In 2007 I made an account on Newgrounds. I was a big fan of FUclock and really wanted to review his work. I didn't know that this event would be a defining point in my life.

It's been 10 years since that day. I was 10 years old at the time. Now it is 10 years later. I've celebrated clockday 10 times, I've had 11 birthdays since. On the 28th was my 21st birthday. When I was 11 years old, newgrounds was the world to me. My friends were all I cared about. I hit the first peak of my life. Now I've hit 2 more and newgrounds is simply my home. I return here - it's mine by oath. I do my best to keep it running - even if that is just by donating $5 every month and maybe make a flash every clockday.

Life was simple back then, I was a child. I was meant to grow up one day. I swore that I'd never leave newgrounds "Till I die or it dies" and hoped one day I'd be big in the clock crew. That wasn't how life goes for people though, I needed to get a job one day.

In high school I didn't really think about what I wanted to do. I now knew I was crap at animation so I didn't want to go into that. I enjoyed programming and as a kid wanted to be a game developer so I chose game programming as a goal. I passed all my exams and went into university for it. I hit my 3rd peak as I enjoyed my time with my friends but this fun was inevitably going to end. I would end up working in a job somewhere.

Why was I doing this? I was just walking the path laid out for me. This was just what was expected of me throughout life. What did I need from this? Game programming is fun yes, but is that all I have to look forward to in life? Surely the freedom I have now is the best point in my life. It is for everybody. At the end of this it's just the daily grind with nothing to look forward to. It wasn't for the money either, I just needed that to survive. There's nothing that I really want - nothing buyable at least.

This is the first year of my life with meaning. I found a solution to it all - one that doesn't involve dieing trying to find a land that only arguably exists. My friends don't want the normal life either. We'll work our normal jobs for about 3 years - only untill we have enough to afford land. With that land we will live self sufficiently. We'll build small houses on it. We'll put up power generators. We'll grow our own food. We'll reduce our bills to the point where we don't need more than a small part time job to keep ourselves alive. This is how we'll maintain the freedom we have now.

In 3 years you can expect more from me. Expect me to make more flashes, expect games for once and maybe I'll even write those songs I've been meaning to. All my life I've wanted to be free and now I know how I'll do it. After 10 years on the internet of knowing who I was - I now know what I want to become. 

So I've been celebrating clockday for 10 years now. It's odd to think the clock crew has been a part of my life for almost half my life now. Nonetheless, I've spent my day fifening flashes and making my own. It's now been submitted and i thoughroughly apologise for it. Now, I wish you all a happy clockday

So It's been over 10 years since I first made an account on Newgrounds. If there was a moment in my life in which I could say my life changed it would be that. Newgrounds is why I am who I am. It made me value what I value, it made me think the way I think and it is responsible for how I view the world.

I first made an account to review FUclock's videos. I loved them that much. It made me laugh so much. From there I went to Rupeeclock and eventually to the rest of the clock crew. While I mostly run away from the clock crew (it seems I can't take criticism from a crew I respect so much but that's a problem I need to fix myself) I still really enjoy clock crew stuff. It's been a big part of my life and I still include clock crew iconography in my profile pictures to this day. I am Smegheadclock and Smegheadclock is me. My animations may be crap but they are how I grew up. They show how my sense of humour has developed over the year. It's what got me into newgrounds. Even today I'm still finding out things about it. I like to watch it from an outside view. I want it to continue - only really prodding it forward (or backwards) during clockday.  I'll continue my endevours to promote the clock crew through my little clock day movies - even if that means just making it in one day like I did last year.

