Birthdays

» Written on March 3, 2007 at 3:50 AM «

Are things to be celebrated, to be served with a healthy dose of cake and presents, culminated with the extinguishing of a predetermined number of lighted flames, then rapidly forgotten and thrown away into the dark, musty closets of the mind to await the next.

That’s what most people usually do. I prefer to just skip right to the end instead. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really go over well with most people, resulting in, ah, conflict of interests. Thankfully, it’s my birthday, so whatever they may attest to and accuse me of, they can’t really force me to cherish it.

I’m not really certain how exactly my family operates; it appears that whatever you want them not to do, they will, and whatever you need them to do, they will not. It’s a cycle of viciousness, one that regularly rubs coins against each other, with the most terrible of grinding noises.

So I wasn’t exactly keen on the need for a birthday cake or even a mention of such an event, but somehow, it all happened anyway, to my dismay. You will realize, of course, that my call to arms in the post preceding this one was, in its entirety, a complete joke. For the uninitiated, it means that it should perhaps be read for amusement, and nothing more.

I present exhibits of blasphemy next.

cake

My sister got that for me, a nice harmonic combination of colours. With fruity bits, though; somehow she likes that. I prefer chocolate, but then again, I hate cakes anyway, so that’s a moot point.

lighted cake

There it is, with complete lighting features. I was lucky my sister moved her hand out of the way before I took the shot.

My sis took this shot instead, which explains the heavy underexposure (I forgot to set the camera to use automatic settings before hefting it over to her)

Blowing out the candles

I’ll probably upload a proper album of shots after I fill up my SD card with, uh, more shots of other stuff, I guess.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, the lamenting about how most people go about celebrating their days of entry into this dark, forbidding world.

As such, how do I celebrate such occasions? Why, doing whatever the fuck I want, of course!

The day’s trials began with a 11 a.m. wake-up call after finally finishing the story campaign of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories on my Sony PSP yesterday morning in an extended marathon lasting till around 3 a.m.. After logging on to the rig, I finally decided to get myself a second-hand copy of Sid Meier’s Pirates! for the PSP (at 35 SGD, which would be around 22 USD), having only played the primitive first iteration of its Macintosh older brother. But before that, I finally managed to get into contact with a contact about a possible rental of his Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories UMD for downgrading purposes. Now, for those who don’t particularly care for the PSP (or Sony), downgrading refers to the process of reverting a device’s firmware back to a previous version. In the PSP’s case, this would mean my being able to execute homebrew applications on the damn thing, which Sony has been doing their best to prevent.

I’ve mentioned about it before, but anyway, the reason I didn’t go through with such a process was the fear of bricking my PSP prematurely. I’m one for everything when it comes to total customization of whatever I own, but I hesitate, perhaps, when those changes are tagged with the property of being potentially irreversible.

Anyway, I met the guy at the National Library in our Bugis district, whereupon I plugged in my laptop and began the nerve-wracking, nail-biting process of downgrading my PSP to 1.50 firmware, then upgrading it to a custom firmware version, 3.03 OE-C.

(For the PSP junkies: yes, I know that 3.10 OE-A’ is out, but read the readme. It has its own share of issues, and I’m not about to cheat death twice, though I am half the devil. Maybe someday.)

So anyway, I currently have myself such a fantastic new piece of hardware with (God forbid, even though I’m an unbeliever) Sonic The Hedgehog on it.

I feel like I’m about to cry.

Can you imagine what will happen once I get my hands on those old ROMs I used to own? Metal Slug and the King of Fighters immediately come to mind, but goddamn, imagine Marvel VS Capcom running on this thing. Or the original Metal Gear Solid. And all for just 10 bucks. Still expensive for a 15-minute rental, of course, but I don’t know anyone who owns a PSP with the unpatched version of GTA:LCS, and I’m not about to buy the actual damned game for like 70. And that’s even assuming I can still find an unpatched version in this country.

I feel a bit peckish for some Nintendo 64 Zelda action, though; that’s probably the only franchise I haven’t yet touched in my life, which is kind of amazing considering how much I’ve played since the conceptions of my childhood. Maybe this will actually help me fill that niche.

One thing is for sure, though; the train rides back home are going to be a lot less boring than before.

(I haven’t finished the House illustration yet, and I have an avalanche of school tests coming my way sooner than I would have preferred. C’est la vie.)

   

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