About TRsRockin.com

I'm TR Rose, known in the "real world" as Mandy Nader, and I'm a web designer/graphic artist. I started this site in mid December 2000, and it's steadily grown since then. Why create a web site? Well, I was a multimedia major in college and figured I'd better get some sort of foundation in HTML before taking any official classes. Additionally, my dad and I had just traveled to Camden, NJ to see Pokemon Live! and I wanted to share some info about this show for people who hadn't gotten the chance to see it. I knew that -I- would have wanted to find a website with an in-depth synopsis if I hadn't seen the actual show.

I have always liked Team Rocket best of the Pokemon characters, but I never expected that the series would last as long as it has. I assumed that the anime would last maybe two seasons, and I thought I'd be able to make a complete website containing every bit of Team Rocket trivia there was. The early days of Pokemon contained a lot of neat "extra" info that wasn't readily available to American viewers - like the CD Dramas and Lost Episodes. There used to be a lot of websites that contained the Japanese song lyrics, which I posted here (with permission). But as the craze died down, so did the fan sites. I don't watch the anime much any more, and let's face it, the show has pretty much become a "lather-rinse-repeat" since the Johto league (maybe even earlier than that).

But I still wanted the site to grow. I had always been fascinated by game glitches and oddities, so I did a little research online and heard about a Pokemon called 'MissingNo.' that would supposedly crash your game. I had already completed my copy of Blue, so I followed the necessary steps and encountered this guy (and his cousin, 'M), noticing all kinds of weirdness in my game. I then opened the Tales from the Glitch section, inviting other trainers to share their glitch-related experiences with the world.

I've played quite a few games in the Pokemon series - Blue, Crystal, Sapphire, Stadiums 1 & 2, Colosseum, LeafGreen, and TCG - plus "extra" games like Snap, Channel, and Smash Bros. However, I've gotten away from the games lately, and the last time I actually fired up one of my Advance games was for the Mystery Mew giveaway in September 2006. I used to follow the Pokemon anime closely, but I began to lose interest somewhere around Johto. I haven't sat down and watched a Pokemon episode in a long time. I used to collect and play the TCG (and even attended Pokemon League meetings), but I got out of that around Neo 3. I guess the series has just gotten stale for me. I don't know the names of the latest Pokemon set, and I don't plan to pick up Diamond or Pearl any time soon. I guess I've just gone through Viridian Forest a few times too many. I plan to keep expanding this site with fresh and new content in many areas (not just Pokemon), but I'll keep the old Poke-articles as a time capsule from a time when you really could "catch 'em all" in Kanto and every kid on the street knew who Pikachu was.

Additionally, I wanted to make a family-friendly site that anyone can enjoy. Let's face it: there is a lot of garbage on the internet - sites filled with hate, profanity, pornography, and other things that parents don't want their kids seeing. You won't find anything like that here. Instead, you'll find original artwork, sprites, and stories, guides and tutorials for costume making and creating your own unique sprite edits, articles about older video games and collectibles, galleries of photos taken at anime conventions, accounts of game glitches, photos of "Engrish" I've discovered, and all the original Pokemon articles I posted several servers ago. There are a lot of pages to look at (over 350 at last count), so take your time and browse what interests you.

Thank you for visiting TR's Rockin. The support of my fans has helped this site to grow to what it is today - a comprehensive resource for all your TR and MissingNo needs... as well as some other retro gaming finds that might just be from before your time. Enjoy your stay here!

Bulbapedia entry about this site!

Site history:

1. Team Rocket's Rockin! began as an Angelfire webpage. (Version 1.0 - December 2000)
   First-ever attempt at web design; included images from many now-defunct picture sites; included Pokemon Live, Rocketshippers' Paradise, Song Lyrics, Meowth's Party campaign, Fanfics and art, Lost episodes/characters, and TR bios.
   http://www.angelfire.com/pokemon2/teamrocketsrockin
   Left Angelfire after they decreased site space from 50mb to 20mb and imposed bandwidth restrictions
   
   
2. Moved to Dazzled.com, where the site grew beyond its original scope to include MissingNo and Glitch info as well as TR. (Version 1.1)
   Tales from the Glitch first appeared here, as well as a Splash page. Adult-Pokemon-Fan Yahoo Group helped this site grow and expand. Join Team Rocket had to be disabled, too many emails were flooding my inbox with requests to join. Rumors/Spoilers also came and went as many rumors turned out to be false, and I had very little actual "spoiler" info. Added Articles, including 8-Bit Neko, reviewing obscure 8-bit NES games. The first Cosplay section appeared here, with a single page for costume photographs, added chronologically.
   http://www.dazzled.com/trsrockin
   Left Dazzled after they began bombarding visitors with pop-ups and 'install software' prompts. Also ran out of space, had to open a second account at http://www.dazzled.com/trsrockin1 to keep all features available. Tried a new layout, only to find that Dazzled didn't support javascript.
   
