Stick it in my vein or I used to read and play guitar

I bought an Xbox a couple of months ago. I had saved up some dough and I had done some reading about the console game systems on the market and the Xbox seemed like a good deal to me. My impression was that the game systems had finally caught up to what I thought they could always be. The future was here and I wanted one.

I have always been a minor gamer during my life. I had a Commodore 64 when I was a fledgling adult and an Odyssey 2 when I was younger. My dad bought the Odyssey 2 for me. It was a pretty strong volley in the war he had with my mother for the affections of my sister and me after the divorce. It was a pretty one-sided fight since he was fighting for affection and my mother was more concerned with our well-being. He was always seen as "cooler" in our eyes but we never wanted to live with him. Kids know sometimes.

After high school I joined the Marines. After spending a couple of years in Okinawa I was stationed in California. I took my Commodore 64 with me and my friends and I spent many hours entertaining ourselves in weekends playing a winter olympics game. We actually spent most of our time playing the ski jumping portion of the game. It's funny how, even on a primitive game system, a well designed game is fun to play. It's not the technology it's the imagination and design. I compare it to a book and its cover.

A couple of years ago I bought a Sega Saturn. I did no research at all and I bought the game system right before they stopped making them. What a waste of money. I did manage to find a fun Winter Olympics game that I have had fun playing with Chris and Wendell.

Now I got the Xbox. It's a powerful game system. It makes my old and now forgotten Sega Saturn seem like a dead leaf with dog poop on it. I've bought about five games for it and I am done buying games for a while. The games I have purchased have been a lot of fun to play and I have even borrowed a first-person shooter from a neighbor that has a head to head mode that has entertained Chris, Wendell and me for hours.

I do have a concern though. This system is so powerful and th games I have are so well-designed that it...is...hard...to...stop...playing. It's as addictive as good sex. No wait, it's as addictive as great sex. The kind of sex that makes you lose all inhibition and make noises you only make when you stub your toe real hard. The kind of sex that dispels any post-humping depression and you just want to snuggle up into the perspiring body next to you. That, my friends, is the Xbox.

Sometimes it scares the hell out of me.