For the past few years I’ve been, rather naively, buying games for my Nintendo DS and scouring eBay for old Gameboy Advance games since I never had a GBA. It seems while I wasn’t looking a few thousand developers and consumers snuck an entire flash drive market out onto the series of tubes without me noticing (or was it that I just didn’t care at the time? who knows).
Turns out these little things are pretty fuckin’ sweet. A card the same size as a normal DS cart is required to be placed in the DS game slot to boot a decondary flash drive in the GameBoy Advance slot. The flash drives in the GBA slot have either internal memory or accept memory cards of various formats and sizes which actually store the games.
I’ve got my DS pimped out with a R4DS slot-1 flash cart loaded with a 2gb microSD and 43 DS games as well as an M3 Perfect Lite slot-2 adapter with a 2gb microSD card and 220 GameBoy Advance Games.
I’ve found that the GameBoy Advance was the PS2 of the mobile world as the vast majority of the games released for it are complete crap, but out of the 2600+ I have, the 220 I’ve narrowed it down to are solidly decent. Given all of the Final Fantasy and in-depth Nintendo first party GBA games and the ever changing lineup of DS games, this thing is going to keep me busy for years. Even after Nintendo releases a new portable system I know I’m going to have my trusty DS loaded with all the greatest games to keep my occupied on the can.
Just placed an order for a new laptop. I was in the market for a desktop replacement notebook. Not that I’m in any way dissatisfied with my main desktop, but when the motherboard in my linux box failed I was surprised how easy it was to fall back on my rather underpowered XP laptop. This also reminded me how much I loathe windows. I considered upgrading my current laptop to linux, but I knew selling it for a decent price would be necessary for getting a new one. Reinstalling XP isn’t my idea of fun so I just toughed it out until I found a buyer… thanks Sean.
I opted for a custom 17″ HP Pavilion dv9000t. Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB ram with a free upgrade to a 120GB SATA hard drive. From my research it looks like pretty much all of the available options on the dv9000t are supported by linux with little hastle. Minus, of course, for the more windowsey, multimedia functions like the HDTV tuner/remote and the built-in webcam, without with one can easily shave nearly $200 off the price tag.
They say it’ll be finished and shipped by the 28th so I should get it around March 5th. Which means I’ll have slackware installed on it by the 6th.
Finally used the tattoo gift certificates that Amanda got for me. A traditional style left forearm piece inked by Shane Montie of Rebirth Tattoo on C St. My last tattoo was done at the same shop, but when Vinny was running the place.
Overall I have to say it was a wholly better experience. The guys there rock and Shane does some fantastic work. I was able to make an appointment for the next afternoon and had my forearm done (lined, colored, and shaded) in just under two hours whereas my spiderweb took over two hours with just some thin linework and shading. It’s completely up to the artist, but this much more complex design only cost $25 more than my elbow. Have to say I’m more than happy with how well Shane was able to translate my design to skin, the speed and fantastic pricing I got. I’ve definitely found my shop.
I’ll post pics later…
After a long break (to say the least) I’m back. Mainly because my linux box has been down for a while with a motherboard that crapped out on me just before x-mas. The replacement I got didn’t work so I’ve moved most of my linux box’s functionality over to my laptop which has since become my primary machine. I’m getting a refund for the bad replacement board and attempting yet another replacement from another vendor. If that doesn’t work I’m just going to have to start over with a new machine or seriously consider upgrading to a desktop replacement laptop.
Given what’s going on with my mom right now and in accordance with National Breast Cancer Awareness month rudeboy.org is going pink for October. It’s the least I can do to spread awareness and hopefully help in raising funds to further breast cancer research that will ultimately affect the treatment of all cancer.
Considering breast cancer can be genetic and guys can get it too, it looks like I’m going to have to start getting regular checkups.
Today marks another year older. That foot’s one step closer to the grave. Checked my pillow this morning for lost hair, but then realized I don’t generally have any to loose. Amanda came over to hang out which is always nice. Not to mention the Rebirth Tatoo gift certificate she got me.
I’ve decided all I’m gonna ask for from now on are tattoo gift certificates and booze. I’m not really a snob, my tastes just change too pften to ask for anything like computer parts, gadgets or comics. Anyone who might want to send a belated birthday gift certificate should swing by Rebirth Tatoo here and pick one up.
Been a while since I’ve had time to write anything. Kari came to visit for the past month and just headed back to Canada. Glad I got out of having to do a lot of touristy stuff. It was difficult to find vegan restaurants here in town, but with a little work I managed to track down a handful. I’m far from vegan, but a few of them weren’t too bad. If anyone happens to find themselves in Anchorage, I recommend The Middleway Cafe and the Bear Tooth Theater Pub offers vegan-friendly versions of most all of their dishes if you request it.
Given my early work schedule we weren’t able to do as much as I had hoped. Maybe she’ll come visit again sometime soon. Her birthday perhaps? We’ll see…
Pretty much every big-name fight he refs is lame anymore. This time he did it again. In UFC 61 it was the Ortiz vs. Shamrock fight. Dean has been known to do some poor judging on the big fights (I still think John McCarthy should get the big ones and most title shots). As the fight was starting, I saw Dean in the octagon. My immediate reaction was “aww fuck… this isn’t gonna be good”. Shamrock gets credit for trying to explode on Ortiz as soon as the bell rang, but it’s not surprising that he’s slowed in recent years and was taken down with little effort. Everyone agrees Shamrock needs to get back to work on take down defense if he plans to continue being a stand-up fighter. He looked to be doing alright on his back, better than the first fight at least, then he takes a couple elbows to the face and Herb Dean immediately stops the fight without so much as a verbal warning. What! The! Fuck?
This is a BIG fight. You have to let these things go on a little longer. People at home and especially at the venue are putting down good money to see this shit and they need to at least get their money’s worth. Big John would have at least warned Shamrock before getting involved. When you call a fight claiming a fighter is out and he immediately stands up and contests the call, it was a bad call (if the whole arena chanting “bullshit” wasn’t enough of a clue). If he were actually out he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. But Herb Dean sucks and now Shamrocks lost 5 of his last 6 fights setting Tito up for a title shot (which I’m starting to think might have been the idea). I’m a Ken Shamrock fan. I know him so I’m not surprised he lost, but I am surprised that it was stopped in such a bullshit premature way.
This goes back to when I saw an old KOTC dvd where Herb Dean kept looking out of the ring every few seconds as if he was looking to someone else to get his cues from. I’m still trying to find out which fight it was exactly, but one fighter had to tell him his opponent tapped because Dean wasn’t paying attention. Most people saw this piss poor job he did officiating the Leben/Koscheck fight. Plus Dean won’t stand up a slow fight because he’s not sure if that’s what the fans want. Otherwise good fights end up dragging on until the fans start booing… which, to Dean, lets him know that it’s time to move things along. It’s my contention that a ref needs to be confident in thier abilities and not ref based on the will of the fans or any outside influence. It seems to me that Dean’s intent is to manufacture a dramatic upset or just sway the outcome to set up some future headlining rivalry (Shamrock/Ortiz 3 is guaranteed by this load of crap). Basically I’m getting tired wasting money to see fights ruined by Herb Dead due to poor officiating.
