I buy my own insurance, which means I’m stuck on the forefront of the Affordable Care Act revolution. I just got some paperwork from my insurance, noting my new plan option after the first of next year.

I currently pay $133 a month for my coverage. This new plan is $236 a month.

My current plan waives the deductible for my first four office visits each year, save for a $35 copay. The new plan, if I read it right, has a $60 office visit copay after deductible.

My current plan charges a $10 copay for a 90-day supply of generic medication; the new plan charges a $20 copay for a 30-day supply of the same.

If this is representative of all new ACA insurances, I’ll go uninsured and pay the goddamn penalty. Fuck Obamacare.

Experience has taught me that it’s much easier for me to buy video games than it is for me to actually play them. I played the heck out of my NES and SNES games, but the N64 and later consoles frequently made me motion sick. Consequently, I was slow to adopt the Playstation and PS2—and thereby entered into a cycle that I’m still in today, where I have a massive backlog of games yet continue to buy new ones that sound interesting.

Every once in a while I do get around to playing a game, though, and every once in those whiles (compounding!) I find one that blows me away. Tales of Vesperia was one, and Valkyria Chronicles was another. (OK, I have a fondness for Japanese RPGs, and story-based games in general.)

The ones dearest to my heart, though, have all been quirky DS games. The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series lets you play lawyer and call people out on their lies. 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel/locked room puzzle where you have been abducted, locked away in a sinking ship, and forced to find a way to survive. Both are shoo-ins for a list of my favorite games of all time.

The latter is still (and only) available on the DS, but the former is out of print—save for an iOS port. I paid $90 for all three Ace Attorney games, and would do it again in a heartbeat; this iOS version is $17.

…

The game I just finished playing yesterday—and the one that inspired me to post at all—is called Ghost Trick. You’ve died under mysterious circumstances, and have returned as a ghost that can possess inanimate objects; your main goal is to figure out who you were, and why you died. I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t misty-eyed at the end of it all.

Unlike Phoenix Wright, you can still find reasonably-priced (~$20) DS copies of Ghost Trick; like Phoenix, though, it has also been ported to iOS, for $10.

These are amazing games! If there’s any way you can find a way to play any of them, you should!