I was never much of a gamer. When I was around 10, I was “tricked” by my brothers to pitch in my CNY angpow money so that “we” could get a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. I think I ended up playing only about 1% of the time.

This year, just before my birthday, my brother introduced me to the Patapon online demo and the Playstation Portable (PSP: the only platform that plays Patapon). Before long, I’m totally sucked into this PSP/Patapon craze and the PSP became a must-have item.

I still don’t really know why I had to get it.

For a while, I’ve been thinking of saving some money to get a videocamera for my dissertation research. But now that I’m in the midst of writing up the research proposal, I’m sort of sick of doing everything and thinking about the research proposal all the time. I didn’t want to get a work-gift for my birthday. At the same time, I wanted something “fun” to soothe my one-third-life crisis. So I got the PSP for my birthday.

The PSP also plays music. So once again, I could actually have music while driving without having to fix the “locked” stereo player in the car.

However, the main push to get the PSP was the Patapon game. But it was only recently released and I still haven’t received the game yet. (On the PSP screen is a photo that I took in Roach, MO)

No Patapon?!! Then the PSP is only 1/3 the fun. So I tried to download the demo. Unfortunately, the demo is not downloadable to a Mac. So I went down to a PC in the computer lab and tried to download it there. But, I couldn’t get the installer to work because I didn’t have administrator rights on the PC in the lab.

Out of desperation, I dug out my old Toshiba laptop that I haven’t used for two years. I’m very surprised that it actually booted up. But the demo still wouldn’t work. I think it’s because of the low-speed USB port. Anyway, there’s nothing else to do but wait for the game to arrive…

I’ve already contributed my share of helping out the US economy and done enough damage to my own pocket. No more spending money to get a case for the PSP. I found this bottle cooler sleeve that I got at the Women’s 5K Classic expo. I think it works fine.