Rinsefirst

Strange how life works.

The first wave of Christmas is upon us, and although I feel like writing about some of the new items in my life that could impact some peoples lives in some sort of way, I\’d prefer to take this time to mention that the reason for this season is not so our parents can get us nice gifts.

It\’s not so that we can give other people nice gifts.

It is about Christ. As Pastor Ben put it today: Christmas comes from two words: Christ (meaning Jesus). Mas (meaning worship). Christ Worship. We are here to celebrate what our saviour has done for us as well as his original entrance into this world. I don\’t care what the origins of Christmas may tie back to in some way. What I do care about is the ideals it\’s supposed to stand for.

That said, all of those lawyers tryings to remove the term \"Merry Christmas\", Although I respect your right not to celebrate it, I don\’t respect your right to remove it from others. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.

That\’s my politics for tonight. Bush gave a nice talk to the American people tonight, but I don\’t feel I need to comment on it.

That said, I was having a rather bad day to start my morning off. Amber didn\’t come to church. The Vikings lost. Family left. I was missing a very important cable in my life (the power cable for my gamecube) as well as a backpack. I wasn\’t even in the mood to go to the MOA to spend lots and lots of money.

Turns outs. That last one was a lie and had the power to turn my day around.

I turn 21 in less than 2 weeks. In 21 years, I have been working on computers a lot. Most people would not argue with that statement. Most people know I\’ve worked with Linux, and I\’m pretty good at it. Many know I spend every day on 2 windows machines and know them pretty well. Many of you know that I even have some sort of skill on a Mac, but no one is sure why. Well, it\’s time to give them a reason why.

Let me prefix this: This was not a Christmas present. This was a purchase. A very large purchase.

Sitting to my right, is a large silver box. Some people know it as \"The Quad\". 4, 2.5 ghz cores. An operating system known as \"Tiger\" is on the screen in front of me, and a nice, white, CLEAN keyboard sits in front of me.

To quote my dad: \"We\’d never thought we\’d see the day when Justin brought home a Mac\".

That\’s write, Justin is now the proud owner of a Mac with Final Cut Studio 5. Video editting is his new thing, not to mention perhaps more terminal work, and if I can get enough money, perhaps some graphic art stuff.

What does this mean?

1) I can now test in all 3 environments pretty simply. No more calling Jon just to see if my site looks good on a Mac.

2) I can now make professional DVD\’s for all your needs. If you want me to convert your family videos to DVD, give me a call, I\’ll do it at a resonible rate, with some nice menus.

3) A top secret (ok not so secret) thing involving JR is involved, but for the time being, it remains top secret.

4) Within about 2 weeks or so, I\’ll be able to solve all Mac problems that you might have. Of course, this also means that for the next 2 weeks I will not have time to solve your windows problems because I\’ll be trying to break my mac.

Where do we go from here?

Well, first things first. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, and therefore, on my way there, I will have to pick up my hard drive so that I can start doing the work from home instead of from Church. Won\’t that be nice. If only I had high speed.

One more thing: This does not, in any way, make me a \"mac freak\". I believe Mac\’s are good at 2 things. 1) Video/Graphic arts and 2) Really low end users.

That said: My laptop is still a PC. My primary desktop is still a PC. My Servers, are still Linux, and my next computer will most likely, not be a mac (unless it\’s both a mac and a pc ;-)).

One last thing: If any of you have any recommendations for must have free software for the mac… Now is the time to tell me. I already have all the expensive software I can handle :-). Did I mention the FCP books are in 4 volumes and combined take up about a foot of space… That box you see on their website, is not empty. It\’s full of book.

Ok, nuff said about the mac.

Amber got me a pretty good book about Google for Christmas. I\’m only two chapters in, and already very interested. I love Google. I love how they think. I love how they fell into making money. I love the idea of them. I\’d also love to do the same thing, just not with search. In other words, I love the gift.

My cousin got me nintendo games. Roughly 28 of them, 8 or so of which were duplicates. Apparently, finding games on that list is not always fully intuitive. Either way, I\’m pushing 300, and with a box that\’s in my room labled \"Happy Birthday\", I\’m sure I will break 300.

