I was nine years old.

It was the crystal edition and came with two games: Crimson Skies (an airplane flying adventure game) and Fable (a fantasy RPG). I could write another post about how Fable became my obsession for a few years.

The console bundle retailed for something like $400.00 CAD, and, even back then, the games were pricey. So, trying out new games usually meant renting them from Blockbuster for the weekend.

There was a store that popped up around that time on the street where stores tended to pop up around that time (and still do). It had video game posters and Xbox and PlayStation logos in the display windows. The sign on the front of the building was white, and what appeared to be hand-painted in some sleek, futuristic calligraphy was the name digital reality. They were lower case letters like that - “digital” was blue and “reality” was red, or else I am experiencing the Mandela effect.

After begging my father to take me there for a few weeks, the fateful day finally came when we walked into that old building; its interior flooded with pre-teen, video game addicted hormones. I can only imagine walking in there at age thirty, thinking that these kids should really get outside. But my ten year old self saw nothing but the impending, bright and awesome future; the possible worlds I could inhabit; the digital reality I was now living.

The shop’s outer walls were dotted by computer monitors and television screens, which sat on a perimeter countertop. Plugged into them were any combination of PC Towers, Xbox, PlayStation, and various consoles. But the Xbox dominated, and everyone was anticipating the 2005 release of the Xbox 360. In the basement were thirty desktop computers connect by a LAN network for Counter-Strike parties. Then, there was the front counter upstairs — a bar, behind which stood the owner of the 21st century arcade.

A tall, lanky, light-skinned black fellow with stringy facial hair on his upper lip and chin. Must have been in his twenties. While you wanted to trust him and you did, you were cautious because you knew he: a) probably smoked weed b) had a hard upbringing; c) had some extreme religious views It was his slow, feeble tone of voice; the nervous twinkle in his eye; the little knit cap he wore that you could tell was religious; the huge, framed picture of Arabic letters mounted on the wall behind him; the fact that he was the owner operator of a video game store. He was definitely the only person in there who knew what the Arabic letters said, but all the white people in there wouldn’t care even if he told them it said “kill the infidels”; he had done nothing yet except charge them $5.00 an hour to play all the video games they wanted in his shop. And whatever sorcery he practiced, we were willing to pay for: he could mod your Xbox.

All those games you could only afford to rent for the weekend? You can now burn them right onto your console and play them forever. Better yet, he had a book of hundreds of games that, if you brought him your Xbox, he would install for you for $2.00 each. Illegal? Very. Fucking awesome and I’m going to do this as much as possible until he gets shut down? You can say that again.

Of course, the cost of modding your Xbox was his big-ticket sale, but for the same price you might be able to afford five new games at retail. This new power allowed you to never have to pay anywhere close to full price for another Xbox game.

Needless to say, that was my “golden era” of gaming. I still have the console, along with all the games I downloaded. Back then, hard discs didn’t have a lot of space, but I still managed to fit around twenty full games on there. So, whenever I want to go play Halo, Fable, Star Wars Battlefront, Hitman, Burnout 3 etc. . . I can just fire that bad boy up. Not that really have the time or want to. I almost sold the system along with my entire video game collection back in 2022 when I decided I didn’t want them any more and I needed money, plus I thought the world was ending. I brought it all to a game store (not digital reality- it shut down around 2008) and the owner wouldn’t buy the Xbox because it was modded. Blessing in disguise, I guess.

The Xbox sat unbooted-up for several years, and after I moved away for college, I didn’t think of it. But when I returned home for Christmas holidays that year, I decided to boot up that old thang, that old beast, and relive some childhood memories.

Once the Xbox was modded, you got a customizable dashboard. You would need to input a password to access the system settings. I knew how to do that as a kid, and would change things like the colour of the led light on the Xbox, the theme, the screen saver text. But there were things that I knew I was not supposed to touch so that I would not mess with the system. There were complex settings and numbers and folders with numbers for names, all of which I never dared to click on. Until that Christmas.

I decided I knew enough about computers at this point to at least explore here a bit. I wouldn’t delete anything or fuck around too much, just see what’s in there. So I did. And what I found was shocking.

After a series of folders, I found one that contained videos. They were MP4 files. I had no idea what I was about to get into.

The first one I opened was over TWO HOURS long. It was a documentary called Zeitgeist. Wow. I sat there and watched the whole thing. Staring at the glowing power light on the crystal Xbox, amazed at what I had found, what had been sitting here for all these years. Bouncing between being enthralled by what I was watching, and thinking about that video game clerk. He told us that the hard disc only had so much space, but this one movie plus the other videos probably took enough space for one more game. Why did he install this? This was hard enough for me to find as an adult, did he expect kids to watch this? It’s not like this was very accessible to anyone who was already afraid of messing up a computer. wow. I couldn’t believe it. It’s not like he put some light hearted movie on there to flex that you could rip DVDs or something. This movie was some heavy shit. Once it got to the part about money, I was convinced we were living in what was essentially a psy-op. I was already conspiratorial, so finding this was like pouring gasoline on the fire.

The next video was some science video, about 30 minutes long, with infographics and visuals and information about how scientific discoveries somehow prove that the Quran is true. Yeah. Ok, this is adding up. The video game store guy was trying to promote his worldview through these modded consoles. I don’t know what happened to that guy and I heard he ran into trouble with the law (not surprising). But it’d be interesting to talk to him now.

Anyways, Zeitgeist has a section devoted to talking about money and the central banking system and the type of elaborate planning it took for some mother fuckers back in 1780 to start planning the financial collapse and enslavement of the west. If they had the wherewithal and foresight to carry out their plans back then, why would we trust bitcoin so heavy? I’ve already heard about Bitcoin being created by the CIA, people saying it doesn’t matter but really, digitize currency? It’s all on your phone? Maybe in a chip implanted in your hand? The more I read about bitcoin, the more I think it isn’t private at all. How could it be, if everything is recorded on the blockchain, like this big digital wall of hieroglyphs? I’m sure someone will prove me wrong about this. I’m just getting into it. I don’t doubt its value. I see clearly it is increasing in value, but it still relies on the dollar for people to believe how much it is worth.

I am not here saying anything definitively. But let me end with this:

This could be my Mandela effect kicking in, but I seem to remember this segment of the movie Zeitgeist where it talks about the future of cities, where we will all live in these controlled mega cities in a circular like shape. Maybe it’s in the middle of the movie and I missed it, but I remember it being at the end. The movie is up on YouTube if you haven’t seen it, but that part isn’t in it. But knowing YouTube is so censored yet they allow that movie on there… is a bit eyebrow raising for me. Anyways.

Do you think a future where we use only digital currency looks more like a free, open society where you can live wherever you want like a rural environment on a ranch or in a mansion in a city? Or do you think it looks more like living in a small dwelling in a city “ghetto” or district, relying on the government power grid for energy and having to comply with their rules like where you can go and how much you are allowed to spend. Isn’t the concept of having an “open channel” for bitcoin already like capping how much you are allowed to spend?

Thanks for reading

B