*sighs in gamer girl bliss*

So. I'm officially 20 years old... or 2 decades old, whichever you prefer. > Don't ask me what it feels like to be 20. I feel like... hang on a sec, my answer is so amazing you may be blown away from the desk!... the same I did yesterday, except more technologically advanced, but that last part is because of my gifts, technically... no pun intended.

However, my birthday this year was awesome! Oh,a small disclaimer- I'm listening to Toybox's Tarzand and Jane song, so there may be random parts written that have not'ing to do with this weekend. Ha. 8D

Anyways. Friday- worked that morning, got a rather nice paycheck due to it being payday. Went shopping with family, spent the night with family. Always a blast! We watched... what did we watch? I don't remember... uhm... oh yeah! We watched Spiderwick Chronicles and Kung Fu Panda. Hehe. Received my birthday gift(s)- the newest PSP available, an accessory pack, Final Fantasy VII:Crisis Core, and God of War: Chains of Olympus. There's a long +SQUEEEEEEE+ paragraph about this, but I will hold off til the end for that. You should read it... it's bound to be interesting. Haha. Stayed up til 5am playing FFVII- a game I've wanted since it was released in JAPAN- and listened to the birds sing as I fell asleep.

Saturday- Woke up around 1pm and went shopping for a memory stick for my BRAND NEW PSP! Bought one for $25 at Best Buy- went to Video Games Etc and went /facepalm because they had the same ting for $16. Go me for not calling them first. Idiot. Anyway, had my siblings with me, so we spent the day together without the 'rents- a first, since usually Dan stays home and I spend the day with my sis- so that was fun! Ate at Taco Johns, went EVERYWHERE checking out stuff for PSP's, had a general good time with my younger minions. Bought a few movies for cheap at Video Games Etc, and found Daxter for my PSP, also for cheap! Later that day, when we got home, Andrew came over for dinner and gaming. We played Halo 3 with Dan- I got my ass handed to me in 100 different ways, I swear- and I had SO much fun! After I took Andrew home, we watched JOseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat- which I loved... Donny Osmond's voice... gives me goosebumps and makes me giggly, lol- and Benchwarmers- which I've seen parts of but nobody else had seen. They thought it was funny. Success. >

Sunday-my actual birthday- Slept til noon. Was woken up by a phone call from Great Escape theaters, calling to set up an interview. Went to Shivers to get ice cream and figure out my schedule. Stopped in at Casey's, got pop, talked to Tracy and Lisa for a while. Went home. Played my PSP, downloaded some pictures and music to it. Went to town to pick up ice and oil so we can have fried chicken. Went home, then went back to andalusia to get eggs. Talked to Brenton. Came home, turned around and took Brenton some fried chicken and potato salad. Came home, ate delicious meal, ate delicious cake, and now i'm here!

So, it was a great birthday!

Now. PSP and games. Here's teh squee. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And here's the paragraph. OMFG! I have wanted a PSP since they came out. Well... to be more accurate, since Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core was released in Japan and then set to be released in the USA. I LOVE Final Fantasy VII, and for a game as a prequel to it all to be released in the USA with Advent Children graphics (for those of you who haven't seen advent children- go shoot yourself in the foot, then go watch it. It has graphics that are AMAZING. it looks like live action) and voice overs, and a badass storyline that included Sephiroth as more than a bad guy and told us more about the Turks.. I WANTED IT! I researched it online, looked at all the screenshots, drooled, dreamed, drooled some more... you know how it is with me. Since it was only available via the PSP, I craved a PSP. However... those mo-fo's are expensive shit! I coulda saved for one, but i usually needed the money for something else, or was saving it up for something more important- christmas and birthdays come to mind-, or bought something i wanted that was cheaper. Yeah, i know, no willpower whatsoever. So sue me.

Anyway, as time passed, I still didn't buy my PSP and more and more games cameout for it that made me spaz in fangirl pain everytime I saw ads for them because I didn't have a PSP and therefore couldn't play them- most of the Castleavania games, for example. Another HUGE example is the- not yet released- Dissidea:Final Fantasy. It's another Final Fantasy game, but it's a fighting game- it combines fan favorites from ALL the final fantasy games into one big final fantasy games, with epic graphics, voices, and a fight system set up by the creators of Kingdom Hearts... now try and tell me that that game isn't going to be EPIC! It's s droolfest more worthy of my drooling than FFVII:Crisis Core was! And THAT is saying something! It's released on September 1st, 2009, and you can bet your bahookie that I'm going to reserve it at Video Games Etc next time I'm in Moline!

I digress. Anyway. So I've wanted a PSP for at least 2 or 3 years. But I've always kinda kept it in the 'dream of it' category cuz I never thought I'd get one. I wasn't willing to save for it, and since I knew it was hella expensive, I'd never ask for it. A reguler PSP system is about $170, and that's without a game. The one that comes with a game- be it teh Daxter version, the Rock Band version, the God of War version, or the Star Wars Battlefront II version- costs about $200. And the games range from $20 to $50 apiece. Then the memory stick costs anywhere from $16 for a Used 2GB to $35 for a new 4GB. Crazy pricing, I know... gaming is expensive shit!

