Money For Nothing

2007-10-02 - 11:48 a.m.

Yesterday, the newest versions of DrumMania and Guitar Freaks arrived at work. Four boxes, featuring new parts for the games and the assorted artwork for the cabinets.

I was a little nervous about this project. Let me explain. The last time we did an upgrade on those two machines, we replaced the CPU units and had to do some rewiring to accomodate those new units. Fine - I'm usually pretty good at figuring those things out.

Then I opened the boxes...and found that the entire manual was in Japanese. Not only that, there were FOUR different versions of the game.

I panicked for maybe a minute. Okay, maybe a little more. Then I took a closer look.

There were lots of illustrations. Yes, all the captions and footnotes and all were in Japanese, but the illustrations made it quite clear what had to be done. And, the versions - labeled A through D - were clearly shown, so I was able to figure out that we had D. And then I noticed that the manual had markings on the pages that clearly showed what had to be done for which model. For instance, the first set of instructions had tabs for A, B, and C - and no tab for D. Aha, so I skip that part. The next section was for B, C, and D, so I did THAT part...and so on. It took me quite awhile - I double-checked everything, and triple-checked other parts - but the games fired up perfectly.

Now we jump ahead to 2007. I opened the boxes and checked the manuals. Hallelujah - ENGLISH. And a lot of the upgrade stuff - damper clamps and so forth - had been done when I did the PREVIOUS conversion. So most of what needed to be done had already been done.

So this'll be much easier than last time. Which is good, because most of the Japanese I know is limited to this.

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In the Wow, That Was Quick Dept.:

A Rasmussen poll shows that Hillary's "baby bond" idea isn't popular.

Something the article mentions that Hillary didn't is the cost:

Approximately 4 million children a year are born in the United States meaning that Clinton�s proposal would cost taxpayers $20 billion annually. . Sabato believes that �This sounds too much like the �spend and spend� Democratic party of old, rather than the new, more moderate party image Clinton and her husband have tried to project. To most people, the baby ponds proposal seems like a yet another expensive entitlement�just handing out money indiscriminately at a time of massive national debt.�

The cost of the proposal was not mentioned to survey respondents.

Again, where would that money come from? Taxpayers.

Even the ones who have no children.

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A Los Angeles County supervisor cited a new report showing the cost of illegal immigration in LA.

Now, I remember that a Mexican magazine ran a story with the headline "Los Angeles Is OURS!". I saw it held up and proudly displayed during the immigration marches.

Fine. Mexico can pay the tab. After all, if LA is theirs...

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In the They'll Release ANYTHING On DVD Dept.:

I remember this series from my childhood...and this one.

The Filmation animated shows always had sexy well-built females on them. They helped me get through puberty. But then, so did this actress...and this one...and this one...and this model.

Hey, at least I had taste, right?

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Oh, I just realized - I forgot to put in a link to Mark Steyn yesterday.

Sorry.

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Time to move into the sunlight. There's work to be done and games to be upgraded.

Be seeing you.

Requiel - 2007-10-02 22:43:10 - http://requiel.diaryland.com
Hey! I totally remember Josie and the pussycats. I loved that cartoon growing up. ;)

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