Yesterday didn't really go to plan... I went to pick up Josh at around 5:30. At around 6pm, we decided traffic was pretty bad, and that we should kill a little time at Montgomery Mall, and return when it wasn't so backed up. I needed to pick up a few of the week's new releases, anyways.

The Powerpuff Girls movie came in... but it is in PAN AND SCAN format. -_- I swore that I would NEVER buy a pan and scan disc, and was forced to pass up on it. Ended up picking up Tsukikage Ran DVD2 and Fancy Lala DVD3.

We left Montgomery Mall at around 7:00... traffic was still backed up. -_- It takes about 45 minutes to get to Springfield Mall from there when it should only take 30, so I guess it wasn't THAT bad. When we get there, a large portion of the Waldorf crew were there. Nice to see them, but that also meant I was only able to get ONE game in before the place closed. -_-

Went to Chris's house for a little bit after that, since I wasn't satisfied with going all the way down just for ONE game of DDR. ^^; Ended up playing PSO Gamecube ver (which apparently had been played almost nonstop the 4 days before)... I took a short nap since I was really tired, and we headed back home.

Today, I didn't really have any particular plans of what to do, but I ended up getting called by my dad from work. He spends a lot of time in China and other areas of eastern Asia on business, and has brought back quite a few DVDs of chinese dramas. Unfortunately, they're all in PAL (European broadcast format). He found out that a "Mintek" (aka Apex, aka Shinsonic) player can do the PAL to NTSC (US broadcast format) conversion, and sent me to grab it. Went to BB Gaithersburg to do just that.

Met up with Christian, a very long-time friend. Probably the only friend I have left from elementary school. A while back, due to various circumstances, his parents were forced to sell their house, and he had been living in a hotel room since then. Now, he told me he lost the hotel room and was staying in half a room in some small house in Wheaton. Made very little sense since he doesn't drive and works in Gaithersburg. It might only be for a little over a month until he gets sent to Kuwait by the military, but it's still not a very good situation, and I wonder if I can find some better place for him to stay. Unfortunately, I can't let him stay here. ;_;

After leaving BB Gaithersburg, I stopped by G-Sentry to have a chat with the owner. Some DVD bootleg of PitaTen was playing on their demo TV. I swear, every subtitle job of PitaTen other than ours doesn't even resemble english. -_- Anyways, I told him about my PS2 modding dilemna (have PS2, have modchip, need only the labor to install it). Interestingly enough, he recommended that I talk to the owner of Starland and see if he can do it. According to him, he is an electrical engineer, and probably the most qualified for the job. Since Chris and Bounma frequent Starland, I asked them to ask for me, since Starland (Annandale, VA) isn't exactly within practical distance, and I don't want to have to take my PS2 down there if I don't have to.

Got back home, and did some research on the model we got (Mintek DVD-2110)... there was a hacked firmware available for it that made it region free (but not selectable) and macrovision free. Hmm... I've been after a region/macro free player for a LONG time, so I took a chance and flashed the hacked firmware into the machine. So far, it seems to work perfectly. ^^ Not only does it do the PAL to NTSC conversion my dad wants, it can play my R2 discs ^^

Anyways, now I'm probably going to be playing a bit of DDRMAX USA - I still haven't played a whole lot of it. Was going to do so this afternoon, but the entire day was pretty much spent on setting the Mintek up. ^^;