So, who are you?
My name is Mike Ripplinger. Anything you want to know about me that I want you to know, you can find from my homepage. As it pertains to Phantasy Star, however, I have been an active member of internet Phantasy Star fandom since May 1996. I rarely to never visit chat rooms, so my "home" on the net would have to be the Phantasy Star Discussion Board at The Phantasy Star Pages.

When did www.camineet.net first open?
www.camineet.net began in January 1998 as Mike Ripplinger's Phantasy Star Dream Cast. I had wanted my own Phantasy Star website for some time, but I didn't know what to do that hadn't been done already. (The internet already has 100 attempted remakes of The Phantasy Star Pages; it doesn't need one more.) One of my favorite discussion threads from the Phantasy Star Discussion Board had always been casting a big budget live action Hollywood movie of the Phantasy Star games, so I decided to make this the basis of my web site.

Originally, the "site" consisted of a single page (hosted in the webspace provided with my AOL account) that contained sixteen dream castings from Phantasy Star I and Phantasy Star II -- all twelve PCs from both of those games and four NPCs. On August 17, 1998, I added a section on the Dezorian language I created, the first non-Dream Cast addition to the site. From there, the site skyrocketed to contain Theory essays, Dream Soundtracks, my Dream Screenplay, the Image Compendium, and much more.

So where did the cool domain name come from?
With all of these new additions to the site, it no longer seemed right to simply call the site "Mike Ripplinger's Phantasy Star Dream Cast," not when the site was that but so much more. In July 1999, the site moved from its original home to www.camineet.net. I wanted to name the site after a place in the Algo star system, and what better place than the hometown of my all-time favorite Phantasy Star character, Alis Landale?

So Alis is your favorite character, eh? What's your favorite Phantasy Star game?
Without a doubt, Phantasy Star I. I still consider it the greatest video game ever made, even in this, the era of 4-disc super-RPGs loaded with real voices and FMV sequences up the wazoo. Phantasy Star I will always be the best.

When did you first get into Phantasy Star?
I received a Sega Master System for my 12th birthday in 1988. The next spring, I first played Phantasy Star, and I've been a die-hard fan ever since. More information on when and where I acquired/played the Phantasy Star games can be found on the My Stuff page.

What other RPGs/video games do you like?
I don't have much time these days for video games, so what few games I do play are almost always RPGs. Excluding anything with "Phantasy Star" in the title, my favorite RPG of all time would have to be Wild Arms. I'm just in love with that game. I've also played and enjoyed Final Fantasy VII, Miracle Warriors, Sword of Vermillion, and Pokemon Red. RPGs aside, some of my all-time favorite video games, in no particular order, are: Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Super Mario games, Tomb Raider, and Mega Man.

Who are the biggest influences on your sense of humor?
Okay, so this question has never been asked of me, but the smart ass attitude I employ throughout the site, and especially in the Dream Cast commentaries, wasn't born all by itself. Aside from my friends, my sarcasm is inspired by Talk Soup, David Letterman, The Onion (America's Finest News Source), Craig Kilborn, and Roe Conn and Garry Meier.

Do you own your own server?
I don't own my own server. The site is housed by Host Save, a web hosting company whom I highly reccomend. Tell 'em www.camineet.net sent you.

What programs do you use for HTML design and FTP? For graphics?
HTML Editor: I don't like to use HTML editors that display the page as you make it, never showing you a single line of code. (In the industry we call those WYSIWYG editors -- standing for "What you see is what you get" and pronounced "wizzy-wig.") Since I first started making web pages in 1996, I have always used a plain text editor in which I am responsible for all tags and code. As a matter of fact, I used to use a word processor (Microsoft Works), saving my pages in plain text format. However, I later used CuteHTML for a long time, as I'm a big fan of CuteFTP, but I now use Macromedia HomeSite 5 and couldn't imagine using anything else.

Graphics: Any time I play with images, and of course for the creation of my own images, I use Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe ImageReady 3.0.

FTP: GlobalSCAPE's CuteFTP is an awesome FTP client. I highly reccomend it, and personally, I enjoy it better than WS_FTP. It's a shareware program available for download from Globalscape.

WWW Browser: I check out my pages in several different web browswers to make sure they look good on any browser, but my browser of choice is Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and it should be your browser of choice, as well. It is by far the best browser on the market (but that's no surprise, it is made by Microsoft, after all, makers of the finest software around today), and I know, I've used 'em all!

Email and Newsgroups: Microsoft Outlook 2000. This is also the program I hotsync my Handspring Visor Deluxe with.

And in case you're wondering, the computer I do all this on is a Pentium III 933mHz with 256MB RAM running Windows XP Professional. Windows 2000 Professional was, in my humble opinion, the single greatest operating system ever created, and Windows XP Professional builds on top of that greatness.

Can you help me with Phantasy Star ________?
No. www.camineet.net isn't about gameplay help, it's a celebration of Phantasy Star. For gameplay help, consult The Phantasy Star Pages.

				Stop cowering! Men are such cowards!
Please send all comments and feedback to mike at ripplinger dot us