(no subject)

I'm nearly through with Spirit Tracks and I'm realizing that it's not as fun as it normally is, since it feels very recycled from Phantom Hourglass. Okay, one thing I like is the ability to control Zelda in some dungeons, which is a step up*. And a lot of the neat features are more polished than in PH -- the Tower of the Spirits is a lot nicer than the damn Temple of the Ocean King, in that there is no time limit and the central staircase lets you short-circuit previous go-throughs.

But the bosses are starting to feel recycled too, even if a lot of Zelda gimmicks get used a lot over and over. (I.e., the boss will always need the toy you got in the dungeon to kill it, fire and ice bosses for which you need to deflect the opposing magic, Ganon Tennis.) Maybe it's just because I have to kill another automaton in a sand dungeon by hitting it with rocks via conveniently placed trebuchets until it falls down. (Though this time I have a wand that lets me control sand, instead of a giant hammer.)

Which is a shame, since it's a cute game, and I like the fetch quests. (Seriously, I'm starting to think that I should replay Majora's Mask, since it's the Zelda game with the most interwoven sidequests.)

* In Majora's Mask, you control Kafei for a bit, and in Phantom Hourglass, you control Gongoron, but both are 'using another character to unlock things for Link' (except as part of the boss fight in Gongoron's sake). There's a bit more in Wind Waker, where you have Makar or Medlii with you and occasionally have to switch back and forth because they can do things Link can't, or when you have the Dominion Rod in Twilight Princess. But, normally the character stands idle or just follows you when you aren't controlling him/her, while Zelda you can tell her to walk and hit switches/enemies then switch back to Link and move while she does that. It's a tricky thing to do since controlling two characters at once is hard, but it hits the sweet spot right.

I am a Computer God! Or at least a minor Computer Spirit...

Lesson learned today: Next time I have to buy a desktop, I am springing for the more expensive Macs, instead of an iMac*, if only because iMacs are a pain and a half to take apart because all the bits are built into the monitor. Let me run you through the adventures of getting a new hard drive:

1. Take off the piece of glass covering the screen. It's held on by magnets, so you need special suction cups.
2. Unscrew the case and take the front off.
3. Remove the LCD screen itself (and the cables attaching it to the rest of the computer)

And now I can finally get at the hard drive and most of the rest of the computer innards. Things like RAM upgrades are easier, since Apple assumes that anyone can change RAM, but I think Apple assumes that all the hardcore computer nuts will get a higher-end computer, and the people who buy iMacs aren't the kind of people who do it themselves.

But, still, I triumphed, and right now my external drive is transferring the files back onto my iMac, which now has a working 2 TB drive. I feel nerdy, but also competent.

(Next project is converting my old Powerbook Laptop into an external hard drive -- which means levering off the keys on the keyboard to get into the laptop guts. At least with the laptop, since the backlight to the screen is broken, I don't care if it goes back in one piece -- I just figure a perfectly good hard drive shouldn't go to waste.)

* I could get a PC, except most of my software is Mac-stuff, and work stuff is better done on a Mac or Linux machine, and most of my play-stuff for which the OS matters** is art stuff, rather than gaming stuff, which lends itself to Mac.

** By which I mean, ignoring 'goofing off on the net' and 'writing' and 'watching DVDs'.