Years ago I never would have thought about custom making my furniture.  I always thought it was waaaaaay too expensive.  You know, something that only rich snobs did.  But actually, you might be surprised (I know I was!).  I spent about 10 months looking for a new bed for my room.  Technically I haven't owned a bed for the last 7 years or so (I've been using the free bed frame thing they give away with mattresses).  Honestly I didn't care.  But I've been changing a lot of things in my life lately, so I thought what the heck, right?  

Anyway, so I set out to look for the perfect bed.  My requirements were BEYOND simple, but it was just impossible to find!  All I wanted was a full sized platform bed with a FLAT headboard.  No frilly crap.  No holes, no weird textures, and NO LEATHER!  I want my head to feel a flat surface behind me when I sit up in bed.  But alas, I searched for 10 months and I just couldn't find it.  The headboard was either super weird or way too short.  So I decided to have my bed custom made.

I had the job done at a local furniture store.  All their pieces are real wood.  I mean, real wood.  Not ugly looking Amish wood.  Just real wood.  And stained.  The furniture is so well built, you can actually STAND INSIDE the dresser drawers when they're pulled out!  I didn't buy a dresser, but the bed is made of the same stuff.

Anyway, I was looking at regular beds (that were NOT custom built) from $1,100 to $2,000.  So I figured a custom job with real wood like this would be something ridiculous like $5,000.  When it was all done it was only about $2,500 including delivery!

Now I know what you're thinking.  What a rich snob I am, spending $2,500 on a bed and thinking it's cheap!  But look at it long term and it makes a lot of sense.  Barring a house fire, this bed should last at least 200 years.  All their custom made furniture comes with a 100 year warranty.....and they've been in business since 1812 so I think they'll make good on that warranty!  

I'm pretty excited.  I think I'll have them build a custom dresser and some tables now.  If I'm going to use this stuff until I'm dead, I think I can afford it!  This is soooooo much better than buying some cheapo painted pressed board crap from Becker furniture for $1,500.  It comes with a 1 year warranty, but you can buy a 5 year warranty for an ADDITIONAL $500.  NO THANKS!  I'll go 100% solid wood custom built for a few hundred more.

EDIT:  I'll post pictures of my room in the "show us your room" thread later.  Then you can actually see the bed.

Hey, I'm a little late but I hope you had a happy birthday!

I'm very sorry guys.  It's been so long since I've been here at GOF that I didn't even notice.  I did pay for another year for the domain and I reconfigured all the settings with GoDaddy and it seems to work now.  But for some reason it isn't perma-linked.  I think the admins changed something on their end after it went down to try to fix the problem and it got messed up.  For example, all the posts/topics/pages have the same URL:

Code:  on  

http://z7.invisionfree.com/thegangoffive/index.php?

When it should look something like:

Code:  on  

http://www.gangoffive.net/topic/Gangoffivedowntime

This negatively affects are SEO and Google ranking and needs to be fixed.  It's like the www.gangoffive.net domain just redirects to the z7.invisionfree.com/thegangoffive URL.  Strange.  Could one of the admins look into this on their end?

I should clarify that the cause of the problem was NOT me nor was it my host (GoDaddy).  The original settings were intact when I looked into it.  But Invisionfree changed the settings on their end which made the previous settings I specified for the domain invalid.  I figured if I just renewed the domain each year everything would be fine.  I guess I'll have to keep tabs on this.  In the future, please contact me via one of these websites if there's ever another problem:

TheLandBeforeTime.org (Preferred)
http://thelandbeforetime.org/contact/

http://austinscomputers.com/contact-us/

If for some reason there's ever a problem with TheLandBeforeTime.org, you can contact me directly through my business @ austinscomputers.com.  I'm putting this information in this thread for future reference so chances are people can find it if there's ever another problem

In your opinion, anyway, landbeforetimelover. The series is NOT losing substance and the stories were always predictable. The magic is not gone. You just don't like season 4. The episode felt "evil". Get real, man. I'm starting to get the impression that pony has to conform into a very narrow set of writing principles to please you.

