StormSurge

Thank you so much!! I’ll be sharing more prizes as they arrive.

Another prize!

Lots more coming!

Next prize. Set of 4, 8x10 arcade prints, suitable for framing.

Sadly, I've only played the original, Adventure of Link, Ocarina of Time & Link's Awakening (briefly). I'm partial to the original. Boring, I know. 🤓

Great! Thank you so much!!

I think Extra Life would be sufficient but let me investigate.

I realize that this year has been difficult for everyone, some more than others. I totally understand if you’re not able to make a financial contribution. (Although even $5 will get you entered for a prize! 😀) How does this sound? If you’re unable to make a financial contribution, but you share the info with friends & family via email, social media, carrier pigeon, whatever and someone who makes a donation thanks to your efforts, that donation will earn you entries into the giveaway.

Thank you @RickR!!

Thank you so much @socrates63! You pushed me past the 50% mark of my goal! I might have to increase that. 😀 There will be many more prizes announced as we go. Again, everyone who donates will win something, so hopefully I have to buy lots of prizes! I'm also working on stepping up my streaming presentation this year. I'm going to start testing overlays & such during my nightly sessions with my usual crew. If you don't mind lots of cursing, random chatter & lots of in-game whining, check it out nearly every night from 9 PM EST until around 11 PM. https://www.twitch.tv/therealstormsurge

First up, two of these! (I bought two, thinking I could keep one, because they're pretty cool & I just now realized I already have one sitting on my desk. Oh well!)

I'll add to the love of Ice Hockey & Bowling. I've always loved sports games (& still do!) but the 2600 is not where I turn to scratch that itch. 🙂

Fantastic!! Thanks Rick!

Thanks @Justin! First batch of prizes have been ordered! I’ll share details soon.

I’m back!!! Last year, Atari.IO was an integral part of helping me raise nearly $1,600 for the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. This year, I’ll be raising money for the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, MD. You can read more as to why I chose that hospital on my fundraising page. If you recall, I offered some interesting prizes to help encourage donations & it worked! (Last years thread: 2019 Extra Life) While I can’t promise anything as interesting as last year’s offerings, I will do my best to come up with some cool stuff. I’ll add to this thread as I acquire items. The process will work the same. Every $5 donated will equal one entry into the giveaway. The more entries you have, the better chance you have of winning. I’ll throw all of the entries into a random draw (which I will stream live & record) and select a draft order. Whoever has the first pick can choose whatever they’d like from the list. Second on the list can choose from the remaining prizes and so on until everything is gone. The giveaway & prizes will be limited to members of Atari.IO & the 2600 Game by Game Discord channel only, not to all of my donors (assuming that’s okay with both @Justin& @fergojisan ) PLEASE let me know either on this thread or via PM if you donated so I can include you. I will make sure that there is a prize for everyone who participates. I’m splitting up my 24 hours over two days (at least) this year (way too busy with work) & I will once again attempt to stream the proceedings. Game Days will be November 6 & 7 but I will classify as the dates approach. Here’s the link to my fundraising page: StormSurge Extra Life 2020 ----------- What is Extra Life?? It's a 24 hour gaming marathon to raise money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised over $70 million for sick & injured kids. All donations are tax-deductible.

I usually always miss out on presales for popular items but I’m buying the lede. The most amazing thing about this is that I somehow managed to keep a $400 gift card balance on Amazon for over a year, specifically for this purpose. I still have time to increase that amount & have it fully paid for by shipping time. This will be my first launch console since the Dreamcast. I’m not overly excited for this as I was for the DC but I’m sure that will change as launch day approaches.

I won last year @Atari Creepso please remove me so someone else can win one. Thanks & congrats on another great year of fundraising!

Great question @Gianna! I'm always feeling nostalgic. My mind spends so much time in the past. There's not one thing that makes me feel nostalgic, it's everything. My issue is that I used to just feel nostalgia from things from my childhood (late 70s & 80s) but now that I'm older, it's stuff from the 90's & early Aughts (sp?). It's the obvious things like music, classic video games, movies, TV shows, etc. It's revisiting my baseball card collection and touching cards that I haven't handled in 30+ years. It's watching a King of Queens rerun & realizing that the episode is now 20+ years old. It's watching a freaking episode of The Office & realizing that episode is 15 years old! And while realizing the ages of those shows, thinking back to what I was doing when they originally aired. Having all of those things trigger some sense of nostalgia for me is wonderful. I love being able to watch The Empire Strikes Back whenever I want. I love being able to play Yars Revenge. I find myself enjoying all of those things in an attempt to recapture the glorious feelings that I had when I experienced them for the first time. I can't describe it exactly, but it's the feeling I had on a random Saturday afternoon as a child, coming home from a visit to our local department store, sitting on the shag carpet floor of the living room, having the fuzzy TV tuned to a random NBA/NFL/MLB game, rain falling outside & opening my newly acquired Matchbox car or Star Wars figure or 2600 game or board game or coloring book or any number of awesome things that I was fortunate to have as the fabric of my childhood. Occasionally I'll get that feeling for a few seconds but it's never long enough. I feel lucky that I have those wonderful memories and I hope that I never lose them. So to answer your question, everything. 😀

Keep your eyes open for this stuff. LOVE it! It obviously has a nice little kick but not too bad. Incredible flavor.

Thanks @Justin! I'm looking forward to seeing what's coming!! Thanks for keeping the lights on!

Welcome!! @nosweargamerbeat me to it! Love your avatar!

I'm old enough to remember when Sunkist was released! Since I'm older, I'm converted to 99.999%*** diet soda. I realize that's not particularly good for me either, but in my mind, it's better than all the HFCS & calories that comes from regular soda. ***The exceptions are Mexican Coca Cola (real cane sugar!), Mountain Dew Pitch Black (if it ever comes back) and other interesting flavors that don't have a diet version.

I’m a junkie!

There's five lighthouses I can see within a quick walk from my house to the shore. The first is my all-time favorite, Race Rock: The story about the construction of the lighthouse is insane & Ghost Hunters filmed an episode there, but I'm not going to dignify that with a link. 🙄 Next up is New London Ledge Lighthouse. This one is a little farther away, but the ferry to FI passes right by it: The next in line (I'm going west to east) is North Dumpling Lighthouse (you can see it in the background of the Ledge Light photo). The cool story about North Dumpling is that the island is owned by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway. Check out his mini Stonehenge! Next in line is Latimer Reef Light. Nothing too fancy about this one, but it has a cool bell that chimes frequently. And finally, Watch Hill Lighthouse, which is in Westerly, RI. Taylor Swift has a home near that. 🙂 On a clear day, I can see Montauk Point Light on Long Island.