The TRUTH, for those that wish to seek it...

Over the next four years Neal and George grew to know each other pretty well. They hung out together, went to concerts, watched movies, ate meals, went on Bucket Runs, you know, all the pretty standard stuff that makes up dorm life. They didn't hang out excessively, since Neal was a busy pre-law student and George was a computer nerd that spent way too much time in the computer lab, but the times that they shared were somehow magical (or hallucinatory). George and Neal shared a love of many similar types of music, movies, and even some intimate moments where they talked about girls, unrequited love, and potential soul mates... In a very manly way, of course.

After George and Neal graduated from UIUC they each went their separate ways, starting careers, marrying two very understanding, patient, wonderful women (one each, not two each), and eventually breeding and continuing their genetic lines. Through this period, they occasionally exchanged emails, just to keep in touch.

Then Facebook was invented. Surprisingly, not by George or Neal. In fact, it would be a few years before they even joined Facebook. But once they did, they quickly found and friended each other. Because what's more important than digitally rekindling an old friendship? I'll tell you, not much, that's what.

After about a year of sharing pictures, status updates, jokes, and birthday wishes on each other's walls (remember when Facebook had walls instead of timelines?) Neal discovered that Facebook had a way to list how you knew a friend. These were the generic "How Do You Know" fields, which no longer exist (Why? Were they so horrible Mark?). Neal listed that he knew George because they "lived in Sin in 1998". George added that they also "lived in a van down by the river (but we swear nothing steamy happened) from 2004 to 2009". And thus, things quickly escalated out of control. The entries became more and more amusing and fantastical. Within a few days, possibly hours, they had filled in the entire "How Do You Know" section, including the 65535-character limited "Details on how you know each other" section. OK, it actually took a little more than two months, but the time seemed to fly by.

In April they decided to move the updates to a Note so they could keep adding to the documentation of their delusions. It was at this time that George named the epic account "The Grand Saga of George and Neal's Adventures Through Time and Space (and Pudding)!". However, the best part about moving these updates into Notes was the ability to add images. This greatly enhanced their ability to tell their strange, strange tale and over the course of several months they continued to add new updates as well as add images to many of the past updates. Then in August of 2009 Neal added an update about putting an end to worldwide tortoise hunger with an image containing a url for a website that just had to be created. So George used his nerdly abilities to register the domain and build a website to chronicle the slowly unraveling story, and www.george-and-neal-are-awesome.info was born.

Through the course of the following days, months, and years the updates to the tale slowly grew less fervent, but kept spurting forth anyway. During this slow time period several enhancements were made to make the evangelism of this tall tale greater and more widespread. The appearance of the website was improved slightly. Downloadable PDFs of the different parts of the adventure were made available, including a several-hundred-page document containing the entire saga (to date). The chronicles were even turned into various other ebook formats (including Mobi, ePub, PRC, and Lit files).

Probably more important to mention is that during this slower period, George and Neal decided to meet in person. It was a little awkward at first, kind of like meeting that internet stalker you thought was a super model but turned out to be a weird guy living in his neighbor's basement because his internet service provider has denied him access at his own home, but eventually George and Neal's wives agreed to it. Luckily the two women hit it off great (they probably had a lot of sympathy for each other) and their sons decided they would make excellent ninja fighting partners. So, the first encounter was not the last. As their families grew George and Neal continued to force them to endure live action portrayals of their favorite Saga entries several times a year. This greatly amused George and Neal and gave the wives and kids time to rehearse the excuses they would provide to authorities in the event that George and Neal were ever hijacked and interrogated by spies.

Then in February of 2013 "The Grand Saga of George and Neal's Adventures Through Time and Space (and Pudding)!" began the greatest step so far in its evolution. In an effort to make the single webpage more relevant, George began building a dynamic, much more interactive, webpage to accommodate the swelling legend. As a result of his efforts, each entry now has its own unique page, social sharing is easier than ever, entries are tagged with keywords and titles to make finding similar entries almost pleasurable, and you can even search the site for your favorite phrases. And the site looks a lot cooler, too.

But things didn't stop there. In March of 2013 something happened that should have happened long before. Why they didn't do this sooner is anyone's guess, but finally instead of George and Neal each maintaining their own copies of The Saga in their own Facebook Notes, a Facebook Page was created at www.facebook.com/George.Neal.Saga and all the past updates are being moved from the notes into the Page. This seems like a much better way of disseminating their important story and their only excuse for not doing it sooner is that they didn't really feel like it.

But this is not the last chapter in this story. In fact, far from it. Updates will continue to be added to the story. Ebooks will continue to be created, and with any luck actually distributed. And there are plenty more developments in the works (think 'educational resources', 'multimedia extravaganzas', and 'fashion trends'). Some may pan out, others may not, and there will most likely be some surprises, too. So, keep your eye out for whatever may happen in the future! (Or past, 'cause that's how they roll…)