10.13.07
The Glowing Blue, Blue…ing Glow
I will admit that I am fascinated by the disc tray on my Wii. It glows blue, for those of you without one of these machines, and it seems to only glow blue when there’s a message waiting for me. Yeah, I did do a neat little trick to force the issue, but all that really did was temporarily desensitize me to the wonder that is the Blue Glow of Love. I stopped sending feeds to the Wii a week or two later.
So, when it was announced that the Wii would soon support DS demo downloads (and try saying that rapidly while caffeine-deprived), you can imagine my delight. There was a little ‘ping!’ in my heart, the kind of adulation I reserve only for news about Mega Man Legends 3, or girls… in that order. The blue glow would again say, “Good morning, John! I know you’re busy, but do you maybe have a second? I have a present for you.” Actually, now that I think about it, a quiet lilting voice announcing that would mean I would probably become a complete shut-in. At least until I realize that the ‘present’ is never going to be food. That might actually take me a few months to get.
See, that’s the thing. It’s a classic Pavlovian response. No matter how hurried I am in the morning, no matter how frantic things are getting, if the disc tray glows, it commands my attention. Blue. Glowing. Must know. I don’t even care if it’s something silly like a message telling me that the Wii is selling better than bread in Moscow. I am hopelessly addicted to blue glow. It’s not even my favorite shade of blue; I like deeper blues, this is more of a cyan or neon blue. See? My blessing and my bane.
Even now I’m glancing back at the Wii to make sure it didn’t start glowing while I type this. That would be such a Nintendo thing to do… it would glow, and there would be a message saying, “Aww, that’s sweet that you’re thinking of me! Also, you might want to comb your hair down, it’s sticking up in the back.” I would be thrilled to see the message! Then I would be creeped out because there’s no webcam attached to the Wii, but that would come later.
Yeah, I’m kind of glad the 360 doesn’t light up the Ring when I have messages. Between that, the Wii, and my cell phone, I would be a total neurotic wreck. “IT FLASHED! IT BLINKED! MUST CHECK!”