My name is Jeff, also known as Cocoa Crusty. What does it mean you ask? Nothing! Am I dark in color so that I might fit the cocoa part? No, check the photo to the right. Am I a dirty or rather crusty individual? No, I bathe on a regular basis. I just wanted to choose a name for my Xbox Live gamertag that would stir up some conversation and hopefully get a chuckle out of some gamers out there.

My gaming career started early on at my grandmothers house playing Pong. Then a few years later my other grandmother got an Atari 2600 for all of the kids to play when we went over to her house. We played the usual games like Combat, Pitfall, and Pac-Man. After I started elementary school and found some friends that also liked playing Atari, we would play games like Spider Fighter, River Raid, E.T. (we never figured that one out), and Keystone Kapers.

Later on most of my friends moved on to the NES. My parents never thought that was a good idea so I would go to my friends houses and watch them play classics like Zelda, Castlevania, RBI Baseball, Metroid, and Contra. Near the end of the NES days my parents finally broke down and got me an Atari 7800. I had a few games that were 7800 specific, but basically this was just another way to play my 2600 games. I also had a few friends with a Sega system. The only game I remember playing on them were Sonic, Shinobi, and Wonder Boy.

After I turned 16, had a job, made money, and realized that pawn shops had cheap game systems, I purchased a Super NES. I used to play games like Super Mario World, Super Mario All Stars, Legend of Zelda, Mortal Kombat, NFL Quarterback Challenge, and F-Zero. Before I graduated High School, a buddy of mine got a Sega Saturn. This was the first gaming system I knew of that took CDs instead of cartidges. He only had one game though and that was Virtua Fighter 2. PC gaming was also big during this time with games like Sim City, Doom (1 & 2), Decent, Quake, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

I got married in 1998 and got a Play Station for Christmas from my wife. I enjoyed playing Driver (1 and 2), Nascar 1999, Cool Boarders 3. I really enjoyed the Play Station and wanted to get a PS2 until I went over to a friends house and he was playing an Xbox. After I played some co-op Halo with him and Crazy Taxi 3 I was sold. From that point forward I wanted an Xbox. My Xbox was given to me by my employer one year for Christmas. I have too many games to list for all of the systems listed above that I own, but especially for the Xbox. Some of my favorite Xbox games are Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War, Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, Project Gotham Racing 2, RalliSport Challenge 2, ESPN NFL 2K5, MotoGP 2.

My wife and I live in Texarkana, Arkansas and I work as a CIO for a local credit union. Aside from work and playing games on the Xbox, I enjoy traveling with my wife, playing drums, bass and acoustic guitar, messing with vehicles (car audio and performance) and hanging out with friends and family.