I've been hunting for a DS Lite.  Damn, are they hard to get.  I don't know why, I have a perfectly good DS, but I want the DS Lite since they are hard to get now.

A local Best Buy had 4 last night.  I couldn't go, however, because of crazy plumbing problems.  Those were resolved today, thanks to a local plumber, and tonight I went back on the hunt.

When I finally got to Best Buy, an associate notified me that they just sold the last one 45 minutes ago.  45 minutes!!!  That's incredible.  I would have been one of a select few (at least in my mind) who would have had... well I guess just another DS... but damn it would be a DS Lite.

So, we (my wife and I) ended up at Circuit City.  I had one last attempt in me and hoped that I might find one there.  Nope, the only model was on display.  However, what we did find was pretty good:

Wifey's collection additons:
Cooking Mama
Harvest Moon

My collection additions:
Final Fantasy V: Advance
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

That's damned right!  Phoenix Wright.  Holy F-bomb.  I know some VU'ers had been picking up stray copies, but this is the first time I've seen the game since it was first released a couple years ago.

Now I'm ready for my Chicago trip back home.  FF III, Phoenix Wright and Castlevania: PoR.

With the new systems coming out, my new addiction to FF XII and ongoing addiction with GTA: San Andreas, I can't help but think that I have several games in my backlog.  The truth is I resent the idea of a backlog.  Backlog is something you have to do, in your job or at school.  A backlog is a chore.  Games are fun.  So I prefer to think of games as options.

Back as a kid, I really had a limited amount of games to play.  They were good games and, thankfully, back in the day of the 5200 and early NES days, game difficulty was ridiculous.  It was rare to have beaten a game and, even if you managed to, replay value was always high.  Well, hell, I was a kid, I don't know if they were great games.  They were just fun for a pre-teen kid.

Nowadays, I just don't like replaying games all that much.  Most games are so long that to replay them is too much effort.  I might pop them in here and again to reminisce (thank you Square for the movie theater in FFX), but it would be unlikely for me to play through an entire FF over again.  I did it with 7, prior to the release of 9, but that was the last FF I've done that with.

Honestly, replaying 7 was great, but I did it with the strategy guide; I just didn't have the patience to look for things and waste time.  I know, it's a game, it shouldn't be about efficiency.  Sometimes, I want the feel without the effort.

Now, 8, 9 and 10 (hallowed be thy name) were all great in their own right.  It's not fair to compare each game.  They were released at different times.  It's like comparing the 60's Celtics to the 90's Bulls.  It puts fluff in an editorial, but it is really impossible.  It's good for provoking fanboys.  I digress.

The truth is I've played a lot and continue to play games.  I've got quite a back.. a lot of options.  I've completed about 80% of my collection, and I have some great games I can't wait to pop in.  I have Okami, Pikmin 2, Jade Empire, Halo, Halo 2, Doom 3, etc waiting for me.

The truth is that there are just some games I bought that I will never play all the way through.  That's ok.  I mean I bought them because of my consumer whoreism or just to have them in my ever-increasing collection.  Brothers in Arms, for instance, is never going to be played all the way through.  I bought that impulsively, and Medal of Honor: Frontline (PS2) gave me all I'd ever need from a WWII game.

It's highly unlikely I'll play through Ninja Gaiden (XBOX).  Yeah, graphics/presentation is incredible, but it's too difficult.  This is coming from someone who beat the NES original in under 15 minutes, regularly.  I'm not a kid anymore.  I want difficulty, but not frustration.

Well, anyway, I'm going to continue playing my GTA and FF XII.  Those are some of last generations best games.  I've still got that Chrono Cross, Lunar (the first one and Eternal Blue) and a bunch of other classic games that I do plan on playing.  But there are others which I'm now comfortable admitting I just have no interest in.  But, what the heck, it's good to have options.

One of the prized things I own is my car. It's a silver, 4 door, '99
Honda Civic. It has about 130K miles, and it gets great gas mileage. I guess you'd think it's nothing special. I mean it's a cost saving
compact car. It doesn't have a navigation system or cruise control. It does have a CD player and AC (which is the most important feature a
car can have in FL), but it has manual windows. I'll tell you the two
things I love about it the most (well 3): gas mileage already
mentioned, it is low maintenance and it is paid for.

I bought it when I graduated college. I wasn't too savvy with money,
so I put $300 down and provided a copy of my college diploma to prove I
was trustworthy or something. In any case, this car has been with me
on many road trips and, hopefully, it will be with me for many miles to
come. As I said previously, my car gets great gas mileage, and it's
low maintenance makes it primarily responsible for my disposable
income. This in turn allows me to continue my gaming hobby. In fact,
my Civic is directly responsible for my getting my Nintendo DS last
year.

