Classic games week here on AGSHender.Net!

August 10, 2003

Right now I’m watching the future governor of California on TBS in his breakout role in “The Terminator.” Honestly, I could care less if he wins the recall election in October. There’s been such a big deal made about the circus in California, but actually, I think he’s a pretty good guy. Republican or not, he’s done some good things for both President Bush version 1.0 and President Clinton (although he actually campaigned for the first Bush) with health programs, but I have no idea where he stands. If we’re going to judge someone’s political career on their acting ability and use the mediocre actor of Reagan as our baseline, Arnold might be the best politician around. Maybe. I’ll just have to see what his stance on issues are in the coming months, just out of curiosity. If Minnesota can elect a former actor and professional wrestler as their governor, why can’t California elect a former Mr. Universe and action movie actor? It’s all the same to me.

I found a fantastic piece of software last night that I’ve bene playing around with since I discovered it. I have a lot of old games lying around in boxes and packed up in the garage that I can’t play anymore because my computer is too modern. A lot of old games were programmed for other operating systems like DOS before Windows became a viable operating system for games, but even though there’s DOS compatibility that allows games to RUN, things like sound don’t work. Well this piece of software that I found emulates the sound drivers that are need, so I can play all these old DOS games with full sound and music. Last night and today I was playing through a game that was nearly ten years old, and then I played around with others that were eleven years old. Talk about reliving memories. I used to play these games when I lived in Corvallis, sometimes staying up all night playing some of them. I can’t find a bunch of them, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I threw some of them out, although I may have put them in boxes in the garage. I don’t know why I would have thrown them out, maybe I thought I never would play them again or never be ABLE to play them again. What a stupid thing to do. I always mock my Dad for hanging on to pieces of software long after their usefulness is past, but it looks like his anal-retentiveness has one-upped me in this case.

This is going to be the week of classic gaming, I think. The replacement AC adapter for my Super Nintendo that I finally got around to buying should be here, so I can finally fire that up and play all my old SNES games. I haven’t used my Super Nintendo since 2000, I think. I had it at school and someone or some people took half my games and the AC adapter, so I sent it home. I mean, I couldn’t play it without the power adapter anyway. That really ticked me off. They took maybe $200 worth of equipment, including a game that I paid more than $30 for–used. If I want to play it again, I have to BUY it again. I lost some pretty crappy games, but I also lost some good ones. The selection fo games that were taken makes me think that whoever did it just wanted to take them and try them out but didn’t really know which games were which, because they left some popular and rare games, but they took some really random ones like “Oh, what’s this?” I was talking with my friend Heather about it the other day, and she said that she thinks she knew who took them but didn’t want to make an accusation, though that would have been helpful at the time, since I marked all my games for just this very situation. Didn’t get a chance to use my little security feature, though. That really made me upset at the time, and as I reviewed what games I was missing for the first time in almost three years, it made me mad again.

That’s one of my biggest pet peeves, when people take things of mine, whether they’re doing it just as a joke or maliciously. I don’t remember if I posted anything about it at the time, but towards the end of the school year when Dan and I were celebrating with a mini keg of Warsteiner beer, someone (who is associated with who Heather thinks took my games) tried to walk off with one of them until I caught them red-handed. They knew that I knew they had it, so they basically got out of there as quickly as they could but left it in the stairwell. I would have called security on them, too. Doesn’t matter what it is: don’t take my frickin’ stuff. You want beer? Of course I’ll share. You want my games? I’ll loan them to you. But don’t take them without asking, and certainly return them, for God’s sake. I don’t know why people are the way they are, sometimes.

Tomorrow I’m meeting my friend Hannah for coffee downtown, which will be nice. Maybe I’ll go jogging before that, get it out of the way for the day. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I’m going to finish watching “The Terminator,” then watch “The Dead Zone” on USA, and then probably head to bed, maybe play some of my game before. Have a good night, all.

Posted in Geekery, General