I'm sure that some of you out there have been lying awake at night with such burning questions as "How did Jeanne come up with VGR?" or "Why the hell did she take so long to create the site?" If you haven't, just humor me here. Just for kicks, I've compiled a list of all the important dates pertaining to VGR. So now you can sleep at night.

02.28.01
I started playing video games in elementary school on my brother's Nintendo. I didn't get into RPGs until high school (and let's not focus on how long ago that was). From the very beginning, I loved video game humor. Whether it was such creative endeavors as coming up with new Megaman villains (my favorites were Manman and Womanman) or exceedingly clever nicknames for enemies, such as "Lakishit" for "Lakitu," my 11-year-old self couldn't get enough of the "funny." My sense of humor didn't mature much by high school or college, but I still enjoyed writing up various amusing essays on the Final Fantasy series.

It wasn't until I found Television Without Pity, or as it was known back then, Mighty Big TV, that I found a focus for my video game humor energy. On February 28, 2001, I decided that there needed to be a site that recapped the storylines of video games in a humorous fashion. You might call this a ripoff, but...hey, look over there!

03.06.01
Of course, nothing can ever be easy. On March 6, I attempted to write my first recap using Suikoden II, my favorite game. I couldn't come up with anything I liked, so I worked myself into a dramatic and depressive funk. Not that I was a basketcase perfectionist or anything at the time.

03.07.01
But even the shittiest recap attempt couldn't hold me down for long! The very day after my failed attempt, I bought the domain name videogamerecaps.com. Maybe I should have worried less about the recapping and more about finding a creative name for the site.

03.15.01
The next step was finding a server. Well, technically the next step should have been writing a decent recap, but let's not focus on who killed who. I settled on a server host in early April. Keep reading, it gets more exciting, I promise.

03.19.01
Sadly, and some would say pathetically, my second recap attempt flopped just as much as the first. This time, I tried to recap The Bouncer, a short and snarkworthy fighting game by Square. Yeah. I was still working out just how to combine the right amount of story detail and humor. Would I ever be able to accomplish this? Keep reading!

06.01
Instead of working more on VGR, I put the site on hold in order to work on and maintain the now-defunct RPG Maker Garden. I think I can safely say that that was not the best choice. But maybe the frustration of dealing with the...less than reasonable people on those message boards helped me to survive recapping Tidus.

09.01
Still without a successful recap under my belt, I went ahead and created the original site design. I wanted the overall design to be dark with bright-colored text. I don't remember why -- I think it seemed kind of video gamish. And since I can't read light text on a dark background without fucking up my eyes, I made the main text on the page dark on a light background. So now you know one of my little secrets.

10.31.01
On Halloween, I finally wrote my first successful recap -- Final Fantasy VII Part 1! Whether or not it's successful compared to my recent recaps is debatable. But I was happy with it in comparison to the utter shite I attempted to churn out previously. Let us not speak of it again.

01.02
After writing a few more recaps and adding them to my local copy of the site, I realized what an ungodly nightmare it would be to update the site in its current form (pure HTML). The longer the recap got, the more pages I'd have to update with every recap. No thanks. My parents got me a PHP/MySQL book for Christmas, so I spent January learning how to set up and program my own database-driven dynamic site. I saved myself a thousand headaches that way, even though it delayed my start date. I wanted it to go live on the kewl date of January 1st.

02.13.02
I posted a password-protected copy of VGR with my first seven recaps. This was so my nearest and dearest friends could check it out and tell me if it sucked unreasonable amounts of ass. They were nice enough to say it didn't (thanks guys). That's why the first seven recaps have a posted date of 2/13. The More You Know.

02.17.02
VGR officially went live to the general internet population four days later. The URL at the time was www.squallsgunblade.com/vgr/. I wanted to gauge interest before I slapped on my nifty URL.

03.04.02
I did that on March 4. Yeah, sometimes I don't like to wait for stuff.

03.12.02
And what is a website without a message board for people to bitch and act like asshats? Just kidding, I love you guys. I like interacting with people who share my sense of humor, so the message board was born.

08.07.02
I thought a mailbag would be a nifty addition to the site. So I blackmailed AG and LC into hosting the mailbag. Their first one was posted on August 7. It's been a wild ride since then. Um, not that kind of ride.

08.22.02
Our very first contest, the Wankese Contest, took place on this date. Dave Carter produced the hilarious and at times disturbing artwork for this endeavor. The purpose was for contestants to see how their Wankese skills matched up to those of the master. I'm going to be responsible for a lot of therapy bills, I just know it.

11.13.02
After reading through the good, the bad, and the eyeforkingly disturbing, we settled on a winner, Quartz Falcon. Though his Tidus package still sits in my sewing room while he's away, eventually he'll be the proud owner of a Tidus clock and lunchbox. Read his Wankese here.

11.23.02
While recovering from an illness, I realized that I couldn't run the site alone. The site needed fresh recappers, and Kelly and Sam -- AG and LC from the mailbag -- kindly volunteered. Ironically, Sam's first recap was Suikoden II, the same as my first recap attempt. Thank goodness hers didn't suck ass.

11.25.02
Kelly followed two days later with Legend of Dragoon. Also much, much better than my first attempt. I am exceedingly lucky to have two such funny friends.

02.17.03
VGR's first official birthday. Though I was in the middle of a dry spell at this point, it was still the only site I've ever had that made it to a year with regular updates. In other words, I hadn't lost interest in it.

07.27.03
At the end of July, Ben joined the recapping family after impressing us with his application. I'm glad that he didn't kill me for taking so long to reply. So at long last, VGR had some testosterone to balance out all the female recappers. Oops, I mean "gay 12-year-old British boys who can't get any." No female recappers here.

08.02.03
Since it had been almost two years since I designed the site, I decided it needed a makeover. I stuck with the same type of overall layout, but I made it stretchy. And a little bit prettier, I hope. Here it is for posterity.

08.06.03
The 69th recap, Xenosaga Part 2. Heh...69...(because we're a bunch of adolescents with sexual issues).

08.08.03
The testosterone invasion continues as Ryan becomes a recapper. His takes on the old school games will be sure to send fanboys into a rage. And you know we enjoy doing that.

09.29.03
Although ezBoard never pissed me off all that much, I decided to go for new forums hosted on my own server. I'm sure everybody had loads of fun leaving their high post counts behind and learning the new ropes.

02.17.04
And we made it to VGR's second birthday. This time we had a little more fun. Site visitors submitted all kinds of fun stuff for the birthday bash. Again, VGR is doing well beyond my wildest expectations. Thanks to everyone who has helped to make this site a success!

04.01.04
Then I managed to alienate all the site visitors by posting this monstrosity as an April Fools joke. Don't click on that if you just ate.

04.18.04
I never thought the day would come, but I actually finished recapping a game! Is someone recording this? FFX Part 22 was technically the ending of the game. But read on...

04.28.04
The epilogue of FFX was the 100th recap on the site. That's, like, a whole assload of recaps. QF commemorated this with a look back at my very first (posted) recap.

That brings us to the present day. We're not planning on going anywhere, so stay tuned to see what other stuff makes it on here!