...there'll be pictures eventually. Right now, I'm testing something out. Something involving glue sticks and a roll of Caution Biohazard tape....

I kinda got locked into this post title [because I'm lazy] when I noticed that there was a new version of Wordpress available. So I upgraded...and now I'm stuck with this title. Because I'd rather waste all these characters complaining about it than, y'know, click a few times and come up with a new title.

Anyway....

So, sometime last month, I ordered a bunch of stuff from DealExtreme. Again. Because my DS Lite's hinge broke, and the touch screen hasn't been calibrateable in...over a year now. And, while I was there, I decided to get a few other things that would let me do the sorts of things I've always wanted to do with my handhelds....

Which is why I've had sorta-success. See, I haven't actually gotten 'round to doing all the stuff I need to do to my DS yet, but I have been playing, uh, homebrew [yeah, that's it, homebrew] games on it with much more ease than I used to. Because I've got a different flashcart now.

I was doing that last night. And, encouraged by that little success, I installed custom firmware on my PSP this morning. Really way easier than it sounds, if you're smart enough to order a Pandora battery before getting yourself into a potential mess.

Also, I recommend a great deal of reading up on the subject, not just so you know what you're doing, but so you know which tutorial was written by a blithering fucking idiot and which one was written by someone who not only knows what they're doing, but can communicate it in a way that makes sense. Lots of the former, not many of the latter.

...then I installed custom firmware on Gremlin's PSP.

Custom firmware is nice. Now I can watch movies without having to convert them into that obnoxious string of letters and numbers -- that iPod video format works just fine! And I can play ROMs. And read pdfs. And stuff!

...when I'm done experimenting, I'll probably start 'training' for actually fixing my DS, since that really, really needs to be done.

I'm not kidding. It's all in this article.

If your kids play interactive video games, like the Nintendo Wii, be on the lookout. The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning of predators using games like, "Animal Crossing- City Folk," to target kids.

Really? How come the only link between Animal Crossing and pedophiles I can find on the internet is people talking about this article? Must be those devious pedophiles again.

Of course, I didn't really look very hard.

Using the game you create a character and create your own town and house. When hooked up to the internet you can talk to anyone across the country. Kids playing the game have no control over what other players might be saying. For example, the character we ran across could be the man in California police are warning about.

I don't believe you.

No. Really. I don't believe you. I don't believe that you actually got a Wii, and a copy of this game, and sat down to play it.

If you had, you'd know that you don't so much 'create' your own town as 'name it' and answer a few questions which affect the somewhat random layout. You don't go in and say 'Museum goes here, store goes here, and my house goes here.'

And you don't create your own house. You pick one of four houses already built. You can furnish your own house, but that's something entirely else.

But that's just me being picky. Not so picky? And the reason I don't believe you? The fact that I doubt you found anyone willing to trade friend codes with you. You probably don't even know what a fucking 'friend code' is. You probably think Agent S, Frobert, Pekoe, and Static are all actually people who just happen to be online and playing every time you turn the machine on. They're not. And Kid Cat is not the man they identified in California.

"There is no reason an adult should have this game," says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force.

Anderson says adults playing "animal crossing" and similar games are likely doing it for the wrong reasons.

'Fun' is the wrong reason. Of course.

You probably have told your kids never to talk to strangers, but when playing, the heart of the game is building relationships with the animals in your town as well as other players. To really reach the next level, the game urges you to exchange letters, gifts, and favors.

The 'heart' of the game is actually completing your catalogue. Technically. And you're not actually expected to exchange letters with 'strangers' -- you really can't, because of the friend code system. You're supposed to build relationships with the townsfolk. That's what the favours are all about. You get in good with them, send them letters and presents [and maybe get some foreign fruit back from them], do things for them -- find them a fish they ask for, or give them a piece of furniture that falls into the category they express an interest in. Eventually, they'll give you a picture of themselves. Or, they did, in Animal Crossing: Wild World. I haven't really been playing City Folk as much as I should.

