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After a jabbering in the chat for a bit i figured why the hell not ask everyone?
Who knows maybe RFG Around the World will turn into another periodic segment whenever i want to do something you know... world wide.
I've only lived in 3 cities (technically) but all of them were relatively significant or in the case of "The Island" at least interesting. I'm just going to rip info from Wiki (and add a few little notes of my own) that i find most interesting about each place. I'll also be including a link to the main page if people are more interested in any of them 
They are in order of when i first lived there.
Feel free to follow suit and/or leave some thoughts/comments
Springfield, Ma USA - http://en.wikipedia.org/w...pringfield,_Massachusetts
The first Springfield in the USA.
Has 2 nicknames The City of Homes and the City of Firsts
Birthplace of Basketball and home of the Basketball hall of fame.
Birth place of Dr. Suess aka Theodor Geisel
4th largest city in New England
Lost part of its land to Conn due to land disputes
Birth place of Smith&Wesson. Headquarters still located here.
Springfield Armory was the first National Armory. Produced then developer weapons up to Vietnam War. Now is a museum and shares its grounds with Springfield Community College
Shays' Rebellion
Springfield Airport was home to Granville Brothers Aircraft best known for the trophy and speed record holding Senior Sportster series of racing aircraft during the "Golden Age of Airracing"(The air port went bankrupt in 1934 a strip mall movies theater and various other shops and buildings are where it once stood. One of these buildins was a gamecrazy i worked at.)
Duryea Motor Wagon Company built and sold the first gasoline powered automobile. The brothers where born and lived in Springfield.
Indian Motorcycles had a factory here 1901-1953 (one of my great grandfathers worked there when he came over from sweden) the building is now low income/HUD housing.
Home to Forest Park (and the Bright Nights Festival) one of the largest municipal parks in the USA.
Port Aransas, Texas USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Aransas
At the 2000 census the population was 3,370 the land area is 8.8 sq mi (22.8 km2). The census is actually relatively flawed since many of those "residents" are just part timers who owned condos or second houses. The actual number of full time residents was probably under 1,000.
Elevation 7 ft
Discovered in 1519 by a Spaniard on commission by the governor of Jamaica.
First recorded permanent settler in Port Aransas was Capt. Robert Ainsworth Mercer of Lancaster, England. Established a sheep and cattle ranch known as El Mar Rancho in 1853 or 55.
Port Aransas claims to be one of the most popular vacation spots in Texas. (I lived there it was. Especially since Galveston and Padre Island are still recovering from Hurricane Ike)
While i lived there the only high school on the island had a 100% graduation rate. The senior class had 60-70 students.(Possibly less.)
Corpus Christi, Texas USA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi,_Texas
18th Largest city in Texas
The latin translation means Body of Christ.
Selena was murdered here by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar.
Corpus Christi actually owns part of the aforementioned island. It was owned by the state and went up for auction the city of Port Aransas was unable to come close to winning the bid.
NYC attempted a law suit against Corpus because of T-shirts being sold saying "I
This is the second (technically third) installment of The People of RFGeneration. I went with one of our Canadian members Link41 aka Aaron . It should be noted that the number of members who live in Canadia is small (18 members on the World Map, which more people need to use so i would know how accurate i am being...) but growing. Before they grow any larger we must absorb them into the U.S.of A... and steal their health care!
I've talked with him both inside and outside of the chat and had a pretty strange and interesting convo, mostly related to his college classes. So I decided he could be the next at bat.
Alright lets get to it I guess.
Q:How did you find RFGeneration?
A: I was looking for a site to document my collection online back around Christmas '08, and a fellow member of this site, suggested RFGeneration.
Q:What made you join?
A: I took a look at the site, after receiving info from sunfireman. I was amazed at all the collectors that were here, not only that, but the Database was loaded with games I had and/or needed.
Q:What made you stay?
A: Honestly? The forum and the chat. I am in the chat almost everyday, also I enjoy having my collection right at my fingertips! 
Q:Have you met or personally know any of the other members of the website?
A: I know sunfireman, he is also a parrysounder. I am starting to get to know lots of other members, that is why I'm on the chat so much.
Q:Are you an active game collector? If so anything specific?
A: I am an active game collector, I currently have 11 consoles, and 314 games. I collect alot of Nintendo games and consoles. I am however looking to start collecting the Sega consoles and possibly the Atari consoles. I am looking to catch up to den68, his collection is massive!
