Just Another Manic Mod Chip Monday

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One of the beautiful things about getting older and settling into a city is that you can develop a roster of go-to people for goods and services.  You develop and build these relationships over time, which saves you worry capacity over the long haul. 

Like Tom, my trustworthy mechanic.  He’s got a little private shop off of Broadway. When something goes wrong with any of my vehicles, I can count on him to fix it for a fair price.  I don’t have to worry about paying $700 for a new rotator splint or something like that.  Ditto for Justin, my insurance guy, or Mike, my mod chip guy.

Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t have a mod chip guy?  Let me explain.

Last year I lucked into one of those Mini Nintendo’s that had a limited release and were a hot present for the 2016 Christmas season.  Naturally, I was excited that I was the only one on the block with this thing, which is the whole point really, to be the coolest guy on the block.

But then I found out Jordy got a NES Mini on black market Craigslist and apparently, his unit was hacked with a mod chip that contained not only the original 30 NES classics but 400 more games.  Like every NES game ever plus a bunch of Japanese-only games and a version of Super Tecmo Bowl with updated 2016 teams and rosters.  My jealousy could not be contained.  I had to have it.

I got this dude’s number and we agreed to meet at a neutral location.  I handed over my unit and he promised to install the mod chip that night for $50. I half expected him to just keep it and re-sell it on Craigslist, who would stop him?  But the next day I met him at our spot as promised and we exchanged cash for goods.

“The deal has been made.” I exclaimed to nobody as he drove off into yonder.

I nervously booted up the mini NES as soon as soon as I got home and it was more glorious than I imagined.  I was playing Blades of Steel within minutes and all the save features remained intact.  It became my new prized possession.  In the event of a fire, the following would get saved from the house in this order:  Wife & Kids, Cat, Mod Chip Mini NES, my journal from middle school, Cellphone, Wallet.

Well now I have the new mini SNES and it is pretty great but it only has 21 games, not 400. I didn’t want to badger Mod Chip Mike right away as I wanted him to work out the kinks in this new hacking project so I gave him a month to work out the wrinkles.  I couldn’t wait any longer so I texted him out of the blue last night and asked if he had the SNES hacked yet.  He said he did and so we proceeded to figure out a time to meet this week.  We were going back and forth and then I left my phone on the charger.

Jess walks by my phone and sees a strange, unlisted number pop up confirming that “let’s meet at our regular spot at 4:00 pm tomorrow”.  She nervously asked what the text was about and I told her I was meeting up with Mod Chip Mike at our regular meeting spot, which is the Taco Bell parking lot on Hwy 172 and Babcock.

Jess sighed in disbelief. I think she initially thought I was having an affair.  I think that would have been less embarrassing for her than having a husband who has a regular rendezvous point at Taco Bell with a guy that hacks Nintendo hardware for a hobby. I felt bad for her.

Any hoo, I’m meeting Mod Chip Mike tonight and I will let you know if the SNES operation is a success.  If it works as good as the hacked NES, it will definitely earn a spot on the Save in a Fire list, likely somewhere between Wife & Kids and Cat.

Trump Declares War on Roundabouts

Fake News.  I made this headline up.  Although this headline is Fake News for now, it seems like just a matter of time before Trump gets bored with the NFL and sets his sights on a new target like roundabouts.  I readily admit, this blog post title is a cheap ploy to get your attention.

But I want to talk about roundabouts for a moment because I think they perfectly encapsulate the political divide we are facing today.

First off.  I’m staunchly pro-roundabout.

Roundabouts decrease travel times, they are safer than 4-way stops, they are better for the environment, they keep super old people off the road because they are afraid of them, the list goes on and on. 

I’m listening to Yes’s Roundabout right now as I type this. 

If you wanted to nickname me Roundabout, I wouldn’t stop you.  It’s better than some of the nicknames I’ve gotten in the past.  Ben Gay.  Ben Dover.  Ben Stiller Show.  Yeah, I’d be happy as hell if Roundabout somehow became a thing.

As I whiz through these infrastructure wonderlands, I often marvel how they came about. 

I like to think there is an unsung hero at the DMV that dreamed up the idea of the roundabout in the middle of the night.   He went to a 24-hour Kinkos Jerry Maguire-style, and toiled throughout the night to present a plan to the top brass at the DMV the next day.

I wasn’t there, obviously, but I ONE THOUSAND PERCENT know that they shot the idea down right away.  With these exact words, they said “we’re going to keep building 4-way stops and traffic signals because they work and that’s the way we’ve always done it”.  I guarantee our hero heard this phrase a million times over but he persevered, maybe went over a few heads, and because of his determination, I can now hit up the Woodman's in Howard and be back to the house, door-to-door, in like 6 minutes. It’s crazy. 

We should build a monument to celebrate this DMV guy.  We can put it…wait for it...at the center of a prominent roundabout.  Everyone wins. 

To make a long-winded point, there are some people who don’t want to change or go back to the old ways of doing things and there are some people that want to tinker and try to make things better.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the old ways are the best ways but I just no longer accept “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” as a reason to keep doing something.  The old ways should always be challenged and have to stand on their own merits when new ideas are presented. 

So now you are wondering “When did Brain Litter get so political?” 

That is a good question.  I’ve been writing this blog since 2005.  I’ve posted 193 times and racked up 19,000 hits over 12 years.  On Monday, I made a stand on the national anthem protests with post #194 and now I’m over 20,000 hits.  It is by far the most popular post I’ve ever posted and I wrote it in less than an hour on a whim.

There’s clearly demand for this kind of content and I have an established platform so I am going to explore these political topics going forward in addition to my typical rants. I am obsessed with demographics lately (millennials AMIRIGHT!?!?!) and being 36 years old is an interesting age to be at.  I am calling this stage of life SECOND PUBERTY and I have lots of future posts planned on this non-partisan topic and more.

Yes, I am leaning left these days as you can tell, but stay with me, I promise to call out all forms of hypocrisy when I see it.  Feathers will be ruffled going forward for sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some laughs and find some common ground as we navigate these tumultuous times ahead.

Somebody please buy me this mug please.

National Anthem Protests and Raisin Booger Putty

I know everyone is sick of the subject of the NFL and National Anthem kneeling but after this weekend, it appears that this story isn’t going away any time soon so let’s get into it.

I’ve been thinking about this National Anthem kneel business a lot and with protests in general and I have an analogy that might be useful in finding common ground with friends and family on one side of this issue or the other.

I love my kids. 

I’m not going to say I love them more or less than another parent loves their kids because that argument is impossible to prove.  It is impossible to quantify and measure one’s love for somebody or something as everybody is different and expresses love in different ways. 

Let’s just say I love my kids like a typical parent loves their kids.

My son, Jackson, likes raisins.  But Jackson has this unfortunate habit of sometimes taking a raisin and just WORKING it into our shag carpet rug, fusing individual strands of carpet hairs with this unholy raisin booger putty.  It’s gross.  I stumble upon these landmines from time to time and it drives me crazy.

Jackson gets scolded for this.  Sometimes he gets a timeout.  Sometimes he gets his raisins taken away.  Sometimes we let it slide.  I don’t know the best way to eliminate these demon rug boogers.

But I still love him.   And I don’t love him more or less than his sister Addy because he works raisin devil glue into our carpet and she doesn’t.  We’re just doing our best to guide him.  Maybe there’s a better way but I don’t have all the answers.

My point is this:  You should always wear shoes when you come over to visit us.

My second point is that you can protest a cause AND still love your country.  They are not mutually exclusive.  Let’s start thinking of creative ways to solve problems together instead of fighting over who loves America more.