Ordered to Buy Toys, What a Woman!

Amybear has been fighting a case of pink eye. Because it is highly contagious, she's quarantined at the house under eye doctor's orders and isn't allowed to go to work. Which would be great if she actually paid for sick days. The lack of income isn't really a problem, but cabin fever is definitely starting to set in.

So what did we do? Last night, she sent me out to buy a crimson DS Lite with Brain Age 2 and Pokemon Diamond. The clerk at GameStop was amused when he saw the post-it Amybear used to specify my purchases. He asked if it was a gift and I told him that I was buying video games under my wife's orders. I told him I intended to savor the experience of being told to spend money on video games by my spouse. He admitted that it was pretty unusual.

I played a little Brain Age and it's ok, but parts of the interface just piss me off. Dr. Kawashima, the game's host, really annoys me. I just want to get to the puzzles not discuss their benefit to my prefrontal cortex with a polygonal physician. Hopefully he'll show up less as I play more and get through all the mandatory mini-game tutorials. The recognition software also has a hard time with my handwriting. Not only does it fail to recognize things, but sometimes it will recognize them incorrectly. My 4s become 9s, etc. Which means I end up with "mistakes" that aren't mistakes. And it is slow. While I don't have an alternative for the word games that require the full alphabet, the game would run a lot smoother for me if they just gave me a numeric keyboard on the touch screen for number games like Sudoku.

But maybe it will grow on me. And maybe I should hit my brother up for some of his old GBA games that need some love.

UPDATE: This has come up a couple of times, so I thought I'd address it here. The DS can play both DS games and Game Boy Advanced games. Because the two game cards have different form factors, the DS does this by having a DS slot and a GBA slot on the unit. The GBA slot is also used for some other peripherals. Like the Game Boy Micro and unlike the GBA or GBA SP, the DS cannot play original Game Boy through Game Boy Color games. The DS also uses wi-fi for multiplayer instead of cables so the multiplayer modes on GBA games won't work either.