   
3. Temporarily set up site at Freewebsites.com (Version 1.2 - Sept. 2004)
   New layout didn't work here. Only got a few features moved over to this server.
   http://trsrockin.freewebsites.com
   Left Freewebsites - they kept trying to make visitors download spyware programs to view any page of the site. Also, couldn't get layout to work properly, js navigation kept glitching. FTP stopped working mysteriously. Can't even get in now to add a redirect page.
   
   
4. Finally broke down and set up non-free account with Lunarpages. Finally got my own domain name. (Version 2.0 - Sept. 2004)
   New layout, at long last - long vertical column of buttons is gone forever! Decided to eliminate Splash page. Opened Forums for visitor discussions. Created Downloads section for exclusive TRR goodies. Added Fake Pokemon section, Coloring Sheets, and Special Events section for updates on Contests. Spriter's Challenge section began in May, 2005. Reached 200,000 hits in August, 2005.
   
   Main Sections: Team Rocket, MissingNo/Glitches, Site Exclusives, For Your Website, TRsRockin.com Stuff
   http://www.trsrockin.com
   
   
5. Redid site navigation - cross-checked in other browsers. (Version 2.1 - Sept. 2005)
   Hopefully the alignment issues with the top navigation have been resolved. Cross-checking with other browsers besides IE for continuity problems. The forums moved off-site to Forumer in March 2006 due to excess use of resources.
   
   
6. Changed up the site navigation again. Changing main categories of content & broadening site focus. (Version 3.0 - Dec. 2006)
   Realized that Pokemon is a dying breed, and the site had been stagnating for a few months. Decided to go in the direction of more general gaming rather than just Pokemon. Added new sections and consolidated Poke-info into one section under the more general category of "Video Games". "8-Bit Neko" section was renamed to "Retro Neko", allowing for expansion into other game platform reviews. More easy-to-follow navigation for the largest sections with more room for growth. Site name officially changed from "Team Rocket's Rockin!" to the more general "TR's Rockin!". All 310 active pages changed from static 800px wide tables to percentile tables. Cosplay section revamped in June 2007 to accomodate new costumes that didn't fit into SSBM-style navigation.
   Site reached 500,000 front page hits in January 2007. 600,000 front page hits reached in July 2007.
   
   Main Sections: Video Games, Video Game Glitches, Cosplay, Creative Works, Everything Else

12/7/05:

Today marks the fifth anniversary of TRsRockin - it's amazing how far we've come!

I originally had the idea to build a website after seeing Pokemon Live in Camden, NJ with my dad on 12/7/2000. I wanted to post some information on the show for people who hadn't gotten the chance to see it. I posted the basic storyline of the show so that people wouldn't feel that they missed something if they hadn't seen the production. This original site also included the lyrics to Meowth's Party, which I translated from the Japanese to English myself, and some Team Rocket character biographies. There was even a campaign to get the Meowth's Party video shown on Kids WB again, complete with a link to the "leave a comment" page of their website.

When I started the site, things were very different than they are now. Pokemon was everywhere - the craze hadn't slowed at all, and everyone knew who Pikachu and friends were. Pokemon TCG was in full swing, with the Team Rocket and Gym Heroes/Challenge sets being the most popular. Pokegod pages were everywhere, and half the world still referred to Marill as "Pikablu". Pokemon Gold/Silver had come out recently, and most of the new critters still felt alien to gamers.

Personally, things have changed as well. Concolor and I hadn't started dating yet when I started the site. I hadn't taken any web design classes - part of the reason I started working on my own site was to learn some HTML basics early in my college career. I knew nothing at all about MissingNo, let alone the other glitches of Pokemon. For that matter, I didn't even own a copy of Pokemon R/B or a Game Boy then - I'd only ever played the Stadium versions. I never dreamed I'd be living and working 3000 miles from my childhood home, away from my family and everything I'd ever known. But as Professor Oak says, "Everything Changes".

The site itself has seen a lot of changes: from the text-link version on an Angelfire server, to the Dazzled.com version with the long column of buttons, to this current version with my own domain, hosted by Lunarpages. It's been a fun five years running TRsRockin, and I hope to continue this site for years into the future.

Especially Nice Emails from TRsRockin fans:

Dear Rose,

Thank you for your very informative web site. It has helped me understand glitches better, I like that very much. My name is Alexia and I am 9 Years old, I have been looking at your sight for 1 year and it is better than the other sites Dad lets me go to. Thanks again.

Alexia Welsby

Best Wishes,
Jacob Kei Sandenburgh Greenberg

Lindsey

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