web-goddess

I keep forgetting to give a little bit of explanation for my Wii evangelism. A couple people have mentioned that they’ve been reading the references to it on my site and they just don’t get what the big fuss is about. I mean, “it’s just a video game, right?” Here’s the thing: I’m not a video gamer. I loved Atari and NES back in the day, but I haven’t really been into video games in, like, the last ten years. Why? Because all the games suck. They all seem to be first person shooters or real-time strategy… and I’m just not into those. (My all-time favorite games NES games were Tetris and Dr. Mario and Super Spike V Ball.) I don’t care that Sony and Microsoft keep pumping out more polygons so I can shoot ever more realistic looking people. That’s not fun. So then I read this article about the Nintendo Wii, and here’s the bit that really got me: “The classic controller was something we had become fond of and gamers had become comfortable with. It had many important elements. But it also had come to dictate a lot of what went into games—the way graphics were made, the way battles were fought in role-playing games, the arc of in-game stories. They were all being made to fit one standard. Creativity was being stifled, and the range of games was narrowing.” Exactly, dude. So the idea was to go in a completely different direction, to step back and see if maybe the way we interact with technology could change the types of game being created. And that’s what sucked me in. I feel cheesy for saying it, but buying the Wii was almost political for me. I wanted to let the industry know that there’s a market beyond 15-30 year old males. And the best part is – it’s actually pretty fun! So now I’m a gamer.

Wiikend Update: The sad thing is, a week ago I was totally dismissive of reports of “wii shoulder.” Now? My right rotator cuff is killing me. And we didn’t even play that much! We played for like two hours on Thursday night, and not at all on Friday (since I was at the shop all night). I played maybe two more hours on Saturday. And today my arm kills! It was the tennis. I’m a little bit addicted.

Anyway, today we had Andrew and Kathleen and Steph and Eva over for a little Wii-B-Q action. Kathleen got right into the boxing, as evidenced by the photo below. Steph also worked up quite a sweat knocking out his opponent. Andrew played it much cooler. The six of us had a great time working our way through the various Wii Sports and Wii Play games. (I think my new favorite is the Wii Play where you ride a cow and knock down scarecrows.)

Many, many drinks later (and after I tried rather unsuccessfully to convert Eva to my love of High School Musical)… the guests went home and the Snook and I fired up the Legend of Zelda again. We’ve decided to play it together and take turns trying to take one character through to the end. We’ve just made it through the “village” bit and we’ve somehow turned into a wolf. (?) It’s starting to get spooky…

For other Nike+ iPodders: I had an error earlier this week when uploading my latest run. An alert box popped up saying that the “server could not validate” my run data. I did some poking around online and found this method of re-uploading. Unfortunately that still didn’t work for me. I sent off an e-mail to Nike outlining the problem and they wrote back to say they were looking into it. I just tried the re-upload method again and it worked! So if you have runs missing from your online totals, give it a try.

How did I miss the Winter Knitty? I really like Binary, Argosy (especially the Noro version), Piggle (when my hair gets longer, I might have to make one sized for me!), Norberta, and Sheldon. Hmm, it’s all toys and accessories. I didn’t like the garments much.

Done. That sale is 95% ready to go. We finished at 11:00 tonight… which means I was sitting in front of a computer frantically uploading products for FOURTEEN HOURS. I’m going to veg all day tomorrow.

Yay! Guess who just won tickets to see Bill Bryson in February? Me! That’s a nice little rainbow on an otherwise stressful day… (Sale setup is progressing. I’m trying to stay calm.)

Bad Customer Relations
There is a Quizno’s in World Square. I would like to order a sandwich platter for the staff who will doing the sale setup tonight. Unfortunately I cannot find a frickin’ phone number for that outlet anywhere. It’s not on their website. Neither phone number on whitepages.com works for them. Who doesn’t publish a phone number? Especially when their menu says to call your local outlet for catering? No business for you!

It’s here! I picked him up tonight from the EB Games on Broadway. We got the Wii, the “Wii Play” pack (which we thought was going to contain an extra nunchuk along with the Wiimote, but it doesn’t), and the Zelda game. Apparently the Australian retailers didn’t get any stock – consoles or games – beyond what we pre-ordered. So yay for forethought! We cracked open the box as soon as the Snook got home. Installation was pretty darn easy, and it picked up our wireless network and downloaded the required updates fairly quickly. We created our “Mii” characters (little avatars that you use in the games) and then fired up Wii Sports. Moving the controller around is both really weird and really natural at the same time. We started on some training modes just to figure out how it worked. They were amusing, but I’ll admit I started to get bored after a while. Then we figured out how to play head-to-head. THAT RULES. We played a couple games of tennis, and then a whole game of bowling (in which I broke 100 for the first time EVER). Then we put in the Wii Play game and had some fun with Ping Pong, laser hocky, and the shooting range. Suddenly it was 10:30 and we’d been playing for two hours. And get this – my shoulders are actually a little sore! This is definitely more of a workout than usual videogaming. (And the Snook burnt a lot more calories than he usually does playing Warcraft.) I’m looking forward to cracking open Zelda on the weekend…

Oh! And we took a couple more pictures. Here’s the Snook doing an impressive follow-through during our bowling match. And here’s me trying to hit a home run during our baseball training. (Sadly, that’s how I hit in real life too.) But the FUNNIEST thing is, I just got an e-mail from one of the Snook’s friends who was watching us on CouchCam. And check out the great action shot he got of Dr. Amy Jones!

The Japanese Wii Safety Manual. I’ll have to keep that in mind for tomorrow… WHEN I GET MY WII. (Incidentally, the only picture I don’t get is the one where the Wii’s sitting next to the bags of laundry. What the heck does that mean?)

Lenticulations. I love these. They remind me of looking through a Viewmaster, that sensation of something being almost hyper-realistic.