The biggest impact that newgrounds had on my life was probably the entire year of 2007. It's generally agreed to be the year when everything went to smeg but it was also my entry to it properly. 2007 began the downfall of 4chan with Fox doing a report of 4chan - bringing in a new wave of people. It was also the year that the Iphone was invented. This resulted in an influx of normies to the internet - slowing ending the days when the internet was ours. We used to joke that there were no girls on the internet but that era was coming to an end. That being said, I found newgrounds a more traditional way. I played a game that linked to newgrounds. This would've been in about 2004 though as I couldn't read back then. Back then I only used the internet to play games. The most I had was a Habbo account. I hated Newgrounds back then because I couldn't read and it was too complicated to use. By 2007 I could read and found the place. I decided to give it a 2nd chance. First I played the games and loved them. Then I moved to the collections page - enjoying the war for the portal series a lot. The war for the portal series introduced me to the clock crew after I found that one of the groups in that were based off the clock crew - as well as the series including the clock crew itself. The rest is recorded history.

The biggest thing about 2007 was my group of friends. It all started with B. Specifically a review for it. It was made by a fellow 07 user named SuperBlast. This was just after the redesign so I accidently managed to click his profile picture. He had made a post so I decided to reply to it. He then replied back. This was the start of a glorius friendship. He soon afterwards met SaltShakerClock (as he was known back then) and we did the same thing with him. Me and Salt were the most active on Newgrounds and became the closest friends. I had also befriended Icecubeclock(as he was known back then) by continually managing to find his movies when they were in the portal. He would quickly change his name to IceBlockClock which he would remain for about the rest of 2007. Then there was Smico-The-Great. This man was not a clock. In fact he hated the clock crew. Our first contact with him was through Salt complaining about him. I quickly befriended him though and he became a friend of ours. We managed to convince him otherwise about the clock crew. This was the core of our friend group. We managed to get others to join over time though. I remember clockwannabe, orihime and I'm sure that Chris-The-Stick2 was part of our friends group but I don't have much memories of him in 2007 specifically. Still, this was our peak.

This era is what I often call the 1st peak of my life. I was on newgrounds for as long as I could be. I would often spend it just talking to Saltshakerclock and posting on everybody's profile pages - or spamming Smico's page. The very tip of this peak was the great RPG battle. We were like children playing in the playground - making up weapons that would overpower each other. It was the greatest fun I had ever had at the time. The greatest example of how much I love just being with my friends. The rest of the year would have to go by though.

The friendship ended with 2007. 2 events were the cause of this. The first was an incident on Deviantart. Salt got mad at me and used "british" as an insult against me. While I admit that I overreacted (calling him racist), I still think he did too. We were still willing to repair our friendship after this but it left a sour taste. The 2nd event was me missing his birthday. He was saving his 100th post for his birthday but wasn't used to not posting. He posted anyway before his birthday and kept the 100th post as his 100th post until his birthday. I didn't see any difference in his post and therefor forgot to wish him a happy birthday. This effectively marked the end of our friendship. He actively disliked me because of it. A few days later he would delete all his 100 posts - deleting our history together. While he did this for unrelated reasons it was the straw that broke the camel's back. From that day onwards we both disliked each other. He prefered to look forward and not worry about the past while I took pride in it. Even today you can look at my early stuff - it's embarassing but it made me who I am. Meanwhile he isn't even SaltShakerClock anymore. He's now SaltOverGray. There's nothing wrong with his way of thinking - it's understandable. However it is a difference in the way we think that didn't go down well with me at the time. It still irks me to this day. I tried to fix our relationship a few years ago but we're shells of our former selves. Neither of us is anywhere near as active as back then. Now he's not on newgrounds anymore - I've completely lost all connection to him

With that, the strongest connection in our friendship had collapse - therefore the rest of it did too. Superblast would move back home and therefor be unable to access the internet as much. IceBlockClock would rename himself Robclock and get on well with the clock crew - which he does to this day. Now the name IceBlockClock is an embarassing memory to him - one that clocks find hard to associate with Robclock now. Smico would move on with his life. I'm now banned from his page for reasons I don't actually understand. It must've been an accident but considering how much I've posted on SuperBlast's page I don't blame him. I have no idea what happened to most of the people from back then. I assume that they just moved on with their lives. The only one I maintain regular contact with is Chris-the-stick2 who is now known as BB10clock. He's maintained connection with me in a way I'm thankful for. He's been there to encourage me to do things since the start. At first I found him annoying but he's the best thing out there encouraging me. His loyalty is greatly appreciated. Meanwhile I sank into obscurity. I moved to the BBS and lurked that for several years. I wouldn't properly move on until the start of the Anime era of my life - eventually entering the 2nd peak with the dawn of 2006scape.