You see, although my car has been a gem, I bought it when I lived in
Chicago. You know the whole scam of rust proofing the car; you know,
the option the dealer gives even though it's unnecessary? Well it
turns out that may be a good thing when you live in a state that
oversalts its streets. I, being the inexperienced 23 year old I was,
chose to pass up the rustproofing. This choice, along with my Civic's
built in intuition provided the means to get a DS 7 years later.

Fast forward to winter 2004 (january/february). My muffler was going. I knew it. I could here it starting to get louder. It wasn't until a
few months later, during July, when I was driving home from watching
"The Village". I was on a street in "Little Italy", and I hit a
stealth pothole. All of a sudden, I heard a clunk. I looked in my
rearview mirror and literally saw my muffler slide back and to the
right, as if it were parallel parking. It's gracefulness was surreal.

My car, as you'd expect got a lot louder. It was actually very funny. Other fast cars would try to race me off the line at stop lights,
thinking I had intentionally suped up my Civic. Since my car only has
about 109 HP, it's pretty damned funny. In the end, I was too lazy to
get it fixed. Hell, I even took a road trip to FL with the damned
thing missing.

You see, I hate car maintenance. Waiting for oil changes, tire
rotations, booooring. Damn, I hate it. Fortunately I can drop it off
and roam the mall, or go see a movie. I eventually bit the bullet and
got my muffler replaced in Jan 2005, a few months before I moved to FL.

Well, even though the muffler had helped the loud noise, it was still
there. In fact, when I would accelerate there was a high pitched
noise. I put up with it for a while, until one day, in a drive through
the kid at the register says, "Man, your catalytic converter is bad." All I knew was that that meant money.

So we brought the car into a local shop, badass service by the way, and
they evaluated the problem. They replaced the center pipe, which is
the pipe connecting the muffler to the manifold pipe. If you don't
know what I'm talking about, no worries. I'm an exhaust expert after
this whole thing. It turns out the pipe was rusty as hell due to the
snow/salt thing.

Now, I had been fiending for a DS for quite a while. My wife, being
more financially savvy and practical, wanted to wait to make a pleasure
purchase until the maintenance cost was determined. So, I was hoping
it would be low of course; I couldn't wait to get my hands on
Castlevania, Advance Wars, etc.

It turns out the pipe cost was cheap, under $100. Of course, there was
a snag in my plan. The new pipe did not fix the noise. Not only had
my catalytic converter gone bad, but my manifold had a crack in it. It
turns out that '99 civics have a single piece manifold that wears due
to contraction and expansion. This wear can manifest itself as a crack
if in extreme cold. Well, thank you for that Chicago.

A new manifold/catalytic converter (they are sold together) cost $750! The labor was about $79. The mechanic gave me this news on the
phone. My dreams of the DS were shattered.

But a brilliant idea hit me. What if I got a 3rd party part? Hell, my
car wasn't new. There was no warranty to protect. My friend, who
worked at a shop, always used 3rd party parts to save customers money.

The shop I went to did not want to be liable for non-make parts, so I
was on my own. Fortunately, I found a manifold/cat converter online
for $200!!! It was a 2 piece, which resolved the issue with the Honda
part. Excellent. I ordered it, and brought it to the shop. They
installed it, and that was that. I had saved us over 60% of the cost
by going this path, and I got my DS.

Well, for a couple weeks things were good. But that damned metallic
sound kept coming back. I brought it back to the shop, and they
re-tightened the thing but were at a loss as to what caused it. Again,
the thing was sounding ok for a couple of weeks and came back, until
eventually my car would stall when stopped at a light. All of a sudden
on my way home from work the check engine light came on.

The next day I got a diagnostic, and it was my O2 sensor. Apparently,
it had exceeded its life expectancy. There goes another $300. I still
thought the 3rd party part was responsible. It didn't install as
seemlessly as I'd have liked. The shop had to really massage the piece
into place. Maybe this crude installation broke the sensor.

That's all conjecture, my car was working again, but I still had the
sound. Who really cares? I mean the damned thing works. I didn't
care until last wednesday when out of nowhere my car starts making
incredibly loud sounds while going down the highway. Everything's
vibrating, and I smell exhaust.

My first thought was the 3rd party part. "Buy cheap. Get Cheap."
Right? Well, we took the car in today, and it turns out that although
they replaced the center pipe, manifold and catalytic converter, they
never replaced the pipe connecting the manifold to the center pipe. It
had rusted completely out. This was the missing piece to the high
pitched sound.

It was fixed for only $70. My exhaust is completely brand new, and it
purrs like a kitten. Now, the chapter on how I got my DS is completely
closed.