Well, it's been a while since I talked about the DS. Rather unsurprisingly, they're making a new model which is several things:
1) Lighter
2) Brighter
3) Better looking
Now, you may be asking yourself: "Is there any real disadvantage to this?" Kind of. The only "important" one is that, in order to fit all the new hardware in a smaller package, the DS Lite lets its Game Boy Advanced games protrude from the socket. Now, if I hadn't played the gameboy for so many years I wouldn't think this to be a huge issue, but, especially on the GBA (where regular Game Boy games protruded immensely) we see that catridges that protrude have a tendancy to get tapped during gameplay crash and burn. This is probably a non-issue for most people, but something to consider (especially losing your cartridge as you slip it in your pocket).
Now the next thing I thought was rather interesting was the "brighter" aspect of it. Considering how ridiculous the difference in battery life is with the light on as compared to off. Currently, I find that the DS is often brighter than I really need it to be, and I'd like the ability to turn it down to pull out those last minutes of gameplay. Perhaps (also not an ability provided in the redesign) the ability to alter brightness (or turn off the backlight) without turning off your DS. I mean, if the battery is about to go, I'd like to quickly flick off the backlight so that I can keep playing. But I digress, this is rather somewhat beside the point because the DS Lite has already been built. So clearly I'm not going to get these things anway. The final complaint I have is not about the system itself, but the games. I wish there were a few more "pick up and play" games. Games like Warioware which could literally be a five minute affair. While I love advanced wars I don't always have 20 or 30 minutes to play through a mission.
Despite the fact that I still somewhat knock the system this doesn't change the fact that it's made up for itself in a lot of ways. First off, the Nintendo DS does do one thing which puts it a notch above the rest: It managed internet gameplay and then used their moneybags to equip lots of places with free wireless for the DS (check here... admittedly it's pretty much just McDonalds... but... wait, I never go to Mc Donalds). For the most part, the games done on Nintendo Wifi seems to be done well, and, as with the computer, often make the game. All of the original worries I had about the DS on airplanes were alleviated, but I'd still like to see some system of back-up battery. Though battery life is impressive on the system, it's still not perfect: with the double screen system there's a tendency for the battery light to blink from green to red depending on where you are in a game. More importantly, the simple volume of desirable games have started to come out for the system makes it more appealing. Part of where the DS got the most crap thrown at it was the fact that basically they had nothing. Now they've got a decent variety of games to play.
So, in many ways, the Nintendo DS has redeemed itself, but it's still got some things that could have been done better. But all in all it's turned out to be a solid system worth the money. Nintendo's innovation seems to have given it the advantage over the PSP, which now seems to only be steeped in PS1 remakes. Certainly it's pretty cool to be able to walk around with your PS1 in your pocket, but haven't you already played all those games to death?
I'm going to go do school reading then sleep. No entry until tomorrow.
So today marked the beginning of spring break. What's happening? Nothing. I wouldn't have it any other way. I plan to spend this week attempting to get my internal clock back on schedule (meaning I'll be attempting to go to bed early enough and waking up around 9-10 o'clock in the morning. This being said, that means not much is happening. I'm trying to wean myself off of n-game (it's not fun, it's just a horrible obsession). Oh! And surprisingly I received my first few emails to my scuzzstuff account. Nothing too special, but the cool one is an actual suggestion for a game! Unfortunately it's for a game that vehemently despise. Oh well. If a couple of people would like to see "Driver's Ed" you can see it here. Personally, I can't figure out how to merge with traffic because you CAN'T ESCAPE FROM THAT SPACE. I backed up to within a millimeter of the car behind me, then did a full left turn, and I still hit the car parked in front of me. It's too damn infuriating.
So on tuesday morning, around 4:00, I started to have a little pang in my stomach. Nothing too severe, it felt like bad gas or something, but it was enough of a little stabbing pain to keep me awake pretty solidly till morning. Around comes 6:01, at which point I've decided that there wasn't much point in trying to go back to sleep. I go to the bathroom, where nothing out of the ordinary happened, and then told my mom how crappy I was feeling. We go on a quick hunt for pepto-bismol, find there's none, and because I seem to be pusing the limits of feeling crappy, Mom decides to go out and get some from CVS. I prepare to go to school, mom comes back, I try some, and off I go.
School is relatively uneventful until lunchtime, where, after watching "How to enjoy sushi" (here), I went ahead and went to lunch myself. That was when things started going downhill. My stomach had started to hurt again, and after checking with the nurse to see what she thought it could be, I went to chorus. I ended up spending the whole period waiting on the toilet (though I didn't really go to the bathroom, I felt like I had to). I decided I probably wasn't going to end up making it through next class anyway, and went to the nurse to go home. And so I did. What happened at home? I spent it writhing in pain on the bed. Since I had spent about two hours curled up in the fetal position by the time my mom came home she called my doctor, who said I should go to the hospital. And so we did.
After about an hour in the hospital, my pain seemed to slow down, and I wasn't writhing in pain so much as just feeling bad. They told me that, more than likely, as degrading as it may be, I was probably just horribly constipated. But hospitals are paid to be on the safe side, so they did a CT scan and ran some tests on blood samples. They found that my white blood cell count was elevated, and that my scans (though still somewhat inconclusive because of an allergy the prevents high resolution scans) showed that my appendix was enlarged enough to be concerned. So what did they do? Take it out. I'm in the process of recovery. I'd write more but I actually have to go to bed.