I was hacking on a C-64 game in my best friend's basement at 2425 Vale Lane in Nashville on that faithful night. I don't recall where we GOT this game, but I do remember that it had several "Error 23" checks on the disk, and I fixed the first bunch, and we tried to load it, and it failed. So, I had to go search for another one. Found it, and the crack was done, then came the "putting my name on the loading screen" part. I found this nice line near the top of the loading screen, and counted the characters that were available there. 27. Prior to this game, I had just been "Chris from The Dream Team". (No, not THAT dream team, the name came from the fact that my friend was a good hardware hacker, and when you put us together, we were in essence, a "dream team".)
So, I needed a new name. I worked out that "Broken by" was 9 characters, and needed something to call myself. I have no idea where the inspiration for Fabulous Furlough came from. It just popped into my head, I counted up the characters, and it fit. I laughed, and loaded up the sector editor, and did it.
Then loaded the game to make sure it still worked, it did, and from that point on, I was Fabulous Furlough.
And here we are, 25 years later.
Special thanks to the late Mike Jackson (MTJ!). Without you, I would never have learned this great skill. May you rest in peace buddy, I'll always miss you.
-FF
