User:TSA@legacy41957738

Note: There is a biography page about me already, but I didn't write it. Some anonymous person created it, and it's been tweaked by a few people since.

Biography
My name is Michael Damiani, but I typically go by Mike to everyone who knows me. I was born on March 5th on Long Island, which is part of the state of New York. When I was five years old, my family moved to Dallas, Texas, where I lived most of my life. After graduating from the University of Texas, I moved out to San Diego, California, to begin my job hunt. I eventually landed my first professional career a few months later and ended up in Orange County. After spending two years there, I wound up in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, where I currently reside.

Online Biography
I first got into the bane of humanity's future known as the internet back in 1993 when I was visiting family friends back in New York. They had just gotten something known as America Online, which let you use a computer to go to these "documents" that were created by other people, and you could read them. You could also get news from various places instantly, and talk to people through electronic messages known as "email". A year later, we got a new computer and I put America Online on it. Thus began my foray into the unknown...

Origin of TSA
Most people online, outside of my immediate friends, know me by the online handle/alias "TSA". When I first got online, my original screen name was ThePro. I used that name because I thought I was good at video games and it was the handle I used at laser tag events as a kid, as well as for high scores in arcades (I put in PRO). However, in high school, my teammates on the football team gave me the nickname "The Silent Assassin" because I hardly talked, but was known for being the best "gamer" in school. Most of them associated gaming with shooters, so that's where the Assassin part game from.

I kept the moniker for years primarily because I was a huge Metal Gear fan, and it sort of applied to Solid Snake, my favorite video game character. However, as I became more entrenched with the Zelda community over the years, I eventually turned the name into The Silent Adventurer since it could apply to Link, the mute hero fo the Zelda franchise. Additionally, Hitman 2 came out and had the subtitle "Silent Assassin", which pissed me off because everyone began thinking I liked Hitman, and I hate it.

However, as I expanded beyond Zelda, I simply kept the name "TSA" and made it stand for absolutely nothing, just as AOL has done. Unfortunately mere months after adopting this, the US government established the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. This has caused confusion amongst new people I meet online, and on numerous occasions people have asked if I work for them. However, since I have 15 years of history as "TSA", and because I came up with the name first, I have not changed it.

Ironically, my youngest brother informed me that back at my high school, some of his friends who are into gaming know me as "TSA", and since I left the school, apparently the name is still discussed because there's some stupid urban legend about how I went on to work for Nintendo and I was the kid from the movie "The Wizard" or something. That's not true, but I'll continue to let them think it is.

AOL Days (1993-1995)
As mentioned before, I got on AOL back in 1994. I was immediately drawn to Nintendo Power Source, Nintendo's AOL channel, and GamePro Online on AOL. I was active on both their bulletin board systems, and I also started my own AOL Member Club known as the World's Elite Gaming Member's Association, or WEGMA. I had a few people sign up, and we discussed beating games with high scores and doing various tricks in games.

Sometime in 1995, I unfortunately made the mistake of claiming I knew somebody who worked for AOL in a public chat room. A watch dog (nick name for AOL chat mods back in the day) was present, and kicked me offline and issued me a 7 day ban for "impersonating AOL staff". My parents called up AOL when we couldn't sign on, and they reported the account was banned for violating the Terms of Service. They re-activated my account, but my parents pulled the plug on AOL and I would go internet-less for a year.

Prodigy Days (1996-1997)
After my hiatus, we got a new computer in late 1996 that had a trial version of Prodigy. It allowed a 90 day trial of the service. I got online again, and quickly found most of my old keeps were gone (GamePro moved to a web address, Nintendo Power Source did the same and shut down their community area, and my AOL page was long gone). I had known that Lycos was a search engine from my time online before, and used it to seek out new sites. I did initially find Zelda Headquarters at this time, but I was not staff and was merely a fan of the site.

Cornerian Elite Force (1997)
However, I did stumble across a site called the Cornerian Elite Force. It was a Star Fox fan site run by a guy who lived close to me in Texas. I was really into Star Fox at this time (Star Fox 64 was coming out), and so I got involved. I helped write guide pages for the games, and eventually submitted high scores for the game. There was also a "ranking" system for members, based on the military ranks you earn over your career, and the level of participation was unlike anything I had seen.

