It is amazing how quickly your life can change.

Last year I was embracing the sun. My name was synonymous with being at the beach, picnicking in a park or relaxing with friends at a cafe somewhere near the ocean. I was well and truly an outdoors person complete with tanned skin and blondish hair to match. Fast forward to now, and you see a different picture. I haven’t been outside in months. I live on my couch surrounded by a sea of empty corn chip packets and salsa tubs. Any time I see even a little bit of sunlight sneak its’ way into my dark haven. I look at it in disgust and head to the darkest corner of my apartment.

Now you may be trying to work out what has happened to make my life change so dramatically. Did some girl break my heart? Did I decide that now was the time in my life to become a heroin addict? Have I joined the ever growing army of ‘emo kids’? Well no, nothing so severe has taken place and I am happy to report that I am still out there laughing at those mascara wearing little emo’s with the best of them. The root of my problems can be directly traced back to one simple and seemingly innocent decision I made a few months ago. I decided it was time to buy a gaming console.

I’ve never really been into gaming but all of my friends are so I figured why not. I bought the latest craze in gaming consoles and a few games to go with it. I mean what’s the worst that could happen? Well let me tell you, people need to stop worrying about whether or not there are enough warning labels on cigarettes and alcohol and start worrying about the merchant of death that is the computer game console. I took it home, plugged it in and kissed my life goodbye. That first day was the shortest time I have spent gaming since I bought the thing, about 6 hours. It has literally taken control of my life. Every waking hour is spent either playing games or fantasising about my next attempt at taking control of Vice City. Real people have stopped being important to me and have merely become obstacles between me and my next gaming session. Apparently we had one of the hottest days ever the other day, I wouldn’t know. I will leave the beach and other strenuous outdoor activities to those who don’t know about the joy one can find from playing a song on guitar by pressing a few coloured buttons, sitting on the couch wearing yesterdays clothes and sporting an unshaven face. Considering the fact that my blinds are always closed and there is a constant stream of computerised gunshots coming from my apartment I am surprised neither the anti-terrorist police nor the drug squad has raided my apartment to take me away for questioning!

The other thing about not seeing the sun is that my tanned skin is a distant memory. It’s now a nice, pasty, fluorescent white. Never going out will do that to a man. Wait that’s not fair I do go out. I generally walk from the apartment to the car so that I can pick up some dinner from drive thru...that is of course when it is too late for home delivery.

After dinner when I wipe my hands with a white napkin it is really hard to tell where the hand starts and the napkin ends.  For this reason I am very happy that at the moment the ‘must watch’ movie around town is ‘New Moon’ – from ‘The Twilight Saga’. Thank goodness those vampires are bringing pasty white skin back in fashion. Now when people see me they think I am either a massive fan or a fashion visionary. Nobody considers the fact that neither of these are true and that I just spend all of my waking hours playing simulations of car racing games.

So what is the lesson here? I think it is simple, Christmas is coming up. If you have a friend that you don’t really like spending time with...Perhaps a gaming console is the perfect gift to get them out of your life.

This article was written for the News Limited owned mX newspaper and appeared in print on the 30th of November 2009