I'm now the proud, and very impressed, owner of a PSP.

Can someone tell me what in the hell I'm supposed to do with it now? [yes, there's more to this entry]

Call it an act of rebellion. An impulse buy, facilitated by good timing. A reward for back breaking work on a new house. Ah, fuck it. Yay for me.

I'm sick to death of $50 visits to Home Depot. I've got nothing against the store, but I've been in there six or seven times a week for the last three weeks. Every time I step foot in the place, it's $30-70 a visit. Well, except for the ceiling fan visit: that was like $300. And every fourth visit also involves a return. Damned speaker wire and light bulb sizes... G16.5, my ass. A socket should be socket sized. Feh.

I spent the last two days cleaning my new kitchen. Yes, work on the townhouse is progressing and I'm on schedule to move this Friday. Walls are painted, light fixtures changed, faucets replaced, carpet and Pergo laid down, door knobs updated, new coffee tables assembled and painted... there's still a toilet in the middle of the bathroom floor (a plumber is already scheduled), there's no carpet on the stairs (yet - it'll be done on Monday) and the painters are coming back for touch up, but that's all easily done in four days time.

Just about everything in the new place has been updated. Except for the blinds, dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, wash'n'dryer, and cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms. Bit of a big "except" but not really: the dishwasher, stove, and W/D look like they're pretty new. And one of the blinds have been replaced. I had to do that. I wiped down the vertical blinds with some Windex and the other blinds are in decent shape, but the one in the dining room was hosed. And I mean hosed. So much so that I measured the window, and ran to Target - no. more. Depot. for. one. day. - for a new one. $9 (and 5 minutes) later and I no longer had to worry about the food that was stuck to the old blinds. Even used the same blind mounts. Booyah!

As part of the "excepts" list, I decided to get some "Cabinet Magic" - mostly just spray on almond oil - and spend the weekend cleaining the cabinet frames, doors, and drawers. And the fridge: it's a side by side with an ice and water dispenser and I'm thinking that someone dumped a lil bit of a mocha in it, thinking it was a drain. Not. Also cleaned up the water dispenser spout because, well, I don't think it had been clean, since it was installed. Having seen it, I dunno that I'll use it... phear. So future projects include a new fridge, new blinds, and um. I think that's it for the next couple of years. If I get the balls (and cash) for it, I might re-tile the bathrooms and/or replace the stuff up there with fiberglass - I remember the pain of cleaning grout while growing up - but that's going to take more cash (and balls) than I have for the current effort.

My kitchen is now packed, my desktop is completely disconnected - save for LAN and power (gotta have remote email!) - and the only things left to be packed are the cable boxes, the Xbox, and some clothing. Feh... clothing. Thankfully men could give a crap! There's some Diet Coke and cheese in the fridge - I'll move them with the mayo on Thursday - and it'll be a Take Out Week with plastic forks. I need to bring some boxes down to the garage - I'm told it saves money on the move - but that's what this week is for.

And I'm building up a nice upper respiratory infection. I think it's the tree pollen: my car turns yellow by sunset each day. That's not going to bode well with me, since I'm allergic to that crap. I should go to the doctors, but who has the time? While all of this is goin on, there's a push for a deadline at work - honest!

After the three shots of Robitussin this morning and spending four hours in the new house, I took a little road trip. Smelling like an almond grove - and a condom, thanks to latex gloves - completely unshaved, and sporting a Halo 2 shirt, I stopped off at the local ebGames: instead of the laughter that I was expecting from a "Got a PSP in stock?" I heard a 'Nice timing - someone cancelled their order this morning'.

For any company that's currently working on a mobile device, get this one and pay attention to it. In my opinion, it's one of the most impressive devices I've had. Certainly on par with my first iPod and AudioVox SMT5600. The 5600 felt solid, for a phone, but it still felt like a phone. The first iPod was special because of its box and presentation, and the fact that it was the first of its kind. The second and third iPod were similar to the first, and I still like the 4th generation, but I don't honestly use it very much anymore - the PC is my music device for work. The PSP feels... almost insidious or glutinous. Nothing remarkable about the box. Nothing overly interesting about the manual and certainly no "Don't steal music" label.

Nearly the entire device is part of the screen. The little analog shifting knob is neat feeling. The Memory Stick Duo are on par with a SD card, in size and thickness. The battery isn't heavy. The adapter is a two piecer: no honkin' American brick plug and I can use the power cable from ThinkPad for it, if I want to travel really light. Standard headphone jack - screw you Nintendo for messing that up! - plus an iPod on-the-wire style remote. I bought Twisted Metal for it - ya drive and blow stuff up, so it should be fun - and it came with Spider Man 2 on whatever the new disc format is. I'm hoping for a GTA port and some of the fun PS2 stuff to come over. I'd almost rather buy Triple Play for the PSP than the PS2 or Xbox for some reason... I can't explain that. Oh, it also has what looks like a stand mini-USB port on it... I'll find out about that later - I haven't had a chance to read thru the manual!

The moral of the story is that I know there's people out there hacking the bugger to shit. And that's what the real hook is for me... I want to be able to pull video off a DVD and watch it on the thing. Burn disc's for some day, maybe? I already heard you can pull off MCE video off it, so with a 1GB Stick, I should be able to get a proper DVD on there, right? It's got web support already, through... I forgot what. Someone figured it out, though. And I think it's set for WiFi - I dunno. This is why it was an impulse buy: I've been hearing a lot about it, but didn't pay much attention because I didn't have one.. boy has that changed.

And on top of all of that, it just feels good. Now I just have to find a use for it. I'm hoping that there's a Texas Hold'em game for it with online play... that would rule. I have one for the Xbox but it's a pain in the ass, finding games online. They'll give you a list of 15 games and at least 75% of them won't let you connect... bad coding on the gamers part - Halo 2 has a great matchmaking system... everyone else should just use that!

Anyway, I personally think that this is just a desperate attempt to stave off the Mac mini purchase that I've been avoiding... or waiting for Tiger for *wink*