During this time, a member named StarFoxAlpha got in touch with me, and let me know he had a bigger fan site known as The Lylat Alliance, and wanted to know if I had any interest in their group.

The Lylat Alliance/Tales from Nimbus(1997-1998)
StarFoxAlpha welcomed me into The Lylat Alliance, where I met several people would were very important to my formative years as a "webmaster". He, along with FrankenRoc from the Cornerian Elite Force, taught me about web hosting, HTML, and other basic internet stuff that is common place for a five year old today. While writing articles for The Lylat Alliance, I began to practice creating my own HTML pages as well, which I would submit for the site.

After a year of being with this crew, and posting on our message board - one of the first of its kind that was not a BBS (bulletin board system), I was formally asked to be a part of the epic community project known as Tales from Nimbus. I had not seen anything else like this back then, nor have I seen anything like it since. Imagine taking the Zelda community, turning it into a fan fiction, where we all had avatars and went on adventures, but it was Zelda themed.

My character, The Silent Assassin, was a ninja fox, and StarFoxAlpha drew numerous sketches and wrote me into the plot to be a significant "vigilante" hero type, though a supporting role to the main cast. I would say that this was the most fun I ever had online, and I've noticed that at this age, which was high school years for me, is when most people going online are into these types of things (fan art, fan fiction, message boards for the purpose of social chatter, etc). I believe a lot of this stuff is either still online, or you can find it via Archive.org.

Tripod Fan Sites (1997-1998)
I did a brief stint on Tripod trying to run my own three fan sites, The Mushroom Kingdom, The Lylat System, and The Kingdom of Hyrule. They were very basic fan pages, with very basic info and were my attempt at trying to learn more HTML and web hosting. I only did it for a year, and they are long gone with no trace (not even Archive.org could find them).

Zelda Headquarters (1998-1999)
I said earlier that I did find ZHQ.com back in 1996, but I was just a reader. I think I got my questions published in a few letters sections leading into 1998, when I finally began getting my own articles published on the site.

Armageddon Games Network
According to his own statements, TSA freelanced through most of 2000 as a contributor to various Zelda fan sites. Finally in August 2000, TSA joined the Armageddon Games Network (AGN) community and became involved in the Zelda Classic project. According to the archives on the current forum, TSA rose as high as an administrator in the staff before his departure. He also created several custom quests for the project, as well as organized an official "Third Quest" contest.

After an apparent falling out with the staff, stemming from post count and forum management issues, he left the community in late 2002.

Zelda Headquarters 2
TSA was documented as saying he wanted to revive Zelda Headquarters and was an outspoken denouncer of the original site staff, claiming they "abandoned" the site and let it die. Despite Conrad Vanderwoude taking most of the remaining Zelda Headquarters staff to his own fan site, Hylia.com, TSA believed that the original Zelda Headquarters could be revived by himself.

After claiming to contact Niels Hooft for a year for his permission, and failing to get any response, TSA created the fan site Zelda Headquarters at the domain ZHQ2.com. According to ICAAN records, ZHQ.com went unclaimed by Niels Hooft in 2003 and was picked up by an internet domain reseller. Thus, he settled for the ZHQ2.com domain, as well as registered the domain ZeldaHeadquarters.com

Initially, the site, launched in March 2003, reused nearly all the old content in terms of artwork and other media, though the site design was completely the work of TSA. After gaining some following, Niels Hooft, as well as the staff of Hylia.com, took notice of the site and voiced their complaints. Niels denounced the site and outright accused TSA of theft on his Dutch blog. TSA confronted the accusations by claiming he tried to contact Niels for a year with no response, to which Niels claimed despite the communication issue, TSA still had no right to just use the content from the original site.

In response to all of this, TSA removed all content associated with the original site but kept the site name. From late 2003 until late 2005, the site underwent numerous redesigns and content shifts. However, the site never reached the acclaim level of the original Zelda Headquarters, and most other webmasters and colleagues, as well as the fanbase, regarded the site as an average fan site, according to numerous annual site awards and traffic records from the time.

