About The 6th Floor
If you came here looking for details on the JFK assassination, you’re in the wrong place. I’ll admit I’ve long been fascinated by conspiracy theories — the assassination included — but none of that lives here. Yes, the site shares its name with the location from which the “supposed” shots were fired, but that’s where the similarities end.
The 6th Floor was born in 1999, rooted in online computer gaming. Growing up, I was raised on Apple computers and later the Macintosh. Games for those machines were nearly nonexistent, while PC game titles filled entire store aisles.
In 1998, while living in Chicago, I started hearing strange sounds coming from my roommate’s PC at night — weapons firing, grenades exploding, screams, and chaos. The culprit was Quake II by id Software, and it gave me the gaming bug for good.
When I returned to California in 2000, I was a PC novice hungry for information on gaming and hardware. I stumbled across a LAN party website and found a local group that hosted sessions every Saturday called Netzwerk Terror. It didn’t take long to become a regular — and to start learning the ins and outs of both computers and competitive gaming.
Those Saturdays had a rhythm of their own. Regulars would arrive early, hook up their steering wheels, and race until every chair was filled. We’d pack 24 gamers into a one-bedroom apartment and play for 24-plus hours straight, fueled by pizza, Coke, and tequila. We never strayed far from Quake II — and eventually Quake 3 — along with mods like CTF, Action Quake 2, and Urban Terror.
The 6th Floor website launched around the same time, initially as a community hub for Action Quake 2, supplemented by my weekend LAN dispatches, level reviews, and general rantings. For a stretch I also served as Head Monkey of the Action Quake Map Depot (AQMD). When AQ2’s moment began to fade, I shifted the site’s focus to Urban Terror, a mod I was actively working on, offering reviews and tutorials for aspiring level designers.
As things tend to do, the site eventually went dormant. When I renewed the domain, I decided to reinvent it as a personal web log — freeing myself from any single topic. Now it’s a reflection of what actually occupies my time: amateur radio, cooking, beer, wine and gardening.
I spent nearly a decade helping develop the Quake III modification Urban Terror. Along the way I met a remarkable group of people and produced several internet radio shows, including a podcast called Urban Radio that ran alongside the game. In my spare time, I provided online match commentary for Inside The Game (now defunct), covering titles like Urban Terror and Medal of Honor. When I wasn’t casting matches, I was spinning 80s tracks and celebrating the greatest decade in music on my show Just Push Play.
In 2009, a friend recommended the documentary Forks Over Knives at a time when my health wasn’t where it needed to be — high cholesterol chief among the concerns. That film changed my life. I became serious about nutrition and eventually found my way to Dr. John McDougall’s program, built around starches, green and yellow vegetables, and whole grains. I describe my approach as living “plant strong” and am also a supporter of Julie Marie’s Protective Diet philosophy.
In the 2012–13 English Premier League season, I took up fantasy football management. It’s a different animal from the 30-plus years I’ve spent playing fantasy NFL, but the learning curve made it worthwhile. Over time my squads improved, and during the COVID years a group of us who shared a love of the game and craft beer formed the #FPLBeerClub on Twitter. When the pandemic wound down, so did some of the momentum — but the friendships stuck. Out of that community grew a series called #30SecondBeerReview, which you can still find on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube.
The 6th Floor is always evolving — categories, content, links, images. I’m always looking for something new to bring people together. As of May 2026, I’m still building out fresh content alongside a new look. I’d love to hear your thoughts: stoumi [at] the6thfloor [dot] com.
