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Settling In - Relic hunting, winter edition

I’m tired of writing about winter. Almost as tired as I am of experiencing it. Honestly, there’s only so much I can say about the white menace.
PS2 Memory Card

I’m tired of writing about winter. Almost as tired as I am of experiencing it.

Honestly, there’s only so much I can say about the white menace. How many articles can I write about getting trapped in snow or freezing in snow or slowly going mad from snow-induced insanity? I’m sick of snow. I’m sick of even writing the word “snow.” I need a break.

So what better way to avoid writing about snow than to pen a tale about avoiding the harsh realities of winter?

To best the winter blahs, you need a project. You need something to give you hope, to give you purpose. You need something to do. If you don’t do that, you’ll lose your grip on reality as the cold season stretches into April.

I’ve been struggling to find a quality, long-term winter project. I wanted something fresh, something original. But instead of doing that, I just stole a page from my fellow reporter Devin’s playbook: I went relic hunting.

Last month, I received a special birthday gift in the mail: A functional Playstation 2 (or PS2 if you’re hip and cool like me). A Halifax friend sent it to me as a beacon in the winter. She knows nothing beats the cold like early-2000s video games.

Dusting off the PS2 and its accompanying games flooded me with warm memories of wasting Sunday mornings plugged into the boob tube. I couldn’t wait to dive back in. But there was one problem: It didn’t have a memory card.

Kids today have internal save drives in their game stations. They don’t know how good they have it. In my day, you needed an external memory storage card to save your progress in a PS2 game. Otherwise, all your work would be erased when you switched the machine off.

So I hit the Yorkton pawn shops looking for a memory card. I received a steady stream of “no’s.” Someone even laughed in my face for suggesting such cards existed. But I would not be denied.

I voyaged to Regina with friends under the guise of seeing “Black Panther,” but I had ulterior motives. I’d found a used-game shop in the capital city and the owners guaranteed they sold memory cards. So I innocently suggested we stop by the store before the movie.

We slipped and slid our way down the icy Regina roads, facing near-death. Finally, we arrived at the store. It smelled like ancient plastic, the calling card of classic video games. I rushed to the counter, grabbed a memory card, ponied up the dough, and stuffed it in my pocket. I’d done it.

Back home, I plugged the PS2 into the wall and, after much finagling and cursing, managed to connect it to my TV. I flicked it on, popped in some “Crash Bandicoot,” and took refuge from the cold.

It was well worth the effort. My quest paid off. Video games, as millions of people can attest, are excellent escapism. They’re the perfect way to unwind, relax, and blow stuff up (virtually).

But there’s a fly in my ointment. I’ve noticed the left joystick on the controller is jammed to the side, meaning the player-character always drifts to the left. When you play games where one wrong move can send you hurtling into an abyss, that’s a bit of an issue. Looks like I’ll have to hit the streets once again.

The hunt goes on...