PSP-2000 (aka PSP Slim )

I am a big fan of the PSP. I like video games, but don't really like sitting in front of a TV to play them. However, my old PSP has some problems. It's literally held together by duct tape.

So when the new PSP model was announced, I decided to save and buy one of those. I finally got one, a "Piano Black" stand alone model (as opposed to the ones in packs).

It's pretty nice. Most of the problems of the original PSP were fixed. The d-pad is great, diagonals are easy to do. The screen seems more visible outside, and ghosting seems a little reduced, though still there. (I also got one with no dead pixels, my old one had 4). It really is light, probably half the weight of the old. The analog nub seems more responsive.

It does feel a bit cheap. Especially the slot where you put the memory stick in. I'm not crazy about the UMD loading port, but not as bad as I feared. Haven't noticed any difference in loading times, but I'm not sure that will be addressed in older titles until it's built into the firmware. The manual was also printed on very cheap paper, almost like toilet tissue, worse than even comic book paper.

Still, I like it quite a bit. Cramps your hand a lot less, too. I had to get grips for my old one, but I'm not sure I'll need those for this one.


*I cracked the faceplate when PuzzleQuest froze on me, requiring me to take the battery out. The battery thing is hard to open. I used to much force. So I replaced the faceplate. But then a bug got in it somehow. I go opened that, and accidently broke that faceplate, getting the bug out. Then I put another faceplate on. Somehow this one borked the analog stick and I lost some screws, too, in the chaos of trying to get the stick to work. So I just taped it on, where it's missing the screws.

Sorry, been busy...

Oddly enough, I've been busy writing a novel. I had been wanting to write one for quite some time, but just never got to much of a start. Part of the reason is that I was sure I could never find a publisher. Then I was browsing Lulu.com for some reason, and looked at the section on UFOs. I saw a novel there by Jacques Vallee, one of my favorite UFO authors. I didn't buy it, his last UFO novel, Firewalker (or something like that) was awful, but finally I just said to myself "Hmmmm, if a respected author finds Lulu.com an okay venue to sell his books, maybe I could, too. So quit thinking about it and write."

And so I have. Most of my free time for the last month has been writing it. Up to about 70,000 words now if I can believe the counter in MS Word. 350kb or so of plain text.

I doubt I'll sell it, probably put it up on Lulu.com if I can't find any takers. If it's good enough for Jacques Vallee, it's good enough for me.


(Jacques Vallee is a famous Ufologist. His fame has decreased over the years because he's not a big self-promoter, he has a real job outside of UFOs and does Ufology in his spare time - research not appearing on TV. But he was the inspiration for the french guy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind)