Yeah

Another blog post!  Completely useless, but why not? 

In real news, my 10th anniversary is only a couple of weeks away!

Been Away

Mostly watering my mobsters in MafiaFarmCityVille…

Lessons in Geocaching

 

Becci and I did our first real geocaching adventure today, and we had a blast. I learned that even though she's blind without her glasses, she can find things much better than I can... Good thing we go together. Definitely a fun hobby and it goes hand in hand with our photography and geotagging. Though I think the biggest lesson here is to bring a pencil; my pen died and it was hard to fill the log...  As a side, daffodil hill was pretty cool this year.

Changing a GBA Micro LCD Screen

For a little while now I’ve been having a problem with my GBA Micro screen.  It doesn’t really show up well here, but I at some point I put pressure on the screen causing it to look pretty bad.

I was tempted to send it off to Nintendo to fix it, but it’s $50 for them to replace it, and I only paid $20 for it to begin with.  Since I really enjoy my Micro, I decided to replace the screen myself.  After looking for a pictorial on how to do it, and not finding one, I decide to make a tutorial for anyone else who’d like to take this task on as well.  As a point of note, I have no prior experience opening up any consoles. Even so, I managed to do this and it works now.  If you can operate a screwdriver and an X-Acto knife, you can do it too.  This project took me about an hour to do, but bear in mind I was taking pictures while I did it, and had no guidance whatsoever.  You’ll probably be done quicker than that.

Things you’ll need:

• A GBA Micro with a bad screen
• A new screen, best bet is eBay
• Tri-wing screwdriver
• Philips head jewelry screwdriver
• X-Acto knife
• Patience

A note on the screen, you will have to really look for one.  I found mine on eBay for $13, with shipping.  It came from Hong Kong, so you’ll have to wait a little bit for it to arrive.  If you aren’t aware of what a Tri-wing screwdriver is, it’s a Philips head with three prongs instead of four.  These are all over the internet, but I recommend DealExtreme.com for a cheap one.  Again, it will come from HK, so be patient waiting for it.  Now on to the fun stuff.

Disassembly of Body

This is the easy step, remove the faceplate.  I long ago lost the tool, but you can do this without it.  Gently pull up on the plate in the middle, then pull the right side inward.  Once you do that, the left side will come up without a problem.

Step two is remove the battery cover.  Since this is something Nintendo seems to expect you to do at some point, you will use the jewelry screwdriver on the single screw.  The cover will slide to the right out of the slots.  Pull the wires out of the body gently and the battery is disconnected.  Since I’m a really nice guy, I’ll share something huge with you here…  If you have a lanyard, remove it!  It will just get in the way later when you want to remove the metal back. 

Now on to removing the four outer tri-wing screws.  You will have two on the top, and two on the left.  While I’m thinking, this is a good point to remind you to have a good clean workspace.  I set the different screws in the corner of the mat I was working on in order they came out.  There are only three different types of screws, but you never know.

The final two screws sit under where the battery was, and these are tri-wing as well.  These two hold the body together, so you might notice things “falling apart” at this point, that’s a good thing.  Now you can remove the metal body, just be gentle as you don’t want to bend anything, thus making reassembly difficult.

The Innards

I’m going to point out three screws here.  I removed them, but I really don’t think it was necessary.  I’m not opening up my GameBoy again just to find out either, so you can try to do the rest without removing them.  All three were removed with the regular driver.  At this point of the process you may notice the toggles and buttons coming off, but that’s not a problem so long as you don’t lose anything…

Now here’s where I wish I took video as it kind of just happened.  The innards will pivot at the bottom and tilt forward.  Then pull it up and out.  Now we can get to the real meat of the project.

Flip the innards around so that you are looking at the screen.  Gently lift the screen an you will see the connector ribbons.  Using an X-Acto knife gently lift the black bars, these hold the ribbons in place.  You can tug the ribbons out without lifting, I did… 

I’m going to make this picture big as it’s hard to tell how to lift the little one.  You lift from the back, not the front.  I didn’t want to break the solder points, so this took a bit of my time…  This isn’t the clearest  picture, but hopefully you can tell what’s going on here.

