I was killing time before the second-round NIT game on Friday night; I had kind of a tough week and I was pretty stressed out. “This sure won’t do,” I muttered to myself as my miserable new roommate played his Gibson SG with the volume on his amp turned up to three-quarters maximum; it was time to get out of my apartment.

“Dude, you suck, nobody wants to hear you mangle Clapton anymore,” I imagined calmly telling him while grabbing his guitar and pulling a Pete Townshend. “Later man,” I called as I internalized my frustration and walked out of the door to go to Food Lion.

I decided to be more constructive and purchase some things for myself. I walked to the register and set down a box of Life cereal, fresh strawberries, muscadine wine and a bottle of Gold Bond. “It’s going to be a good afternoon,” I said as I winked at the bagger.

Fortunately for both my sanity and my roommate’s health, he sketched off somewhere leaving me to my own devices in the apartment. I poured myself some cereal and fruit, took off my pants and sat down on the couch in front of the television. I bought a Wii a couple of months ago, so I popped in Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube to get my fix of gratuitous violence. Unfortunately, zombified townsfolk wielding chain saws kept chopping off my head, so I decided to take a break and play some Super Mario World instead.

There I was: no pants on a Friday afternoon, playing Super Nintendo on my Wii and taking a break every thirty minutes to pour myself another bowl of Life and shake some more Gold Bond down my boxers, when a fascinating thought dawned upon me. My relaxing afternoon was partly made possible by a concept in console gaming called backwards compatibility.

A backwards compatible video game system is capable of playing games designed for older consoles as well as games designed for itself. That afternoon I wasn’t limited to playing Wii Sports or Twilight Princess on my Wii; I also could play Gamecube titles as well as classic games released in the nineties and even the eighties.

Backwards compatibility allows console manufacturers to release systems with large libraries of playable games extending beyond the sometimes sub-par launch titles released in conjunction with a new generation of console, making the purchase of such systems more appealing to the gamer consumer base. All of the leading recently released consoles incorporate some level of backwards compatibility, but I say that — as a society — we should take this concept one step further.

I (with my tongue firmly in my cheek) propose the integration of backwards compatibility into other aspects of American life. As an example, imagine for a moment receiving a backwards compatible education. Sure, higher education has its moments: late morning classes, big-time sporting events, parties — you get the drift. Still, sometimes I feel like something is missing from the glitzy glamour of university life, something from a simpler and slightly more pixilated time. I think it would be supercool if I could slide nap-time and recess into my class schedule or Hi-C Ectoplasm and Tater Tots into my lunch just like I can slide the old Metal Gear Solid into a PS2.

Don’t stop at the university level, though! You can make the rest of your life backwards compatible. Who says you can’t have nap-time and juice boxes when you are 40, or throw a triple kegger when you are a high-powered executive/doctor/ninja/lawyer/profession of your choice? Play the new games and enjoy the new graphics, but don’t forget to get back to basics sometimes and experience the simplicity that makes life meaningful.

So go play an old NES game and I’ll try and work on this backwards compatibility thing — because I totally deserve accelerated reader points for my solid state physics book.

E-mail Ball at viewpoint@technicianonline.com.