Here's a cut and paste from Kevin's site. With added stuff.
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Bruce Stockert (Reubus) went back to North Dakota. For what? I have no clue. I guess I would since there was practically nothing left after GF imploded.
Eric Mylonas (ECM) was doing strategy guides for Brady or whatever. If I remember correctly, he was working with Matt (MVS) for a while after GameFan went kaput, no?
Tyrone Rodriguez (Cerebus) worked at Activision last time I heard. This was when I was working at Hyper Game Action before they also closed down.
George (former GF designer that started the mag with Tim back in the day) was working at Atari last I heard.
Terry Wolfinger went to work for Stan Winston on various stuff. Including a Michael Jackson video.
Fernando Mosquiera(Lagi) went back to Maryland (or was it Maine?) to live with his mother and actually appeared on several news stories there. If you remember, he was taking steroids for his medical condition. Since he was legally on medicated marijuana, he joined a group to 'reach out' about legalizing it. With court hearings to boot. He was a good guy.
Jay Puryear (Kid Fan) is still messing around in the gaming industry last time I heard. As for what company or position, I have no idea.
Jacob (one of the designers as well back in the day) went to work for a game company. I think it was either Eidos or Activision. I remember him coming to GF to plug a game he was working on, and Puryear and I nearly had a heart attack when he came in. Small world.
Matt Taylor (yes he worked at GF at one time and did the Mortal Kombat guide.) He went on and started Versus Books. Pretty successfully I might add.
Casey Lowe and Ryan Lockheart (Takuhi and Orion) worked with Matt Taylor at Versus with Nick for some time. I was actually going to work with Matt as well, but the ass flaked on me. He just wanted the dirt on GameFan.
Nick Des Barres (Nick Rox) went on and did various stuff. Including winning the design contest for the Resident Evil movie poster. I even got an e-mail from him asking to put an entry in. It's no wonder Nick won. He was a talented designer as well.
Kelly (K. Lee). Oh man. He went on to work at EGM way back in the day. Read on to find out what happened.
Dan Jevons (Knightmare) went to work at Conspiracy Games. I forgot what role he had in the company. He came by GF a few times.
Bryn Williams (The Guvnor) is working at GameSpy. Still there AFAIK.
Micheal Hobbs (Substance D) is working at PLAY magazine.
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Now for the old school stories. Woot! [Smile]
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Jay Boor: Masshole.
I remember back when GF Online was one of those places where you can hang out and see what 'new' thing Levi got in his e-mail or new 'name' someone got plastered with. I remember walking up front where Melissa was one day and seeing if I got any mail. I was talking to Elaine when I noticed she was kinda spacing out towards the window as if she was trying to see something in the parking lot.
Fast forward about 7 hours.
Jay and I are talking about some crap when he tells me he'll be back in about 10 minutes. Thinking nothing of it, I went to get a soda from the fridge in the kitchen cause it was fucking hot. I hear Melissa and Elaine with their "OMG!" and "WTF!" voices. Jay is laughing his ass off (well trying not to - you know Jay), and trying to cover his ass about something he obviously did. I ask Melissa what happened, and she gives me this stern face. Uh oh. Jay already hit a nerve and was in trouble.
I found out that he left his girlfriend in the car (yes, that long!) in the heat, and acted like he did nothing wrong. WTF! I asked him WHY he left his girlfriend in the car for over seven hours, and he just said... "It's embarassing enough that I walk around in public with her. Why the fuck would I want to bring her inside?" I busted out in laughter and I knew that was so wrong. But I later found out that she was just a really shy person and was comfortably sleeping in the car the whole time becuase she was tired. Still. Funny shit though.
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Kelly (K. Lee): Tyrone Biggums?
Where should I start? I know it's messed up to make fun of someone who's life got completely messed up, but you can't help to bring this one up during the old GF reminiscence sessions. Now this guy was an oreo cookie. Black on the outside but whiter than most white people I know, inside. This actually strings on to Nick's antics.
He appearantly got addicted to meth sometime during the first time I quit (or what people called a Wakabout). One of the first things he asked me when I came back was "Hey dude, good to see you back! Umm, can I ask you something later?"
WTF?
Anyways, later I'm alone and he asks me "Hey. Umm.... Can... You get some crystal meth? You know... for a friend of mine..." Who the fuck is he kidding? I told him I can, but I'm not gonna bring it to work. That was the last time he ever brought it up with me. Yeah. Like those pawn shop reciepts on your desk for over 400 dollars in jewelry was because you had no money for food right?
Well, I recall him getting fired at GF for something (the reson eludes me). Time goes on and a few years later we all hear he's doing awesome at EGM. They paid for his moving expenses, got him a company credit card, and was actually making a decent amount of money (he had a baby to raise as well). It's quiet for a while, and then we hear this shit.
Appearently, his addiction followed him all the way up north. He ran up the company credit card on crazy shit (probably pawned it on stuff for you know what), lost his house and his wife ran off with his crack dealer. With the baby. Talk about messed up. >_<
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Nick Des Barres (Nick Rox): Shup foo! Recognize!
