It's a Sony Christmas in our house.

Published on December 25, 2006 By dharmagrl In Misc

It's a Sony kind of Christmas chez Dharma.

We were up at 5am; Dave and I woke the kids up because we couldn't stand the suspense anymore. Each of the kids got a PSP - and I got one too - and they got a new PS2 to share. We've had the PSP's since the end of September and have been dying to give them to the kids ever since. Davey and Jake were saying that they'd be up at 3am to open presents, but I put the kibosh on that and gave them a 4am start time. They slept right through that, but didn't have any problems waking up when we opened their bedroom doors and yelled "Merry CHRISTMAS!!!" at them.

They got cash from their grandparents when they came to visit on Saturday, and I was SO proud of them when they wanted to go to the store yesterday to buy gifts for each other with some of the money they got. Davey and Shea got each other a CD, and they bought me a book, splitting the cost. Davey got Jake a scraper foil picture of some elephants (Jake loves them) and Shea got Jake a magnetix kit - he LOVES playing with those too (I can attest to his love for them, having hoovered up and trod on a few errant ball bearings myself).

Everyone got a 1 gig memory card to maximize their PSP experience and we each got a game - I got 'Infected' which I had been coveting for a couple of months. I know, I know, I have a thing for zombies. I got 'Stubbs The Zombie' for Christmas last year, 'Shaun Of The Dead for my birthday, and now 'Infected. I just like zombies, I dunno what else to tell ya.

Jacob, bless his little heart, went and got me a big glass egg-shaped paperweight with a pink jellyfish looking thing suspended inside. I had seen it at the BX the other day when he was with me and wanted to get it, but there wasn't any price on it and nobody could help me find a price, so I left it. Jake remembered that I wanted it, got his dad to take him to the BX yesterday and he made someone go find a price for it....and then paid for it out of his Christmas money. It is absolutely beautiful and I'm going to treasure it forever. I'll take a photo of it later and post it so you can see how big it is - I'm guessing that it weighs about 6 or 7 lbs, and it's about 7" tall. It's gorgeous, and I'm so happy that Jake went and did that for me.

"The in-laws all liked their gifts. My mother-in-law opened her scarf and exclaimed "oh, it's beautiful, Karen!" which made me really happy. I told my father in law that I had considered knitting him some golf club covers but didn't know if he had any or not - and he said the he doesn't have any and would love some black ones if I had the time to knit him some. So, I'm going to cast on those later this week.

I haven't heard from the UK crew yet so I don't know if they like what I made them. That call should be coming in later this morning, and I'm sure there will be a few tears shed. I've already shed some - it's my first Christmas without him and I've been pretty brave thus far, but this morning I couldn't hold it in any longer. I had a little cry and got a hug and a kiss on the top of my head from Dave, and I'm pressing on. Dad wouldn't want me to sit around crying over him, he'd want me to make sure that my kids had a good Christmas and that I enjoyed myself too - so that's what I'm trying to do.

Merry Christmas Joe Users, wherever you may be. To those of you who are overseas or separated from the ones you love: thank you for your service, and for your sacrifice.

I'm going to go kill some zombies now....

Comments

Dr Guy

on Dec 25, 2006

1 gb sticks? Not too long ago, I paid $1000 for 32mb of memory!

NO, I dont long for those days! Merry Christmas Dharma and crew!

terpfan1980

on Dec 26, 2006

Hope you all enjoy the PSPs. Reading your article reminds me that I have one of them which sadly sits unplayed most of the time. While I'm not as pessimistic about the PSP's future as my friend Skittles is (he recently chastised Sony pretty good over at his site: Skeptical Gaming), I do feel some disappointment with the PSP as a system because I just haven't found games for it that make me want to play it the way I do my Xbox 360.

On the 360 if I miss playing a day I get a bit depressed and feel like I've been denied my fun time. On the PSP, well, it sits. I have a few games for it, and a few movies too, but nothing that demands play time. Well, perhaps nothing but Lumines (which I highly recommend for anyone that has a PSP -- meaning your family Dharma, run to the store and get that game as soon as you can as it's addictive as all heck!), but I have that game for the 360 now so the PSP I have sits.

I wish I had some other recommendations for you on games you just *have* to have, but since nothing has come out recently that made me feel that way about the game, I can't say much more.

I did see something in the news the other day about some video on demand type thing for the PSP (wish I could remember the story better so I could link to it here). That had me very intriqued. Actually, I did find one link here: ArsTechnica. If Sony can make some headway in that area, then the PSP could be a great device again.

I will say that I've used my PSP for watching some UMD stuff in the past (I got the first season of the great HBO series Entourage on UMD and watched it on the PSP). Movies and similar content on the PSP is pretty cool. I plugged in headphones and sat in the bed watching on the PSP so I wouldn't disturb my wife (who hates it when I try to watch TV in the bed when she wants to sleep). The PSP screen is darned nice for video.

Anyway, don't want to sound like I'm bashing the PSPs that you folks just got. I really hope you enjoy them. Can't say I would have gone for the game you selected (not much of a zombies type guy myself). When I first read your article I thought you were talking about a game with a different name. I think the one I was confusing it with was something like Escape, or Exit or some such. I've seen that game -- which looks more like a puzzler -- on the shelves in the game stores and wanted to snag it but just couldn't bring myself to get it.

Oh!!! One other game you might want to get that the whole family can play - Lemmings. That's a cute game that is very family friendly. A bit of a puzzler that the player has to figure out. Each level in the game has some trick to it (except for the very first few) that makes the levels harder as you go. It's fun to figure out what to do so you can keep progressing in the game. You can probably find it fairly inexpensively at local game stores.

dharmagrl

on Dec 30, 2006

Well, the UK crew called and everyone LOVED what they got. They've even been WEARING them, which is proof positive that I made the right things for them. Yay!!!

Zombie killing has been a TON of fun. I haven't even entertained thoughts of looking up cheat codes for Infected because I like playing it so much. Right now my character is a buff latex-suited chick with big tits and PlayBoy bunny ears - why, you ask? Because the game lets me is my answer. I'm living vicariously through a PSP game, heh heh. I could play with my character as a couple of the SlipKnot guys, but I find them to be cumbersome, slow and altogether much duller than Ms Latex-Bunny-Ears. Anyhoo, it's a fun game. I also bought Dead To Rights - The Reckoning and The Family Guy games, both of which I highly recommend.

I've even neglected my knitting to play Infected, which should speak volumes.

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