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    <title>vamp: dm: Birthday Rewards</title>
    <link>http://www.dminor.com/blog/articles/2005/01/17/birthday-rewards</link>
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    <ttl>40</ttl>
    <description>variations on a short vamp in d minor</description>
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      <title>Birthday Rewards</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;
Typically, I have always used my Christmas/Birthday money for buying things that were left on my Christmas/Birthday list, but that I really needed.  This year, the things left of my list were pretty prciy and I wasn&amp;#8217;t finding a good way to use the money that wasn&amp;#8217;t going to take a good chunk out of my pocket too.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
Meanwhile, some friends showed us &lt;a href="http://www.konamihwi.com/ddr_ultramix2/ultramix2.html"&gt;Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2&lt;/a&gt; at their house and we&amp;#8217;ve been sneaking over when they weren&amp;#8217;t looking to play!  so needless to say, in a week&amp;#8217;s time, we&amp;#8217;ve become addicted to &lt;span class="caps"&gt;DDR&lt;/span&gt;.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
So it hit me last night that I could use my birthday money to buy a game system and &lt;span class="caps"&gt;DDR&lt;/span&gt; for Sarah and me  (the boys have &lt;span class="caps"&gt;N64&lt;/span&gt; downstairs, but I highly doubt that they&amp;#8217;re going to want to play it much longer).  Today&amp;#8217;s purchase included a &lt;a href="http://www.us.playstation.com"&gt;PlayStation 2&lt;/a&gt;, 2 Beat Pads, an extra game controller, and 4 games for the family.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
I was hoping &lt;a href="http://www.us.playstation.com/games.aspx?id=SLUS-20152"&gt;Ace Combat 04&lt;/a&gt; would be a good flight game for the boys, but I think it&amp;#8217;s going to be too hard for them for a while.  I&amp;#8217;m going to have fun with it until then. ;)
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
The big hit with the boys was &lt;a href="http://www.us.playstation.com/games.aspx?id=SLUS-20177"&gt;Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open&lt;/a&gt;.  I say no more.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
Grandad enjoyed reliving our Ms. PacMan tournaments with a little &lt;a href="http://www.us.playstation.com/games.aspx?id=SLUS-20224"&gt;PacMan World 2&lt;/a&gt;, but the best part of the night was getting him up to play &lt;a href="http://www.us.playstation.com/games.aspx?id=SLUS-20437"&gt;&lt;span class="caps"&gt;DDRMAX&lt;/span&gt; Dance Dance Revolution&lt;/a&gt;.  This little hobby is definitely going to have us putting window treatments on the front windows sooner rather than later!
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
This is the first game system I&amp;#8217;ve ever owned that I&amp;#8217;ve really cared about getting into.  I&amp;#8217;ve always kind of stayed away from games because I get pretty addicted to playing.  I never had any systems liek Atari growing up.  I bought a used &lt;span class="caps"&gt;N64&lt;/span&gt; at a garage sale and have enjoyed playing it a little and going head to head with the boys on some games.  This should prove to give us much room to expand as they get a little older.  In the meantime, Sarah and I are going to use it try to get some exercise!
&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Jan 2005 01:38:00 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">urn:uuid:51c93198c7e537cd5e73e7507eb66ac7</guid>
      <author>dminor</author>
      <link>http://www.dminor.com/blog/articles/2005/01/17/birthday-rewards</link>
      <category>Look Inside</category>
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