch of idiots come up with new ways to tell you what "a piece of garbage it was" and how "you really need to die an aggonizing death for bringing it into the world."
I can take critisizm just fine, but when I wrote a long story and some guy replies with "What a pile of $#|+, it was too long so I didn't even read it," I don't think he had anyplace to critisize.
On this site when someone posts a picture or on Joe Customs when someone posts their work, thier fellow Joe enthusiasts generally speak well of the work and if something is wrong, rather than say, "This is crap!" they'll say, "You're custom needs a bit of work in this area, here's a suggestion on how to fix it..." or "Your photo has the right idea, but the lighting is bad, or it's out of focus."
I'll admit, there have been times on this site where, as I'm looking through the archives, someone posted 37 out of focus shots of his collection from a couple different angles, and it's a bit annoyoing to cycle through all 37 of those shots as I want to get to the diorama pictures, but I also don't feel the need to comment badly on what he has posted.
It's also nice to see that if someone does talk smack about another's photo or work, it's all in jest and nobody's feelings get hurt.
I'm not really a touchy-feely guy who is all overly sensitive if someone doesn't like what I do, but I think of Dios and Customs as a bit an escape to a place where I don't have to put up with a$$holes.
If you like my work, thank you, I'll humbly accept your praise. If you don't like it, I'll take your critisizm and put it to use on my next project. On the afore mentioned site, too many times did a person critisize by just saying the post was crap and not say why. The other thing I noticed on that site, the guys who usually relplied that a person's post was crap, usually couldn't write for crap themselves.

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The United States will conquer Terrorism with the help of God and a few Marines.

Some people, when trying to avoid thinking about those things that cause them pain, turn to drink, or perhaps food, or drugs... I turn not to any of those... I collect action figures, turning my mind to the hunt, so that I might find a mote of peace... Over the years, I've found that alcoholism is much more socially acceptable by far.