For someone who works in front of the computer all of the time, I am naturally prone to have a less active lifestyle in pursuit of a greater good. I serve people whom I care, I devote my time with them to be productive, and I think a lot of ways to have a pleasant future. Now, even though I’m just working inside the four corners of my room, it comes with some health risks as well, a gray area that I’m increasingly worried about: my health. The nature of my work have caused me to live a sedentary lifestyle – and I don’t like it.

People like me who work on the Web are usually willing to drown themselves with work in an effort to earn more money. They are willing to sit in front of their computers or laptops whole day and work on the edge to focus on being productive or aggressive with money-making. Well, that reason alone sounds very noble indeed. However since two years of work as a freelance, I learned that some employers with higher standards of living exploit people’s ignorance or strip one’s fundamental rights to protect their businesses and money. For me, as someone who doesn’t have the economic power yet, that’s purely depressing. It’s very difficult to be generous to people who upholds selfishness.

The physical, mental, emotional and economic depression brought about by the events and people in the business world have made me grow so weary. So, I’ve decided to take another break just like what I did last year — but this time, I’m gonna do my break on a dance mat! Funny how this article’s topic changed in an instant (this is actually the purpose of this post per se).

I have been looking for a good dance mat for ages that I can use on the computer or laptop and that search just came to an end last month. And I know, the technology is not new. I just want to have an escape from sleep-eat-work lifestyle by adding dancing on my daily routine. You should know that when I was younger, I was very active in participating dance contests (from amateur folk dances to campus-wide modern-style dance cheering competitions). That being said, I have a dancer’s spirit inside me.   (In fact, there are so many spirits inside me: see picture below at your own risk). LOL

Back to the gist, the dance mat somehow reincarnated my forgotten dancing skill to a limited point. Well, I bought it for my health and a good physical break from daily mental challenges. The dance mat cost me PHP 500 (or $10.63 USD). It’s actually meant for PlayStation 1/2/3 – but you know as a geek, I know for sure there’s a way to hook that onto my PC. So I roamed around the mall and went to CD-R King, one of Philippines’ most popular tech store that sells amazingly super-cheap computer devices, and stumbled a PHP 150 ($3.19 USD) PS2 to USB adaptor on the shelf – and bingo – solution found. 

When I returned home I quickly downloaded and installed StepMania, a free dance game for my Windows Vista laptop. I was truly surprised by the quality of the game. Its at par with the ancient commercial-grade Dance Dance Revolution games. The great thing is that you can add any dance music that you want due to the game’s open-source nature. Well, it requires a bit of tech knowledge so it’s going to be a challenge for beginners. Nevertheless, their official website provides in-depth tutorials which you can explore.

Hooking and detection of the PS2 to USB adaptor was flawless on Windows Vista until I spotted an in-game problem that ruined my excitement: the adaptor didn’t recognize simultaneous directional button presses for jump moves. I was truly sad when I learned that and I ended up dancing basic songs. It was “no challenge,” and here comes the evidence:

Hahaha! Isn’t that more depressing?

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