Most of you know that I'm a software person, not a hardware person. In reality, they are hand-and-glove if one doesn't work, the other is more than fairly useless.

That being said, over the last month or so, my Wii has been on and off the fritz. This is a first gen Wii, #2 to hit the Longview area, so I'm told.

It's given kitten and I many, many good hours of gaming, great multiplayer with friends Rose and Chris, and even when kitten and I relocated to my biofamily's house, my father and mother got a kick out of it, she even bought the AMF bowling game on it, and my dad liked one of the target games on it.

We've downloaded various goodies for it, updated it's firmware faithfully. Yet, ever since arriving here, it's been in a slow, slow decline. On occasion locking up, we found out the folks' front rca inputs were faulty, and eventually rerouted everything through their neglected vhs machine that neither one knows how to use, much less press play on.

Fast forward to Sunday. Kitten and I were out and about, a quick to the liquer store (and yes, even kitten will tell you I was *completely* sober when this occoured). DS and wallet in right paw pocket of my sturdy old gray hoodie.

My father, in his infinite wisdom, at a certain point, put a full margarine container full of water (obsensiably for the dog - well meaning) to the right of the driver's seat.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

During whatever processes that occur when one is driving, both went into the drink; how long they sat there is a minimum of 5-10 minutes. The DS had two carts in it, once of which was Front Mission DS, which I had over 40 hours on. The wallet, kitten's, from Sanrio has a embellishment of Hello Kitty in a green frog costume on a denium background. The wallet - minus most of the paper bits, is salvageable, with no major damage due to the embroidery.

The DS, bless it's little soul was still on. Only when the water began to drain out did things start to go horribly wrong. Right now if you press power it makes a spastic sound and nothing more. The one time I got screen, the upper screen was to the left, I'd say a good inch-and-a-half, with total destruction of backlight. Touchscreen of lower screen did not function at all. *deepsigh*

So I got paid today. For whatever reason, an extra two-hundred bucks into my account. I'm thinking to myself, self said I, these eyes are getting old, perhaps a ds lite is in order. It has a brighter screen and all. I've already decided against purchase of a DSI - don't get me wrong how many terrible things about that piece of shit. I'd own a psp before it.

What do my wandering eyes appear, but a DS Lite with the two new poke'mon on it (diamond/pearl). 149.99 on feebay. Kitten is quick to point out that she's not fond of either of those poke'mon, much less the graphic. In fact, really, it blows. There are two other varient poke'mon ds lite's, one is over 400 (special pikachu edition), and another odd white japanese version. While I would probably not mind wading through the 'nese menus to flip it to English, neither one catch either of our eyes.

So we're getting pretty wound up over this. Cruising out and about at the local wallymart at about 0400, they have a lite out in on of those little holders. Kitten puts her little paws on it, and well. To her it feels like a cheap piece of plastic. No heft, no clicking clamshell, the power button's in the wrong place, and frankly, it feels flimsy. While my friend Rose likes hers, in my eyes, smaller is not better.

So it's about 0600 when we pull into ye mall. I've still got bills of various kinds to pay today, but the Kitten and I have come to a consensus. We're going to spend the time today from 10.00 - 13.00 (absolute latest I can be up before going to sleep before going to work at 21.30), looking for an old school DS. According to EB Games (they have them mail order, 2 day overnight), 79.99 is the most I should be paying. I'll probably try Game Crazy first (they often times have bundle deals on consoles, especially used ones).

Kitten has informed me, that the old one is dead. I hadn't realized how attached she was to it, until she started to cry in the store. She'd put literally months, and months of poke'mon games on it; all the puzzle games and math games *I* like. We got it about 2 days after it came out, in '04. That's probably the shortest half-life of any console (heh, well wait for it...) I've owned, and death by drowning is certainly a rather undignified manner of demise. Needless to say, the dog's water dish has been quite relocated. Kitten has also asked that wa go through EB Games or Game Crazy as opposed to a pawnshop so that we can have some sort of warrenty.

Oh yes. Half - life console comment?

Black screen of death on the Wii. No amount of depowering/repowering/pulling of plugs. D-E-A-D. *deepsigh* Granted, since moving here we've not gotten much play out of it, to the point that kitten doesn't want the new Animal Crossing game (sorta frowning over that, but that's her choice). Not sure what/when/where/how we'll go with the Wii. One console at at a time.

But y'know, it occours to me, in an odd metaphysical sense, maybe the DS was what little lifeline the Wii had? Greatwuff will tell you I'm not one to anthropormorphasize hardware (even as much as I adore Ghost in the Shell). Maybe they just needed to go together to the great digital beyond. Heck who am I to say.

So yeah. Old school DS in the works here. Kitten's suggested I get FFTA2, but I'm somewhat resistant, that's another 30 bucks in expenditure, but one of my coworkers has ffta for the psp and he's spooging all over it (and I did have a *lot* of fun with it on the ps/2).

I may update later in the day if we get a good deal. Cross your pawdigits for me, kids. Kitten and the Mommah are going shopping...

Shiva 'n Lil