Q:Whats your favourite game or series? Why?
A: I have to pick The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time as my favourite game, as for my favourite series, I would go with either: Zelda, Resident Evil, Metroid, or Final Fantasy. Ocarina got me into gaming back in 1998, when it came out. I played everyday after school. After I beat the game I was like "I wonder if any other games are good?" and the rest is history. I love alot of game series, so I narrowed it down to four!
Q:Why is the chat your second home!?!
A: I like meeting new people, and discussing new games. I happen to have found a nice community here, I like chatting on the IRC, and posting on the forum. I have made a few friends on here so far, I'm very impressed with the site thus far.
Q:What are your passions?
A: I LOVE the outdoors, biking, snowmobiling, four-wheeling, swimming, reading, my morning jogs, my schooling, video games, my family, my friends, going to bar with my friends. I guess that pretty much sums it up. I am certainly a pretty common guy
Q:What do you do outside of RFG?
A: I am currently attending school for forensics, I also work part-time at a store 99% of you have never even heard of. Giant Tiger is where I work, it is fun. I like to go and spend time with the girlfriend and my family whenever I get the chance. I have four brothers, so I am used to having a shadow
Q:What made you decide to go into forensics?
A:At first,I just wanted to become a cop, but I soon realized I wanted more. Over the past few years,I became a fan of CSI, I was amazed at the procedures that went into solving crimes. I enrolled for the course in 2007 and I haven't looked back. 
Q:What is the creepiest thing you have learned so far from this course?
A: lol, gross is a pretty loose term in forensics. I thought assisting in autopsy's would be the worst, but as it turns out there was something worse. I had forgot that after a DB has been dead for around an hour, his muscles begin to relax and urine and feces then come out. That happened during my first examination of a dead body, needless to say I was one of the many students who threw up in class. Not such a great day.
GAMING FIRSTS UPDATE
So i thought of some questions a few nights ago at work. One of my coworkers asked me what the first game i beat was and then the rest of these popped into my head in rapid succession. They will be standard from now on When Eddie sends me back the response i will update his interview as well
Q: What was the first game you played and on what system and how old were you?
A: The very first game I played was Super Mario Bros on NES. I was on my March break in 1995, and my family was visitng some relatives down south and I went to see what my cousins were doing up in their room, it turns out they were playing two player SMB. I just stood in awe over the game, it was like a cartoon only 100 times better!
Q:First console owned?
A: I received my first console at Christmas 1998. I got an Nintendo 64 and a copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. I was hooked on games from that point on! I would rush home from school as fast as possible to play more! I was addicted.
Q:First game you bought yourself?
A: Well I bought my first game and bought my first conole at the same time. I purchased a PS2 in 2003 and I bought WWE Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth to go with it. In the months that followed, I had started to build my collection into the one you can see today.
Q:What made you decide to buy that particular game?
A: I was a HUGE fan of WWE up until 2006, then I jumped to UFC and TNA. I thought the games was awesome, having had a few N64 wrestling games. I wanted to see what the next gen was going to bring to the table.
Q:First game you beat?
A:...hmm. I know! Pokemon Red. I had borrowed my friends Game Boy Color while he went to Florida with his family, so I promised I would get him some good pokemon. I beat the game in just 2 days, I did set him up with the legendarys, who I caught with master balls. I used that missingno cheat on Cinnabar Island, and made 99 master balls!
Q:First time you wanted to destroy something because of a game?
A: I wanted to break my NES Zapper before....I just hate that Duck Hunt dog soooooo much!
This is my first interview so be gentle
I had in mind a couple of people that i wanted to start this out with. I ended up starting with St0rmtk421 (aka Eddie). I chose him because he is and has been and still is a very important and integral part of this fine website. But I feel very few people know of him or if they do they don't know much about him.
Many years ago (about the same time RFGen went to MySpace and Wikipedia...)
It was rumored that this was the only known picture of this
mysterious individual.
[img width=200 height=294]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/staff/18.jpg[/img]
Now without any further adieu....
How did you find RFGeneration?
I knew Mike Collins since grade school, so when he told me he was putting a website together for video games, I volunteered to help out. We started talking about creating a games database, and I wrote up a simple search page and game pages. Then we talked about having collections, and it kinda steamrolled from there.
What made you join?
