After making a firm decision to buy the PSP, I have come to think about the money. 250 dollars is a lot of money to save up on my current $5 a week "allowance", which gets spent on my lucky 1 out of 3 wins at the coke machines at school. So I have decided to get a job this summer, in order to get the money to buy it, for there is no way I can hope they will buy it until at the very best this years birthday, which is about 7 months away. Even then it would be skeptical, for they may come up with that cheap excuse, "The violin was this year's present too!!" which anyway was still overdue from the year before. I will probably end up working at Italian Express, ...

After reading more about the DS and the PSP, the winner is the PSP. The better graphics, the promise of good games, music, movies all seem too enticing compared to a touch screen and a stylus. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go hunt down a PSP just this moment. Rumors about a new GameBoy have put me on hold, for if Nintendo is as smart as they suggest, they will make it a direct competitor to the PSP. As G4TechTv put it, the DS is a decent attempt at toning down the PSP's sales for the release of the new GameBoy. If the PSP is any indication of the potential of current handheld technology, this new GameBoy is almost guaranteed to be on par with the PSP, for Nintendo could very well lose its place in the handheld market if they make a half-hearted or too economical attempt at challenging the PSP's capabilities. The GBA will probably never be surpassed in total sales by the PSP (hefty price tag) and the new one will probably never spill over the $200 mark. This presents a risk, for if they price it too low because they're trying to make it more wallet friendly, they may have to tone its power down so they don't lose money. If they make it more powerful than the PSP and are forced to make more expensive, it may lose its characteristic inexpensiveness that made the widely popular GBA so successful. Either way, I'm going to bide my time and wait for the holidays and see which will then be the best choice. If I were to be handed the money right now (Only in my dreams) I would march on and buy a PSP, for my simpleton brother will eventually be enticed to get the new GB, probably the only reason I tolerate having mostly "kiddy" games, for he serves as a mutualistic way of getting two things I want. Heeheehee...

As unusual as the title for this entry is, my decisions are not getting any easier. Wipeout Pure got a 8.8 from GS, and the PSP generally has me more enticed due to its overall better "wantability." Though after browsing through the GS forums, I realized that two more contenders were simply right under my nose: Nintendo Revolution and the Playstation 3. Oh how my heart and brain aches, for my struggle to decide which to buy is nothing but an open wound, one that things keep putting stuff into. After looking around for the possible prices for PS3 and Rev, it seems on its worse days the PSP would still be cheaper, for the forums are talking 300+ dollars. That plus AT LEAST 50 bucks for a game, possibly more, and slap on 30 something dollars of tax, and I'll be spending anywhere in the neighborhood of 400 dollars. Not very wallet friendly, but at least Nintendo Revolution may have backward compatibility. But hopefully Nintendo won't screw things up and make some freaky new thing that messes up the entire system(touch controllers), for that would ruin the entire franchise. Just thinking about a Super Smash Bros. on a next generation console sends chills of anticipation up my back, for the possibilities are there for a superb game even better than SSBM. Add an online mode, better normal story mode, more characters from other franchises (possibly Sonic, if Sega permits) new, more detailed stages(make Peach's castle like the N64 version), even take a risk and make it a 3D fighter. More characters could be from Kirby(King Dedede, Meta Knight), but don't put in more Mario, there's enough as it is(Mario, Luigi, Dr. Mario, Peach, Bowser, Yoshi are enough) maybe add Diddy Kong, but add more from others to balance things out if more Mario.

After thinking for another week and a half, neither the PSP or the DS seems to have won me over in this battle, for they both present a big investment in money that may not be worth it. The PSP, at 250 dollars plus another 40 for a game is very expensive, but it generally attracts me more due to its better graphics, looks, and over all power. The DS is far cheaper at 150, but it does not deliver in the power department. Now after thinking and making calculations, if I were to stop buying cokes at school and my parents give me 5 dollars every week, then it would take me 50 weeks to get 250. That is an entire year, but if a job were to be paying me, then that 5 bucks would not exist. Then when school would come around, my time is cut in half, and that still leaves the possible car/driving dilemma. In that case if I get the job and they buy me a car, then that would leave much more money to save up. Say I get 5 an hour, work for 3-4 hours every other day, then I would get 45-50 dollars a week, making me enough money to buy a PSP just over the summer. That is without gas money and car payments to worry about. If only they could get out of this real estate dry spell, then would everything be much better. But after hearing more rumors, there seems to be a new game boy in development, one that would replace the current GBA SP as the new handheld. No gameboy has breached the 100 dollar mark at its launch, meaning even if it did it probably won't be by much. This would even more tantalizing than the PSP, only if it brings good games and power. In that case biding my time could be beneficial.

More on the DS topic, my brother has raised 117 dollars for his vet fund. This raises a lot of questions which include what he is going to spend that money on. But it has already been decided, for it has already been taken for "grocery money." This brings another point to my quest for a DS, which is where I might get the money. If I were to get a job, then it would limit my leisure time but will reward nicely with a substantial amount of money by my standards. The main problem would be that they might simply take the money as soon as I get it, preventing any collection from being started. This would mean I would get nothing from it and they will give that excuse that I KNOW they will give if I ask them for something. "Buy it with your own money." On that same coin, getting a car would also be put on MY shoulders only, while they see my money being burned up paying the bill, they would continue to refuse to buy me anything. What drives me insane is that other people have these dumb bill paying problems and their parents still have enough money to go get them a car, or buy them this, or go to here for vacation etc. While they do absolutely nothing to improve my readiness for the real world, which is that of an average 12 year old. Heck, I have no cell phone, no car, just recently was allowed to have money to spend on things I want, and at the same time I see my brother trying to get the same things and WINNING. He is one annoyingly selfish and at the same time unselfish little nuisance, for he strives to get everything I get, even though I should get more because of my age. Everytime I get some new thing he HAS TO get something too, which is logically selfish, and fair. They never stop to think what I need at my age, but only look into what WE need as brothers, to be fair so that DANNY gets his way. In the last 5 years, very little has changed in my actual privileges and power, so I feel like I have gone nowhere, which is almost true.