So, by this point in time, I've pretty much put the PSP in the back of my mind, and I only spaz if I see a game I really want that is only available for the PSP. By my standards, that's pretty good. So imagine my epic happiness/surprise when mom hands me my gifts on Friday night, and I open them to find a friggin Playstation Portable- 3000 series(aka, the newest available)- in my giddy gamer hands. I was ecstatic!

And in addition to this beautiful piece of gaming technology, they got me an accessory kit to help me keep my new baby safe! It included a screen protector, a case, a couple game holders- rubber cases to protect the discs when travelling- a pretty faceplate for the PSP, a car charger, a USB cable to connect it to the computer so I could transfer picture/music/video files, and a cleaning cloth. It was the epic kit for a new PSP and it's user! It meant that Icould do all sorts of stuff right away! I was THRILLED!

Then, to my further pleasure, I opened God of War: Chains of Olympus. Anyone who knows me knows I have a rather grotesque, very non-girly side when it comes to my video games... I don't mind bloody (as long as it's not GROSS, body parts and intestines bloody... the Flood from the Halo series is about as nasty as I get in that area) and I turn into a bloodthirsty bastard when I play... God of War was my cup of tea (or rather, blood, while we're on that topic) and it was challenging even in Easy mode... I played it on Easy mode and my mom soon knew that I knew a lot more cuss words than I usually used and that I knew how to string them together in a nice long not-quite-sentence. I completed the first God of War- for Playstation 2- with glee... and a ton of cussing. It's one of my fave games- tho I've yet to buy the 2nd one- and when the Chains of Olympus was released for the PSP in 2007, I was on my knees screaming "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!????" because it had become an unreachable game like FFVII:CC. And now, I had it in my soon-to-be-bloody(metaphorically...God of War is notoriously bloody in it's gameplay...) little hands.

And then I opened the mother load... Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core was laying there on my lap. I shit you not, I was so happy I could not breathe. Call me a dork, an idiot, pathetic, a geek, a freak, WHATEVER, I don't care. I am a huge fan, and I ACT like a huge fan, even if it portrays me as a rather... freaky... person. I like what I like, and I'm gonna show that in any way possible. Eventually, my car will be tripped out fangirl style.. more on that later as well. Anyway, I was spazzing. I literally ate my dinner in less than 10 minutes and put FFVII:CC in. I dinnit have a memory stick yet, so I couldn't save, but there was NO way I was waiting til I bought one to play this game! I'd been wanting it for YEARS! So I put the game in at the table, so I was sitting with my family, and then the TRUE spazzing started. The video that shows when you put the game in is just as I wanted it to be- epic music that I recognized, animation like it was in FFVII:AC, just plain EPIC. I was literally bouncing and screaming like a jonas brother fan at one of their concerts. And I could barely BREATHE I was so excited. I was, and I kid you not, near tears I was so happy. Maybe that sounds a little ridiculous, but you have to remember that I am a VERY devoted fan to teh Final Fantasy series, and that I've wanted this game since before it was released in Japan. In fact, if you'll recall, I was this excited about Final Fantasy VII:Advent Children- the movie- when it was released as well. I'm just wired like that. Accept it or not, I could care less. lol Anyways, I started playing the game, nearly in tears and definately out of breath, and I was not disappointed. It has a different battle system than the other Final Fantasy games, but it's not a bad system, I actually like it. It's a fantastic game so far!

I haven't interacted with Reno or Rude yet, but I'm not that far into the game, to be honest. I just met up with Tseng.

And I bought Daxter for myself as well. I love the Jak and Daxter games for PS2, and so I've wanted Daxter for a while as well, just not as much as I wanted the others. hehehe. So now I have 3 games to play, and a whole new bunch of games just opened itself to me! There's a couple Castlevania games, quite a few Star Wars games, and a few other RPG's and action games that I've already written down for future reference when I go video game shopping, or when christmas comes around and my family harrasses me for gift ideas- I'm usually like 'uhm... Idk, pick something out..." which I'm sure frustrates them... That's what I said this time, for my birthday. They were all "What do you want for your birthday?" and I was all "I dunno, haven't thought about it... you guys know me pretty well, I'm pretty easy to buy for, I trust you. I know I'll like whatever you get me. Go with it!" and they came to me with a gift that made me go "-unintelligible babbling and squealing and bouncing in place-"

Also, another reason I was so friggin psyched: this is the first game console that is MINE that is BRAND NEW. I have a gameboy color that used to belong to my uncle david, and I have a gameboy sp that used to belong to my brother. All my consoles that were mine personally were hand-me-downs. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just that a game system isn't something people think of to get a girl, so I usually got my brother's or my uncle's old ones. And now, I have a brand new PSP that is allllll mine. I know it sounds petty, but I don't currently care! I LOVE it! ^_^

So yes. This birthday was awesome.

And I'm exhausted. I have a job interview tomorrow, so I'm going to go to bed... after playing a couple levels of a game. ;D

G'nite!

CLUBS THAT OWN MY SOUL: