I Love You, NXE.

NXE, of course, means New Xbox Experience. Its the new dashboard(if I haven't lost the non-gamers yet, I just did by saying 'dashboard'. When you turn on your console, you see this, so keep with me) that came out yesterday(I was up until 5am waiting to download it) and I'm thrilled with it. Not quite beyond words, because then the post would end here. So here's my thoughts...

The last thing I want to do is turn this into a games or tech blog, so I won't wax poetic about every single feature, but here's the best parts. One, theres avatars now. Obviously this is a reaction to the raging success that was the Mii. Yes you can play games as your avatar. Only three at the moment, one being Uno, but more are coming. It also gives us an animated idea of what the verbally abusive, extremely racist 9 year old that kicked your ass in Gears of War 2 looks like.

If the Klan is having trouble recruiting, really look no further than Xbox Live. For $8 a month they'll get to take the pick of the litter as there is no shortage of kids who just won't stop screaming about how they hate basically every single ethnicity. No one can really do anything about it either, I don't want this to take a serious turn, but just reporting them and clicking 'racist language' doesn't really do enough with some of these people.

Worse yet, the avatar of the kid you hate is probably wearing the same fedora you picked for your avatar first. Naturally, you're furious.

So while 50% are wearing the same fedora, the other 50% are taking the chance to make theirs look high which will be funny to them for approximately eternity. They give you an option to have "tired" eyes, which looks like "stoned" eyes. Microsoft clearly knows its audience. After all, you can't join a room where at least someones gamer tag doesn't end in '420'. Once again, hilarious.

You and your friends can have a party, because real social interaction is over rated. Perhaps you just hate your real friends, this is ideal for you. You all stand there, laughing about similar taste in hats and how your avatar is totally high. Forget the fact that Netflix lets you stream movies right to your console.

I don't do a very good job of selling it, or go into any real detail at all, but Microsoft really gave us a polished, cool platform here. Xbox Live takes up quite a bit of my day, as I have a lot of free time, and this enhances the experience much more than I would have anticipated and it was definitely needed. I don't know how we made it this far without it. After all, you're not paying that $8 just to get called gay.

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Not only did you just sit through a few hundred words about something for Xbox that you don't care about, now I'm asking a favor. If anyone knows how I can watch the season premier of Screenwipe from Tuesday night, I'd be very appreciative.

and for those unaware of Charlie Brooker's work, search his name on YouTube or go to his old site, here. You'll see a familiar title.

Something more relevant tomorrow. Perhaps at a reasonable hour today...