Walking Wounded

I’ve been dying to get a Nintendo Wii. I haven’t been able to find one yet. However, while hunting around on black Friday I was standing in Gamestop when one of the workers came out of the back. “Hey, nobody panic but I just got 2 of the 20g model p3s that just came off the truck.” Silence. “The one time nobody goes crazy when I say that.” One guy said he’d take one. It took me a second to focus and then decided I had to jump on this. I said I’d take the other one.

Split second decision to spend $530 (after tax) on a game system I really didn’t want. Bad idea? Nope. I took it home immediately listed it on eBay for a low (compared to other eBay prices) price of $740. It sold in about 5 hours. I shipped it out this morning. Plus the $10 handling charge I made (I guessed high on the shipping), that was a quick $220 profit. Pretty sweet.

Would I have rather found myself a Nintendo Wii. I’ve actually gone back and forth, but decided that this outcome is actually quite better. I better get a Wii soon though. I’m really itching for it. I’ve already got a game and a controller, lol. I have the controller because they are hard to find and I came across one and I have the game because I already had it pre-ordered and now I don’t have to worry about it.

Was I the only one to make money off of black Friday shopping?

I haven’t blogged in a while. I know. Now you know why. Life is quite the scramble when getting a new job and working towards the transition.

My new job is with a company called SyncSite. I’m extremely excited about it. My brother has been working for them for a while. I’m thrilled I get to work with him. I start next Monday.
There are many reasons why I got the new job. One is working from home. In my opinion, there isn’t much reason for most programmers to be required to go into an office everyday. 95% of the communication that needs to be done can be done via email, IM, or phone calls. Furthermore for me, in my experience I work better from home. Also, I calculated the amount of money I save simply from working from home and it was staggering.

Another reason is higher pay, and potential for even higher pay. I’ll explain what I’ll be doing a little later but most of my earned income will be billable hours which for the most part can be increased to allow the flexibility to make extra money in a month.

The next reason is having more responsibility. I will be more in charge of managing my time, queuing up my jobs, keeping contact with customers etc. That’s just breezing over the top of my responsibility but I’m excited to be in a “more important” position.

I get to travel. They have clients in New York, Washington, FL, SC, NC, MS, AL etc. They are all over. This might become tiring after a while, but spending almost all of my life in the same basic area, I’m dying to see more of the county. I love the idea of traveling to different companies and working with them. I’ll know more about how I’ll enjoy this when I start though.

My life needs more excitement and change. Going to an office from 9-5 everyday working on basically the same thing was really getting to me. I was getting quite bored. Projects with the new company last 8 hours to 8 months. Looks like most of them will average around a week or two. I will get to work with very different companies with very different business models and gain much knowledge.

I’ll go into more details about what I’ll be doing in another post. For now I just wanted to say why I was switching to the new job.  This is a great time in my life. I will keep my blog updated as things progress.

HERE

I haven’t read them all but my favorites from the first 100 or so

4. Name your dog “Dog.”

6. Reply to everything someone says with “that’s what you think.”

30. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.

31. Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day. (JOHNNY! though i do that too)

66. Tell people their accent isn’t fooling anyone.

93. “Forget” the punch line to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a “real hoot.”

98. Incessantly recite annoying phrases, such as “sticky wicket isn’t cricket.”

106. Say “okay, you’re gay” to anything someone says.

Reply with your favorites if you like. Or even better tell of story of someone you know. Like when our greet question at church was how low do you think gas prices would go, Johnny would tell be people $2.68 (or something like that). This is when gas was already $2.05. When they would tell Johnny that it was already down to $2.05 he’d simply reply with “Oh, I doubt it!” Johnny, number 31 is officially yours.   106 goes to my old roommate.  ugh, the memories.

If you don’t know, the new Nintendo Wii comes with a Virtual Console. The Virtual Console allows you to download classic NES, SNES, N64, Genesis and Turbo Grafx games. It’s not just limited to those systems but they are the first ones. The pricing is around $5 NES, $8 SNES, $10 N64. Though from what I’ve seen the prices fluctuate within a dollar of those prices depending on the game. Here are the games coming to the Virtual Console by the end of the year.

NES

• Mario Bros.
• The Legend of Zelda
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Ice Hockey
• Pinball
• Soccer
• Tennis
• Urban Champion
• Wario’s Woods
• Baseball
• Solomon’s Key

Super NES

• F-Zero
• SimCity

Nintendo 64

• Super Mario 64

SEGA Genesis

• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Altered Beast
• Golden Axe
• Columns
• Ecco the Dolphin
• Gunstar Heroes
• Space Harrier II
• Toe Jam & Earl
• Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine

TurboGrafx-16

• Bonk’s Adventure
• Super Star Soldier
• Victory Run
• Bomberman ’93
• Dungeon Explorer

It’s hard to have a first impression on the games. There are many that are not there that I’m dying to be in there. Japan gets Contra III and Castlevania III which I would have picked up. I’m sure we’ll get them eventually though. The plan is for 10 new virtual console games to be released each month starting in January. Of this original list I would probably only pick up Mario Bros and Gunstar Heroes and possibly Bonk. I’d get Sonic, but I can pick up the Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube (works on the wii) for about the same price and it comes with 6 classic Sonic games. I’d get LOZ but I already have it on the Zelda collectors disc for Gamecube.

What I’m really hoping for is some new classic games. I’d love to see companies making new NES games. Now that would be worth $5. Rumor is that it’s happening. On top of that I really want to see some of the originally Japan only games, translated come to the US. I’d love to see Mother, Fire Emblem, Terranigma and BS Zelda. It wouldn’t be that hard to do, they would make tons of money, and fans would be ecstatic about it.

It’s looking like Duck Hunt and Hogan’s Alley are coming to the VC also. I’m really hoping I can use the Wii-mote to play them. I don’t know how else they would do it. Other new VC games that seem to be coming are Kid Icarus, Kirby’s Adventure, Pilot Wings, Pro Wrestling, Punch-Out and Wild Gunman. Seems to me that would be a better launch lineup, but at least we know they are coming soon!