OK. I think Nick was actually a really cool person. Once you really get to know him, he's a really nice guy. I just can't believe all of the shit people gave him. Anyway.
Nick was notoriously known for speaking like a black person (full ebonics!) with lines from 2Pac. He told me it was because his school was 98% black people, and it rubbed off on him. I knew where he was going to school as well, and I can totally agree. So sometimes during the delirium from crunch time, we would do stupid shit to give us that extra steam we needed to go on. This was one of those things. This was actually the birth of the famous "2 skoops!" line (StreetFighter double fireball super reference in ebonics. Yes, it's rasin bran pun.)
Now Kelly heard around the office that Nick did an impressive 'black person' imitation, and he wanted so bad, to hear it. But of couse Nick wasn't about to bust out with it in front of Kelly. Umm. Yes, he's black. That would be a bit awkward, no? Everytime Nick would go into this mode, Kelly would always miss it. Unless we triggered it, of course, Hehe.
One day, I was talking to Nick and I see Kelly in the corner of my eye. We were standing there (I think Casey and Ryan we there as well) and I busted out with "Wassupwiddat?!" then Nick just went awol. He was going off on ebonics and waving his hands like the gangsta he is for about 10 minutes. The whole time he was doing this, Kelly was standing behind him. Listening. I couldn't take it anymore and started laughing. Nick turned around and turned white as a ghost, then turned red from embarassment. He stood there shocked for about a few seconds and said "Uhhh. Hey Kelly..." and ran off into his office and slammed his door behind him.
Needless to say Kelly was very impressed with his impression. After all, he was much 'blacker' than Kelly ever will be, ROFL!
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Writing a book would would freaking rock. But it'll be pretty damn long cause of all the shit that went down at good 'ol GameFan. I've seen the shadier side of it all for some reason. Things that people either don't know or have forgotten about. Like when I got the whole day off at GameFan because Andy Fell wanted me to "escort" him to the bank to withdraw 30,000 dollars cash. WTF?
Or how about the time when we weren't getting paid for 3 months at a time and people higher up on the payroll list were cashing it before us peons could? I remember when Halverson got into Jay's office to steal his and Julie's paycheck so they could cash them ahead of us. When he was confronted about it, his words were "I don't care. Throw another body on the fire for all I care."
Hey Shidoshi. Remember the guy downstairs from GameFan that would have a heart attack because we would run down those stairs and all of his shit would fall off the wall? Or how about the time when Griffon was "living" at GameFan for about a month before you guys decided to get an apartment? Damn. Good times.
Good to see Terry and Tim adding to the memories as well. I'm sure Halverson liked the E.Storm in the wheelchair issue. I recall that was the time around E3 and that was the "news" when you guys got back. Classic. I'm not even going to get into detail about the whole Firepuss or "I fucked Joe" incident. Hehe.
Tim - I'm not sure if you remember, but I went up with Kei to Weising's house to meet up with you guys about adding his section in your mag. Don't know if you remember or not. I was sleeping on his couch the whole time after I got there. I'm all for resurrecting a mag. That sounds like a freaking awesome idea! I was doing layouts in GameFan for a good 5+ years or so. Not my best work, you know how them GF crunchtimes were. Shoot me an e-mail and let's hook up sometime.
Damn. I remeber when we were all having a meeting in Jay's office about what was going on one day. His office was practically all window, overlooking the parking lot. We were all sitting there when all of a sudden, a guy in a tow truck came to repossess my car. It was pretty embarassing. So I run out to see what's going on, and Bergstein run out a few seconds after I do, and tries to tell the guy to leave the car here and in return he'll pay for the whole thing upfront. I remember him clearly looking me in the eye and telling me, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." as the guy drove off with my car in tow.
It kind of sucks about Elaine. She stayed with us pretty much till the end. I remember we had a meeting right after she literally walked out after finding out the Bergstein had no intention of paying her back for her investment. Puryear just wanted us to know that her leaving would have no ill effect on us, so we had a damage control meeting afterwards.
I promptly left soon after. I just couldn't take the shit there anymore. I even got a call from one of the Human Resources chick we dealt with from express.com call me at home asking why I left. I remember going back to the office to get my stuff I left behind and the only ones in the office was Jay Puryear and Brian Olshever. Brian was quick to tell me that express.com closed down GameFan, and actually had the sheriffs come down and escort everyone out much like the U.S. Marshall incident.
Don't even ask me about (deleted his name for my safety, lol). Bergstein's personal assistant. This guy could get a mob to whack a guy if he wanted. Drugs? He only supplied some of the staff with their needs when they wanted it. Shady indeed. I'm pretty confident to say that over half of the staff including our Human Resources guy, Conrad, was a reefer head. I've seen and smoked out with them as well back in the day. Heck, even Nick Rox was toking at one time.
Well I think that should be enough to add for now.
Take it easy guys! Good to see you're all doing good.
Been trying to track him down ever since