2008-2009 were probably the worst points of my life. Highschool resulted in the morals of most of my classmates crashing through the floor. Bullying started and I was completely unprepared for it. I maintained my morals from primary school and suffered greatly for it. I deliberately forget most of those times. However, who I was is still visible from my posts on newgrounds.

The newgrounds era of my life ended with the introduction of the art portal. Newgrounds had made me discriminate against anime. While it is looked upon positively now - it wasn't back in 2007. We had seen weeaboos and the worst of the worst. That was how I saw anime at the time and therefor ignored it. That being said, I was now 13 years old and the art portal opening up was the best time for me to be re-introduced to it. I had seen the artist Suwako and quite liked her art style. I would review her stuff and enjoy seeing her improve. One of the things she drew most was Vocaloid - another thing which has iconography plastered all over my profile pictures anywhere that's not Newgrounds. On the 27th of December 2009 I found out what Vocaloid was and that was the end of the Newgrounds era of my life.

The newgrounds era of my life made a huge impact on who I am today. 2008 and 2009 had moments where our internet freedom were on the line. This resulted in me valuing the protection of liberty over everything. Our freedom of speech has now become the main source of my morals. It made me understand the internet, the way our communities were and how they behaved. It was my first interaction with large communities fighting each other. I saw rivalries and a dislike of new people. I saw how the internet could fight each other. It has made me like what I like and avoid what I avoid.

Now it may seem like I'm barely on Newgrounds but I'm always checking this place. I took an oath not to leave this place "Till I die or it dies" and I'm sticking to it. Unfortunately "it dies" is a distinct possibilty. Newgrounds made a loss last year and now has to rely on it's userbase to prop up it's income. I'm only a student so I can't increase how much I give to newgrounds. I barely have enough money to survive the summer. I give $5 to make sure that newgrounds lives on. It's not much but it's what I have. I encourage you to give what little you can to make sure that this little site survives. Animation on youtube is dying because youtube isn't built for it. Newgrounds however, gives more money per view than youtube. Our ads give less money each day though so we need this. For our animation industry and for our youth to have the fun that we did making/watching flash movies please donate that little amount to newgrounds. If you can spare more then please try to at least match me with $5. Every little helps and doubling the money that newgrounds gets goes very far.

You may say that the supporter upgrade isn't worth buying (and I'd actually somwhat agree but would prefer it stays that way) but somthing that Tom promised a long time ago does make it worth it - sponsored videos. If we got newgrounds a high enough income then Tom promised to start sponsoring videos, not to make works that are newgrounds exclusive, but to get animators to make new content that is newgrounds exclusive for only a day. I we could get to that level we would be directly encouraging the industry and with Tom's scouting (he's quite good at finding good new animators) we have a lot of potentially really good stuff out there.

I've been on Newgrounds for 10 years now. That's as old as I was when I made my account. Most of my account keeps it's traditional images too. Newgrounds is where I can look to see who I am and what I've become. I'm here till I die or it dies. I hope that Newgrounds never dies.

Clockday is coming to a close for me now but i've enjoyed it this year somewhat. Being on the frontpage art was a bit of a surprise but it was probably a good morale boost for me - seeing as I had to finish my clockday project. This time I made the entire project in one day. I probably shouldn't do that again seeing as I ended up removing a lot of scenes and not making backgrounds but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Probably not my finest work either though.

Nonetheless, I consider today a sucess. This year was life's peak for me. I need to up my game next year but I have good friends to bring me through it. hopefully this 3d peak will last long into my life.