The gifts I gave my cousin were yet another success (for the most part). I have this tradition of giving him the same thing every year (he wants the same thing every year) and because of this, I have to get creative some other way. My best option: wrapping. Normally, this means using lots of 3M packaging tape, duct tape, development tape, and boxes. This year however, due to the fact we will be moving soon, I was not allowed to damage any of the boxes I would normally use for this sort of thing (we need them for the move).

So instead, I used a suitcase with a lock, and I made him go on a scavenger hunt to find the numbers to unlock it. Not bad, except I made him look in place(s) my mom didn\’t want him looking, and so she wasn\’t to happy with me, but besides that, the idea was a success.

I always seem to have a decent amount to write about this time of year. I hope that it\’s not just because I like to brag.

Amy got a Keyboard… I can\’t wait to plug it into the mac ;-).

Other than the nintendo games and the book, I don\’t really have much to mention. Like I said, I didn\’t get the Mac or the software for Christmas… Just good year end timing.

Crap.

Year End To Do List:

1) Call insurance company about 21st birthday and my Car

2) Call insurance company about Health Insurance

3) Call insurance company about Business insurance for 2005-2006

4) Get to the dentist

5) Get to MSA

Ok, that\’s everything. I\’m sure I will have more posts to put up here soon.. For now, I need to find a good AIM client for the mac (maybe gaim?)

Greetings everyone

I\’ve decided that it\’s time to update an post my list of owned video games. I\’ve decided this year that it\’s time to expand. Currently, we are at roughly 270 Nintendo Games in the collection. For this reason, finding the ones I don\’t have is becoming more and more of a challenge, so I have decided to grow the sample of games I\’m looking for to include Super Nintendo Games.

Below is a list of all the NES games I own, as well as all the Super NES games I own. You can find this file in excel format (with the games I don\’t own and some notes at www.rinsefirst.com

Nintendo Gamelist

10 Yard Fight

1942

8 Eyes

Adventures of Byu Billy

Adventures of Dino Riki

Air Fortress

Airwolf

Al Unser

All Pro Basketball

Alpha Mission

Amagon

American Gladiators

Anticipation

Astyanax

Back to the Future

Bad Dudes

Bandai Golf Challenge Pebble Beach

Baseball

Baseball Stars

Bases Loaded

Bases Loaded II

Bases Loaded III

Batman

Battletoads

Big Foot

Bionic Commando

Blades of Steel

Blaster Master

Bo Jackson

Bubble Bobble

Bugs Bunny\’s Birthday

Caesar\’s Palace

Captain Planet

Captain Comic

Captain Skyahawk

Castle Dragon

Castlequest

Castlevania

Castlevania II

Castlevania III

City Connection

Clash at Demonhead

Code Viper

Color Dinosaur

Commando

Contra Force

Cowboy Kid

Cybernoid

Dance Aerobics

Dash Galaxy

Days of Thunder

Defender Crown

Deja Vu

Destination Earthstar

Dick Tracy

Dig Dug II

Disney Adventures

Dizzy

Donkey Kong 3

Donkey Kong Jr.

