Having the best high school hoops player in the country hail from your hometown is cool. Watching him dominate on national television is nothing short of thrilling.

In case you haven’t heard, Josh McRoberts is the real deal, and was awarded MVP honors last night for his 17-point, 12-rebound effort against the best talent in the country. His game has really matured, and Coach K surely liked what he saw last night – I just wish Josh was going to Indiana University. I’m trying to imagine a starting lineup at Indiana that includes the last 3 missed recruits (Sean May, Josh Smith, and now Josh McRoberts). Dynasty anyone?

There is a silver lining - Since he’ll be lacing up for Duke, I’ll get to watch him on the tube quite often. In fact, that trip to Cameron Indoor that Dad and I have been planning for years might finally come to fruition. I’m sure my friends can’t wait to here all about how he’s from my hometown after EVERY SINGLE GAME!

My buddy and I challenged each other to get all the PSP media options buzzing over the weekend. Although I didn’t get started until Sunday afternoon (during my son’s naptime), I have to say that for the record, I was impressed! It took only 20 minutes to get photos, music, and videos loaded onto the PSP (and that includes cropping the photos to the widescreen format). Here’s the skinny…

MUSIC - This was the easiest of the three by far. Plug in the PSP, and create folder called ‘MUSIC’ inside of the ‘PSP’ folder. Drag a .mp3 into the folder, and enjoy. Cool, but let’s face it - it’s still no iPod!

PHOTOS - Just as easy to upload as the music, except that I did some cropping so that my photos would show full screen. Create a folder called ‘PHOTO’ inside of the ‘PSP’ folder. Drag a .jpg into the folder, and enjoy. Any size will work, but I used 480 x 272 so it would be fullscreen and as small in file size as possible without stretching. Also, if you want a folder, just create one in that ‘PHOTO’ folder…PSP will recognize. Anyone know how to delete the ‘digital camera photos’ folder that magically appears, despite not being on the memory stick?

VIDEO - By far the most difficult and least thought through by Sony. Instead of following the pattern for music and photos, the PSP requires that you create a set of folders starting in the root of the memory stick. Not a big deal if you are a technophile, but my Dad would have had trouble with this. Now, the fun part. PSP Video 9 is what I used…and wow, what a tool (NOT). I could only get a standard .avi converted (.mov, .mpg, .wmv would not work). It also managed the transfer for me, once I manually pointed it to my PSP. The software had 2 updates over the weekend, so hopefully the developer is working on the huge number of bugs (’Transcode Cancelled’ anyone?). And Sony…where are you? Where is my video software? You are dropping the ball! So, since I can only convert the high quality .avi’s I have made myself, I now have a 45 second video eating up 8MB of my 32MB memory stick…nice! Despite the problems converting or loading video, it looks great when it plays. Some better software and a bigger memory stick, and I’m in business.

All in all, the PSP rocks the proverbial casbah. If you have tricked yourself into thinking you don’t need/want one of these, WAKE UP!