I've always enjoyed video games, even though I never had any real consoles growing up (became more of a PC gamer as a result). I was just learning how to program websites at the time, so when Mike mentioned he was working on a website for video games, it seemed like a perfect opportunity for me.
What made you stay?
Well when I was the only coder for the site I kind of had to stick around to make sure things keep working... But seriously I knew a lot of the original founders and for some reason we've always had such a great community around this site which has always made me want to continue helping out and being a part of it.
Have you met or personally know any of the other members of the website?
Obviously Mike (Lord Nepenthean), and of course the man who has since stepped up to help captain the ship in his stead (TraderJake), and The Evil Leon, all of whom I have known since grade school. I also know Hydrobond, The Maligned Leon, SFS/Three, Seamar, Shimra, Maccabeus, Mrs. C, and MPHDeltaForce. A couple of years ago at Cinciclassic I had the pleasure of meeting Den and Sauza in person, both of whom are great guys.
What sort of work do you do on/for the site?
Back in the day I was the lone programmer who maintained the search, collection, and submission tools. Since then Dave has joined in and has rewritten the new submission system, the blogs, and many other new features. I still maintain and work on the collection and search systems, as well as some other administrative stuff.
Are you an active game collector? If so anything specific?
Can't really say I'm a collector of games. As I said I was more of a PC gamer and I love finding the old shareware games online and giving them a go every once and a while. But as for collecting games, I really don't do that.
Whats your favorite game or series (or even genre if your like me and have trouble pining down specifics.)? Why?
Being an engineer, I've always enjoyed strategy games, RTS in particular. One of my neighbors had the old Genesis game Herzog Zwei back in the day and I always loved taking him on in that game. Another of my favorite RTS games was a little known PC/PS game called Warzone 2100 (which is open source nowadays, so you should all go download it )
What do you do outside of RFG?
I'm currently going to school at the University of Cincinnati to pursue my masters in Computer Engineering.
What are you passions?
Gaming wise, I always enjoy a good LAN party or playing a game of rock band/guitar hero. I also enjoy movies (have a projector in my basement) and I've always been interested in photography as a hobby as well.
So in closing I would like to share one of my favorite(and probably earliest) RFG work related quotes from St0rm:
"Alright people, I didn't make this so you could all tell me how cool I am. I made it so that you can create and share your collections.
SO USE IT!! "
So we know a bit about some of the people here on RFGen. But mostly we just know their username or handle.
I was thinking about interviewing the members of RFG maybe so people could get a better sense of each other, learn something interesting, find some random commonality maybe?
I don't want your phone numbers, addresses or even your social security* or bank account information*.
Basically what this blog boils down to is what do you want to know about each other or let others know about yourselves?
Who do you most want to see interviewed?
What kind of questions would you be curious to have answered?
This won't be limited to staff or donors or members. Those who are active on the site, blogs, boards or our long time (and new) drifters/trolls/
Hopefully this will turn into a tome of many (or maybe even all) of our members who make RFGen what it is.
The basic questions I would like to ask are:
How did you find RFGeneration?
What made you join?
Whats your favorite game or series? Why?
What do you do outside of RFG?
So what does everyone else think?
*Though if you are interested in donating me this information i will be sure to only sell it to the highest bidder or keep it to myself 
WARNING!: This may be uninformed, biased, offensive, and incoherent. Enjoy
After playing some N64 and SNES today i was VERY disappointed.
Not with the games i was playing but with the fact that many of the newer console games i have been playing have been garbage.
I don't know if maybe it is nostalgia, or maybe i just happen to buy all the shitty newer games.
I just feel that the "magic" of most games is missing now. I could probably count on my digits how many games i have played in the last 6-8 years that i have invested a real length of time in.
Take out Super Smash, Mortal Kombat, Halo, Pokemon, and RPGs that i have actually found enjoyable enough to finish and that takes me down to probably my fingers alone.
Am i the only person who feels this way?
I know there are alot of people on the boards buying games for *multiple new platforms*. How many of them would you say you have sat down and played for 50+ hours? And was this out of actual enjoyment? Or out of necessity for completion, gamer points, or to clean up some of your backlog?
I like to think i can get at least 1 enjoyable hour of game play for every dollar i spend on a game.
Pretty much from the Gamecube(You can throw PSX and PS2 in for good measure) on it seems like the crap to awesome ratio has **skyrocketed along with the prices**.