Donkey Kong Math

Double Dragon 2

Double Dragon 3

Double Dribble

Dr. Mario

Dracula

Dragon Power

Dragon Spirit

Dragon Warr

Dragon Warr 2

Duck Tales

Dyno Warz

Elevator Action

Empire Strikes Back

Excitebike

Exodus

Fantasy Zone

Faxanadu

Fighting Golf LT

Final Fantasy

Flight Intruder

Flying Dragon

Freedom Force

Gauntlet

Gauntlet II

Ghost & Goblins

GI Joe

Goal

Golf

Golgo 13

Goonies II

Gotcha

Guardian Legend

Gyromite

Heavy Shreddin

High Speed

Hogan\’s Alley

Home Alone II

Hoops

Ice Hockey

Ikari Warriors

Immortal

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Infiltrator

Iron Sword

Jack Nickleson Golf

Jackal

John Elway Quarterbook

Jrodan VS. Bird

Joust

Jurassic Park

Karate Champ

Karnov

Kid Icarus

Kid Niki

Kings Knight

Kings of the Beach

Kirby\’s Adventure

Klax

Knight Rider

Legendary Wings

the Little Mermaid

Little Nemo\’s Adventures in Dreamland

Lode Runer

Low G Man

Lunar Pool

Mach Rider

Mad Max

Mafat Conspiracy

Magic Darts

Magic Johnson

Major Leage Baseball

Marble Madness

Mega Man 2

Mega man 3

Mega Man 4

Mega Man 5

Mege Man 6

Metal Gear

Metal Storm

Metroid

Mickey Mouse

Mighty Bombjack

Milons Secret Castle

Miracle

Mission Impossible

Monopoly

Monster Party

Mutant Virus

Narc

NASCAR Challange

NES Open

NFL

Operation Wolf

Orb 3D

Othello

Pac-Man

Paberboy

Pinball

Pinball Quest

Pinbot

Platoon

Play Action Football

Pool Radiance

Popeye

POW

Pro Wrestling

Punch Out

Quant Fighter

Racket Attack

Rad Racer

Rad Racer 2

Raid on Bungeling Bay

Rally Bike

Rambo

Rampage

rc pro am

Renegade

Rescue Rangers

Rescue Embassy Region

Ring King

River City Ransom

Road Blasters

Rocketeer

Roger Clemins Baseball

Roger Rabbit

Roller Ball

Roundball

Rush \’n Attack

Rygar

Section Z

Sesame St. 123

Sesame St. ABC

Shadow Ninja

Side Pocket

Silent Service

Skate or Die 1

Skate or Die 2

Ski or Die

Snoopy Sports

Solar Jetman

Soloman\’s Key

Solstice

Spiderman-Sin 6

Spot

Spy Hunter

Spy VS. Spy

Stack Up

Starship Hector

Star Solier

Star Trek

Star Tropics

Star Tropics 2

Star Voyager

Stealth

Street Fighter 2010

Strider

Super Dodge Ball

Super Glove Ball

Super Jeopardy

Super Mario

Super Mario 2

Super Mario 3

Super Off Road

Super Team Games

Swords & Serps

Taboo 6th Sense

Talespin

Target Rengade

Tecmo Baseball

Tecmo NBA Basketball

Tecmo World Wrestling

Tetris

Tiger Heli

Time Lord

TMNT

TMNT 2

TMNT 3

To The Earth

Top Gun

Top Gun 2

Total Recall

Touchdown Fever

Trojan

Ultima 2

Ultimate Basketball

Untouchables

Vice Project Doom

Wall Street Kid

Wayne Gretzky

Werewolf

Wheel of Fortune Jr.

Where\’s Waldo

Willow

Wizards & Warriors 3

World Class Track Meet

World Cup Soccer

World Games

Wrath of Black Manta

Wrecking Crew

Wrestlemania

Yoshi

Zelda

Zelda 2

Super Nintendo Game List

Bill Walsh College Football

Captain America

Donkey Kong Country

Final Fantasy 3

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Harvest Moon

Kirby\’s Avalanche

Mario Paint

Mario\’s Time Machine

Mega Man X

Pilotwings

Secret of Evermore

Secret of Mana

Sim Ant

Sim City

Space Football

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Street Fighter 2 Turbo

Super Bomberman

Super Gameboy

Super Mario All Stars

Super Mario RPG

Super Mario World

The Lion King

The Lost Vikings

Vegas Stakes

Where in Time is Carmen Sandiago

Yoshi Island (Super Mario World 2)

As many of you may have noticed, my progress has virtually stalled out on 500. This isn\’t entirely true, for in fact, some progress has been made, just not enough that I want to report about it just yet.

So what\’s new with it (that you can\’t see)? Well, it now supports 4 different people logging in and getting their hand delt to them, and only them. IE: you can\’t see other player(s) cards or the blind. Isn\’t that nice.

So being that as it is, why has progress stalled. Simple: I\’ve needed my PDA to keep my list of to-do things in order so that I can figure out whats going on. Lately, that means working for a company installing all their computer stuff (which is wrapping up now), but because I was occupied with all of that last week, this week I have to make up for what didn\’t get done last week… You can see where this might back build a little. In either case, the PDA will keep me on track (somehow).

For what it\’s worth, I will be dropping 3000+ on an apple in the next few days. Wish me luck.