I've been moving house and everything goes wrong. I got here and I forgot all my chargers (phone, laptop and 3DS) so the only internet source I have is my PC - this I can deal with because it's just like old times. Unfortunatley that means I can't work on anything though so I have a 0% chance of making a clockday flash. Despite that my game development team gave me work to do anyway so I'll be busy this month. Afterwards my flatmate got locked out of his room and had to pay £70 for a locksmith who proceded to open it with a cut open bottle of coke. After that my legs died after having to walk up and down 4 flights of stairs around 7 times. The next morning my legs hurt so badly that I couldn't even bear sitting down at my PC so I've spent most of my time in bed today. Also, this place is a bit of a tip and I've had to clean everything. There are stains on the toilet seat that aren't coming off either. It took a day to figure out how to switch on the hot water too. Now I find out that a new touhou game comes out on clockday which means I have to split my time 5'ing everything and playing a touhou game multiple times until I complete it then laughing at the reactions and arguing about the lore.

Meh, I should still end up enjoying myself this year. It's the time of my life with the lowest power:work ratio. I now have the freedoms of adult life without the responsibility of having to work long hours for the money.

Happy new year!

I enjoyed last year but it was admittedly a bad year overall. It was an odd year for me because I actually had a life for 2 weeks of it. It wasn't any more enjoyable than not having a life but I loved that little time period - it's a little highlight of my life like the time I had that huge RPG battle on Smicothegreat's newsposts. Since then it's been sleepless nights and sleepy mornings as university life started. I've made brilliant friends over the time I've been in university. I have friends that I care about greatly. People who make it fun to just go to a pub and laugh with. Others are gamers and we can discuss the games we like without fear of them looking down on us for it. I actually know people who don't think anime is just hentai! Real life has gotten so much better since I left high school. University in Scotland is much more like anime high schools than high school is.

The big thing about last year was that the internet mattered less. I escaped a ship before the gamergate incident sank it to the bottom of the ocean.  This 4chan vs Tumblr war is destroying the internet and, as a student of game development, I can't escape it. I also failed miserably at trying to get back into the clock crew. I'll try again though some day.

Politically the world was messed up as well because the racists won an election in the UK. UKIP won about 30% of the vote in England, 26% of the vote in Wales and only 10% in Scotland. The racist National Front also won in France. This is a huge disappointment. I expected the English to be like that but not Wales and France. We also had the independence referendum which was enough to make everybody fall out with each other for a couple of days.

Overall though, leaving High school really did wonders for my life. When I moved out, I could be who I wanted to be instead of having to act on what people already knew about me. I could say "smeg" and people would let me because they thought it was local dialect. Life is good now. I just need to learn how to wake up.

New years resolution: wake up on time for class then actually pass the classes. Also do the coursework earlier in the year.

Well I am now a student at university. I've moved house and my first term ends tomorrow. It's wierd having a social life but I'm glad I briefly experienced one. I'm happy to go back to being a social recluse but it's still taken it's toll on my time. I have to wake up at 07:15 every day to get into university by 09:00 and that's really hard when you end up staying awake till about 03:00.

I'm doing a computer game programming course at one of the best universities in europe (at least the best in the UK)  for my course. I've probably already failed my first maths test and I keep missing 09:00 classes due to trouble waking up. Usually i'd be fine but now it takes an hour to wake up and even then I can't be bothered. I set 2 alarms in the morning. One at 07:15 and one at 07:30 so that I should wake up but neither works. I'm having loads of trouble with time and I'm really not sure how to solve them. I live ages away from the university too so it doesn't help that being 5 minutes late now makes me 30 minutes late due to busses.

In terms of budget I'm actually doing really well. I'm eating a diet of mainly rice, chicken and broccoli - all at a price of under 50p a meal. Toast in the morning is so cheap that I end up getting so much that I can't eat it all and buying less is more expensive than buying more. My main loss of money is lunch where I lose £2 a day eating a KFC snack box - though it is well worth the money. I could lower this by buying from gregs or bringing a packed lunch but it's not much less money and takes up too much time respectivley.

