Peeling The Orange Back
The weekend, an extended one for those who work Monday through Friday, is coming to an end. I worked this weekend, so the extended weekend part was lost on me. I was still productive outside of the office environment, to which I shall be returning tomorrow. I even rested a bit and for that, I will not complain.
Work was work this weekend, as it typically is. I did more writing and managed to submit a few more reports for approval. My numbers are gradually improving and my push to see those numbers dwindle through the month of July continues. I’m optimistic. It can be done, being that I’ve done it before, many times these last few years. Of course, it helps that I am again working solo and don’t have to divide my attention in any capacity. I’m not helping anyone and in some weird way, I find that to be especially liberating. I’m doing MY work and I’m doing it by MYSELF. It feels good too. As I’ve before, helping is costly. I’m just glad that I’m not doing it anymore. Now I can devote all my time and energy to what I have to do. Not surprisingly, my productivity has improved in the process. I’ll just look to build on the momentum that I’ve steadily built these last two-plus weeks.
So, I finally took the initiative and worked on that GameCube as I had intended at the beginning of the year. It is finally up and running the way that I’ve wanted it to. I probably shouldn’t have put it off for as long as I did, but truth be told, I was never a huge fan of the GameCube, even in its heyday. Even as I modified it, I don’t see myself playing it all that often. Still, it’s done and works like a charm.
That’s what it looked like in its pre-modified state, after I had dusted it off and cleaned it a little. I took off the top of the console and in the end, I had to remove the optical drive. There were a bunch of screws to remove too, but in the end, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The goal was to not lose any of those screws and I managed to save them all and not lose any.
After removing the optical drive, I installed the ODE (Optical Drive Emulator) as pictured above. What this modification does is, it allows the console to run games from a SD or micro-SD card, rather than the discs that a standard GameCube would use. Those optical drives have been known to fail in time and so I’m essentially allowing this Spice Orange GameCube to play games in a different and presumably less taxing way on the hardware. Fewer moving parts, I suppose.
Nothing too exciting this weekend.
Work. Game console modification. Some much-needed rest.
Could be a lot worse.
I’m hoping that the coming week will be positive. As long as I keep my distance from people and continue doing what I have to do, I’ll be just fine.
Everything will be all right.