Mama always said, "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."

Actually, Mama was wrong. The picture on the box or the piece of paper inside the box tells you which chocolate is which. If all else fails, you avoid anything with coconut shavings on it because you just know that whatever is inside is going to be gross.

What's the point? We're just saying, QJ's full of surprises. Like this one.

Here's a new homebrew game from kozine, over at the QJ Forums. This is actually a beta release of his newest project Menu Mania. It's really short right now (just 5 general trivia questions). Why is a simple not-yet-finished no-sounds no-flashy-graphics guessing game being mentioned here? Because of a few reasons:

• Even if it's such a simple game, it shows potential, especially to geeks (like us).
  
• Those of you who want to make your own homebrew games might be inspired by this or look at this as an example.
• We definitely think that homebrew games and apps don't have to be flashy (although throwing in a couple explosions, sound effects, and a few secret agents "out to getcha" might be fun). Still, if you think about it, those "boring" games like chess have been around far, far longer than any PSP games is ever going to be; ask Mama, she'll tell you that much. Then again, we might be biased for quiet games (like Connect 4 which is a good game).
• Mama told us to write about Menu Mania.

Over at the QJ Forums, kozine has released a homebrew flashing app for the PSP called Aqua-set v1.00A.  It's a flashmod for 1.50 firmware PSPs. Currently in Alpha version, it's best to treat the app as a "proof of concept." Nothing much going on in the app right now, but you can do the following:

• Change Wallpapers
• Change Font
• Change Gameboot
• Change Bootsound

Kozine hopes to add a theme and custom firmware installer to the app. Don't forget to drop kozine a note if you have suggestions for the Alpha 2 or beta release.

Download: [Aqua-set v1.00A]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Legendary PSP developer SodR, who brought us homebrew applications like Pimp my PSP and PSP Automatic Homebrew Installer has created a theme installer for the PSP, enabling ordinary Joe Bloggs with no PSP coding experience to customize his PSP! All you have to do is create a theme using SodR's easy to follow instructions in the ThemePSP creator pack, install all the correct files in the correct place, then choose a theme to install using the actual PSP program, ThemePSP.

Functions of ThemePSP:

• Can flash: Bootsound, Custom menu names, backgrounds, WavyLines effect and custom font to the flash.
• User-friendly interface
• Nice progress bar while flashing (easy to understand how much has been flashed and how much there is left)
• Music while flashing! (just like Pimp My PSP and GTA Style PSP)
• Easy to create your own themes
• The Theme doesn't need to flash everything. Eg. you can create a theme that only flashes a custom BG and font without problems.
• Comes bundled with the 'Pimp my PSP' theme, the 'GTA Style PSP' theme (by kozine) and the 'original XMB' Theme

As with all programs that write to flash memory, be careful with this application! Although it has been tested and no bricks have occurred you can never be too sure. SodR cannot be held responsible for any damage to your PSP, use at your own risk and take heed of the "Don't turn off your PSP" warning whilst the program is writing to flash memory!

Any themes you have made can be posted in the official ThemePSP release thread for others to use if it has been tested beforehand.

SodR would also like to thank Homer for all his help during the development of ThemePSP!

Download: [ThemePSP v1.0]
Download: [ThemePSP Creator pack]

If you don't believe all of Jack Thompson's talks and believe that Grand Theft Auto is one of the best titles ever to to grace the gaming scene, here's a way to show your love of the game. Kozine from our forums shares with us this flash mod that turns your PSP GTA-style, from font to background boot sound to the XMB menu. He compares this application to Pimp My PSP by SodR, who has already tested this GTA Style PSP.

Testing on MPH Firmware Launcher, SodR encountered no brick at the end of v1.00. However, kozine still highlights the following words from the readme file: "You, yourself chose to use this program. If it bricks your PSP its your own fault for choosing to use the program. To make sure you don't brick your PSP while flashing the new files to the flash, DO NOT REMOVE THE MEMORY STICK!! If this does brick your PSP, you cannot come to me and start saying that I bricked your PSP due to the fact you chose to use this program."

Now if you're not so crazy about GTA, you can always select the 'restore' option in the main menu to reflash all the default settings of your PSP.

If you have any comments and /or suggestions, kozine welcomes your feedback.

Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]
Download: [GTA Style PSP v1.00]

Kozine from our forums has released his latest homebrew application for the PSP, RGB Colour Finder. This handy application displays the RGB code on the left-hand side, and a preview of the colour in the middle. This simple application was made by Kozine whilst learning to code in C, and is a useful tool for all the developers and programmers out there. This way you can see a preview of a colour before you put it in your code!

If you're not a programmer, then this application has no use (unless you like to play around with colours), but this is certainly a keeper for the developers out there. It's certainly better than remembering the codes!

Download: [RGB Colour Finder]