My flatmates are alright in my specific flat. My block are a different story though. I don't drink so I'm left like Byakuren Hijiri - I'm restricted by the fact I don't drink. My friends from the little university warm up (we called it summer school) were acceptive and actually admired the fact that I didn't drink but the people who actually live in my block can be assholes about it. I can't get along with people here so it's no wonder one of my friends have already switched accommodation. I'm still here because it's cheap and it gives me the money to buy a PC - being a gamer and only having a laptop is unbearable.

Still, life goes on. My course uses unity next year so I may end up making some games using unity for newgrounds - if I can figure out how to use it. Right now I need to get my time in check. I should be asleep now.

Yesterday I did my final exam in school. I'll no longer walk the halls of my high school.

It took 7 long years of primary school at Chatelherault Primary School and 6 hard years at Hamilton Grammar School (formerly known as Hamilton Academy) and it's all over. All those years of making friends in primary school and struggling to keep them in high school don't mean smeg anymore.

I can now say for sure that I prefered primary school over high school. Back in primary school the enemy was the person in charge - usually the teacher. In high school the other pupils were the enemy. I couldn't change in the PE changing rooms without the fear of getting bullied. I know that I consider Chatelherault primary school to be one of the best schools in Scotland, as I was told that we were as good as a private school when I went there, but the change in community was immense when I went to the Grammar.

Chatelherault had no neds but Hamilton Grammar was full of them. My biggest mistake was that I listened to them when they said it wasn't as bad as the movies. It was as bad - if not worse. At least if they try to stick your head down the toilets you could punch them in the balls. Name calling is far worse. You yourself may not care what they say but your friends do. It's gotten to the point where I don't tell people what I like anymore in fear of getting bullied for it. In primary school I trusted everybody and the people who are meant to ease the process thought it was better that way but it wasn't. I'm not the kind of person who would become like everybody else just to fit in. I liked the morals I learned in primary school. In my attempts to avoid bullying i got wrongfully diagnosed with aspergers and my school grades soared. I hated the neds and did my best to be different from them in every way - which meant paying attention in class. Luckly the friendships I made in Chatelherault payed off and I had loyal friends who stuck by me no matter what.

A long time ago, at the european premier of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya I believe, I was told to make the most of high school because it's one of the best times of your life. Thing is; that sense of community and that freedom are things I never had at high school. There was one time I had it though - primary school. I loved the people there, that sense of community and the freedom to do whatever you wanted that I got back then. When we were in P6 and P7 people would pretend to have sex with poles, jump from bunk bed to bunk bed, swanton bomb each other for constantly repeating a phrase, knock people out in pillow fights and hip thrust people in the playground so hard that we knocked them over. You can't do those kind of things in high school. Other primary schools considered us boring but they made school boring. Society and ettiquette are what really opresses us in modern day society. Those people who tell us to behave like adults are the true tyrants in modern day society.

Still, now I have left the simple part of life. I only did life so far because there was nothing else to do. I almost didn't expect to make it this far really. It really shows that the course I'm doing is for a career path into my childhood dream. I chose it because it was the only real thing i knew. I'm off to university. My grades will decide if I'm going to the one in my local town which will give me a really crappy degree or if I go to a city I currently don't like (the parking's crap, the shopping centres are empty, the nearest proper city is ages away and there's this huge hill in the middle of it which I'll probably die at if i try to cycle up or down it)  which will give me a really good degree with the possibility of a job. Sony's invested enough into that uni so I'll be surprised if it leads me nowhere.

The internet as a whole seems to have gotten me through quite a lot in this time. Without newgrounds I would've probably killed myself (I've tried my best to forget why so I can't exactly say that that's not true) and without Touhou I would still be suicidal. The clock crew gave me B and a friendship I will never forget. Touhou made me stop wishing for death and made me start wishing for Yukari Yakumo to take me to Gensokyo instead. Falling in love did me wonders and gave me a reason to get up in the morning - even if it was simply to go back to sleep. 2006scape taught me why I enjoyed 2007 so much as well. I'm bound by oath to keep coming to newgrounds until I die or it dies. This site is my home. It's the only regularity I'll probably have through my whole life - unless I do move to Gensokyo which I'm still open to.

