When I came home the other night my Wii was glowing again. It does this. A slowly pulsating blue glow along the disc tray that signifies, well, something. You never quite know what it's up to.

Once it meant I had a virtual globe that I could gleefully spin to find out what the forecast was like back home in White Rock or, perhaps, Antarctica. It provided temperature, UV index and a five-day forecast, thus releasing me from that interminable wait for the Weather Channel to finally get around to my local info. Plus, Madden NFL 07 uses it to match your actual weather conditions.

A month later there was another blue light and I was treated to the News Channel, which boasted the same virtual globe but now used to navigate stories from around the world with automatically updated articles courtesy of the Associated Press. Paired with the Opera web browser that had appeared earlier with the Internet Channel, it seemed like Nintendo was totally trying to make my computer jealous.  

This time out, the blue glow announced the arrival of the Everybody Votes Channel, a free online polling service that asks such thought-provoking questions as “Which do you prefer? Dogs or Cats” and “I’d rather live in a house...on a mountain or on a beach?” It also lets you predict what other Wii voters will pick and even submit your own queries (but keep it clean, kids, this is Nintendo).

Word on the intertubes is that a Wii backlash is starting to set in. But whatevs. Personally, I’m not done Zelda yet, haven’t tired of the weirdness that is Wario Ware and there's always that downloadable Kid Icarus from the old-school Virtual Console shop.

Certainly these new channels can’t make up for the post-Christmas software slowdown, but here’s the thing--it doesn’t even really matter what’s behind the blue glow. The fact that my Wii is doing stuff on its own, even when--no, especially when--it's turned off, simply adds to its charm.

Sure, there’s always a chance that this constant contact with the mothership means one day it'll grow arms, transform into a hungry robot and chow down on my defenseless PS2. But it also makes it feel less like console than a living creature, like a dog that enjoys chasing Frisbees but doesn’t crap on the rug if I forget to play.

Oh, and I’d totally rather have a house on a beach. Duh!