Interview with NixHex

I spend a good deal of time at church, where I play bass on the worship team. I also have 2 units left for my masters degree in electrical engineering; my masters thesis/project. Also, season tix to Disneyland. I've been with my girl for 9 years; she's my high school sweetheart. I had my first epileptic seizure in 2006. It was an unexpected plot twist in my life, and has rendered my drivers license useless a few times. I stopped driving altogether two years ago. I have run a few half marathons with my gf, though she has done some fulls. I don't desire to move up to 26.2 miles any time soon but you never know. The highlight of my running "career" came in 2010 when I won a raffle for season tickets for the LA Kings 2010-11 at a 5k they hosted. I live in southern California. The inland empire, the dump of SoCal east of Los Angeles.

I started playing bass in high school cause I always liked unappreciated things and it looked like the easiest instrument to play. I played tuba in band so my ear was accustomed to the low end of the musical spectrum. I also have perfect pitch. Anyway, I went to church for many years and was too proud to join the worship team cause the music was too "lame" for my tastes, having played in a metal band for a few years prior.

But the lord humbled me and when a spot opened for a new bassist 1 year ago, I bit the bullet and auditioned, passing with flying colors. I play at least once every two weeks, in various services throughout the week. In the past year, I've become much closer to people at my church and my swearing has taken a dive. Part of my motivation to stop swearing online is because I claim to be a Christian, and trying to be a light was inconsistent with my habit of dropping f-bombs mid battle and flying off the rail for no reason.

I'll have to think about that one for a minute, but I'd definitely like to indoctrinate others with my impeccable taste in music.

311, Radiohead, Incubus, Smashing Pumpkins, Devin Townsend, and Tool have been consistent favorites of mine. My username comes from Nix Hex, a very old 311 song named after their singer Nick Hexum. Waterbomb was the first to notice my username but there have been very few after that.

I first came to Smogon in 2007-08. I knew about EVs, IVs, and natures and I watched a lot of YouTubers (mainly killernacho), which influenced me want to have my own battles and put some of my favorite music over them. I made an account in '08 but completely forgot about it. Who knows where I'd be with that account now? Administrator?

I read all of the DPP analyses twice over. I didn't know Shoddy Battle was a thing and IVs weren't important to me but I valued the EV spreads on the analyses. One day I decided that I wanted a good Cresselia since I hadn't caught one on my Platinum file yet so I Googled "how do I get good legendaries" and Smogon's RNG threads came up. I became obsessed and started RNGing shiny eggs in Diamond and Platinum and all of the legendaries in Emerald.

I discovered Shoddy Battle soon after I joined in 2009 and spent some time there, but I invested a lot of time into RNGing. I found a thread soon after that had to do with researching FRLG RNG abuse. My first 75 posts were all in that thread. Of course, Kaphotics and Bond697 stomped into that thread two years later and made all of the information we found irrelevant. I decided that I kinda wanted a badge and I used my great writing skills to cook up a guide for catching the move-exclusive goodies in Pokémon XD as well as EV training spots in FRLG. When Oglemi GPed my entire XD article, he made about two edits in total because it was perfect.

I got my ladybug in summer of 2011 and have kept trudging since then. I became an OU mod; despite my complete incompetency at the metagame, Matthew liked me (I still am completely incompetent at the meta btw). I spent a lot of time reviving the DW metagame before it fizzled out upon the release of BW2. In the meantime, I had become Smogon's talent scout. I have brought to fame at least three super moderators, namely Birkal, Toast++, and you, Jellicent.

Well, I'd say get involved in IRC first and foremost. It's hard to make a name for yourself purely on the forums. IRC has been the online Pokémon community's means of communication since the stone age. You get to know staff people on a more personal level. Communicating with admins by forum PMs is usually pointless, as you will never get a response. However, you can chill with admins on IRC in a non-intimidating way and bond on common interests, like how me and ibo do on music. Second, contribute to the site. Grammar is the easiest way to contribute and there is pretty much always a shortage on dedicated GPers. I don't do many myself these days. If you're at least competent at Pokémon, write some analyses or sets. Articles are a bit more labor intensive, but you pretty much become an expert on your topic while writing it. I wrote three articles and got a badge for it.

Well, I'd played VGC since the 11-12 season so I was familiar with the Doubles format. I met and ate dinner with several great personalities over the years, including ODonut, Kaphotics, Ninahaza, Wild Eep, Firestorm, Huy, and Duy. Pocket had shown fleeting interest in a custom Doubles metagame, apart from Nintendo's VGC format. I PMed him out of the blue, laying some ground rules/clauses and after the Other Metagames forum opened up, Pocket started a thread. It was a total grass roots movement. We have a lot of the same players as we did from the get-go; it's a tight-knit and somewhat of an elitist community. We were made official a few months ago and later I became QC head coach after turning down the position earlier. Oglemi generously gave me full C&C mods, mentioning my constant presence over the past 3 years with writing and GPing (Also, mention Nexus in the people I've had dinner with. He'll probably cry if I don't [you can mention the crying part too]).

As far as Pokémon goes, I'm really loving the game itself. It's gorgeous, probably the best Pokémon game yet, and I thought BW2 would hold that title forever.

I am hopeful for some C&C reforms. I've been disappointed with our analysis writing for the entire BW generation. It's the lack of instruction and a focus on vague Pokémon characteristics that have made the analyses so dull. Some of my favorite analyses are the horribly written ADV Jynx and Misdreavus analyses because they are so instructional; they tell you exactly what to do given a few different situations.

Dragonite, right from the start. It's beautiful. It's powerful. It appears as an absolute gigantic monster in perhaps the best season 1 anime episode. It's the first pseudo-legendary.

Eh, nothing too grand. I will say, though, back when I started reading The Smog, I never saw myself as someone who'd be interviewed. I never contributed anything to the site and didn't feel important enough. But I encourage readers to get up and contribute. Find something you're good at. If it's programming, have fun being an admin. If it's grammar or writing, join C&C or better yet, The Smog. If you're an artist, get involved with Smeargle's Studio and The Smog. The staff is ALWAYS looking for new talent... or at least I am ;)

I plan on it. Pleasure doing business with you, my super moderator, my captain, my king.