So, I recently got a new PC. (Yes, I chose PC over Mac, but more on that later.) It came with Windows Media Center Edition 2005. Various folks said this was pretty much the same as XP Pro, and from what I can tell, it certainly is. I simply don't run the Media Edition programs and as far as I can tell, I'm on an XP Pro box (except the default theme is a bit nicer).

So anyway - I was a bit bored today and I went looking at the programs that came with Media Center. I saw something curious.... "Windows Dancer."

I ran the program... and all of a sudden a little woman popped up on my desktop and started to dance.

As the music changed, her pace changed. My first thought was what a stupid waste of time this program was... but then I noticed something... I couldn't stop watching. The dancer uses a hip hop style, but MS has others you can download as well.

What's wierd is how well this thing works. In general, she moves to the beat perfectly. It's only wierd when something non-hiphop/techno is playing. When Cocteau Twins came on - she danced in time - but it just felt wrong.

I can't help but wonder how cool it would be if this was like one of those Japanese toys... you know... the virtual pets?

Ok - it's still stupid... but for the life of me I can't kill the program.