XBox: The Party Game

Until this week I thought the Xbox was the isolation booth where Fear Factor contestants sweat out algebraic equations while polynomials nibble at their ankles. When it comes to technology I'm an extremely late adopter. If technology were an adoptable child, it would need all its adult teeth, its driver's license and a fully vested 401K before I'd let it call me Momma. So I was not overwhelmed when I was invited to a celebration of Xbox's first year at a hip club in Los Angeles. Now that I've played the game of Xbox Party, I'm sold.

Level One

They say 50% of anything is just showing up. Not if you can't get in. This early round can make or break you. I arrived at the party only to discover my name not exactly on the guest list. At least not in it's commonly used spelling. Despite RSVPing, spelling and respelling my name and leaving my great grandmother's maiden name, the guest list gestapo claimed I was not registered. Seems my name was first translated into Korean, transliterated into Hebrew and then entered into Fortran, Sorenson compressed and finally turned back to English. Reading upside down I was able to persuade the entry sentry that a phonetically impaired spelling of my name was in fact my name. Shazaam! My hand was stamped. I was in.

Level Two

No Los Angeles party is complete without a red carpet for the celebrities. Except this one. The red carpet was inexplicably orange and the celebrities were definitely a cut below the "just happy to be nominated" variety. This all adds to the degree of difficulty for Level Two: "Guess Who's Coming to Party." After a few false starts I worked out an effective strategy. Lurking just beyond the red, I mean, orange plush, I used the blasting strobe lights from the cameras to alert me to celebrity sightings. The higher the wattage, the more recognizable the star. There were the usual media suspects: local stations, newspaper photogs and a few entertainment shows. Also there: the unchanneled Tennis Channel, a severely dressed CNBC reporter (after all if Xbox tanks, it IS a business story) and an unknown woman with a microphone covered with flamingo pink fake fur. She was the one to watch. She was the celeb magnet. Everyone stopped and talked to her. She was a petite freak of fashion. She must have had slithered into her skin-tight hip hugger jeans. And the plunging neckline of her peasant blouse would have made the bourgeoisie beg to pick crops. No one knew where she was from. No one cared. And I was happy with my perfect line of site to those flocking to her. I figured out LA Laker Robert Horry while they chatted intently. Were they pondering the Mid East situation? Or discussing his on-line gaming ability (certainly not about his on court gaming, what are the Lakers 1-54?) I identified long ago celeb David snatch-this-Xbox-from-my-hand-grasshopper Carradine. Although I couldn't figure out who the woman was with him who hissed and showed her fangs to Miss Furry Mike. Flashes exploded as they were followed by a posse of somebodys that I'm too old to know. Time to jump to ...

Level 3

The inner sanctum, the actual party. Here the object of the game is to find food. Or a husband. Inside it was packed with unbeautiful people, just like me. Interspersed among us were swizzle stick women dressed in scanty vinyl white mini-skirts about the width of a strip of bacon. It appeared that their only function was to walk around. Waitresses precariously balancing appetizers on trays over their heads followed them. Only people taller than 5'10" could eat. It was a conspiracy to keep the food costs down. The highlight though was about 2 dozen consoles with Xbox games.

I am definitely missing the patience gene. I hate lines. So I headed for an unmanned console. Sadly for me it turned out to be one of the more complicated games. I also hate the learning curve. I want an easy line from moron to Mensa. It was not to be. A very young gentleman dressed in a black Xbox shirt shoved a handset into my palm, adjusted a headset over my ear and told me to push button A. How hard could this be? I immediately got an earful from some male with a thick southern accent barking out an order, "go left and take out the pylon!" Naturally, I turned my body left and slammed into a White Vinyl girl. The waitress behind her dropped the most delicious tuna tartar on my shirt, which I sucked down like an Oreck. Finally, food. The Xbox boy in black gave me a course correction - "Use the handset to move around and fire. The guy who's talking to you is in North Carolina. You're on a reconnaissance mission." Exactly. But, I was doing reconnoitering of a different sort. I was realizing this was not the place I’d find the man of my dreams. So far the only man talking to me was yelling from a different time zone and probably sitting on a worn out lazy-boy in torn underwear. I removed the headset and gave it to the fellow now behind me who I shuddered to imagine in baggy boxers plopped down on his powder blue velour easy chair furiously taking out virtual pylons with button A. I moved on to the next console.

