In my Dreamcasting endeavors, I’ve learnt quite a good bit about how to obtain and burn DC games…however, I’m afraid I’ll have to give it up. Just can’t seem to get anything downloaded. All the sites I’ve found that have these games for download use direct non-torrent downloads, and wouldn’t you know that none of them have resume support? I tried d/ling Dead or Alive 2, which is about 244MB, and it would make it up to about say…84MB and then the connection would go out and I’d have to start all over again only to repeat the process. Needless to say, I was very frustrated. All the torrent sites I employ proved useless this time around too (as they often times do in cases such as this). So, I’m more than likely either going to wait and try again when my connection gets better speed or just buy the actual games. I suppose one thing that did actually make up for that was finding an SNES emulator that would run on the DC and allow you to play most SNES games. It worked of course, but unfortunately, it’s extremely glitchy and choppy. The audio from the games sounds messed up too. I’m trying to burn another DC emulator called SNES4ALL. They say it’s probably one of the best emus to use that are compatible with most games and runs them nearly perfectly.

While I hunted information on all these Dreamcast technicalities, I branched out on eStarland.com and looked up the Nintendo 64. What got me to look into this is that the analog sticks on my controllers for my N64 have pretty much been used up to the point that they need to be replaced. Until I browsed through eStarland’s N64 accessories page, I never knew that you could buy replacement sticks for the controllers. Not too bad for only $10 a pop either, although I found some at gaminggraveyard.com for about $8 each. Curious, I got my handy-dandy PC repair kit and nabbed my red controller, took the screws out of the back of it, popped it open and removed the old, used up analog stick. I’m not sure if anyone reading this remembers playing Super Mario 64 or not, but swinging King Bowser around and around in circles before throwing him into the bombs really took its toll on the joystick. I took the thumbstick apart and I kid you not, the plastic that once was part of the stick was nothing but finely-ground up powder. There wasn’t really anything I could do to restore the stick, so I threw it in the trash…and as soon as I get paid later on this month, I plan on buying about 4 replacement sticks. I may also try to re-vamp my old SNES. It stopped working a few months ago. I dunno if it just needs some internal cleaning or if it has given up the ghost.

Taking those controllers apart and looking at the insides really made me think and wonder about something. Electronic hardware is something that I really enjoy tinkering with. I love to take things apart and see how they work, what makes them tick and how they’re built. It sorta made me wonder if perhaps I’m in the wrong course of study in college. I mean, I’m almost (no joke) ALWAYS at or on a computer or some type of electronic device. Granted, I certainly don’t think that I could go wrong becoming a dentist…but I just don’t know if that’s really what I wanna do for the rest of my life. I’m gonna call my dentist in Southport sometime this upcoming week and ask if I can go observe him for a few days. If I can, maybe that’ll help me determine if I really want to be a dentist or not. If not, then I believe I might look into electronic/electrical engineering as a plan B kind of thing.

That’s pretty much all I have for tonight….er…today actually (5:57 AM). xD