Pure, unadulterated lust...

Let me preface this by saying, I'm a fairly crappy consumer. My secret shame is that I really don't do my part to keep the Mighty US Economic Engine purring along by buying lots of fun but ultimately unnecessary crap.

Case in point, I have not bought a TV in almost 20 years - yes, I still use my crummy 27 inch TV that I bought in college. Yeah, the one where I lost the remote, and where the front cover that hides the little knobs and dials broke off, and whose power cord was chewed through by a rabbit over a decade ago, and I happily spliced it back together with electrical tape.

And, yeah, I'm still driving my beat-up old Miata I bought back in 1990. It's got 100K+ miles on it, is impractical as hell (only two seats) and smells like an old shoe, and despite the fact that if I showed any inclination at all to buy a new car my wife would shriek with glee and personally drive me to the dealership, I have no desire to get a new one.

And yet, inexplicably, every few years even I am driven mad with consumer lust. It happened with my car (the first time I saw a Miata, I knew I had to have one, even though I'm too tall and have to slouch to keep my head from hitting the roof while I drive), it happened with my Asteroids Deluxe game, and now...

First, a little background. I've never been a big fan of portable gaming - in fact, over the course of my long gaming life, I've owned a single handheld game: the original Mattel Football game.

You old folks will remember this - entirely LED based, you were a little red dot that dodged other red dots. Sound effects consisted of a ticking timer, and a dismal little "Doop de doop" tune when you scored a touchdown. Looking back on it, it's inconceivable that someone would spend their hard-earned cash on something like this, and yet they sold millions. I mean, it's hardly even a game, really, and required about as much skill to play as it takes to spell "BOOBS" on a calculator (hint: 80085).

In the intervening years, I've encountered a few other handhelds. My daughter had the original Gameboy, and I spent an enjoyable flight to Montreal playing Pokemon Yellow, but when the plane landed I had no desire to play with it further. Likewise, a coworker bought a PSP (with the gorgeous, gorgeous screen), and after playing Lumines for a few minutes I yawned and handed it back to him and never gave it another thought.

But then...there was this:

Yeah, the DS Lite snared me. The more I read about it the more I had to have it. And now that I own one, I can hardly bear to set it down - I just want to sit and fawn over it, Smeagol-style.

The screens? Beautiful and bright. The features? Incredible - wi-fi for multiplayer, touch screen and microphone for unique gameplay. The polish? Unparalleled. It's like an iPod for gaming - it just feels good in your hand. I setup the WiFi connection last night, and while testing the connection it plays a little tune that could best be described as the sound of Fairies dancing. The games? Ranging from unabashedly old school (New Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart DS) to funky new genres like Trauma Center and Osu Tatakae Ouenden (did I mention that Nintendo didn't do any region lockouts, so you can play import games without modding your system)?

It's frankly impossible to justify buying another gaming system - it's not like I really needed to play games "on the go" (my Darling Wife's comment when I showed it to her was "Great, so now you can sit in the back seat and play games when we go on long trips, like the rest of the kids"). And yet, every time I play Mario Bros and close the lid, I can't keep a big goofy grin off my face when Mario says "Bye Bye!"

Worth every damn penny.