Hyrulian Hero

An old gold mine in the hills is just the place to contemplate life.

Shout out to a very early 3D video game in which the development team took the time to make a hollow log an irregular trapezoid instead of a square or rectangle.

So I came across this on marketplace today and I'm all...

When you only have 45 minutes to hunt after work, you take the unicorn.

Came across this little gem this week. A little small for what you need?! Where you gonna find a bigger wench?! Spelling is fun.

We moved to the middle of the country almost two years ago and I'd never seen this type of grass. SD has a bunch of types of grass that exist nowhere else and now I'm seeing it go to seed in our yard. This is so cool looking! I thought for sure if I blew on it, I could call a hawk but it's not working as expected...

Happy Father's Day to Hyrulian Hero.

(TMI/adult content warning)
Well, this is the day, I love this series. I don't usually talk about these things because it sounds like I'm looking for sympathy points but it's necessary for context so buckle up and listen to me whine. I was born to couple of homeless hippies who lived in a bus. Not that I remember this necessarily but I at least think I have a very few vague memories of this time period. A face, a tire swing, a guitar. Anyway, one night when I was nearly three (plenty of years ago), my parents let me stay at my poppy's house for the night (that would be my biological grandpa on my mom's side). They stayed the night in the storage unit they were renting because buses don't have quite the storage space you'd expect when they're your residence.

That night, something set off a propane heater they had going to keep warm. Don't smoke, kids. The resulting explosion and fire wiped out the storage unit complex as well as my parents. I was adopted soon afterward and no longer lived in a bus. My new dad had a best friend who we saw often and his son became my best friend. They had a built-in entertainment center with a big CRT and a drawer underneath. Inside that drawer was a little clutch of NES games. Which NES game stands out the best?

That was my first exposure to Zelda. We had a NES at our house too. And I got plenty of enjoyment out of galaga, Kirby's adventure, and paperboy but there's always something special about playing a game with your friend that only he or she owns, especially when you have to take turns and can rarely beat the first level. The Zelda game that's most closely linked to my earliest days though, isn't LOZ.

From time to time, after church on Sunday, I got to go visit my poppy for the afternoon. He eventually remarried after my grandma died (which was shortly after their daughter died) and his second wife had a son from a previous marriage who was probably 10 years older than I. While my friends and I were stuck playing the NES like paupers, my new step-uncle (?) Had the latest and greatest in Nintendo entertainment technology. Among his meager assortment of cartridges, I came across one with a somewhat familiar label. He didn't let me play it often, probably because I used all of his bombs or something, but he was older than me and was a grafted part of my biological family. So ALttP took on some level of significance to me.

When I was about eleven, my second mom was diagnosed with cancer that was expected to be terminal. After going through chemo and radiation, she somehow recovered and the cancer went into remission. That was a rough time for us, having to say goodbye and making peace with the situation and then having her recover the way she did. Two years later, however, she was re-diagnosed and deteriorated rapidly.

Wind Waker had recently released and I was in the game room either playing Wind Waker or doing a Zelda role play online when I was asked to come say goodbye to her. Puberty is a weird enough time without seeing your mom fall apart for years on end. Three months later, my dad's best friend, who was also one of my best friends from the older generation, died suddenly of a possibly accidental prescription overdose. Every night, I'd crawl into bed and look at the giant map poster that came with my strategy guide. The freedom and humor of that game influenced and called me through those times.

My second dad later got remarried and I went to college and returned a little more independent. When I was 19, less than a year after I returned home, he up and died suddenly and unexpectedly of septicemia. My then girlfriend (later fiance) didn't have much experience with death so she helped me to cope by playing through Skyward Sword with me and Four Sword's Adventures with her brother and their friend. I think we might have played through TP together as well. Anyway, I relate that whole time to FSA and Skyward Sword. They're also bittersweet memories not only because of my dad's death, but because her dad broke up with me (for her) later during our engagement.

My wedding band is the Wind Waker stylized curl, my oldest daughter's name is Hylia, . This franchise is deeply embedded in my life. I have waited overnight several times for new Zelda releases and own probably ten thousand dollars worth of Zelda products. All that to say, I'm driving back to Oregon tonight to visit for the first time in nearly two years so my oldest son will be the first to play TotK tomorrow. Parenthood is beautiful.

Dunked a few agates in muriatic acid and got a pretty good result.

Still a bit of a mess but it's coming along. Played system link Halo Reach campaign today. I don't really get the hate it gets. It's a more challenging campaign than Halo 4, ODST, or 3; plenty of fun to be had.

I'm not saying Ben Drowned is somehow anything more than a creepypasta, but when this is what the dude in his garage "throws in" when you show up to purchase an N64 lot, you have to wonder. Either way, I'm not plugging it in...

The view from my front step. Small mountain towns are awesome.

So I questioned this while alphabetizing the PS2 games. Is Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 a different sub series from Dance Dance Revolution? And if that's the case is it a sequel to DanceDanceRevolution X with tweaked branding (X vs Extreme) or are those two separate sub series? I mean, DanceDanceRevolution X is all one word (save for the X) so that seams like ripe for branding confusion. I mean, look at the front of DanceDanceRevolution X's box; the first letter of each word is very defined as it was obviously shortened to DDR in common parlance but it wasn't going under DDR branding because that would have placed it closer to DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution.

But then in Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2, the X in extreme is formed by the leg of the R from Revolution making me think that this may actually be a follow-up to DanceDanceRevolution X.

Because DDRMAX2 is an entirely separate sub series, right? I mean, look at the branding, it's definitely supposed to be a sub series called DDRMAX, right?
But why is the subtitle on the spine "DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution? Is this to imply that the full title of the game is DanceDanceRevolutionMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution? This is Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 levels of whacky here.

I count 331. This doesn't include around 60 personal doubles for system link or the 150ish for sale.