A motorcycle race. Did I mention I failed my driver's test three times? The game was real enough that every 22 seconds as I steered off course into gravel the handset would shake violently. I was going fast fast fast and getting way way way too much pleasure out of purposely taking a header at 150 miles per hour into a brick wall. Just like talking to my mother about finding a husband. Only this was much more satisfying. I loved how the driver would zoom head on into the wall then just shake it off. I cackled with demonic delight every time I wiped out. Rev up, wipe out. AHAHA! Twenty minutes later, I reluctantly gave up my handset and went back to my real mission: Celebs.

I spotted some B-movie bad guys. There was a tall balding guy with no chin who may have helped a mass murderer in a Chainsaw movie. There was a short pasty white guy with big ears who I think was a corporate bad guy in some 80s movie. Or maybe it was Kenneth Lay. I thought I saw Samuel L Jackson walking in, but I couldn't spot him anywhere. What happens to these people after they run the media gauntlet? You never see them partying. Or eating. I guess the only time celebrities really get spotted is when they look like crap at the grocery store in Malibu or when they're shoplifting $140 head bands from Saks (a price that is a crime in itself).

Level 4

A quick look at my watch told me it was Gift Bag 30. Time to leave. Since the age of six when I got my first bag of party favors at the end of Howard Schlafmitz's birthday bash I've been a collector of parting gifts. From the minute I arrive at a party, I continually check out the exit. Thirty minutes after I see gift bags being laid out, I'm out. Although, scouring my house to see what great goodies I've acquired over the years, all I seem to have are a stack of miniature shopping bags with names of defunct magazines, a tiny tin of "Invest Mints" from a Bloomberg party and refrigerator magnet with mental health crisis numbers. Tonight I was hoping for an Xbox. Yeah, right. I tore through my bag: An Energy Bar (to keep up your stamina while playing round the clock Xbox); a treasure trove of Xbox games (sadly no Motorcycle and unhappy the Recon game); hair gel (to keep you from tearing it out in frustration). Unfortunately, no Xbox. Most importantly though, this months "For Him Magazine" with Miss Pink Fur Mike in a major contortion on page 128 - somewhat solving the mystery. Not ending the game though. A final trap still awaited me.

Game Over

When you work for a TV network like I do, you get introduced to big cheeses. The goal is not to say something stupid, embarrassing or completely idiotic when introduced to 'The Boss.' It's not like a wrong remark is going to get you a Tony Soprano whacking, but it can be career suicide. This final phase of the game started just as I was happily trotting out with my gifts. I was introduced to Jay Allen. He's the guy who basically told Bill Gates to stop ignoring the Internet. Talk about the potential for career suicide. What did he say, "Ahh, hmm, Mr. ahhh Gates, you're being a nitwit." But, he survived and thrived. And at 32 years old Jay Allen is probably a googlillionaire. Now he designs Xbox games. And plays them. That's his life. That and probably counting his money. And he was cute. And I was beginning to rethink my rejection of gamers. I could unquestionably be his Mrs.Gamer. I could absolutely learn all about Button A. And I really really really wished I had a pink furry microphone.

He asked what games I played. I told him about my love of masochistic motorcycling. He laughed. I laughed. Then I made the fatal error. I shared my frustrating experience with the reconnaissance game. "If only you could do a game with weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare, I could really get into that." And poof! It was as if I'd dropped a stink bomb. It was like the air was sucked out of the entire party. I saw our life together explode in a cloud of virtual dust. I have no idea what I said that was so offensive. He wouldn't even look at me. I had been dismissed from our conversation. I was crushed and just wanted to disappear. This game was definitely over. Not to worry, next week is the Wired Magazine Party! I bet they'll have a cool gift bag.

by Stephanie Becker, Mass Distractions columnist for BestStuff.com