Putting it Back Together

Before putting the new screen in you may have a little bit of work to do.  As you can see here, there was some sticky black foam on the back of the original screen, but not the new.  I don’t know how important this is, but I’m guessing it insulates the screen from the board, and acts as a spacer.  I carefully removed it with the X-Acto and put it on the new screen.  There was some more black stuff on the front, same procedure.

This is probably the hardest part of the whole procedure, reattaching the ribbons.  The thick ribbon was not too bad, but the little one was kind of hard.  Gently push it into the little slot, I used the tip of my knife and gently prodded it in.  Close the little lever with the tip of the knife, and you’re good.  The white part of the other ribbon goes in pretty easy, just close it the same as the little one.

Now this is where you see I’m not an electronics expert as this is probably a bad thing to do, but I did it without any issues…  I reinserted the battery and a game for the time being just to test the unit, success!  As with anything, be careful as you could potentially get shocked doing this.  I am guessing there isn’t all that much current running through the board, but static could damage your GameBoy…  Your choice as to whether or not you want to test here.  I didn’t want to redo the whole process.

Once you’re satisfied everything is connected right, you can reassemble the whole thing.  Start with bending the ribbons so it sits entirely between the screen and board.  That pesky little fella didn’t want to go in all the way, but I persuaded him.  Now’s a good point to make sure you have all the toggles and buttons attached.  The only thing I can guarantee is you’ll cry if you get it all together and have the start button on the side.

Since the screen isn’t set yet, you’ll want to keep a very little pressure on it so it doesn’t unseat itself.  I should have wore cotton gloves, so I had oil on the screen.  I fixed that later.  Now rotate the innards back into the front shell.  Once that’s done, you put the back shell on and reinsert the tri-wing screws.  Don’t over-tighten the screws, that could be a problem later, and they weren’t tight to begin with.  Now you can put the battery back and put the cover on.  This was a little awkward, but you’ll get it.  Now you have a new screen, enjoy your classic GBA games!

You’ve Got to be Kidding

Our air “security” has gone a little too far.  You may have heard of the man whose note caused an aircraft to turn around last Wednesday, escorted by two fighter jets.  Apparently it was of a threatening nature.  Here’s what it said:

"I thought I was going to die, we were so high up," the card said. "I thought to myself: I hope we don't crash and burn or worse yet landing in the ocean, living through it, only to be eaten by sharks, or worse yet, end up on some place like Gilligan's Island, stranded, or worse yet, be eaten by a tribe of headhunters, speaking of headhunters, why do they just eat outsiders, and not the family members? Strange ... and what if the plane ripped apart in mid-flight and we plumited (sic) to earth, landed on Gilligan's Island and then lived through it, and the only woman there was Mrs. Thurston Howell III? No Mary Anne (my favorite) no Ginger, just Lovey! If it were just her, I think I'd opt for the sharks, maybe the headhunters." (source)

The real crime here is that it wasn’t a note to the attendant who read it, it was on a comment card.  Why is an attendant reading comment cards?  Isn’t that the job of someone in corporate?  I’d be looking into how many negative comments get put into the circular file.

That having been said, what the man wrote is kinda funny.  Consider he was on a flight over the Pacific Ocean, and the airline most likely showed an old episode of Gilligan’s Island in-flight.  I know I was watching it on the flight I took, and I don’t see airlines updating entertainment too often.  The man was also had a slight fear of flying in the first place, the note was more therapeutic than anything for him.

There was no threat made by the man, and he was apologetic when he found out he was the reason the plane turned around.  Hopefully the Department of Justice will have a cooler head and not find the man guilty of anything. 

