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Greetings from Cousin Mike in Wilmington, NC

Cousin Mike

By Cousin Mike
in Introduce Yourself!

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Cousin Mike Novice

Cousin Mike

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Hello everybody,

 

I'm new in the forums and wanted to introduce myself to everybody here! My name is Mike, I'm 41 years old and I live in Wilmington, North Carolina. I'm originally from Red Bank, New Jersey and have lived a lot of places like Florida, South Carolina, New Mexico, Texas and New York City. A lot of people like to call me Cousin Mike, or "Space Invader." I've been visiting this site and reading the forums for a while now but just recently signed up. When I come to the forums I enjoy watching YouTube videos from BTBfilms76, nosweargsmer and others.

 

I'm a hard core video game player and I love video games of ALL kinds. I'm really into emulating retro games. I had a modded Sony PSP with emulators, and now I play retro games on my smart phone modded with emulators that play classic systems. On the first of January I'm getting a new Emerson Android tablet to play retro games with emulation.

 

I also play a lot of modern gaming, especially Xbox 360. Some of my favorite Xbox games are Forza Horizon, Dirt 3, and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. If you'd like to play with me, my Xbox Live handle is "space invadar". I love getting on Xbox at night and playing with my friends. Their names on there are "JMK" and "FormerWeaponX".

 

Lately I love to play retro video games. They don't have all the violence and download time, and emulation is free. My first video game system was the Atari 2600 Jr. My dad brought it home for me one day, along with Space Invaders, Asteroids, Ms. Pac-Man, Enduro, and the original Pitfall. I got other video game systems later on, and now I like to collect and play Atari 2600, Atari 7800, NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and Game Boy Advanced. Those are my key game systems, and on average I have over 200 games per system.

 

One cool thing you may not know about me is that Justin is my good friend, and I was there to see the site being built. I've always been really into video games, and about 5 years ago I started hanging out a lot at Lost Ark Video Games. They have arcade games, pinball, used games and T shirts. One day I walked over to watch this big guy trying to set the world record on Out Run. It turned out it was Justin, and we got to talking about video games and became friends. Then it seemed like every time I'd go to the Lost Ark I'd see Justin playing arcade games or pinball. 

 

The more I hung out at the Lost Ark the better friends I got to be with Justin. I gotta say he became like a brother to me when I needed one most. When I was down on my luck he helped me with getting a new job and when I was in a car accident he drove me to and from my new job to make sure I didn't lose it. He became like a brother to me and is the big reason I joined the forums. He's been saying for a long time what a great bunch of people there are here and that I should come hang out and make friends. Today I decided I was ready to come find out for myself.

 

Sometimes Justin and I would hang out on Saturdays whenever he was in town. We'd go get sub sandwiches or meet up at the arcade and he'd order pizza like Spicoli for us to eat while we'd hang out playing games. I remember sometimes at the arcade he'd ask me to help him pick out games for prizes and he showed me a big set of buttons for people in the website.

 

Sometimes on Saturdays I'd go over to Justin's house and we'd play games for Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Lynx, Jaguar, Turbo Duo, Nintendo NES and Super Famicom. Some of my favorite Atari 7800 games Justin and I would play are Pole Position II, Dig Dug, Centipede, Xevious, and Food Fight. Some of my favorite NES games we'd play are Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and The Adventures of LOLO. My all-time favorite video games are the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES.

 

I also was there on the "maiden voyage" to see the site being made. I remember when it was just bare bones. One day I was at the arcade and Justin was telling me about this Atari video game website he wanted to make. He said he was designing it to be really nice and was really excited about it. He got me excited about it too. Every time I'd go over to his house I got to see the different stages of the website being born. The first time I saw it it was mostly a blank white page. It had the black bar at the top with the title and a little blurb of text. I remember the 4th time I saw it was the day he got all the fonts to work. That was a big day. I remember he showed me the page about Atari Jaguar and it had all the fonts nice and big with changing pictures at the top, and it really looked great. The site came alive for me that day and I could really see what he was making. I thought it was really cool. And just when I thought he was all finished he said there's another month to go to build the forums. When it finally launched I thought it looked beautiful, it's really nice and as good as it could possibly look.

 

Now, after 2 years, I'm finally ready to be a part of this wonderful community! I didn't join right away because I wasn't that good at typing, but I've gotten a lot better. Now I'm also starting to make YouTube videos which I can share here too. I'm excited to finally come home to a great community of wonderful people that loves playing video games as much as I do. I'd like to consider ALL of you my friends, and if you're ever in the area or on Xbox live I'd love to meet up with you for some good gaming! Here's to all the good times ahead!

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Mike

a.k.a. Space Invader

I'm Mike aka Cousin Mike aka Space Invader :invader: 
Find me on Xbox Live: space invadar

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Justin Gold Key Member

Justin

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WELCOME to Atari I/O Cousin Mike!!!!  :pole_position_blimp:  :pow:  :nintendo_mario_1up:  :invader:  :100:

 

It's huge to finally have you in the forums! You're among friends here, this is a really fine group of people. Everybody is friendly and welcoming and really into classic gaming and retro life in the same way you and I are. Everybody is here because they really want to be, and it's resulted in a great community. I think you're really going to like it here. 

 

The website has blossomed into an amazing community and I think you'll fit right in. The forums are meant to be like a "theme park" dedicated to classic gaming that we can visit for free any time day or night and be among friends. I think there are some areas of the forums that you'll really enjoy, you might want to check out the High Score Squad, the Scoreboard, and the Trading Post.

 

What you said was very kind, Mike. I could go through your post piece by piece and respond to everything you said but that would take a long time. Let's just say you were very kind to have said everything, and it's a privilege to have you here.

Atari Adventure Square Cherry Member

Atari Adventure Square

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Welcome aboard, Cousin Mike

 

yeah, this is a great, rather unique spot for chats and ponders about retro gaming of all kinds.

It figures that a site built with care for its communal, like-minded existence comes from a person who puts their self into it in more than just with code, but hearing about Justin's initilal days on this makes sense and is good to hear.

(Good job, Justin!)

 

Looking forward to hearing from you on all topics retro and new.

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