GANNON-BANNED
Sometime in 2003, around the time TSA created Zelda Headquarters, he launched a spoof site known as GANNON-BANNED. According to his own statements, he claims the term spawns from the "GANNON" award from Camp Hyrule (no longer an active award) which was awarded to the participant with the worst spelling. Additionally, he claimed the most widespread mistake made in the community was the misspelling of Ganon's name (typically misspelled GANNON). It evolved with more mistakes or issues in the community.

Eventually, though, the term became widely used in the community, though it mostly had a negative impact. Many used the term as a flame or flame bait, and the term's use was banned on several sites, including GameFAQs. Eventually the use died down, but even now when people spell Ganon incorrectly on major message boards, the term pops up.

The Hylia
Apparently these facts had not eluded TSA himself, as in October 2005 he abandoned Zelda Headquarters altogether. He was quoted as stating that he was tired of being harassed by people about trying to rip off Zelda Headquarters, and wanted to prove he could create a Zelda fan site on his own that would rival the best.

Initially he drew minor criticism from the Hylia.com staff for the name choice, but his partner, Martin Anderson, confirmed that the name was actually prompted by their talks, though this is only hearsay and not concrete. Despite this, the site took on a direction that was more news and community oriented, abandoning traditional Zelda content for more frequent updates.

The Hylia was one of a handful of sites that sprung up in 2005 in the wake of the "blog" boom, and followed on the heels of the hugely successful Hyrule.net, another Zelda fan site that focused on media and news updates. The two sites actually would become bitter rivals, but the two sites revolutionized the Zelda fan site premise.

In 2006, The Hylia shifted from Zelda-only to expand to cover all things Nintendo. The site evolved into am ore blog oriented premise, and its popularity skyrocketed, especially after E3 2006 when the site provided numerous videos and updates about the highly anticipated Twilight Princess.

Speedruns
In 2003, TSA gained arguably his biggest notoriety by performing speedruns of the various The Legend of Zelda titles. In 2003, he set the world record for fastest completion of A Link to the Past by beating the game in under two hours. The achievement was reported all over the internet, and for the next two years TSA's name was synonymous with Zelda Speedruns.

Arguably his most famous speedrun was his 2005 achievement in Ocarina of Time, beating the game in under five hours. Due to the length of the game, and the fact it was done in one sit-through playing (single segment), the achievement was heralded as one of the most amazing feats ever.

In 2006, while working on his latest Ocarina of Time improvement, he announced his retirement from Speedrunning. He had achieved world records on the following titles at some point or another: Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures and The Minish Cap. As of the end of 2007, only his The Minish Cap and The Wind Waker speedruns stand as world records, though a revised The Wind Waker run is currently underway, and The Minish Cap run, by his own admission, could be beaten easily.

TSA claimed he retired because of three primary factors. First and foremost, he was tired of being known as a Zelda Speedrunner and nothing else. He claimed years of hard work with the series as a fan were rendered moot because everyone knew him only as a speedrunner. Secondly, he claimed the act of speedrunning was killing his passion for Zelda, making the games lose their fun and appeal. Finally, sometime after his retirement announcement, he stated his lifestyle was no longer conducive to speedrunning long games, claiming that he could do his runs previously due to being in college and having a ton of spare time, but now, working a full time job, having a girlfriend and running a Nintendo news website, he had no more spare time.

Zentendo
In July 2007, at the height of its popularity, TSA launched Zentendo, an all-Nintendo news and media site. According to his own statements, TSA created this new site, despite having The Hylia covering the same material, because the gaming community in general associated the site with the Zelda franchise due to the name, and the site was labeled a blog for its layout and updating style.

Zentendo aimed to have a more professional look and feel, as opposed to a fan site or a blog. The site currently, according to analytics data from third party traffic suppliers, on the level of sites such as N-sider, Nintendo World Report and Nintendojo, though it still trails bigger sites like IGN, GameSpot, AMN and 1Up significantly, as well as blogs like GoNintendo, Kotaku, Joystiq.

In late 2007, TSA turned over The Hylia to a new owner and new content manager. According to metric traffic data, The Hylia now rivals blogs like GoNintendo and Joystiq, as it's Alexa ranking is now in the 10,000 range and poised to break 10,000 sometime in 2008. However, investigations turned up this is due to the new owner running a sub-domain anime hosting service using TheHylia.com domain, as Alexa indicates over 85% of the site's traffic and reach comes through this sub- domain. TSA no longer works for The Hylia as of August 2007.

