My slim PlayStation 2's DVD remote made me lazy.

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to take my Super NES out of the drawer in which it had been stored for years, connect it to my television set and play some old games.

I had a fun time. Nostalgia is great when you choose things that have aged well.

But there was a problem when I was finished.

I had to get up and walk all the way from my bed to my TV stand to turn off my Super NES.

It felt almost archaic. This was the first time in almost a year (when I sold my GameCube) that I turned off a game console this way.

In the summer of 2005, I traded in my original PlayStation 2 for a slim model. I soon learned the joy of playing video games without ever having to get up. Assuming there was already a disc in the system and the correct memory card inserted, all I had to do was press the "POWER" button on my PS2's DVD remote to start playing. And when I was finished, I held the remote's "POWER" button to turn the system off.

Convenient when I was falling asleep.

That was the only reason why I owned a PlayStation 2 DVD remote. I never used my slim PS2 to play DVD-Videos.

This continues today with my PlayStation 3. I don't even need its Blu-ray remote--which I don't own--to do this. I can press the "PlayStation Home" button on a Sixaxis controller to turn the console on or off.

This is only going to get worse (better) with the next generation of game consoles, when every game is distributed digitally. Inserting and removing discs will be a thing of the past; we will never have to get up again.

Suddenly I once again have a desire to buy a Wii, if only for the Virtual Console.

I am not a couch potato. I lift weights, I do all sorts of cardiovascular exercises and I probably walk more in a day than you do in a week--sometimes while holding heavy objects--but playing a video game is usually the opposite of exercise, so I do not want to put forth any physical effort to start or end the process.