My PSP Saga

My life seems full of sagas.

No, not the Norse kind. Not like Gilgamesh. Or Odysseus. In fact not like anyone cool at all. It's just things that happen. And happen. And happen. And then end up becoming this weird uber-crazy insane thing that kind of snowballs into the stuff of legend. Or possibly cautionary tale.

I had a laptop saga. I got in more trouble that my life is worth. And for some people I am more trouble than I am worth. But the thing is, these sagas (I keep having the urge to call them by the faux-Latin sagae) make are what makes my life (almost) worth living. It definitely makes my life worth blogging.

This, as if the title wasn't a clue, is my PSP saga.

Many, many moons ago the 'Softie gave me a PSP gaming console for my birthday. It was way cool. I loved it. I never realised how cool it was to play games on it until I tried it.

I was one of the generation that grew up on LCD-based hand-held games. Absent the gaming consoles popular in America, we made do with little game-and-watch machines. Mario would forever climb the scaffolding, and Donkey Kong, and his side-kick Donkey Kong Jr. would constantly swing on the vines.

We had a few gaming arcades, usually a small shop with either Space Invaders or Galaga. One even had the table version of Centipede. But they all disappeared when someone went to Las Vegas and discovered that you could get electronic gambling machines, and made them popular here. Admittedly before the disappearance they became extremely popular, everyone seemed to have a gambling machine on the premises. But that soon finished when the Premadasa government discovered them too. Like all governments, they maintained that vices could only be legal if they (or their hench-men) were getting a cut of it. So all arcade games were declared illegal, confiscated, and destroyed. Even the purely game machines.

During that time, I played a version of Pong on a machine connected to the TV. And various games on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum (16 colours! 16k of RAM! WOOHOO!). My introduction to PCs brought games like Thexder and Leisure Suit Larry. Bootleg copies of Prince of Persia, Turbo Outrun, Death Track, and Golden Axe filled my nights and Poya days. I played Wolf3d, Doom, and Duke Nukem 3D. I got into Dune, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. I spent many a sleepless night trying to take over the world in Civilization.

OK! I'll get on with my story. Sheesh! I was just trying to lay some foundation here. So the Saga continues..

Anyway, I loved the PSP. I played it, and I possibly got a little obsessed with it. My friend Bud helped me hack the firmware and get it to use software on a MemoryStick Duo. It was a cool machine, and it went many places with me.

Then sometime during SFD2007, while I was taking part in an event, it went missing. Since it was in my bag, and put away (I thought) safely, I have to figure it was stolen.

I was pissed off. I was also more than a little disgusted that someone would steal from my bag during an event. But there it was. Or more to the point, there it was not.

So I no longer had a PSP. That was 15 levels of piss-offing. Hey it's my blog and I can make up words if I want to.

That wasn't the worst thing that happened that year, but sometimes I think it was the kick-off point.

I went on without it of course. It was a luxury, and I could do without it. Or I kept telling myself.

But I really missed it after my accident. I was confined to bed for two weeks, unable to move. I couldn't concentrate enough to blog. In fact I was - to use a medical technical term - pretty fucked up. I wanted to have something, anything to take my mind off what had happened, and more than once, more than 10 times, I found myself saying/thinking/wishing damn! I wish I had the fucking PSP!

Since I lost the PSP I had been trying to buy one. I had my eye on the Darth Vader PSP. Then the screaming purple one. But I never had the money. I also wanted the PSP-1000. This was the original model and was guaranteed to be hackable.

Today, after more than a little work, I have some cash. Did a few contracts, and I have decided that a PSP would be mine. I went looking for a PSP-1000, but all they had was a P!nk special edition. And since it was endorsed by and promoting Pink the artist, it was also, obviously, pink in colour. Not just pink, but Pink! A flaming pink that would have guys in fashionable clothes trying to chat me up. It was also about LKR10,000 more expensive than the PSP-2000.

I also decided against the PSP-3000 because 6 months after launch it has not been hacked. This either means that the PSP-3k is a) unhackable because Sony learned from their mistakes, or b) Dark Alex has been bought or killed (or both).

So with the toss up between the 1000 and 2000, I guess I'll be buying the 2k. I haven't bought it yet, I am at the Majestic City food court having lunch and trying to get my thoughts in order.

If I can sneak aboard a hotspot I'll be uploading this soon.

If not, it will be when I get to TLC.

So the PSP will be bought. Probably a 2000. And Bud and I will get together and create a Pandora battery with his PSP-1000 and hack mine.

And I will have a PSP in my hands again.