Wii Ambassador
TSA was selected in 2006 to be a Wii Ambassador for Nintendo of America. While the program was merely a marketing tool to sell Wii to hardcore and casual fans alike, TSA used the program to gain exclusive info about Twilight Princess. He was allowed to hold a "Wii Party" in mid-September in which he played the final build of Twilight Princess, albeit only the demo areas from E3 2006 again, and also received his Wii and Twilight Princess a week in advance of the public, like most of the media.

Due to the fact TSA and his site, at the time, were not regarded as "important" enough to get an advance copy of the game and a Wii unit, many in the public claimed TSA was lying, especially with his review of Twilight Princess, which contained almost no conrete details not known to the public. However, TSA responded by saying he did not want the game spoiled for anyone, and the day the game released publicly on November 19th, 2006, he released a video of the final sequence of the game to prove he had the game in advance. The game clock showed 33 hours of playtime, which meant he had to have received the game and Wii at least sometime on Friday, November 17th, 2006, if he played non-stop.

However, in his review, he claimed it took 50 hours to beat the game, though he in actuality only took 33. This also lead to speculation he made up he had the game, though he revealed he beefed up the number because he is an "exceptional" Zelda player and average gamers would easily take 50 hours. Most gamers claimed to beat the game in the range of 40+ hours. Nintendo verified in a press release the Wii Ambassadors had their Wii units shipped to them in advance, vindicating TSA.

E3 2007
At E3 2007, TSA was on stage during the Nintendo Media Briefing to perform a live demonstration of the North American version of Phantom Hourglass. The segment lasted about three minutes, in which TSA played part of the Temple of Ice and demonstrated the use of the grappling hook. Though he did not speak, he claimed on forums he originally had dialog, but it was cut at the last moment.

TSA was under NDA for the event because he was privy to the entire media briefing content for several days before the actual event. Though he was caught leaking the fact he'd be in E3 playing Phantom Hourglass, he actually didn't leak any details relevant to the press, though he made a post on his website, Zentendo, about 20 minutes into the briefing revealing all the details to get a jump on all the livebloggers.

GameTrailers
In April of 2008, TSA was hired as an Associate Editor for GameTrailers.com, an MTV Networks company. As a result of his new position, he turned over Zentendo to his current staff to continue working on, which has carried on well in his stead (one staff member was even invited to E3 in place of TSA this year).

To date he was worked on several reviews, as well as participated in their weekly podcast Invisible Walls. His most noteworthy work so far is his major contribution to the Metal Gear Retrospective, and his name can be found in the part 6 credits. TSA wrote parts 2-6 and captured nearly all of the footage for the features.

Zelda Documentary Project
In mid-2008, TSA secured the rights to ZeldaDocumentary.com and is in talks with several sources in order to begin work on a Zelda documentary project chronicling the development history of The Legend of Zelda series to date.

Controversy
TSA has had a long history in the community, and while much of this has led to great success, a lot of his actions resulted in controversy.

Zelda Expert
TSA's online activities over the past decade have not been without criticism and controversy. The biggest criticism brought up is the fact that he constantly was too outspoken and was a self-proclaimed "Zelda Expert". His GANNON-BANNED website and general demeanor when arguing about the franchise was often regarded as pompous and arrogant. He also apparently was "never wrong" according to his critics. Many likened his behavior to that of a dictator, though the fact this is a fan community made such claims rather superfluous. Despite these claims, however, he has earned widespread acclaim for his skills at playing the series, as well as his overall knowledge on the franchise.

Hylia.com
Additionally, during his initial rise to fame in the Zelda community, many argued that he relied to heavily on the Zelda Headquarters name to get attention and credibility. He constantly brought up that he was a staff member of the original Zelda Headquarters, and therefore being a "legacy" of the community granted him elevated status among his peers. He was also later accused by the Hylia.com staff of ripping them off when he made The Hylia, though despite the name similarity, the sites' designs and content were drastically different, and The Hylia rose to popularity whereas Hylia did not.

