The Legend of I04

This is the official blog of me, Fuzunga, otherwise known as Stephen De Carlo. The only reason I put my name here is so people can credit the real me for my own material. So here's the brief, yet complete, history of Fuzunga's journey through the interwebs.

Installation 04 actually began life as a newsletter titled "GameWeb". We're not talking online here, either. I mean a real, honest-to-goodness newsletter created on Microsoft Publisher, printed out, and distributed by a 12-year-old Fuzunga at middle school. Then Fuzunga found Blogger. Gameweb took to the interwebs like a fish to water. It merged, split, closed, and reopened many times over the years. GameWeb was combined with another blog, Shups 'n Croids, on December 21st 2007 and I04 was born! And, well, that's the short of it. The long of it isn't much longer, actually. Not much more to say. Oh, well I guess there's that whole "closed down for about a year" thing. You really want me to get into all that? Oh, alright. 

IN THE BEGINNING there was N-man. The "N" used to stand for "Nintendo" because I love Nintendo. It was late 2004 when I first discovered Blogger. I thought it would be cool to have my thoughts on video games published to the internet and I created a blog called "GameWeb" based on my newsletter. And let me tell you, Blogger was a hell of a lot easier that that. Eventually my friends joined me and GameWeb started to grow. In the days of GameWeb, my fellow posters included Doegab, Battsman (The One Known as to be Reckoned With, or "Reckoned" for short), and RaiderBear (a.k.a. Kromebear30 ). 

I BEGAN TO BRANCH OUT because I wanted to write about more than just game news. I created a second blog for reviews only and called it "GameWeb: Viewpoint". But there was also "Total Randomity" my 'everything else' blog. Randomity eventually went into disrepair because I was lazy, but I later revived it under the name "Shups and Croids." What the hell does that mean? I don't really know other than I remember mistyping some words once and it came out shups and croids. Needless to say, it stuck with me. This was mainly a blog for crazy original stories and other wacky stuff. In between, I opened up numerous other blogs for various things and whatnot, including my own Dragonball fan series, Dragonball Unlimited. I've always said that I would revive it if there was enough interest (read: any) so if you happen to read it and like it, let me know.

INSTALLATION 04 came about because I realized it was stupid to have two separate blogs. So I merged Shups and Croids with GameWeb and Installation 04 was born! This name I chose because I was (more of) a huge Halo fan at the time. And it also sounds pretty badass. Anyway, at this point I really began to crack down. The day before GameWeb's third anniversary was the day I04 launched. Readers were greeted with this message:
This is the end. Well, sort of. It's been a grand journey my friends, but now it's time to say goodbye. Gameweb is closing its doors (that means Viewpoint as well) and, for that matter, so is Shups and Croids. The two blogs will be incorporated into one: Installation 04- effective immediately. And so Installation 04 is born! It will have the same wit and humor as Shups, plus gaming reviews and, occasionally, news. It will be less news focused and more opinionated because, lets face it, you could just as easily get your gaming news elsewhere. So sit back down and relax because GameWeb isn't going anywhere any time soon- it's just evolving. So I ask you to please enjoy Installation 04 as much as I've enjoyed working on it! It's been fun guys! Thanks for everything! GameWeb would have been three years old tomorrow.
That was the day I defined my style in the blogosphere. I began posting as often as I could and the site really began to take off. Between 12/21/07 and today, Installation 04 somehow managed to gain over 200,000 hits at the time of this writing with no advertising or publicity. During the early days of Installation 04, it was mainly myself and Doegab writing content. During 2009, MonkeyLord joined the team to occasionally contribute and RaiderBear made a triumphant return. We were riding as high as we could under the circumstances.

N-MAN FINALLY EVOLVED into Fuzunga. Yup, I went by N-man until May 26th of '09. At that point it was pretty ridiculous to keep doing so, as I went by Fuzunga on literally every website I was a member of as well as Xbox Live and anything else imaginable. But long before my name evolved, my writing evolved. I realized how stupid it would be to report on every little piece of news that came along. So I decided that our articles would be 100% opinionated and original. If we mention a news story, that's because it's a megaton. But it wasn't just about games any more. I finally adopted the subtitle, "Games. Media. Stuff" for Installation 04 because that's really what we were all about. We covered just about everything relating to anything interesting to us in our own crazy way.

AFTER YEARS OF WAITING, I finally acquired the installation04 domain I'd been keeping my eye on. Currently, I am in the process of reposting a bunch of lost content from the last five years, and posting on the Destructoid community blogs. I intend to keep posting there, and posting the stuff here, to hopefully gain the readership I've always wanted and continue to blogging for another 11 (!) years.

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