| OK.. so, picture if you will.
mcc is sitting on the floor, playing SSX (the snowboarding game) against his 9-year old sister on his brother's brand new Playstation 2. wuukiee is sitting next to mcc, curled up in front of the fire, because she is tired and sore.
mcc does not particularly like SSX. mcc is not particularly good at it, either. mcc's sister is winning, by a lot. mcc is mostly just disinterestedly attempting to do tricks and wiping out. mcc is getting bored.
Keep in mind that each of the Playstation 2's controllers, in what appears to be a non-optional gimmick, contains a rumble pack. Which in SSX just starts vibrating like crazy every time you crash or jump.
So, finally tired of the motion sickness inducing ennui of prolonged SSX sessions-- i would have stopped long before had not my sister wanted someone to play against-- i gave up and, in a rare moment of lucidity, decided to place the controller on wuukiee's back.
It turns out the playstation 2 controller rumble pack makes a really good back massager!
It's amazingly nifty. Just leave the little SSX snowboarder running uncontrolled, and it will simply go forward on its own and bounce off things. Leaving the unmanned controller as a hard, plastic, slightly warm thingy with lots of gently curved places it digs into your back (the little gripping spike things rock) that periodically purrs and vibrates gently into your back.
And best of all, SSX's "snowdream" course has a little place about a minute into the course where, if left unattended, the snowboarder avatar will get kind of stuck in a corner, and bounce back and forth between two poles for a couple minutes before it hits the hole-- all the while incessantly purring into your back!
Wuukiee was very happy.
(Perhaps it should be noted here that mcc, despite his view of SSX as more of an interesting technology demo than a game, is very very happy his brother has the Playstation 2, not only because of Summoner but because it means that for at least a couple months at least mcc's brother will not be trying to take the computer, which mcc needs to node and write bad perl and objective c, to play games.)
(And it does honestly seem SSX has deeper levels of play that could be very interesting for those willing to look below the surface.)
(However, keep in mind that choosing to use a Playstation 2 for your back massaging needs is not very cost-effective.) | 
