Figured I'd shoot out a message since it's been quiet and see how the community is doing. What's everyone up to these days?

I'm fiddling around with a Raspberry Pi 2. Installed RetroPie and Kodi (aka. Xbmc) on it. Building the Database for Kodi is quite some work if you happen to have many series. Got that almost done though.
But I want to check out Recalbox and maybe Lakka, I read that Recalbox needs less configuration and works out of the box.
So, that will eat quite some time and it's fun.

I restarted playing the fan translation of Final Fantasy VI (SNES), just to check out the script differences. I started playing it when it came out in 2005 (got maybe 2 hours in), but just stopped for no reason. Ten years later, I'm finishing what I started.

Took a look at PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable emulation on the PC side. Got Final Fantasy X and X-2 working. I'm thinking of checking out some RPGs on the PSP as well. I must say that 2x rendering on both systems looks pretty darn good.

Somebody at work brought in a RetroPie (or one of those other things for the Raspberry Pi 2). It looked neat, but the boot times were poor. And I couldn't find any options for graphics enhancements.

But otherwise, nothing's changed. Still rocking the first gen Power Mac G5 dual 2.0 as my main machine.

I'm working on qemu-related Mac emulation and have recently been investigating the current state of MESS -- it seems there's been some regressions since it merged with MAME. So hopefully we'll get that fixed soon.

qemu-ppc is looking pretty good; next areas for improvement appear to be massively optimizing FPU emulation and getting save states working. Image snapshots already mostly work.

And I'm still working on my history of Mac OS project

List of tasks (not necessarily in order):
- Bought a new house (organising tradies to fix it up before we move in, gaaaar tradies!)
- Waking up at 4:30am because that's my 11.5 month old son's new wake-up time
- Planning our son's first birthday in 2 weeks time! Really busy because we want the new (old) house to be ready in time since we're having the party there... I suspect the house will be closed off and we'll have a party outside in the garden/pergola. Having the house ready for it is a nice goal though!
- Finally had my graduation for my juris doctor (~6 months after completion, I skipped the ceremony and then had my own informal 'ceremony' at the Student Centre while picking it up)...
- (Hopefully) getting admitted as a lawyer in December (hopefully the admission board decides I'm a 'fit and proper person'). I've finished my JD, passed all of my College of Law assessments, completed my 75 days of practical experience and am really looking forward to this milestone. It's a strange one because as a kid I was an elite athlete who had very different goals. This goal is just my first small step in one direction, but it's a good feeling being able to do something right. I've had a relatively rough road over the past ~8 years. I feel like I completely screwed up my 20's, but it has been a really good start to my 30's.
- Gotta vote tomorrow (territory election)... still no idea who I'll choose (there's a new voting system this year that weirds me out, but I think I get it)
- Probably the biggest one... going to Japan at the end of the month for some family court action. Long story short, my previous marriage ended after my ex tried stabbing me to death. I then let her take a 'holiday' to Japan with our daughter. She went into hiding, changed their names and instantly re-married some random (arranged marriage) with the new husband 'adopting' our daughter. Since then my ex has actively told investigators that she denies my existence to our daughter and will tell her I'm dead if she ever finds my name...etc on official documents. All presents sent over have been rejected (by the grandparents) so I've been unable to have any communication. My application for even basic access has been a long, tedious process. However, it has resulted in a proper court hearing where I'm hoping that (at very least) I'll be able to break the chain of lies being told to my daughter about her culture/identity. To me this is a really cruel thing to do to a kid, because growing up is hard enough without know who you REALLY are. I hope it's not too late to save her from the damage that this is doing...

Trying to think what else... that's about it. Coughing a lot! I've had this darn cold for ~5 months that I just can't get rid of. Tried everything. Hopefully the summer helps get rid of it

Oh and not 'doing' but I got to meet Woz a couple of months back (can't remember exactly how long ago it was, but recently). He came to Australia to do a talk and mum bought me a platinum ticket (that allowed me to meet him after the show). This was REALLY cool!! No, REALLY cool!!!! His speech was really inspiring and we got to have a decent chat afterwards. I was expecting to have a really nervous 'no connection' kinda moment with him (I always freeze and spin out when I meet my idols). However, this was different. I brought my Newton (which I realise he played no part in developing) and asked him to sign it. He was REALLY friendly about the Newton and told me he's still got two boxed 2100's at home. He also had a big chat about how the Newton was a massive turning point for how he viewed what electronics should be like. When I handed him the Newton to sign, he handled it like a pro (the GUI is a bit messy unless you've used it recently - he used it REALLY confidently, and knew where all the features...etc were). I was left super impressed because he was really approachable, really easy to talk to and knew so much about conceptualising the idea of a personal computer. He went over-time by quite a bit, had lots of time for the fans and described some really magical stories that I got a lot out of.

That's awesome to hear about Woz, jetboy.

My life right now is pretty much laser focused on one thing. I'm well behind the original schedule I'd set for writing my book, so pushing hard to finish it and submit to the publisher this month — partly so they can start editing/design/production stuff but mostly because I need to get back to earning money (and I won't receive a cent of the book sales/crowdfunding revenue until it's published). Manuscript is now around 80% complete and progressing quickly.

Got a 2nd-hand Surface Pro 2 this weekend. Using it at the moment as another screen for managing my book work, but enjoying it so far. It's kind of a test run for saving up and buying a Surface Book in a year or so — wanted to make sure I could handle Windows as something more than a gaming OS, and that having multi-touch on a desktop OS actually benefits my workflow/computing experience. So far so good, but early days of course.