“…it won’t be too long before it’s all up and running.”
- Al, June 28th 2007

Four and a half years later and here we are, re-opening out virtual doors with the site I had always planned on creating all those years ago.

For those of you were visitors of the original site; I completely and utterly apologise for doing a Duke Nukem.

As much as I’d like to say that the delay was because I was being held hostage by the bears outside for all this time, this is not the case. I decided it was time for a change in career, and that – along with a move to London – meant that the site was put on hold.

I also couldn’t figure out how Dave [my co-host for The Choad Show] was going to fit into everything. He refused to move down to London with me, citing reasons like “I have a job” and “I have a girlfriend” and “Why on Earth would I ever want to live there? For starters, the police in London already think I’m a terrorist!!” etc.

This really becomes an evident problem when after four and a half years (and I really can’t emphasise this enough) – he still doesn’t have Internet access.

He doesn’t even have Internet on his phone. I can’t understand how the man has managed to survive this long without Internet?! I would have gone insane. Even though I no longer had this website, at least I had Twitter to post on and vent about my ongoing clumsiness and the trouble I’ve had with London’s transportation system.

So I came up with a solution.

The New Team

As you have probably gathered from the new artwork, the team has grown. We now have five people working on the site;

• Al: Myself. The Original Creator. The Dumbass Responsible For All Of This.

  
  I met myself many years ago. The first time we met we were both looking in a mirror. It was an awkward moment, staring at the other and making out all the different lines and shapes of the other’s face. I stared deep into his eyes and it felt like I was looking into my own.

  Suddenly one of us farted.

  It broke the silence and eased the tension. To this day we still don’t know which of us was the one who let rip, but we’ve been best of friends ever since.

 

• Dave: The American.

  

  Since starring in The Choad Show, Dave has landed himself with a proper job. Now he has meetings and responsibilities and has to act all grown-up. After becoming respectful to women he also ended up in a long-term relationship with a wonderful woman called Sue, to whom he later proposed.

  She said yes. Aww.

  He’s now taking a break from the site as 2012 will be a busy year for him; involving his new job, getting married and attempting to move house. We wish him all the best and look forward to his return at the end of the year.

 

• Trev: The Trevornator.

  

  Trev was a colleague of mine whom I first met when I moved to London. He is one of the few people I know who can match me on useless geek trivia and high nerdery. A lover of retro gaming, movies and Sci-Fi, we bonded almost immediately. About a year ago we spoke at length about this site and some other projects we’d like to do in the future. And so with that in mind, together we have formed Dizzy Tissue Studios – an umbrella for all of our creative works going forward.

  Whilst I refuse to use the term “replacement” when it comes to Dave, Trev will be his spiritual successor as co-host once The Choad Show returns for its second season sometime in the next few months.

  A lover of word play, shock humour and your mom, Trev is – by far – the most inappropriate person I know. But inexplicably, he’s somehow also the only person who seems to be able get away with that level of inappropriateness. Are you wondering to what extent I mean? Well, add us to your RSS feed and you’ll find out.

 

• Marc: The Man in the Suit.

  
  If you’ve already listened to the season one finale of The Choad Show, then you’ll already be familiar with Marc. But how did I come to know him in the first place?

  Well, throughout my mid-to-late teens I’ve been forced to make life-shaping decisions that I didn’t want to make. What classes did I want to take for my GCSEs? What subjects did I want to study at College? Which course did I want to take at Uni which would eventually shape the career that I would undertake for the rest of my life? It was all a bit too much, especially when I had to decide on the latter. So instead of rushing into Uni (which at the time would have put me on the path of becoming a software developer) I decided to stay on at college for an additional year.

  That’s when I met Marc; a film buff who was just beginning his academic journey in that very same educational establishment. He wore a jacket with a giant Ghostbusters patch on the back and a moulded black plastic backpack which made him look like he was starring in a modern remake of The Rocketeer.

  One day he discovered a suit and has been wearing a suit ever since. Legend has it that they have a symbiotic relationship together and that the suit is now permanently fused to him.

  No-one knows for sure, but everybody’s too distracted by his awesomeness to find out.

 

• Stina: The Editor.

  
  Out of the entire team – and with a PhD on the way – Stina is quite easily the smartest, most intellectual and most literaryish literyish litteryly the most good at reading books and stuff.

  As a dear close friend of mine, I asked her to be involved so that she could bring some class, intellect, elegance and her own dose of geekiness to the site – as well as ensure that we aren’t making too many grammatical errors.

  Whilst that apparently translated to her as “token female”, I tried to assure her that in addition to her editorial powers (powers of which none of the other team members have been bestowed with), she’s also the one with the power and responsibility to keep the rest of us all in check.

  In hindsight, I probably should have warned her first about Trev.

So, that’s the new team. They’re an absolutely wonderful bunch and I hope you’ll love the increasing variety that they’ll bring to the site. And for me personally, it definitely feels good to be back.

On behalf of all of us, thank you for being part of our re-launch.

It begins.