Melora Controversy
While TSA was heading ZHQ2, there was a member who had an avatar that directly linked to an image at History of Hyrule, a website that was run by TSA's close friend Melora. Melora, after seeing this direct link, replaced the image with a questionably sexual explicit image. This caused TSA and Melora to get in an argument over the situation, where TSA exaggerated a claim and stated that his website might get shut down because it had a pornographic image. Melora, thinking she had done nothing wrong, did not remove the image, and TSA had banned her from the forums. TSA later played it off the whole situation as if he was punking certain members, in an attempt lighten up the situation. TSA has since admitted to his childish behavior for this incident and regrets his actions. Melora has since disassociated herself from TSA.

Bashing the Zelda Community
TSA, during his tenure as the head of The Hylia, had a history of causing drama in the community. In the days leading up to The Hylia's radical shift in coverage, he wrote a series of articles bashing the entire Zelda community, leading to an epic fallout in which many webmasters of other sites publicly scolded him.

April Fools Jokes
In 2005 and 2006, TSA pulled elaborate April Fool's pranks that caused major backlash. In 2005, TSA released a fake "trailer" at 12:01am April 1st, which was just every trailer to date merged together with a random movie soundtrack song. Though this prank did not earn too much criticism, several community members voiced their disliking of the serious nature of the prank.

However, in 2006, TSA claimed to have an exclusive interview with Eiji Aonuma that he was going to leak in advance of the date he claimed it could be published. Most anticipated it would be a poorly conceived joke, but the day before April Fool's in America (though he claims it was April 1st in the first time zone in the world), an interview was published on the site that was in every regards meant to be deceptive in nature and was believed by many to be genuine at first. So believable was the content that Nintendo of America's legal department contact TSA and notified him they were checking to see if he broke any NDAs, though TSA claimed he never signed any NDA and that was just part of the eventual joke.

Additionally, numerous NOA staff members came to the forum that day asking for TSA and requesting him to reconsider his actions. A member of Golin/Harris attempted to contact TSA to request he pull the interview, and a member of Nintendo's internal communications team also called him asking if this was a prank or not. TSA made all of this public, and also pointed out NOA's inferiority to ascertain the situation's truth by claiming he said he did the interview with Bill Trinen's help, and that NOA could have asked Bill if it was legit. Bill Trinen was apparently in Japan at the time working on Twilight Princess localization and couldn't be reached in time for comment to clarify the situation.

TSA also publicly scolded Nintendo's public relations agency, Golin/Harris, on his blog on IGN, which within the profanity-laden rant he called out Nintendo for numerous issues over the years. The entry drew attention privately in the press circle, and Nintendo of America made clear they did not approve of TSA's actions. The incident stemmed from the apparent promise of Media Briefing invites confirmed to him by Golin/Harris months in advance, and then only a few weeks before was notified this would not be the case. TSA argued other smaller fan sites got invites, and more than one, yet his site was denied them as an apparent black-balling for their April Fool's prank. TSA also claimed it was causing financial hardship on a staff member who already had travel arrangements to come out for the event. In the end, TSA and staff attended the event and E3 2006.

Hyrule.net and Land of the Legend
The most recent and perhaps longest-lasting controversy was the well documented "rivalry" between Hyrule.net (Land of the Legend) and The Hylia. The two sites were constantly belittling each other in updates, though most of the time it was The Hylia ripping the site's owner for content theft and false content. The two sites engaged in mud slinging for nearly a year, and it did not subside until Land of the Legend went off-line for an extended period of time sometime in mid-2007. TSA accused the site of stealing content such as exclusive photographs taken at press events, and not crediting his site with news reports. Land of the Legend accused TSA of making up information and lying. During the controversy, TSA contacted Webmasters of some Zelda websites, including Zelda Dungeon, that were associated with both Land of the Legend and The Hylia. TSA threatened to remove links to affiliate websites that would not break their partnership with Land of the Legend.

Advanced Information
This also was an issue on the popular game guide and message board site GameFAQs, especially leading up to the launch of Twilight Princess. TSA was notorious for posting "advance information" that was unverifiable, and many claimed that even if it were true info, he was doing it solely for attention.