Introductions

[hansolo77]

Introductions all around! I saw over at EmuMovies he had a topic for this, and thought we should have one too.. So please, introduce yourself. How did you get into the scene? Where did you hear about GameEx? Whats the name of your first born? Who was President when you were born? Anything you want! We'd like to get to know you better.

[hansolo77]

I'll start things off with a direct copy of MY post from EmuMovies. It's a good read, to whoever cares...;

Well, I should probably introduce myself.

My real name is Aaron. I currently live my dad, and his new future wife. I say future, knowing full well that by the time I realize I have made this post, months from now, they'll probably be married, and this introduction no longer matters. But anyway... I go by hansolo77. Always have, and always will. Sorta like my dad back in the 80's. He was known as Captain Sulu on the old Atari BBS's. My real mom was known as Lady in Lace. Now that I'm older, I can see the reasons for these names, although at the age of 6, it never really dawned on me. Of course, Sulu has his own ship now, the USS Excelsior. So dad's name sorta doesn't fit well anymore. Maybe Captain Chekov woulda been better! Hehe. But I'm going on about things that aren't about me. I created the hansolo77 persona back when we had a Freenet, the local dialup internet available through our public library. When registering, I wanted a screenname that was cool, like Dad's. I decided to go with my favorite character from Star Wars (since Dad's was his favorite from Star Trek). Unfortunately, somebody had already taken hansolo, so I had to go with two 7's at the end. When I was on the Freenet, I participated in MUD's, and was a MOD in the MUD "Infinity", which I believe still runs today. I went by Lance in the MUD though, because hansolo77 was a bit out of the context for the MUD genre. When I wasn't playing in the MUD, I played on my brother's 3-part monster console.. the Sega Genesis/CD/32X. When I wasn't doing that, I played on Dad's Atari ST (where I logged into said MUD). Before that, we played on one of two of Dad's Atari 800 computers. He was a bit of a pirate back in his day. He worked in a small appliance repair shop in the mall, and they sold the Atari Cartridges. He would take a new, unopened game, and rip the ROM to a floppy disk. Back in those days, you could store probably 15 or so games on a single floppy disk. So he would do that, and then use their resealing machine to repackage the game so it looked brand new. We had probably 100 disks with 15 games each on them, so a LOT of games. When the Atari ST came to market, Dad was a big Atari dealer and bought one. He joined a local user group of pirates, where they traded copies of games with each other, and so, again, we had over 500 Atari ST games. When we weren't playing on the Atari's, we were over at our friends house playing on his Nintendo NES. When his parents finally got him a Sega Genesis, suddenly I was left in the dust to play on the classic Atari's and online MUDs. After the buzz of the 32X started to die down, my brother got his SECOND console for Christmas, the Nintendo 64. So we then had 2 Atari 800's, an Atari ST, the Sega Genesis/CD/32X, and the Nintendo 64. All of which belonged to other people. For myself, when the PlayStation finally came to market, I just had to buy one for myself to call my own. I was so impressed with the quality of the system, and that the controller was so much easier to use than the Nintendo 64. Of course, being that it was MY system, I was quick to find out how to do my own generation's version of pirating. I learned quickly from the internet, that you can use the SWAP method while using a Gameshark. I did that for a while, then the GoldFinger, which was similar, but was built using Yaroze, which bypassed the security checks inplace. I finally got a mod chip though, because I was sick of having to swap out a legit game to play a backup. Once I got my chip, the rest was history. I started my own user group at school and work. I was in highschool now, so the community available to me was really booming. I was charging $5 for a copied game, and $10 if they wanted a label/case to go with it. If they had a game I didn't, I did a fair 1 to 1 trade for free. I know I should be in jail for it, but it was all in good fun. I think overall, I only made about $50 bucks, and the rest were all just free trades. When it was all said and done, I've got a lot of Playstation games in 4 350-disk binders stashed in the closet. They still work on my chipped Playstation, but I've moved on to bigger, better things. When the Playstation 2 came out, of course I was eager to mod it and start my collection all over again. I never did get it chipped. My PS2 was one of the older generation ones, that had a lot of trouble reading CD's. That didn't stop me from getting a network adapter and participating in the online gaming. When I registered on the Playstation Network, somebody had actually already taken my hansolo77 name for their own, so I had to come up with something else. I chose ChewVodka. I like the way it rolls off the tongue, and the comments I get about it; "dude, you can't CHEW vodka.. oh wait, it's like CHEWBACCA!!! hehe I get it!". I participated in the Playstation Network's Gamer Advisory Panel, where you get prerelease games to beta test on the network. I met quite a few guys doing that, that are still friends to this day. We play on the Xbox 360 now. I never got a PS3. When it came down to decision time on which to get, a PS3 or Xbox 360, my deciding factor was; can I mod it to play backups? The original purpose of this decision wasn't because I wanted to pirate more games. I'm older and wiser now. I wanted the ability to play a backup, wilst keeping the originals safe. This actually turned out to be a GREAT idea. For those who don't know, from the GameEx forum, I'm a survivor of a house fire. It totally destroyed like 90% of my things. One of the things that didn't make it, was the ORIGINAL copies of like 6 of my Xbox 360 games. Microsoft said they wouldn't replace them, as their warranty doesn't cover "acts of GOD", which it wasn't, but whatever. All I have is my backups to play now. So backing up is a GOOD thing, and I recommend EVERYBODY do it. You never know when something disasterous could happen. So how did I get here, mixed up in all this ROM and emulating stuff? Well.... My 2nd job I had was at a computer Tech Support call center. People would call in having trouble getting their computers connected to the internet. It was a great job, cept for the management (but its like that everywhere you go). My direct supervisor was a really cool guy though. There would be extrememly slow nights, where we would just sit around sometimes for an hour between calls. On the weekends, our call center was used just as an emergency overflow (calls were so low, we were just there incase another call center got really REALLY busy, which almost never happened). On the weekends, it would sometimes be 4 hours between calls. So to pass the time, our way cool supervisor actually allowed us to install the FUSION Sega Genesis emulator. We would sit there and play bomberman all day against each other! I got busted though, and was playing Sonic Spinball during a "regular" day where calls were like 5 minutes between. So because of my ignorance, he had to scold me, and then we weren't allowed to play anymore on weekends. Bummer. But that didn't stop me. I still played them at home! Haha, take that management! Because of the pirate nature of my upbringing, I now wanted to collect EVERY ROM and EVERY EMULATOR out there. I then learned of GameEx, way back in its infancy. I was one of the very first people to have it. I loved the way it allowed me to just go right in, browse to the game I want to play, and just play it, without having to do a lot of work. Then I saw some videos where people were using it to display ARTWORK, like boxes, screenshots, etc. I thought this was a great idea, and started getting those. Shortly after, I became aware of Circo and his videos. This is just the next greatest thing! When I first knew of Circo, he was a bit of a shy guy, a lurker in the GameEx forums. He didn't really say much, and it looked like everybody was just taking advantage of all his hard work. He had this website, but it wasn't at all what it is today. With that being said, I'd like to express my own thanks to Circo, for all the help he's provided the community and to me personally in fulfilling my (apparent) life long dream!

[Adultery]

You don't wanna hear my life's story. It ends badly.