The World of Insufficient Light

We have been having a flood of mice for the last week and a half, since the first really cold day. How many? Well, I disposed of #26 that we caught this morning. That’s the fourth that I was able to wrap up in the garbage bag it was scurrying around in, double-bag and whack a few times when it went out in the trash, which is honestly my least favorite way to deal with them because I can’t be sure they’re dead and/or that it was a quick death. We got five or six in glue traps, which mostly are the little ones—those get put in a ziplock and slammed against the bricks outside to end their suffering. And the remainder were caught in snap traps, which remain my strong preference because it’s usually a quick, clean kill. I figured out that if I lay snap traps at the entrance and exit of a bait station, it becomes a “mouse highway” and snags lots of them.

This is far and away the worst the mouse problem we’ve had in this house. My best theory is that the house on the corner (where the dude was leaving out food for the stray cats and attracting mice, and clearly had mice nesting in his basement) was finally cleared out in the spring. And apparently it was so, so bad—mouse shit everywhere. I think the mouse colony displaced by that cleanout have been living outdoors all summer and fall, and now are looking for new places to nest for the winter, and have found ways into my kitchen. And unless I want to have my countertops and cabinets all removed again to find all the holes (NO), I just have to keep killing them and hoping that any I don’t trap eat enough poison to die somewhere else, and they don’t establish nests here.

In vaguely chronological order of acquisition and review, my retro handheld collection as of October 2022:

9X-S Handheld - I got this, the X6 handheld and a cheap 99,999-in-one GBA knock-off around the same time. I gave away the latter two shortly thereafter. When there was nothing else on the market, the 9X-S was great, and I took it to Bali and on various short trips. Once there were better options it became the, “Well, I don’t care if it gets destroyed” handheld. Now I have enough better options that it’s mostly just a curiosity.

Hacked PSP - Again, the best thing that was available at the time but then quickly outclassed as the market and technology advanced. I played around 57 hours of games on it and sold it for the same price I paid.

Anbernic RG350 - My clear favorite of every one I’ve tried, with currently almost 250 hours of game time logged on it. It’s small enough to fit in a cargo pants pocket (even in a case with headphones and a charging cable included), powerful enough to run SNES and PS1 well, flexible enough that I could make cheats work in most cases I wanted them, but still comfortable to hold and see. The OpenDingux OS isn’t the best ever, but I learned my way around it and find it pretty easy to manage. I actually bought a case after I’d had it for over a year; before that I just kept it in an old 3DS case, but I kept using it enough that a proper case seemed appropriate. I’m still trying out SNES fan-translations and replaying GBA games on this.

PowKiddy Q80 - A similar handheld to the RG350 with the same OS, but slightly less powerful, heavier and with a worse button layout. I sold this on eBay and got back some of what I paid for it.

Powkiddy Q90 - My current winner for “throw it in my pocket when I’ll be sitting at a doctor’s office or on a subway,” I’ve logged around 10 hours of game time and I think most of that is in 10-minute bursts. It also runs the same OS as the RG350 and while the SNES emulation is a little choppy, it does great with GBA and Game Gear titles that the screen size and button layout are ideal for. I also found a cell phone belt holster it fits comfortably in, in lieu of a case. This will eventually die and I might even consider replacing it; you can still get them for $30 on AliExpress and they’re absolutely worth it.

Retro FC 500-in-1 - I bought this for $10, ran a big Talking Time thread where I tried and catalogued all 500 games, and then traded it for an Ixo-Box. (I recently saw an add on Facebook for a “Mini-Tendo,” which was a more expensive version of this. Don’t buy one.)

Anbernic RG351P - The upgrade to the RG350; I never liked the stock firmware and it didn’t offer substantial advantages over the 350 for me. I considered trying to install a new firmware but eventually just sold it on eBay.

Retroid Pocket 2+ - This has been a mixed bag, in that it has a great deal more power and flexibility than the RG350 and I had a fantastic time doing the upgrades to it; but at the end of the day the big advantage it offers is that it’s good at plugging into my portable monitor for two-player SNES emulation. The Android OS offers a lot of options and flexibility but you need to put the time and effort into setting up each individual piece and you end up using RetroArch (which I don’t love) for most emulation anyway. It’s been living on the shelf; as has the original Retroid Pocket PCB which I could plug into a TV as an emulator box but have never felt the need for.

Powkiddy A66 / Trim-UI Mini - Tiny, with shockingly good emulation; the selling point is really the extreme portability because it isn’t comfortable to play for long periods. If you kept it charged and in your pocket/backpack/purse, it would be an alternative to your phone while waiting for a train. I’m not on the go enough in my daily life that having it handy has been necessary, and I usually grab the Q90 when I know I’m going to need it.

Anbernic RG552 - My new vacation workhorse and the best way I’ve found to emulate DS games; I’ve logged about 60 hours on this so far. It’s too big for casually carrying but manages to do pretty much everything I want in terms of emulators and in a convenient way.

PowKiddy X350 - Cheap and low-quality. I tried it and then gave it as a prize to a trivia contest I ran at a con.

GamePlayer X40 Pro - Oversized and with some issues; this is outclassed by the X2 for what it specifically does. I’ll probably give this away at some point.

PowKiddy X39 Pro - I tried this, updated some of the contents, and gave it away. It’s a midsized, relatively low-cost handheld that is outdone by the RG350 on most fronts.