I'm sorry, but the show has changed a lot.  It is no longer focused on the original thing it was about.  The original creator of the show is gone and it really shows.  You can tell the fanbase has really affected the direction of the show, and not in a good way in my opinion.  Season 2 was worse than season 1, but it was still a great show.  Season 3 was a little worse than season 2, but not by a huge margin.  And it had a lot of good episodes and good things about it too so it made up for it.  But so far aside from one or two episodes, season 4 is really different.  If you like it or if anyone likes it, that's fine.  But it's really changed a lot and it's not the same show I fell in love with.  Will I still watch it?  Sure.  But it is vastly different from the original season when Faust was still there.  And my "opinion" is shared by many in the community.  Unfortunately a lot of them don't express this in a very mature way.  Thankfully I'm not like them otherwise you'd have a flaming fireball flame flying right at you right now WR.  You need to cool your jets.  Lots of people in this fandom (speaking of MLP, not LBT) are very hot-headed when it comes to the show, and I've never quite understood why.  It's just a show after all.  It's not like I'm insulting your dead mother by spitting on her grave or anything (and just in case your mother has actually passed on, please forgive me if she has.  I really don't know.  It's just a figure of speech.).

As for the "evil" thing, go back to the first season and watch all the episodes.  You won't find anything REMOTELY dark or evil in ANY of those episodes.  It just doesn't fit and it's not something that belongs in ponies.  It gave me a sick feeling watching that episode.  I plan to rewatch it soon just to make sure, but I'm pretty sure I'll still have the same opinion about it.

The bats episode was one of my least favorite.  Actually, most of season 4 so far has been pretty mediocre.  The Daring Do one was excellent.  The pilot episodes were okay if a bit weird.  I didn't like that they took away the Elements of Harmony.  But the bats episode was just......wrong.  It was dark and just didn't feel like ponies at all.  It felt almost evil.  Seeing the characters portrayed that way just didn't sit well with me.  

Here's the thing.  Some of the stories are becoming....well......pretty bad and predictable.  The show is losing substance...the thing that made me actually like it in the first place.  Sure the stories were simple, but they were complex at the same time.  They had a kind of undertone to them that spoke to older audiences and you could tell there was actually thought put into them.  Now the stories are more fan service and the complexity is gone.  The spirit of the show is gone.  

It's like the writers are thinking "oh yeah, that would be cool.  Let's do that."  and that's all they're thinking.  But before they had to try to make the show for little girls as the target audience and try to teach valuable lessons.  The "lessons" now seem forced and cheesy.  Like they came up with the story then tried to justify it with a lesson rather than focusing on the lesson and building a story around it.  Don't get me wrong.  You need some stories like that (the Daring Do one is a great example).  But it shouldn't be the entire show.

Hi guys.  In case you haven't noticed, it's been quite a while since I've been active here.  Life has gotten pretty busy for me the last year or so and I've neglected everything.  But no longer!  Introducing the new and improved Land Before Time social network!
Land Before Time social network!  Spam was a HUGE problem on the old site and honestly I didn't really have much of a focus.  And when things got complicated in my life, I pretty much abandoned the site (something I thought I'd NEVER do).  But I think I've finally gotten it right here.

TheLandBeforeTime.org has an integrated forum and social network.  You can "like" posts, share content, and communicate directly with other members.  The code has been 100% rewritten from the ground up.  No old code.  We've got an image gallery that users can contribute to.  We've also got group forums (special forums created by members themselves), groups, and a very well-rounded forum (not quite as sophisticated as GOF yet, but I'm working on it).  The homepage shows all the recent activity.  A member change their avatar?  A notification will display on the homepage so every member will know.  You upload a video or share a link?  It will be displayed across the whole website.

Of course I know that privacy is a concern so there's an integrated Private Messaging system and users can create private "invitation only" groups.  Also if you want to post a link/picture/video/whatever and you want to keep it private, you can choose to only share it with your "friends."

The spam problem is 100% solved.  I get close to 200 spam attacks per day on this site and I've successfully blocked 100% of them for the last week.  It has triple redundancy including a problem solving captcha, blank invisible forms for bots to fill out (these aren't visible to users so if they're filled out, the system detects the user as a bot and BAM, they're gone), and an activity captcha.  Combined with email verification, it's a 100% foolproof system.  It took me MONTHS to develop it and make it all work together, but now we're seeing the benefits.

An absolute boatload of work has been done with this site, and I'm not done yet!  But it's 100% functional the way it is.  I'm sure we'll find a few bugs, but I've been testing the site and everything looks great so far!  Feel free to register.  New features will be released as they're developed.  What's nice about this is it's 100% customizable.  

One thing I've never liked about GOF is the inability to specify gender in your profile.  For the record, TheLandBeforeTime.org doesn't either.  But we can add that feature if we want.  We can add literally ANYTHING!  So any suggestions would be great.  Let me know what you guys think and what needs to be done.  I think this is the final site I'm going to be making (code-wise that is.  I'll update the design and everything in a few years but the code is rock solid).

