Earlier this year I theorized that I had damaged my PS2 controllers with ESD. Today's frustration over Gimp Theft Auto III led me to take apart the controller (nothing obviously wrong), then call the only other person I know in town who has a PS2, Steve, and go over there to do some experiments. My controller and game on his PS2 led to the same inverted controls. My game and his controller worked just fine. So it was my controller that was causing the problem.

Lucky for me, Steve is a bigger game nerd than I am and he had several spare PS2 controllers. I'm borrowing a working one from him and he's going to gut my busted one and put the guts of a controller his dog chewed up inside.

While I was over there, I played a bunch of 3-person versus Halo 2. The multiplayer versus mode is basically identical to the original Halo, but with more maps. I haven't seen the story-based game for either one.

Anyway, now I have another working controller... and I have to be extra careful about static. So I put electrical tape over all six of the screws... Hopefully that'll work.