Consoling Console

This week had been all about my PSP. I’ve had that thing since 2007 and will be turning three years old this coming December. Yes, I may not remember my when my ex girlfriends celebrated their birthdays but I do remember when I bought my baby.

Why? Well, I guess men are drawn more towards objects that can be turned on a whole lot easier and can be played with anytime.

Anyway, after hearing about the release of Final Fantasy Dissidia, I knew I just had to have a copy of the game. So it was off to the nearest gaming store around (well, the only one near the MRT station anyway – I took a detour on my way to work). While I was there, I saw another game I was craving for – Rock Band Unplugged. So I deleted some files to make room for the new game. After they were installed, I went on my merry way to the office knowing that in a matter on minutes I’ll be rocking it out in my cubicle.

That was Monday.

Come Tuesday morning, when all the work was done with (I work night shifts, remember?) I was about to play the game when it went AWOL on me. The games disappeared. Nothing new, same thing happened to me before. I remember having to upgrade the console to a higher version for the games to be read again. I simply shrugged the whole thing off and decided I’d come back to the same store and have it fixed.

Sure enough, I went to the store (again, before heading for work). I had my PSP upgraded and had the games reinstalled (a process that takes 45 minutes or so). After all that waiting, my PSP still wouldn’t work right. The idiots who work there offered to redo the whole process all over again but that meant I had to be late for work which I couldn’t afford to do. So I told them I’d just return tomorrow to have it sorted out.

And along came Wednesday.

I went back to the store and saw a new face. I had to explain everything to her. Without any fuss, she did what she was supposed to do. After yet another 45 minute session, we found the games still wouldn’t work. So she called in for reinforcement.

I was introduced to this guy who fix PSPs. This guy works for them but only decided to show his face on the third day. After hearing what happened, the son of a bitch told me that it was my fault for installing the Rock Band game. Apparently, the game has a bug that makes PSPs not want to play with you anymore. The solution? Reformat.

Ah, yes. The questions I had just came pouring in. Questions like:

• Why sell me the game knowing it has a bug?
• Why sell something that has a bug to begin with?
• Why are you asking me to pay an additional 100 pesos so that I get two “free” games with my upgrade?
• Why are you asking me to pay for fixing something you guys caused?

Today’s Thursday and later, I’ll have my PSP fixed. But there’s no way I’ll do business with them again. I found this other place where I could get my baby back to its old self. Hopefully, things go smoother this time around.

You know, for someone to be able to write this long blog about something so trivial tells a lot of things. But above everything else, it shows how much I need escape. Believe it or not, my console does exactly just that – console. There’s really no good way to end this. So I guess I’ll just stop being so sentimental and halt right here.