Now I have to get a job, go to uni, get another job, build a PC, learn how to sword fight and make games. Smeg knows what's going to happen next.

I actually enjoyed last year!

So many things have happened this year. The most major was falling in love at the end of last year which caused dreams to be the most important part of this year. They've developed me greatly over the past year and they've taught me that I'm not quite as unique as I thought I was but I'm still very unique in my own ways. I'm not sure if it means I'm creepy or crazy but I've been either one of the 2 for many years now. 1 thing is for sure though - Im in love and I love every second of it.

The other major thing that's happened is the "Relapse of Runescape and Wrestling" which dominated my life from the latter half of last year until the middle of this year. It's a little sub-era. I still watch wrestling but I stopped caring about the WWE because it suffered the same problems as Runescape. WWE and runescape both backstab their veterans. This era I fought against these companies in mass boycotts. We didn't want the EOC and we still don't want John Cena. Our WWE one failed to do practically anything (people don't think there is any competition to the WWE and therefore keep watching it) but the runescape one brought Jagex to it's knees as 40% of users left runescape to play on private servers. On those private servers I became part of a community which brought back feelings I hadn't had since 2007 - which I still to this day consider to be the greatest year of my life on the internet. I made a name for myself on the 2006scape fourm games board and made some brilliant friends there. I was the most common name on the count to 50 before a mod game - which I brought here when I signed up. Unfortunatley the site was taken down by Jagex and then we all mosed to ProjectRS06. The community kind of went to die there as fights broke out between those who believed that Mod Vault had no choice and those who thought of him as nothing but a scammer. Eventually our boycott lead to jagex bringing out old school runescape which had no EOC. We had won but I never went back. I was F2P and will always be. There is still a hole in my heart from those days. I miss my friends on 2006scape. Still I learned the true value of community. It was that which caused me to love 2006scape and the year 2007. It wasn't the activity it was the people and I think this is one of the most important lessons of my life so far.

Oddly enough, these events both started last year but as they ended this year, I can look back at them and say with all my heart that I enjoyed them.  In terms of real life I've found my friends again. The year before it was a bit awkward because there was nobody I could truly trust in the group I hung out with. Now I know my friends and play cards with them. I've also applied to 3 universities, only 1 of which has replied and given me a conditional - so I have to pass Maths with a B before I'm allowed in. Seeing as I'm doing this level of maths over 2 years, I'll be severly disappointed if I end up getting a C which is what I was expected to have gotten last year if I hadn't decided to do it over 2 years.

Still, there is much left to enjoy in my last year of High School. All the neds have left so I like almost all the people left in my year. I don't bear quite as much pride for my High school as I do for my Primary School but I will probably miss my friends when we all go. Of the 2 people I trust most, 1 will be staying in the Glasgow area and going to a university there while I risk leaving the other to go to another City in Scotland and continue my studies - if I do well. I hope I'll find good trustable people wherever I go but unfortunaley that may not be the case.

This been a good, eventful year for me. I hope that 2014 will be as good if not better. Happy New Year everybody! I wish you all enjoy it like I enjoyed last year!

It's my 17th birthday today. Ignore the 21 that my userpage says I am. I have a tradition of lying about my age on the internet.

Well, I slept in, couldn't find my shirt and had problems starting up the internet but there's a long way to go on my birthday. I've already got money for my brithday.

I'm now old enough to drive. I've already got all the applications for driving lessons and I had my first shot with a car a few weeks ago (I stalled it pretty quickly) so I'm looking forward to those. Only problem now is trying to fit that in with school.

Still I'm the same age as Miku when she was released (or at least she was back in 09. I seem to have travelled into a different dimension since 2010) so this should be a good year for me. I'm getting my own money now so life is starting to hand responsibilites to me now. I just need to make sure I don't mess it all up like I do with everything else.