I was an avid gamer in my youth, buying every crap game for perhaps no better reason than to stimulate the economy…but I never had a Gameboy. My fat ass was perfectly content glued to my home systems, when I wasn’t busy ramming Doritos down my gullet in perfect time to the theme music from DuckTales or any other fine Disney entertainment of that time period.

I was also very, very skeptical of the Nintendo DS in its infancy, initially viewing it as nothing more than a means to play dumb “Shoot the Clown in the Eye” webvertising styled games. But I too eagerly gambled my tech savvy on this prediction…and lost it all. Luckily, I didn’t talk to more than three people about such opinions back then…so I was fairly safe.

After the initial forced, blah offerings such as Nintendogs and Kirby: Canvas Curse, the audience finally had their eyes opened to games like Trauma Center, games that wouldn’t have succeeded with the controls of any other system and in turn bolstered the DS as more than a mere gimmick. Future titles should only be bound by the imaginations of their developers reaching towards the console’s great promise of clever innovations and more organic interactivity.

I am attempting to do my part. However, I have not yet studied video game design and as such my contributions to this art and science must rest elsewhere…in user exploration. And, although it is not a long journey, this exploration begins and ends in the bathroom…the same as many other untold tales.

This did, however, seem a further journey before I had my DS, having to expend the additional energy gathering the will power necessary to pause the hate machine, put down the controller, and free myself from the drone womb that the sofa inevitably becomes.

There is no longer any need for such will power. There is nothing to fight. I can play video games everywhere…and do…without aid of diapers.

Conveniently enough, the DS is an aid in its own right, helping with lavatory visits of the second variety, calming the soul enough that one no longer fights the process and lets it instead more naturally occur. Often, I even forget where I am, what my true task is, and whether or not it has been completed. There are of course dangers with this, but generally one is not even aware of the harm inflicted as it turns real.

The real problem comes when you are entirely aware of your situation, but unable to free yourself from it. This is very much the reverse of the aforementioned sofa-trap associated with standard consoles. However, the sofa is a much more socially acceptable receptacle for pissing one’s life away…so to speak. The toilet, on the other hand, is a terrible place to start a boss fight. You are more vulnerable than you ever have been while playing video games — I can think of a few other positions, but they are even more rare and would require a whole other seedy category on this site…forthcoming.

If still reading, I feel you must yet be somewhat distracted by other concerns…those having to do with hygiene. But there is no need to worry. I can alleviate this concern and any concern of electrocution with one…small…statement.

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