More PSP Stuff

For anyone keeping track, I recently picked up Medievil Resurrection and PQ PSP games.

Also, here's a PSP on eBay with version 1.5 firmware (and a 2GB memory stick). You know, in case anyone wanted to get me a second PSP for my birthday. Because it would be very useful for work. And I'm going to have to buy one myself soon (and this is exactly what I need). Anyway. Birthday in a month plus a few days. Hint. Etc.

Edit: Ack! Someone used "buy it now" already and the auction's ended. But here's a firmware 1.5 machine in the UK (the Japanese version), and another. Plus, here's another in the US, and one and two in Canada. But best yet, here's a ceramic white Japanese machine from the UK. Any of these would work, but I like the white one best (probably because my current one is black . . .)

Flash for SW Geeks

Okay, all my Star Wars geek friends (and also the ones who aren't really Star Wars geeks but have seen the movies and will understand the references), go watch this: the sith rejects. Oh, it's a flash animation, so don't do it on a machine that chokes on flash, if any of you still have computers that old . . .

Argh! (Wireless Woes)

Maybe I'm just thick, but I can't get the wireless router to work right. It was working just fine, but then our ISP changed the batch of IP addresses assigned to us, which is perfectly normal, but they were outside the (rather limited) range that the router recognized as ours. No biggie, I just went through the setup wizard again, and changed the IP address. All was well. I thought I'd look into how to make it so I didn't have to do that anymore, and in the meantime, I'd just update it whenever it stopped working.

Then it happened again. This time, for some reason the router wouldn't update. I got tired of trying and just hooked up the wired router again. We've been happily running off it for weeks now, but I really need to get the wireless one working for, you know, my job. The PSP can only access the internet wirelessly.

So, today I decide to take a stab at it. It took a few tries, and switching to Netscape from Firefox (I don't know why, but it worked). I successfully update the info in the router, and get it to work with my PC laptop (on which I have been doing the updates). So then I poke around in the settings to see if I can figure out how to make it work properly. I change "DHCP server" to "DHCP client" reasoning that I am, after all, a client and not a server. So far so good. Then I plug in the Mac to see if it's really working. Alas, it isn't. So I swing the chair around to change the settings back on the router, and suddenly the PC isn't talking to the router anymore, and refuses to do so. Over and over.

Result of today's attempt to fix technology: much frustration and still no wireless. At least the wired router works without me actually having to set up anything. Bleah.

It's Alive!

Or live, anyway: About PlayStation Portable / PSP.

Things Not Photographed

Here's something really cool: Unphotographable: a text account of pictures missed. (Via Neil Gaiman.)

Road Trip!

Yes, I finally got outside the city! This past Friday, Judy, Randy, Deva, Ryan and I all piled in Judy & Randy's car and off we went. Inlandish, though I'm not entirely sure where we went (I think I could find it on a map, if I could find a map). Anyway, it was lovely, even though the weather was damp, and there was a river and many trees, and birds (a pheasant, even). Of course I took lots of pictures, mostly with my digital camera, since I'd forgotten to buy colour film.

Everyone at the park entrance:


Pretty green lichen on a tree:


Tree and river:


Next time, Judy says we will head for a beach.

All Sorts of Things

Er, yeah. I haven't updated in a while. Sorry about that. I blame it on end-of-term insanity and the incoherence that follows. But I think I have recovered now. I have a few bits and pieces of news, mostly school or work related. Let's see . . .

I got a scholarship for the fall. $800, so it won't cover everything, but it means I will have to borrow slightly less from the government. In order to actually get the thing, though, I am required (yes, really, actually required) to go to an awards ceremony in September and meet the donors. I think I can manage that. They are giving me money, after all.

I'm going to be taking summer classes this year. I wasn't going to, but a few things are offered in summer that don't come up very often during the year, like Book Arts, and other things are just better to take in summer (fewer students, better weather, etc), like Intro Photo. So I've ended up with a full 15 credits. Intro Photo and Survey of 20th Century Art all summer, plus Book Arts in the first half and Computer Image Making in the second half. It should be fun. I have about 3 weeks now to work and have fun before classes start.

End-of-term went reasonably well. I'm not sure how I did in drawing, but probably okay. Survey of 19th C Art I think went well, despite having very little time to study for the final. My Design teacher said I'd be getting an A+. He might have meant just on the toy design project, but I'm pretty sure he meant the whole term. Yay! That was a really good class.

The prototype of my toy design, the Puzzle Ship (it has more pieces, and can be made into different ships -- shown is the Spanish Galleon version, my favourite):



My photography final evaluation went well, too. I don't know what grade I'm getting, but I got the highest mark in the class on the quiz (16/18 -- one question I counted stops wrong, even though I counted twice; and one question I knew the answer but explained it backwards -- duh). Also, my teacher said my depth of field assignment was excellent and that all the extra work I put into the presentation of my final project (it was photos of trees growing around fences and signs and things, which I dry mounted onto heavy paper and bound in a big tome) paid off. We had a really good conversation about the class and other things (turns out he has a degree in nuclear physics -- how cool is that?), and when I said I'd come to NSCAD to study design, he said "Well, maybe we can lure you away from design." I said it wouldn't be that hard. I have been trying to resist the temptation to change majors, though. At the moment, I'm just trying to fit in as much photo (and other interesting stuff) as I can. As my teacher said, though, design is the program with the least room for exploring interests in other areas (I mentioned at one point that I am interested in everything). Anyway, photo was my favourite class this past semester, as you may have guessed.

Now, some non-school things. Support at About.com is working on transferring my PSP site to the live servers, so I shall soon be the PSP Guide, and no longer the Creative Writing for Teens Guide. I've been having a blast with PSP, so I'm looking forward to being able to concentrate on that and not having to worry about teenwriting any more. That should happen this week.

I've been accepted onto the Gamer Advisory Panel on the Playstation site (yes, the official one). It's not a really big deal -- lots of people are on it, but it's kind of cool. I have to get a bit more active on the message boards and stuff or they'll kick me off, and I'd like to at least get the chance to beta test something first (grin). I'll need to get a network adaptor for my PS2 first, though, but I should be able to get one cheapish on eBay or at EB Games. I think I get a free tshirt, too. At least one of the questions on the admittance test was "What size tshirt do you wear?" I suspect I got on because there aren't a whole lot of female in-their-thirties gamers out there.

I have a few more things to write, but this is getting long, so I'll stop and put more in a separate entry.

Another 1.50 PSP

Here's another 1.5 firmware PSP available online. A 2.00 version would work, too, as there is software to "downgrade" from 2.00 to 1.50 (but not from 2.01 or anything higher). Yes, still PSP-obsessed, but it's my job now. Or will be very soon.