It seems that the games people are spending any real amount of time playing anymore are the heavy hitters, Halo, GoW, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, WoW, etc, etc.
I guess my major problem is with the sheer volume of games coming out, all the cool "innovations", there should really be more of an effort on making things people will truly enjoy rather than trying to make a quick buck and fuck over the poor consumer who is lied to about the actual quality of a product.
*I sadly only have the DS and Wii which could possibly have the highest shit to acceptable game ratio. Then again i don't even try to find anything decent on the ***PS3...*** so who knows
**I know not entirely true i spent 60$s on new N64 games and i am fairly certain SNES and Genny got that high too
*** Tony that PS3 jab was in your general direction if you bother to read this drivel
So the apartments finally called me back!!!
Yesterday morning about 4 hours after i was complaining that it was 70$s well spent on application fees.
They said they would call us back after Xmas before the new year.
Needless to say we weren't holding out much hope when the new year rolled around and almost a week passed.
But they said yesterday it was ready for us to start moving in. Soon as i go pick up the keys the lease starts and rent is due.
559$ a month for 1080 sq. ft
2 bedroom 1bath
we pay electric
a portion of the water
oodles of drawers and cabinets
Really looking forward to getting in there.
I'm just not sure what day this week i am going to decide to start bringing things over there.
So i have been posting about moving into this awesome 2bedroom 2 batth apartment in a little "community" it looked aweseom and was very affordable(under 500 a month).
We went out under a week ago to talk to them and pick up the paper work and take care of all the other happy horse shit that is involved with renting an apartment. They said they would hold one of the 2 rentals for us so we could get back-paystubs for proof of income.
Today i picked up 2 money orders(1 for each of the forms we had to fill out) for 13 bucks. Drive the 45 mins- an hour out there to be told that YESTERDAY they took deposits on BOTH of them to be rented.
But its ok because they still have a couple 1 bedrroms that will be opening up or a 2 bed 2 bath for almost 800 a month. Because i want to spend 2 weeks pay on rent and car bills alone.
The girls we had dealt with then asked me again for my name and number which pissed me off even more since we had left it last time and they were so willing to help out and take care of this that and the other thing.
But not enough to call me before i drove all the way out their like an asshole to put money down on the rooms they rented to someone else. Or even bother to remember that either of us had even been there for that matter.
I'll keep it short and sweet.
I put in almost 10 hours today and will still probably get bitched out tomorrow when i go into work tomorrow.
I came in a little early to help because the store is swamped with tourists(3 day weekend zOMG!!!) and was asked by the manager to stay an extra hour till the store closed(midnight) so i could help get everything done by a reasonable hour.
Since my coworker decided to spend much of her shift yakking on her cellphone with all her "boyfriends" and another person we work with i made an exacutive decision and left after restocking the coolers which were close to empty again.
Leaving her to sweep, mop, clean everthing, front and face everything, inside trash and all reports.
And i just bet i will once again be the one written up for not staying late enough. I am the only person who gets anyshit about how i do my work and the only person who has been written up in christ knows how long.
But i am the only person who gets everything done when i work aloe, comes in to help with the work load when they need it, and spends more than half my sift actually working.
And yes compared to how much i could have ranted and raved this was short and to the point if not a little scatterbrained and fragmented....
So i am going to try and fly back to Mass end of November sometime before Thanksgiving and drive back to Texas in my own car(FINALLY MY CAR WILL BE MINE AGAIN!).
Tickets leaving Corpus look to be in the 290-310$ range. Ones leaving out of San Antonio are 80 or so bucks cheaper but the money spent on gas would kill any and all savings probably plus some since SA is over 3 hours away.
ANYWAYS THE INTERESTING PART:
I know the first time around there were a bunch of people who had mentioned i had been relatively close by them. Once things get more solidified maybe on the way back to Texas i could meet up with some RFGeners.
I want to try and get 2 weeks off so i can spend almost a week @ home(MA) and take an easy week drive back to home(TX).
So if you litter the states in between there get in touch. It would be cool to meet up with some of the other members. Hell i could probably get a Trip Tik from AAA and have destinations thrown on there to hit on my way down.
Right now i think my trip will look something like this picture:
[img width=600 height=361]http://a62.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/65/l_92ad0d6e9d920d8fb9e56b4e48e1d9b5.jpg[/img]
This is just a preliminary map of course...
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