Powkiddy X2 - I did a Talking Time thread about all the hilariously-translated preloaded contents and I used this to play the Dragon Warrior 10x hack. I like the 7” screen and it came preloaded with a ton of NES hacks and random games I hadn’t heard of; but it’s not a “serious” gaming handheld that I’m ever going to play a 30 hour rpg on. I’ll probably take it out for short sessions of random hacks and arcade games a few more times.

Hyperkin Supaboy - This is a collectable piece that I put on the shelf for display. I tested it and made it work, but it’s giant and clunky and requires carrying around cartridges; I’m not going to play it.

I also have acquired a Retroid Pocket 3, which I haven’t reviewed yet. It seems to offer similar power to the RG552 with a slightly smaller screen and a better shape, and it has Steam Link and full access to the Play Store to offer. I’m probably more likely to use it to play Android games that I want a controller for (as opposed to touchscreen controls on my tablet) or remote Steam games (so I can lie on the couch or my bed). But we’ll see!

Overall: The RG350, Q90 and RG552 are the ones living at my charging station and seeing regular use in various capacities. Time will tell how things evolve from here.

Another thing I purchased from Ixo was some custom art:

If you're interested in an exploration of the three Game Boy Castlevania games (The Adventure, Belmont's Revenge and Legends), or you just like my LP style, I invite you to check out the latest chapter of my Game Boy Youth:

When all you have is a whip...Let's Play Castlevania: The Adventure

It’s been a long and frustrating couple of months since the Ida flood and subsequent devastation of our ground level. (Which we call “the basement” but is not, by the official definition, a basement. You can walk out from that floor into the backyard, and a basement is, by definition, below the ground level on all four sides. This turned out to be a major factor in getting the insurance to pay a fraction of our contents losses, rather than nothing at all.)

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In short: Our home is functional again, but the last few pieces continue to stretch on and will likely take a few more months to actually get into place. (Long enough for more things to break, certainly.) It has been frustrating and stressful, but at least I can sit on my couch again.

For folks who aren’t on Facebook: When Hurricane Ida arrived on Wednesday, my basement took in 3 inches of water. (The backyard got almost a foot at the deepest part.) Fortunately, Jethrien and I saw it start coming in at 9:30, so we spent the next three hours rushing everything low-lying to higher ground. The water came in, receded, came in again, and then drained again, leaving our carpet destroyed (and swampy) and the bookshelves unstable. I called the flood insurance and filed a claim between the waves and contacted several water/mold remediation companies at the same time.

First thing Thursday morning, I got a storage unit a few blocks away and made phone calls until I managed to get emergency movers for that afternoon to get everything off the shelves from my basement (mostly books, so many books) into it. I also managed to get a mold remediation guy I worked with a few years ago to bump me up his list, so his guys started arriving as the movers were filling boxes. They spent the rest of the day tearing up my carpet and cutting out chunks of walls, but managed to save my futon, sectional sofa, coffee table, and two small bookcases. (The wall of bookcases, including the games cabinet and TV stand, are gone.)

Later investigation revealed that most of my electronics survived, except for the Wii, which had its AC adaptor go into the water. Actually, a Joy-con that went swimming dried out and appears to work fine once more. The washer and drier sat in two inches of water but seem to be fine. When I tallied all of the lost contents for the insurance company, it was only around $2,000, and most of that furniture. (I’m pressing them to pay for the movers and storage, though—if the books had sat in the damp, they’d have molded and we’d have lost so much more.)

The mold guys came back yesterday, collected their equipment and checked everything to pronounce it dry and safe. Today the insurance adjuster came through and we gave him all the pictures and videos we took.

I'll need to get a contractor to replace the drywall and rebuild my closets; one is supposed to come by tomorrow afternoon. Then I’ll need to get the carpet guy in to replace the carpet, then buy new shelves, then get the movers to bring everything back. (I also need to look into potentially getting a pump for the backyard for going forward; and whether I want to get tile or vinyl flooring with area rugs over it instead of a third round of wall-to-wall.) But right now I've reached "nothing will get worse on its own" and I have time to breathe a little, so that's good.

I saw people this weekend! In person! It was awesome and also SO INCREDIBLY EXHAUSTING.

Very long, so under a cut.

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We left on Thursday morning, but because of time zones we reached Doha, Qatar (our layover) on Friday morning, and then Day 1 in Bali was Saturday.

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Regarding this trip overall: The tour company, the guide, the hotels and the overall experience were great. I'd happily recommend them. I think we should have maybe planned fewer fancy meals and spaced out the heavy touristing days a little more. A good trip, though only middling in terms of relaxation.

• Six-year-olds are not really ready to do a Purim spiel, even if it involves a battle with a giant snake.
• Citizen’s Cider with infused ginger is very good and was a big hit. Ironbound Hard Cider is middling and not worth getting again.
• When small children other than my son are involved, assume that I’ll need more hard cheese than otherwise. I’d forgotten how much cheddar children without dairy allergies will happily gobble.
• ARR is unquestionably my son: When we got late into the party, he asked if it was time for everyone to leave yet. I gave him a glass of juice. He perked up and was good for another hour.
• ARR is unquestionably Jethrien’s son: The last twenty minutes or so of the party involved him reading quietly on his bed while one of his friends played with action figures nearby. (Also, he took down an entire Magic Tree House book in an hour on Sunday morning when he didn’t want to help me do chores.)