During my May trip back to Singapore for my buddy's wedding, the babies' mother, aka my niece, told me that her husband was looking at possibly getting a PSP.

I checked around in Singapore for the prices and they weren't really that great. So i told him i'll get one for him when i come back here.

Did some initial analysis and found that there's an overcomplicated set of firmware vs retail boxes vs the angle of the sun rising on the day the hamster ran backwards on the hamster wheel... probably skip the last part, but that was how i thought the various dependencies were.

I eventually decided to just get a used console and i got it from a good seller on eBay. That opened me up to the goodness of C F W.

Wow.. that totally brought new life into a handheld that is really well designed with great components, but lack a clearly defined marketing strategy. It just seems like PSP or their folks in marketing haven't decide whether to focus on it as a portable gaming device with media capabilities, or a portable media device with gaming capabilities.

The CFW gives me access to a portable virtual console of sorts, and i've been trying to squeeze in as many legacy console emulators as i possibly could, just for the heck of it. If i could find a Pong emulator, i'll put it onto my memory stick in a heartbeat.

When i got the used console, i went out to get one of the GTA titles (with the backdoor just by pure luck). It was used as a anger management tool as i can use it to vent my frustrations. Still haven't even cleared the first stage yet though.

One of the only (more like the only one) PSP titles that i was really interested in was a very Nintendo-like game, called Loco Roco.  Now that's a real therapy tool right there! The game designers must be on something high when they came up with the overall concept and the soundtrack. The game disc is now permanently fixed in the UMD drive, since once you started on this game, you probably won't be able to stop. It's the killer-app for me on this handheld.

My main usage of the handheld now is for its portable media features though. Initially used it to listen to my old time radio programmes, and slowly moved on to audio books, and now is used as a video player of some of my own DVD collections, since i like to watch the same movies over and over again, while Sharon doesn't, and this allow me to do so without hoarding the DVD/TV at home. It also helped in making the daily walking to/from work a lot easier to pass when one's watching Stephen Chow's comedies haha. I could never get bored by them (the ones w/o Eric Kot; i'm not the only one that couldn't "get" his humor (or his attempts at humor)).

A recent price drop on an accessory made me bought it, and the primary use for it is when i have to do my limited amount of housework. Not a very valid "use-case" since the kitchen in our new place has direct view of the TV anyway haha.

For actual gaming goodness, it's still the DS Lite and the GBA for me. Having the opportunity to snap up a number of classics last weekend at some dirt cheap prices make the goodness level even higher *bliss*.