Yeah, veteran, haha :)
My first game was Pokemon Red, and I had to call around to all sorts of stores to find one that had it. This was in September of 1998 and I was 11. My mom was nice enough to drive 45 minutes away and get me my copy. I was hooked before I even started playing, because my cousins got Nintendo Power and told me about this cool new game coming out. Well, my starter was Bulbasaur (and evos), and to answer one of the questions, that is one of my favorite Pokemon. He fainted a lot, due to psychic being so broken in Red, but I still loved him. Some of my other favorites are Nidoking, Sneasel, Electabuzz, Scizor, Torkoal, Scrafty, and more recently, I am really diggin Trevenant and Heliolisk.
Favorite Gen, I guess since I'm old school, I liked Gen II a lot because of how big it was and how complete as a sequel it felt. I really like Gen VI though, I think they did a great job with it, making it new but still feel right at home, and plenty for the nostalgics like me!
Got kinda long :D