What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[Limewater]

What happened to those modded PS1s?

I'm pretty sure he was waiting to be able to load them up with .wmv files of Strawinsky.

[REPO Man]

With Veronica's kids so spread out due to being foster care (Paulina is with her great-grandmother, Rosalina is with her grandmother and the twins are staying with either their dad or grandmother) and how before that Paulina had dance cheer four nights a week and Rosalina and the twins with their respective dads on the weekends it didn't seem feasible. And as for why I didn't just give Betty's kids their modded Playstation Classic is because it wouldn't be fair to Veronica's kids.

So for now I'm going to give one to my brother, along with my old PS4 and the USB adapters to use Bluetooth controllers with the PSC . The other will either be used to make an arcade cabinet or I'll just give it to my uncle.

But now I'm considering giving the kids the Hyper Mega Tech Super Pocket. I know that it'll cost a lot (three of each of the two models at $60 apiece) but this way each kid will have their own device. Well, technically the twins will share a Capcom and Taito handheld, same with Paulina and Rosalina and same with Peach and Daisy. Plus each device is compatible with Evercade cartridges so I'll throw in four cartridges for Betty's kids to share, and the same with Veronica's kids.

[Golgo 14]

I normally have a perverse interest in these updates, but this one just depresses me.

[REPO Man]

Yeah, it sucks what happened to Veronica and her kids.

[SamuraiMegas]

You could spend your money on actually helping those children instead of wasting hundreds of dollars on outdated games for them

[REPO Man]

What kind of help? More often than not, I hardly know what's happening with everyone unless it's something major. Even then, when I ask if there's anything I can do there usually isn't outside of prayers and moral support. If someone needs money or help I try to do as much as I can. But their situation isn't one I can fix.

The only time I can think where I screwed up is when I told my brother that my place didn't have enough room for two people. That's not a lie but I could have gotten used to him staying with me. Maybe if I offered him a place to stay he might not have gotten in trouble before.

As for going overboard on buying Christmas gifts it's a love language of sorts for me. It's a way to share what I love with who I love.

[marurun]

Have you ever considered sharing in what they love?

[REPO Man]

Who says I don't? Last year I went out of my way to get Funko Pops to match each niece's interests. Daisy likes BTS so I got a Pop of her favorite member. Paulina likes Hocus Pocus so I got her a Sarah Sanderson Pop. Rosalina likes Stranger Things (last Halloween she dressed as Eddie Munson) and after failing to find an Eddie Munson Pop I found a Steven Harrington Pop, which ironically was her favorite character. I wanted to get a Wednesday Pop for Peach but they weren't set to release until after Christmas, so I bought her a Pop modeled after a Slurpee. And before you ask, none of her favorite musicians had Pops of them, and from what Robyn was able to ascertain Wednesday was her major obsession at the time and didn't really seem too interested in other fandoms.

And Rosalina, like Daisy (if I remember correctly), likes horror. She was Tiffany for Halloween back in 2020 and she talked about how she used to sneak viewings of the Child's Play movies. She's actually why I decided to start getting the kids into horror when they're in middle school, instead of high school.

And I also figured that getting books, movies and games in the same, if not a similar orbit, to their own would be a great way to get them interested in a wider variety of things. Like that Dungeon! board game I got them? Based on D&D, and while they might not like D&D they might be interested enough via any appreciation they might have for Stranger Things.

Also... anyone else things the version of the late, great Gary Gygax from the Stranger Things Universe traversed to and from The Upside Down? What if that universe's version of D&D is a literal guidebook to the hellish world of The Upside Down? Or what if The Upside Down is a future version of the D&D universe?

But I'm getting sidetracked.

And the Doctor Who box set I got them? Every Christmas Eve I spent at Veronica's I always put on BBC America and from time to time I think the kids enjoyed it. Of course, I wonder how deep into the show the girls will get before they start fighting over which version of The Doctor is the cutest, or who gets to cosplay as which character on Halloween.

And the NERF guns I got the boys? Every time I went over to their house for Thanksgiving or Christmas they had TONS of NERF guns.

I mean, anyone can just buy the kids what they're into at that time, but who's to say they'll still like it in a year from now? Or even next week?

Plus, I always like to go all out. That's why I got upset last year when I didn't get to bake cookies with the kids. I mean, technically I just go the store-bought mix and/or refrigerated dough route each year, but I try to jazz it up. Like with peanut butter cookies, I toss in a ton of peanut butter M&Ms. And one year I wrapped some dough (either chocolate chip or peanut butter) around some fun-size Milky Ways and they were a hit. Now imagine how much of a hit my cookies would be if I actually brought it, and not just my basic-bitch BS. Like taking a thing of sugar cookie dough, making half of it red (via strawberry Kool-Ade or gelatin mix) and the other half green (via lime Kool-Ade or gelatin mix) and making a funky swirl of red and green for cut-out cookies. Or retrying my perfect my idea for peanut butter thumbprint cookies.

A lot of it's part of how Christmas, and the night before, used to be when I was a kid. And now, as an adult it falls on my shoulders to continue traditions of fresh-baked Christmas cookies while watching It's a Wonderful Life (which I recently got on 4K) and waiting for the kids to fall asleep, only to awake the next day to a Christmas tree SURROUNDED by presents.

[bmoc]

Ordered Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden from LRG
Got an email from LRG that P3P is shipping in December!
Remembered that LRG doesn't ship orders until all items in the order are available

I'm not bothered enough to cancel and reorder. But if anyone is planning to get Standard Editions of both and you want to play P3P sooner, consider ordering it separately.

[REPO Man]

Fucked up P3P and P4G only got physical releases via a boutique release in lieu of a standard retail release. Also fucked up that every pre-P3 Persona game hasn't been hinted at in terms of getting a rerelease. I'd settle for HD upscales of the PSP versions.

Also, compilations of all the other Megami Tensei that haven't been released in the US.