This layout is a direct reaction of two things. The first of which is learning more about web design. This layout was made in Adobe Go Live and I sought to restrict the amount of colors used throughout to blues. I also sought to organize the site. Before this, I felt there just wasn't enough content and having it spread around the navigation was a good way to get people to see the entire site while maintaining the illusion that it was bigger than it really was. But this only works so long before you really need to organize things. So I chose five standard links with the Nuts and Bolts section acting as a site index.

The second reason I changed was the sheer amount of other teams that copied the 8-bit style that I used before. It was a pretty neat idea, but it got old. This would be a factor as to why this layout was also discarded later on. Graphically, I felt I could up the bittage to 16-bits without many people following suit. I liked the overall NES layout, so I kept it

The third reason is my own personal growth in my capabilities as a webmaster. This was the very best I could do in 06, but web standards have advanced and table-based layouts are passe. Time to shelve this fossil.

This layout saw a lot of turbulent times. The founder of the team scene and my friend Gary aka Iceman died, Nyne's MMC boards fell (as a direct result) and I, on Rich's suggestion, expanded my new boards to include private boards to any MM team that wanted them. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately was one of the factors that led to the collapse of the MM Team Scene. Seemingly inspired by Nyne's PMM mutiny, longtime community member Rebel decided to use Gary's name as his own personal banner to get everyone behind his own copy of my old MMU forums. It came out of nowhere and the guy used every dirty, under handed trick in the book merely to open up his own forum (most of which will not be repeated here). Naturally, I was having none of this and annexed myself of every single site connected to that forum. Most people left, others I can't speak to anymore, and (currently) there are very few truly active teams in the community. Not to say all teams suddenly disappeared, but the MM Team bubble has definitely burst. Without Gary around, it's probably for good this time. This happened in December of 07 and MM Teams still leave a bad taste in my mouth ... I can't imagine why anyone would want to create a new MM Team.

It wasn't all bad, though. Right before the Team Scene collapsed Rich, with my full support, started the biggest MM team crossover ever - the Bushiness of War. This featured every single classic-series-based MM team in the community and saw some of the best writing from nearly all members of this team. The Team Scene collapsed midway through, however I managed to keep it going just long enough for it to finish.

This layout also saw the very first 'Maniacs Meet, where most members of the team met up in real life. It was a really great experience for all.

Putting away this layout is my way of putting away the team scene focus that I had up until this point. The epilogues are no longer in that "shared universe" they always were in. For the first time since I replaced CJ as webmaster, there's no team list. No more team anything. Those days were good, but they are gone. It's time to move forward.