Playing with my Wii

The long winter vacation is almost over and I have an unusually small supply of stories, photos and adventures to talk about. For a few reasons I didn't really go ON holidays this winter. I visited friends in Osan for an extended period of time but that's only 3 hours away from home. I didn't go to another country or see anything I haven't seen before. I think when I'm old and waxing reminiscent, the thing that I just might remember most from the winter of '09 will be entering into the Wii era of my life.

For the past few weeks I've been playing with my Wii, almost every day. That doesn't sound like anything new right? Har har har. Playing with my Wii. It sounds modest. I mean the inescapable inference is of diminutive size. How big could a "Wii" be, right? They should have called it a "Wang" or a "Woah" so I could proudly tell people what I've been up to.

And believe it or not, there are similarities. There was a recent SNL sketch where Alec Baldwin sees his son and friends playing with their Wii. He asked if he could give it a try. The Wii actually has sensors that make SHAKING the controller necessary. In the game Alec Baldwin played in the sketch he founds some bags and had to shake money out of them and the harder he shook the more money came out. I guess in the heat of the game people might naturally tend towards familiar muscle memory and Alec was shaking his Wii like a teenage boy. And getting massive amounts of money. The other guys, who didn't have the, how shall I say it, self-pleasuring tenure of the old man were in awe. They carried the innuendo on for a while too changing hands, making sounds you might hear at a coin operated porn booth and saying that Mom will be a natural at it. It was a pretty clever sketch.

I remember playing video games with Kasia in my dorm room and thinking that students who passed by might have overheard us and jumped to some conclusions. Now with the Wii it would probably sound even worse. I play golf all the time and you can put spin on the ball by pressing the direction arrow the way you want it to spin and shaking as hard as you can. If the ball is heading toward the water I put back spin on it and shake like a mad man grunting things like, "Suck back, ball! Don't get wet! Come on, baby screw back! Almost there, almost there, OH OH God yeah!" And I'm in here all by myself playing with my Wii. I hope nobody listens at my door.

And it's only going to get about a thousand times better when I have friends over playing with my Wii. Or if they don't want to play they can just watch me play with my Wii and see how an experienced veteran does it. Then they can join in when they think they've got the hang of it.

I've put my X-Box away. She's in storage with all her games. Now I'm a Wii man and I want the whole world to know! This is my electronic coming out announcement. Wow, that felt good! If you enjoy playing with your Wii, don't be afraid to tell people. It's okay. You're perfectly normal. And if you have friends who disapprove of it, well they just weren't any real kind of friend in the first place now were they?

I think for myself it's gonna be hardest to tell my Mom I've given up on the X-Box and now only play with my Wii. You know how old-fashioned some people can be. But I think she'll come around when she sees how happy it makes me.

I thought about being bi-consolar but there are just too many problems. For me it's easier to do one or the other and I'm committed to this relationship now.

Ha ha ha. I could go on and on with that. Anyway, I think I'm gonna go get the Wii Fitness board soon and with that I'll likely exercise more often. I already play golf and sort of exercise between shots to try to simulate walking the course. It's actually MORE exercise than golfing. And I've heard they already have a Simpsons game for it. I REALLY want that! I can see so many really cool games in the future. With a larger sensor they could have full body simulation so that you'd HAVE to do the exercising. A video game that is GOOD for you! Who could have predicted that?

And I think maybe the best thing about my Wii is that if I find I'm spending too much money socializing it's something interesting to do for free. Tomorrow I'm going to an Indian restaurant with Dave, Ang, