Necessities Of Life
Over a year ago, on our honeymoon, Mrs. Lock insisted that I pack the Nintendo Gamecube before we took off.
You see, at the time, she was playing a kiddy version role playing game called Animal Crossing. It was a very popular title for the Nintendo gaming system and in it you had a virtual town that you had to maintain as a resident. In the game, these fuzzy little characters run around in this town, steal your possessions, chat up a storm for anyone who might be listening, litter, fish and yell a lot in a language that doesn't exist anywhere in the real universe.
If you don't check in on your town on a regular basis, funny things happen. Things like weeds popping up everywhere and roaches moving into your house; not to mention your animal neighbors becoming disgruntled by your absence and thinking up something nasty to say next time they see you. I suppose Mrs. Lock couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her town for over a week while we enjoyed our honeymoon, so reluctantly I packed the Gamecube in with our honeymoon supplies and off we went.
We checked into the resort, got into our room and I noticed that we had the standard issue 27 inch color television, an essential tool in the activity of console gaming. But in the back woods of West Virginia where we were living out our newlywed vacation, this television had no component hookups on the TV (the yellow, white and red RCA jacks). What TV in this day and age doesn't have game console hookups? I suppose we were lucky it had color, but even that isn't necessary to play the blasted game I took the trouble to pack.
Fortunately, a trip to the Charleston mall where one business known as the "Shack of Radios" had what we needed. I bought an RF modulator, which converts the antenna coax hookup (Thank God it had that!) on the TV to component to interface with my Gamecube - retail $30. Thirty dollars for a box I'm going to use once so my new bride can perform upkeep on her village of criminal teddy bears.
I still have the box in my computer room closet collecting dust. I look upon it with fond memories.
