As you should know, a couple of months ago, my laptop went to the repair center to get fixed. Well the story is that I didn’t get the computer back in its full glory. Other than the missing ExpressCard blank, a hole that now fills with dust, I was also left with one dead pixel. You probably think I am crazy for getting annoyed and complaining about one little pixel on my monitor, but it is a big deal. I am getting one less pixel than I should be getting. Not only is it the fact that it’s dead, but its that it died when it was at the repair centers hands. Call me crazy but I blame them for it. I think they were careless and that’s why that poor pixel died.

I do know my poor laptop, the one I treated like a million dollar diamond, perfect, clean and mark less. When it returns to me, it has scratches, it has a giant dust collecting hole in the side, one of the grips on the bottom is gone and one pixel is dead. Just so you know how big of a deal this is, the pixel in question is located just a bit up from the bottom about half a finger on the left. Its well hidden by Vistas black taskbar but I know it is there, a millimeter under the iTunes quick launch icon. It annoys me. I want a perfect screen with every single pixel in working order. Call me crazy but I should be getting all the pixels I paid for, not one less.

This is not the only thing in my possession with problematic pixels. My PSP happens to have a stuck pixel, a damn red one. It is about 2.5 cm from the top and left. You would think it wouldn’t be a problem but it is really irritating when watching a movie or doing something other than pushing buttons in a game. When playing a game, you are so into the game that the pixel becomes invisible, but when doing other things, that red dot is irritating and very noticeable, so much that it is distracting.

When a small dot on a screen with many more pixels dies, its not really a problem if it is out of the way, but a pixel on a small screen close to the middle, now that is just irritating. When will the day come that pixels don’t have problems. One day I would like to now worry about the little guys inside my screens dying or getting stuck, its something that I shouldn’t even think about, but since they are annoying me, I am worried. I am crazy for getting agitated about something so small and insignificant. Maybe I have some kind of disorder, or maybe I just want things perfect!

The past week, without a laptop, I have been playing Pokemon on my PSP. You are probably wondering how it is possible to do so, but it is simple. Just like for the PC, there is a GameBoy Advance emulator for the PSP and it works very well for the popular GBA titles. I have been using it to play Pokemon Emerald.

I really like PSP homebrew because it allows me to do this, and many more things. gpSP is an amazing emulator, even though it is still in beta. It plays the game perfectly fine, but the only issues will be with trying to use cheats because the system isn’t quite done yet. But that is not an issue anyway, who cheats in GBA games, especially pokemon. Not me.

Pokemon Emerald is too easy. My starting Pokemon is at  level 60 whereas my opponents Pokemon are generally around level 30, half my Pokemon’s level. What this means is that generally, I can take down an opponents Pokemon using only one attack. It is silly they have done that for it allows me to zoom fast through the game without training, or even capturing other Pokemon.

Anyway I still enjoy playing Pokemon on the PSP and reminds me of when I was seven playing Pokemon Yellow on my GameBoy Colour. Weren’t those the days.

As I ranted about two days ago, my wireless in my notebook isn’t working.  yesterday I rang Compaq and they told me to do useless crap that I had already tried. I told them I had done it but they insisted that I tried it again. Anyway, without luck, I was told that I would have to restore my system. I backed up my files and waited for the call center to open up the next day.

They walked me through restoring it with their recovery software and I had no luck with that. The software stalled at the par where it re-installs the operating system. I tried restoring from the recovery disc but no luck, same error.  Now I had no way of restoring my computer. The hard drive had been reformatted so there was nothing on the disc. I then had to drop my laptop at the HP certified repair center for them to put Windows Vista back on it and test the wireless adapter and replace if need be.

I have no laptop now and I won’t be getting it back for at up to seven days. That is a long time to wait for her I miss her already. Now I am resorted to a slow, crappy Windows XP desktop. I hate this machine! It will do though, better this than nothing at all. I’m going to have to convert my TV Shows to watch on my PSP because this stupid computer doesn’t play well with Divx. Poor Me!

In 3.71, Sony added theme support. Initially you could only use themes Sony had created but they shortly released a kit for people to make their own themes. I tried out some of the themes and some are pretty good, but most suck. If I want a theme on my PSP, it would have to be slick and nice. Most of the themes have jaggered icons, some even have icons that aren’t transparent so you can see white, very lame and unprofessional.

I have found a handful of decent themes. I’m sure everyone can predict the types of themes people will be creating, and yes, you are right. The good thing is most of these cliche themes are pretty decent, its the other stuff that is amature. Windows theme is a theme using the basic Windows icons and such to help you identify features on the PSP, for example the Internet Browser is the IE logo. The Mac theme is pretty similar but the icons are replaced with their OS X counterparts, lie the file specific folders and the music and photos menu icons. Vista theme features all the slick icons from the new Windows operating system. This is the best theme I have seen so far (in terms of looks, nothing to do with the actual computer operating system.) Last but not least, iPhone. There had to definitely be an iPhone theme. It has the iPhone icons associated with PSP features, Music, Pictures, Internet ect. ect.

The themes I have mentioned were all made at a high standard and anyone with the PSP with 3.71 (or 3.71 M33 custom firmware,) should definitely check these themes out. I have attached the themes I have mentioned plus a few extra one so now you have no excuse not to check them out. If you find any good ones, please lead me onto them, also tell me what you think of the ones I have attached.

