“All you need is you”.  That’s weird, I thought all you need is love.  Make up your mind already!  In any event, in case you have been living under a rock, which would make us neighbours, ‘All you need is you’ is the slogan of the X-Box 360 Kinect, where you act as the controller.  LeLa graciously invited me over to ‘play’ it with her this evening (aka try to use home court advantage and my complete newbie status to kick my butt… not that either one of us sweet thangs is competitive – not at all.  Much.)

E.T. is that you?

Anywho… it’s weird the way it ‘scans’ you, like a creepy guy in a bar looking you up and down whom you just know is picturing you naked, to give you a little shadow of a shape on the screen.  Surely it’s added a few inches in all the wrong places as some subliminal form of motivation…  That must be it.  And it’s quite bossy.  “Move back”.  “Jump”.  Um, are you talking to me?

So we started with a warm-up game of Darts.  Some arse named Rich beat me (this is when we still only had one player signed in), but it was a real nail biter.  And the crowd was all backing him.  Curiously, you can do a little jig to celebrate when you’ve done well, but try to strangle your opponent or give him the finger, and that just doesn’t seem to register.  I thought I was supposed to be the controller?!!?

For the next game, we tried something a little more subdued, namely a hole of Golf.  It took a while to figure out how to add a second player (after much fumbling, my name simply became ‘aa’).  The commentary is pretty spot on.  But what I wanna know is who plays golf in gale-forced winds?  And that ball sooooo had a sand magnet…  Next.

Cue the Skiing – now there’s a sport!  Setting aside the fact that I have been skiing my entire life and LeLa has, well, not so much, as you may have divined, I won this one hands down.  Yeah!  Then, much to my horror, it played back my little dance of joy on video.  And it gives you the option to share it.  Sweet mother of Gawd!  Make it stop!!!

While my heart and head were racing with the potential blackmail uses of this video, LeLa loaded up the next game, which was Tennis.  As far as I can recall, which is never more than 5 minutes, this one was a draw, although I think maybe I get the edge with a beautiful backhand that just happened to connect with LeLa’s arm.  Oops…  I’m sure the diabolical X-Box told me to move in that direction as I was out of leering distance.  These things happen, don’t they??

I have to admit, by this point, my breathing was getting heavier and I had started to lightly perspire (since I am a woman, I can glisten, glow or perspire, but not sweat.  Only men do that, and there is a difference.  Unless I’m in a hot yoga class, in which case, it is called puddling, but that is a whole different discussion for another day).

Right, so there’s no need to mention the skunking involved in Baseball.  I’m pretty sure the newly formed bruise on LeLa’s arm may have had something to do with key bits of information being withheld, like how exactly to field a ball.  Let’s just say that I am no longer a fan of the game, and move on, shall we?

All of this led up to the spectacular grand finale.  Dance Central!  Ya, baby.  Now we’re talking!  Step aside, cause the dance floor is officially on fire!  No idea which one of us was which player, but this was first class fun.  And, a lovely lady called Hey Mami kept telling us how sexy and beautiful we are.  Finally, I feel kinected to this thing!  Next stop: the argyle socks and suspenders store, because that look is sh*t hot!

While I was replenishing my sexy, beautiful self with a glass of water on the sofa, I did get a demo of the other game in the house, which was The Biggest Loser.  This just seemed like a whole lotta work, and not nearly enough play.  I mean, it’s a great TV show to watch while you’re eating pizza, but this version lets Bob and Jillian yell at you directly!  Who needs that kind of pressure?  They might even ask you to like, put down your beer.  Whatever…  There’s LeLa’s avatar on the right, by the way, doing her best triangle.  You go girl!  While I go get another beer, and reminisce fondly about Galaga.