Final Fantasy weekend...PS2 modchip?

I finally broke down and started my FF8 game back up. Although I've beaten it before and nearly maxed out all of my characters...that gamesave was deleted along with a bunch of others (stupid third party 8x memory card). Besides, I really liked the story and wanted to run through it again, since they are probably going to remake 7 but not 8 (which I find superior to its predecessor).

In the midst of that, one of my room mates metioned he hasn't seen nore played Final Fantasy 7. That just won't do. So I loaded it up for him, and he's been playing it for a few days now. He just passed Aeris' death and is on disc 2. Watching has made me want to play again. But I'd rather play a remake. I tried loading up the PC version, but I think my hardware is too "new" for it.

Back to old babblings, my friend completed the IDE wiring on one of my slim PS2's. I've not had a chance to go pick it up yet though. I really hope it works so I can move on with my custom slim. If HDAdvance recognizes the hard drive, then I can proceed to purchasing a DMS4 modchip (required for slim hard drive use). Then I can buy a slim skin, install my custom enclosure, and have the slim PS2 I've always wanted. It will be sweet...if it works. This is my last attempt, because I don't want to waste any more money on the project. I just don't play the PS2 enough to justify dumping money into it. I'd rather buy another Xbox and mod it up for media and emulation purposes (and not to be one of those bastards that mods in Halo 2...online cheaters should go to hell).

I'm considering breaking down and buying an ipod...strictly for Xbox 360 use. I really don't want to load my music on the 360 hard drive. But I also want to get my music off my PC's hard drive to recover some space. I actually use a 10GB external hard drive right now, but apparently the 360 won't do playlists off a USB hard drive. That's somewhat dumb as it will support playlists from an ipod or PSP. Oh well.