Video game systems have gotten pretty advanced these days, from what I can tell. You know what though? None has ever been as good as the original Nintendo as far as I'm concerned. Two buttons and a directional pad. The beauty lies in the simplicity. It's amusing to see that the games for which we once spent $50 can now be played on the internet in the form of a ten second flash download. Imagine my sheer delight then when I found that I could not only play Baseball Stars online, but I could also save my game's progress and build my team from the ground up. The folks at virtualnes.com just may have done more to relieve my boredom out here than anything else that I've found previously. Contra, Blades of Steel, Tecmo Super Bowl, Zelda... dude, they have it all.
After finding that the lounge at the hotel on Osceola was not open last night, I wound up building my team on Baseball Stars into the wee hours of this morning. I only had a quarter mile to drive this morning though, so a few hours of sleep were more than enough. My drop/hook was quick and easy, after which I returned to the truck stop and resumed my juvenile entertainment. I was #11 on the board since I was under the jurisdiction of West Memphis, so I didn't expect to be moving any time soon. After maybe a half hour I received instructions to deadhead to the terminal and get back on the board.
The trip down to West Memphis was uneventful and I was back on the board at #8. After a couple of hours I got my choice of three runs. 200-something miles to Tennessee for tomorrow morning, 200-something miles to Kentucky for tomorrow morning, or 481 miles to Indiana for tomorrow whenever I damn well feel like it. The Tigers had a late game on the coast tonight and the pitching matchup was promising, so I didn't really see any reason to take a morning delivery. Indiana it is then.
A simple 'hook and go' somehow managed to turn into a bit of a to-do. The trailer that I picked up had a padlock on it. I grabbed the paperwork (with the trailer number and load number written on it) and headed inside to see if the dispatcher had a master key for me to use. She gave me the key, I removed the lock, and I was off to the big road. Five minutes later my phone rang. Yeah, I left the paperwork for my load sitting at the dispatch window. Shit. At least I hadn't gotten too far out of town yet. After doubling back and retrieving my bills, I was on my way for realsies.
I got up to Effingham and decided to park for the night, leaving a few hours of driving for tomorrow. Unfortunately the entrance the the Petro in Effingham happens to be an effing mess at the moment, but I made my way in eventually and found a parking spot. I told the dispatcher in West Memphis to put me in Greenfield for 5pm tomorrow, so I guess that means I have to be there by 5pm. I'm sure I'll get going a little earlier, but it's always nice to know that the alarm clock gets a day off. 529 miles to kick off the week ain't bad at all. Of course tomorrow will probably only bring a short deadhead to the Con-way in Plainfield, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Now, if you'll excuse me. I'm going to have to decide between Double Dragon and Castlevania. This decision will require some thought.
(Could the Tigers really blow a 10-1 lead tonight? For goodness' sake I hope not.)
Nothing compares to an emulator and downloading the rom's to all the old arcade games and playing them at home without the annoying idiots of the old arcades. Hours of wasted time playing Robotron and Joust...
ReplyDeleteI used to have a few emulators before my hard drive crashed a while back. For now, I think I'll stick with the online formats and perhaps save at least a little of my time for reading.
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