NViRT

…Unless you’re somehow blessed with divine righteousness and the very fingers of Jesus himself. I like to think of myself as a reasonable man…a somewhat OCD reasonable man, but a reasonable man nonetheless. However, there a few things in this world that make we want to don a green fedora, sling an iron musket over my shoulder and slink off into the woods to loudly murder Bambi-esque forest dwellers until my bloody thirst for retribution is quenched.

My failed attempt to properly install a screen protector on my brand-new ceramic white PSP falls neatly into this category. Here’s the skinny: I purchase the Darth Vader-edition PSP and return it to Best Buy three times before I manage to come into possession of a model without any dead or stuck pixels. Overjoyed that I had finally managed to cheat the Fates, I promptly did a bunch of research on PSP screen protectors so I could protect my Precious.

After much deliberation, I decided on the “Overlay Plus Screen Protector” by the Japanese company Martin Fields and immediately shelled out $15 for one to be mailed to my address. All of the conditions necessary for success seemed to be in place. Japanese company wholly devoted to protecting the screens of PDAs, cell phones, and other LCD screen-equipped devices? Check. Positive reviews of said screen protector on the Net? Check. Prior success with applying high-quality screen protectors to other portable devices (my Nintendo DS Lite)? Check.

I received the Martin Fields Overlay Plus Screen Protector in the mail today, and eagerly cleared my desk and readied my PSP for the application of the protective film its pristine screen so richly deserved. Soon the virgin, unsullied glory of my PSP would be preserved until the end of time. In the coming eons, after the Earth had been conquered by giant, intelligent bees and humanity was bent over double under the stinging lash of its insect oppressors, my Precious would still be standing as a symbol of how the seemingly impossible can indeed be achieved with planning and fortitude.

Alas, the Gods had decreed that victory was not to be mine, at least not in this lifetime with this puny mortal body of mine. Really, all PSP screen protectors should be sold with the stern warning: “Unless you have ready access to a clean room, air-tight protective suit, and anti-static gloves, installing a screen protector on your PSP will only make the PSP’s screen look WORSE.” You see, a perfect installation of screen protectors on both of my DS screens had made me hopeful, even a bit cocky. But the PSP is very different from the DS - instead of two small screens, it has one gigantic ocean of a screen - and this generous surface area unfortunately gives the vile, ever-present agents of Chaos plenty of opportunities to fuck people like me directly in the ass.

I tried for almost an hour, but could not manage to install the Martin Fields screen protector without specks of dust or dirt somehow scooting in between the screen protector and the PSP at the last moment. The uninitiated, filthy, and uncaring masses might scoff at my plight, but when trapped under a screen protector, these dust specks show up on the PSP’s screen like beams of light emanating directly from the heavens. See, the dust is enough to prevent the screen protector from making perfect contact with the PSP, so each dust speck is surrounded by a huge air pocket that one cannot easily remove. The only solution is to the remove the screen protector without getting oil, dust, or skin flakes under it - no mean feat - and use a piece of scotch tape to whisk off the offending particles. Unfortunately, in the process of doing so there is a 95% chance that for each piece of dust you remove, at least one new one will land on the PSP to take its place when you try to re-apply the screen protector.

Here’s the sad part. After dozens of attempts, I finally managed to install the screen protector without getting dust or dirt trapped under it…only to discover a huge rectangle of air along the periphery of the PSP’s screen. That’s right, the supposedly high-quality Japanese screen protector I had gone to such lengths to acquire was apparently incapable of sticking evenly to the very device it was designed to protect. My frantic pawing of the screen in my eventually futile attempts to rid my PSP of its “air border” only succeed in scratching the supposedly “scratch proof” Martin Fields screen protector - the final nail in the coffin for me.

So I fucking give up. I just fucking give up. Apparently this a problem that is bigger than me and too big for the combined industrial might of the civilized nations of the world as we currently know it to effectively surmount. I’m going to try my best to enjoy my PSP’s pristine screen before it succumbs to the inevitable scratches, fingerprints, and dents that await it in its coming life in this cold, cruel world. Now I know how Achilles’ mother felt when she attempted to anoint him with invulnerable skin by dipping him as an infant into the River Styx, but ultimately failed because in holding him by the heel while doing so, she left that small portion of his skin vulnerable. I guess there is a valuable life lesson to be learned here, right? But man, fucking-A.