After the last connection was made, I plugged in my daughter’s new X-Box 360 to herald the start of the virtual holiday season (VHS). Never mind, only Bald Tony still has a VHS.  Once complete, a red light suddenly appeared within a foreboding aperture.  It stared right at me, nay, right through me.  Soon it was moving and following my movements around the room as we played.  When I finally went to shut it off, I expected it to say, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.”  Machines always call me Dave.  I don’t know what that’s all about.

My daughter and I spent most of Christmas night feeding in all of my credit card information, personal information, address, soc, and all other sensitive material into “the machine.”  Then came the blood samples—all of this, presumably, so it will start billing me when my 30 day internet trial is over.  Then after abysmally losing at my first X-Box Connect experience, it showed pictures of my daughter and me jumping around the living room for our “scrap book.”  Riiiiigghht…I proceeded to move the bong out of view of the bloody thing. 

This machine was just invited into my home and it was already curtailing my behavior.  Later that night, when not a creature was stirring (except my computer mouse), I came down the stairs to raid the fridge and found the hair on the back of my neck rising as I laid eyes on the thing.  Had it moved?  It looked like it had shifted toward the right….toward the bong!  

What if this “game” didn’t really have an off switch? As I walked back through the living room, I instinctively shifted my bottle of Deschutes Porter in an effort to place my body between my beer and that thing.  Hmmm.  I thought about leaving some type of tell-tale, something to see whether or not it reengaged itself when the room is empty.  Was it collecting data even when it was off?  I had to know.

For a tell-tale I thought about using a human hair cleverly extended between the moveable device and the entertainment stand.  If the strand were to break…nay, I decided instead to just cover it with a kitchen towel.  I told my daughter the next morning it was to keep off the dust.  I placed my aluminum foil hat on my head to block its transmissions and proceeded to get stoned to reruns of Space Ghost.  OK, I didn’t do any of that, but I thought about it.  Really, I didn’t.  You can check my X-Box.

Then it hit me, this is what they meant to do all along!  This is why the Pentagon is purchasing thousands of PS3s.  They have recently connected them all together, creating some type of super computer (true story).  Well, this is their “transparent” project anyway.  Area 51 has probably already implemented a shadow video game project with ten times as many X-Box 360s to create a super computer to control our minds and our actions!  To keep the Homeland safe and keep its citizens in check.  Damn you, Cheney!

They have probably been moving toward this since the game pong came on the scene over 30 years ago.  I never trusted that little white ball.  And I always felt that Donkey Kong had a hidden agenda.  He was just playing stupid.  Behind the scenes, the government has systematically worked toward an interface with every home in the country.  Perhaps that red light—that Hal-wanna-be snapping away in my living room—extends telescopically at night like those War of the Worlds frontal cameras.  Oh god, if it can somehow get into the closet Lenny and Squiggy are toast!  I named my pot plants.  The Ghetto Shaman tells me it helps appease the plant spirits. 

Heck, it’s even in the name, 360.  It’s the present that will soon become omnipresent.  They’ve covered every angle. It knows our personal data, our passwords, our likes and dislikes, and has access to our living rooms and, God forbid, our closets.  Jesus, that thing might even know my Wii age!  Fuck.

If my little cartoony avatar looks the same but I suddenly start sounding very different in my blogs, you’ll know what happened.  I’m too close to the truth.  Now they probably know that I know, you know? Maybe it happens when you sleep.  They absorb your minds like those body snatchers from that invasion movie.  What was the name of that again? 

So of course I took the thing apart.  What would you have done?  I was just looking for something suspicious—just making sure.  I watched some related X-Files episodes and got cracking.  Sure I skipped my Zyprexa that day, wouldn’t you?  Once I got past the base shields, aka the outer casing, I looked for something capable of transmitting information to Big Brother.  Nothing…

I can put it back together whenever I want.  Yep, no problem.  Ahhhh, but just in case, does anyone know anything about reassembling X-Boxes?  Oh, wait, the red light is still working.  That’s comforting.  Maybe I’ll just move it into my daughter’s room.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.