• Windows XP
• Mac
• Windows Vista
• iPhone
• iPhone (2)

Note: Themes posted here are not mine. I take no credit for them. All rights belong to their original owners.

I had the fortunate opportunity to have access to Nintendo’s next generation console, the Wii. My neighbour bought one. You know the advertisements where you see the older people playing it and you think “Yeah Right!”, well my neighbour is in that age bracket and she bought one for herself (and a nice HDTV to go with it. ) Anyway, I set it all up and have been playing it today and yesterday.

My first impressions were good, I enjoyed it a lot. I only had access to the two games that come with it, well technically the game that came with it, Wii Sports, and the game that came with the Wiimote, Wii Play. Wii Sports was a lot of fun. Tennis was cool but it was weird. The ball went in places that any normal person wouldn’t hit it, so the controls on that are a little janky. Baseball was very difficult. I did get the hang of it eventually but someone without persistence could get frustrated very easily and dislike the game. Once you get it right, it is good. Bowling was by far my favourite. It was awesome playing two or three player, the competitiveness was just what the game needed to make it fun. Single player bowling just isn’t the same. Golf was okay but the controls were a little difficult, that’s really all I have to say about it. Boxing was definitely the most energetic one. I really worked up a sweat after a few games of it. Wii Play is a great game to introduce you to the Wii and I think it was a good move to include it with the console.

Wii Play is bad. To be honest, all it really is, is a tutorial on how to use the Wiimote. Most of the games on it are crap and it is stupid you have to play all the games to unlock them all. The only games really worth mentioning from this are the fishing game, billiards and the game with the cow (don’t ask.) The fishing game is what you would expect it to be like, you pull up when you get a bite. This game is a little annoying when you have two people playing because when one person pulls up a fish, it ruins your fishing. Billiards is the best thing on the disc, it is billiards. Not much more to say about that one. The random cow game is a racing game where you knock things over and collect points. You have the controller horizontal and steer it. You lift the controller for jump and tilt it forward to make the animal go faster. It was a cool game and I with it lasted a little longer.

All in all my Wiiperience was great. I enjoyed it and wish I had the opportunity to try out more game, some decent titles, to see what this thing is really made of. At the moment I still agree with it being a fad and I am a little bored of it already. I am sure there are people in the same boat as me, and there will be people who disagree. I am glad I got to play with the Wii, although I am not so glad with the sore arm it gave me, haha.

Today Team M33 released their 3.71 Custom Firmware for PSP. The major thing that this adds is support for 3.71. It had been a while since the last release and the day before they released a statement saying that the firmware was ready but they were delaying it for various reasons. The release also came with another surprise, M33 is Dark_Alex, the king of Homebrew and Custom Firmware.

I hadn’t updated since 3.10 OE-A and I though now would be a good time to update. There were various reasons why I had held off for this long, one being that I was happy with the firmware I was on and everything we working perfectly and there was no compelling reason to update when there was the possibility of breaking all the stuff I was using. There was also a small chance of bricking my PSP but I like to feel I have the hang of it, for I have downgraded and upgraded 3 other PSPs other than my own.

Then when Dark_Alex announced his retirement of the scene, I was a bit worried about who would take over and release custom firmware. Was someone going to take over or was I doomed to 3.40 OE and the eventual death of custom firmware and go back to the official, most likely 4.XX. A new group rushed in and took the spot, Team M33. They said they reversed-engineered the OE firmware to create their own M33 firmware. When they released it, there were mixed opinions about this group. Some disliked them and wanted Dark_Alex back, other accepted them and decided to worship this new group that has entered the scene.

I was unsure. I didn’t want to go out and update the M33. I waited for the outcomes of other people. I also had a worse fear of everything breaking if I update to this M33 firmware. I quietly hoped to myself, that one day he would return, the king, Dark_Alex. I stopped participating in PSP homebrew but I did keep one eye on it. As time passed, Sony released more official homebrew updates, Team M33 were closely behind them releasing their custom firmware and a thin layer of dust covered the plastic enclosure of my PlayStation Portable.

Eventually I decided that it was time to wipe down my PSP, give in and update my PSP, for better or worse. 3.70 arrived from Sony so I waited for M33 to release their custom firmware of it. This was my entry back in, to bring life back into my PSP, hopefully. I waited and waited until today, it was released! The news was also that Dark_Alex is M33, which gave me comfort and made it definite I was taking the plunge, again. I eagerly downloaded all the files needed for me to make the big jump, from 3.10 OE to 3.71 M33. I did it. The process was a lot smoother than previous updates, it even used the official Sony updater instead of the black and white text screen. It was nice.

After the update was complete, I went to snoop around. My PSP crashed as I entered the setting menu, but this is nothing new. I then had a play with all of the new features. Themes is the biggest update from what I had, other than that, it was little updates that were either bug fixes or something I couldn’t/didn’t use. I had a play with the themes I downloaded and it looks nice and different but I went back to the original default look. Themes are just a fad and the one Sony has released are a little ugly. I can’t wait for people to make their own theme, those are going to be leet!

I also tested playing some ISO’s that I had on my memory stick. These ran amazingly, with no problems. I didn’t even have to modify the clock speed in the recovery menu and even online worked for Ratchet and Clank, it didn’t in my previous custom firmware. Also my favourite homebrew application, PSPTube, still worked in the firmware. I was extremely happy with the update and would recommend everyone update to 3.71 M33 now! Custom Firmware is AMAZING!