Anderson says it is going to take parents paying attention to keep this problem from exploding.

Something's exploded. And it's because people were paying attention....

"The equipment is real expensive and we cannot afford to buy all of the systems and do not have the resources either to examine all of the possibilities," Anderson explains.

...and this is why you're so painfully wrong. Please do not speak about things when you haven't researched them even a little bit.

Right now, we only know of the three Missouri children who have been contacted. Anderson says this is not something to be paranoid about, but to be aware.

This warning includes any web-based game that allows instant messaging or voice-over IP.

And, again, I don't believe this. I don't think the kids were playing Animal Crossing. I think this might be as much bullshit as the 'Scary Pedophiles on your DS' thing. I think this is more about getting attention than warning parents.

Why? Because, out of the three current systems, the Wii is the most parental-control friendly. Now, I could be dead fucking wrong, since I don't, in fact, own a PS3, but, compared to the Xbox 360's online system [which, again, I have little understanding of], the Wii is locked down pretty tight.

In order to invite someone over to your town [or go over to their town], you both have to have exchanged friend codes. And, in Animal Crossing on the Wii, there's a voice chat option, which uses the Wii Speak -- a room-wide microphone that, I assume, plays the voice of the other person over the speakers of your entertainment system. Which makes it kinda obvious if your kiddies are talking to adults -- unless you're a completely fucking oblivious parent.

...and even an oblivious parent would be able to figure out the Wii Messageboard, where the times spent playing games is posted in a fairly obvious way.

And, speaking of oblivious, have we just not noticed the rating? E. For everyone. Not 'ec', for 'early childhood'. We're not talking about The Koala Brothers: Outback Adventure, or Bob the Builder Can-Do Zoo, or even Freddi Fish ABCs Under the Sea here. Or is Viva Pinata off-limits to adults, too? And the Katamari series? And the Lego Star Wars/Indy/Batman type games? When Lego Harry Potter comes out, are we going to have to create a new rating? K-Tw, Kids to Tweens Only?

Is this some sort of ploy to create a Berlin Wall of Games Ratings? Kids on one side, People Who Qualify to Play M Rated Games on the other?

Okay, that came out all wrong. I'm not calling this a conspiracy or anything, but I gotta wonder if maybe that's what some non-gaming adults are thinking. "Well, videogames are for kids. But we've got these M rated ones that obviously aren't. So maybe we need to make a distinction, and keep adults from playing the ones for kids. Because videogames are for kids."

Here's some news for you: You're wrong. Videogames are not 'just for kids'. They haven't been in a very long time -- pretty much since I was a kid. Perhaps you'd know this, if you bothered to spend more time with your own kids. My mom made time to play games with me -- I'm sure you can do the same. I recommend Lego Star Wars, because you'll at least be playing co-op when your kid pwns you.

Oh, and, in case you need me to spell it out for you? Playing Animal Crossing is not a sign of undesirable, undiscovered proclivities if you happen to be over the age of majority. Not even if you're male.

How? Well, I just picked up my DS Lite, and I was going to play a little Picross, but, when I opened it? The screen opened a little...too enthusiastically. In that it just fell off.

The right hinge is broken. Ih. Time to break out the glue and gorilla tape, and browse dealextreme for potential new shells. I see they have an interesting green one....

In honour of the new year [and because I was bored, and Gremlin did it first], I restarted my Animal Crossing: Wild World town.

A while back, when I was thoroughly hooked on the game and could think of nothing else, I would mentally compose blog entries from the point of view of my character in the game. Today's would've gone something like this:

I got sick of Nowhere, so I decided to move. Also, I was so sick of being me that I deleted myself and got a new face.

Podsixia [my new home] is...a lot like Nowhere. Except it's like Nowhere when I first moved there. Same crappy little store, same empty Museum, and goddamnit, same fucking raccoon. What'd he do, clone himself? I can't get away from him.

As usual, he made me do a whole bunch of work for almost no money [no actual money, anyway, just a lousy thousand bells off my mortgage -- and I miss my big house, but not the roach infestation I came back to after my six month vacation].

