Just Another Manic Mod Chip Monday

-->

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.