Can’t Argue With Logic

Surviving the World is a pretty clever site.  Basically it’s a kid in a baseball cap and a lab coat putting some goofy stuff on a blackboard.  Sometimes it takes a moment or two, but once you get the joke, it’s great.

There Goes March

Now I know what I'll be doing all March long...



I realize this is almost becoming a videos blog. Maybe I'll write something later...

Another Great Find

No surprise here, but I’ve always doubted the validity of half the stuff on Fox…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Some Things Can’t Be Unseen

Made Me Laugh

Becci shared this with me, and I giggled.  What’s scary is I recognized the song right away.

Google Wave

I'm in the Google wave beta now.  Now to figure out what the hell it does.  It has a loooooong video, maybe I should watch it...

The Car That Will Save Ford

Ford Unveils New Car For Cash-Strapped Buyers: The 1993 Taurus

I may just have the $650 for this beauty!

Finches are Funny

We have finches, and they make funny noises whenever birds outside or on TV make noises.  I keep telling them they’re in a cage and safe, but they won’t listen to me.

Becci Flipped Me Off!

Yes!  After years of just thinking about it, she finally did it!  What caused this catharsis?  I pointed out that 43.2 does have programming she occasionally likes.

Christmas is Almost Upon Us

Remember when you were a kid and you’d write a list for Santa?  Those days aren’t as long gone as you’d think.  Here’s my list if you’re reading Santa.  And here’s Becci’s as well.  :)

The Reason I Barely Touch My PS3

Updates! Damned, filthy, mandatory updates! Every time I turn on my PS3, it seems that if the system doesn't have an update, the game does. We're not talking the quick 30 second updates on 360, these are long drawn out, 15 minute or more updates. Maybe I only have 10 minutes to play. How am I supposed to play this damned thing?

I have a 1080P picture on the tube, so at least my update screen looks awesome. I however can't tell you how the game looks in said resolution as I've been writing this post, having a sandwich, and taking a dump while the game updates. Just awesome.

I Might Need Viagra

At least that’s what my latest e-mails to myself say.  As evidenced below, I’m obviously not happy with my performance in the bedroom.  I’m apparently so unhappy I start by offering myself 70% off.  That didn’t work, so I offered myself a whopping 79% off.  I must’ve gotten angry as I reduced the discount to a still respectable 76% off my penis pills.

This is just a small sample of my spam inbox.  What’s really sad is that some bone-head is dumb enough to click on the e-mails from themselves.  I’d think that if I was to send myself info on pecker pills, I wouldn’t be so blatant in the subject line.  It would probably have a subject “TMP Report,” or something else mundane.

Spammers really should get a little more creative.  Fortunately for us they are lazy and obviously avoid any and all forms of work.  I’m feeling depressed thinking about it now.  I think I’m going to send myself and e-mail offering 98% off my pills.  That will make me feel much better.

I’m Shedding a Tear.

What a waste of a beautiful Bel-Air.  The good news is people are safer in the event of a crash.  The bad news is it’s the bad drivers that are getting saved…  I think it’s more of a loss than a win…

Technorati Tags: Chevy,Malibu,Bel-Air,crash,test,consumer,bad drivers

Batman is Awesome.

Just finished Batman: Arkham Asylum.  Excellent game, loved almost every minute of it.  Some parts were ridiculously hard, but rewarding when I finally passed them up.  I’d definitely recommend anyone who’s a Batman fan to play it.

The only part I haven’t finished is the challenge rooms.  My only question is how worth it the achievements are.  They’re kinda wack, but I’m on the fence with that…  Now to write a review for OE, I think Andy is eagerly awaiting the review.

For those that don’t know, that’s Becci’s grandma in the picture.  You could always talk her into doing silly stuff, she was pretty cool.

Well, That Was Fast

Summer's been here and gone already.  I don't remember where I put it.  I know I had a good time, but it's gone.  Now it's time for fall.  How do I know?  It's not the leaves changing colors or little bastards going back to school.  The new TV season is already here.  Here's to more nights with less sleep than I should get!