Part of that 'work' was meeting the other residents -- some strange dayglow frog with a workout fetish, a freakish native american totem pole with a female name that starts with A, and a goat.

At least my house is on the far edge of town, away from everything. It makes it easier to hide the bodies....

At least I got the freakish black bug-eyes this time. It makes the mental storyline of my character being a crazed serial killer that 'moves people out' and sends letters saying they've moved out so much easier to believe....

While I was thinking about resetting the game, I noticed that I have way too many Nintendo DS games for my clever Altoids Gum Tin Carrying Case idea. I've filled three of the things, and that doesn't include the Max Media Drive I got last year...because that's somewhere that's else. Gremlin has it.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to make nice little wallets for DS games that carry more than the average gum tin.

From the land of random: I got an extremely late birthday card today, included in a package that contained the recent National Geographic -- the one with the Dracorex hogwartsia [who's responsible for that one?] on the cover. Unfortunately, the supplemental wasn't in the magazine.

The card was cute, though. It's got this precious little orange tabby kitten in a jeans pocket. I can't read half of what's written in it, but I think that was expected.

Anyway, have a very wonderful NoMailDay [and a delayed service day in general -- my trash doesn't go until Wednesday], and...I'm going to try very hard to get these damned suckers right on this one drawing I've been working on since before I got this wonderful new wacom.

Presents!

The big, differently wrapped one was a robe with slippers, and presents stuffed into the pockets. It's hard to get a picture of a robe, though.

See? It's very soft, though.

And these are the slippers.

And these were in the pockets. There was also a copy of Brain Age 2 for Gremlin.

It may seem odd, but this is actually something I was hoping I'd get. It's a nice ankle brace with a hinged heel-cup. And it fits very nicely inside my shoes. At some point soon, I'll have to go and take a walk with it on, and see if it's really as comfortable long-range as it seems.

Lemmings for the SNES!

Which makes sense. Mom would wrap something that goes with it. I thought it might be the controller, but that was just forgotten [as I mentioned before]. That's not that big a deal, though. I was able to get offbrandish controllers new at Gamexplosion.

Octo clips. A box of octo clips. Exactly what I wanted. And with the NoSlipGrip. I'm hoarding these things now, because they're so very, very hard to find.

A Wacom Bamboo, which I fully intend to play with, after I'm done with everything else. Or possibly before. Or maybe even during.

Presents.  Yay.

I couldn't really get a good picture of the feather stylus. I don't really know why -- I can do ice, so why can't I do clear plastic in black foam?

There's also the AllPosters thing that's actually gone on for several posts now, and is still going on in that 'we've sent your complaint on to the proper individual' sort of way, because my damn Saw IV is still not double-sided.

Those of you who aren't very picky might not understand what's so upsetting about those two pictures. Those of you who've ever collected things might, however, feel a little sick just looking at it. Bent edges. The horror.

That'd be Saw IV, in all its Not Very Double-Sided glory. With a little Order of the Phoenix, being quite lovely with its double-sidedness as a contrast.

Yes. I bought a Harry Potter poster. It's got Voldemort on it. I couldn't resist.

That's most of the catch-up. I'll have to do a whole Sears thing later, and maybe a spaychul selection of some of the better pictures from the snow the other day, and the interesting sunset a few days before that.

It's really neat, though. It cost them $1.30 to ship, and came in this long slidey thing with a foam filled box inside. The stylus is all clear and neat, and probably completely useless.

But it was free, so yay.

Even better: when you register the game, you qualify for another one of nintendo's freebies-for-registering-your-products offers! Some sort of feather stylus thing. I wasn't really clear on what I was actually signing up for. I kinda missed the picture. But I'm pretty sure it's a feather stylus.

I can't wait to get more games that qualify for these strange free goodies. I hear Brain Age 2 has one. If I get that as a gift, I hope the offer is still going on. I love free stuff!

I'll have more to say about the Wario game eventually. I took pictures and everything....