5th March 2004

In 1993, when I was 2, my mom bought me my SS 60 (which still works to this day). What can I say, I was 2. I played with it at the beach, shot my parents a few times, the usual stuff. Sometime in the mid-90's my parents bought me an XP 70, which now leaks beyond belief. I had a few wars with my cousin and some of his friends, but that's about it. What can you really DO with an XP 70? Fast-forward to 1998 - I've been out of soaking for a while. Suddenly my mom and I are browsing at Sam's Club (bulk Wal-Mart) and I see a CPS 2500. Ooh mom mom! Can I have it pleeease?!!! The odd thing is that I got it for $30, but the tag said it was marked down from $75!!! I went home and tested it out. Being all of 6 or 7, I could barely hold the thing empty! Unfortunately, my parents wouldn't let me shoot it at anyone, it was too powerful. However, in 2000, I was able to hold it rather well and I met some people who liked to have water wars during the summer. These weren't organised battles, they were all-out-get-wet soakfests where the teams changed by the second. This was great at the time. When I met the set of friends I currently know at school, we had some pretty big team battles, but nothing big enough to write a war story about. That pretty much consists of all the wars I've had, so I guess I could be called Mr. Hypothetical when it comes to battles.

May 1, 2003. I've been browsing the internet for soaker sites some time now. I come across SSCentral, and decide to join the forums. I read a few posts, then left it. Forward to July 30, 2003:

"i have a brainbench certification in html and am very good with php, i wrote my own content management system. (http://dan.everythingdm.com/scms-1.0.zip [saga note - defunct link]). i have reviews/pictures for the cps 2500, cps 2100, ss 60, and max-d 3000. i'll be sending you an e-mail containing the reviews. i also know how to use the invision board mod cp and admin cp. yes, i know i'm a n00b to this forum, but i'm seriously in to water warfare."

I'd been drooling on eBay for a while, and decided it was time to get serious. Since then, those reviews have been changed about a million times. And SSCentral has grown to the size of 5 1/5/03 SSCentrals put together. Doom's knowledge of soaker tech amazes us all. However, beside that, I've come a long way in soaking too. Joining SSC influenced me to buy many of the soakers I own - CPS 3200, CPS 1500, and my CPS 2100. I'm just a little sad that I wasn't around for Aquatica's zenith.