These new episodes were quite.....different.  I still don't like Alicorn Twilight, but despite how much Hasbro has totally screwed up the characters to make a quick buck, the writers were able to roll with it pretty well.  They've screwed the show twice.  First with Shining Armor appearing out of nowhere, and now with Alicorn Twilight.  But thankfully the writing staff is top-notch and they're able to handle it well.  

This was the first time there wasn't an evil villain.  But learning more of Equestria's history was well worth it.  I hope they continue to expand the world like they've done so far.

But the Elements are now gone?  What do they do now?  Now all the mane 6 are just regular ponies.  It's sad as the Elements are what really made them special.  They were connected to royalty and were hero's in a way.  I suppose maybe they can "temporarily" take them from the tree again when they're needed.  Maybe that's where the writers are going with this.  I don't know.

Overall it was a really good episode.  But it leaves me feeling conflicted.  In a way the stories have never been better.  But I don't know if I like the direction the show is going.  I miss the innocence of season 1.  It was a simpler show with few to no shoutouts to the Bronies, but I really liked it.  I'd say it's more of an adult show now, but it's lost its innocence and it's charm.....what made me fell in love with the show in the first place.  It really was a show for little girls, but the characters were so well done and the stories weren't cheesy so it made it a pretty good show for adults too.  Now it's like they're trying to write the show for Bronies while Hasbro keeps wanting to throw in princesses and weddings and such because they think they'll be able to sell more toys that way.  It's kinda sickening.  The show isn't going down the toilet or anything, but it has changed.  It's no longer the show I fell in love with.

Not that I dislike it now or anything.  I think it's a much better show now.  But I feel like the original show was just murdered and has morphed into this thing.  It's a conflicting feeling.

^Stick away from cheapo Chinese garbage.  Not only are they liable to fall apart, they're also not up to American standards and can cause fires and damage to your computer.  NOT a good idea.  Go with a name brand.  Here are a few decent MP3 players:

http://www.amazon.com/Coby-MP620-8GBLK-1-8...79275761&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Coby-MP620-8GBLK-1-8...79275761&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Walkman-NWZE374...79275978&sr=1-4
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Walkman-NWZE374...79275978&sr=1-4

Even these are el-cheapo.  But they're not like the Chinese stuff at least.  But even the expensive stuff just doesn't last anymore so you might as well save some money.  No matter what you buy you'll have to replace it frequently so if you only pay $30-$50 at least you won't lose much.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous... It's taken more than 8 MINUTES for this page to load. And my laptop is relatively fast, even very big images take less than 10 seconds to load. So please, from now on, I would highly suggest that all animated images be linked to rather than posted directly. I know, you want to show us something funny, but it's impossible for me to find any humor in something that forces me to wait for minutes on end before I can finally even see it.

I'm sorry but your internet is just terrible.  I'd look into that if I were you.  Loading this page takes me longer than normal, but still takes less than 15 seconds.  And before you go saying it's because I pay for outrageous speeds, I don't.  Anything better than 2Mbps up and 2Mbps down will load this page in about 15 seconds.  That's the rate at which GOF's servers can serve the information so it really doesn't matter if your internet is faster than that.  But if it took 8 minutes then you must be getting like dialup speeds.  And 10 seconds to load a "big" image (big is a relative term on a little laptop screen with a tiny resolution) is far too long.  I load most images in about 1/4 of a second.  "big images" (3000x3000 or larger that are about 4MB) takes me about 6 seconds.  Seeing as you're on a laptop, a "big" image could be 1000x1000 and only about 1/2MB.  1/2MB is 512KB.  Dialup is 56KB/second so that would make sense.  You need to have your internet speed checked out.  It's not normal unless you're paying for the cheapest DSL out there (which is usually UP TO 1Mbps (but is usually anywhere between 60Kbps and 200Kbps)) or you have actual dialup (which I highly doubt on a newer laptop).  The problem is with your setup.  No one else is having issues.

I'm very sorry for your loss.  When my dog Joey died (it seems like just yesterday even though it's been exactly 1 year, 5 days, 13 hours, and 4 minutes since that fateful moment) it took me a very long time to cope (I was going to say "get over it" but honestly I never did get over it and I don't think I ever will). Remember all the good times you had and try to keep them with you.  Through even the short time Joey has been gone, I can feel the memories slipping away.  You had a good 11 years.  Cherish them, always.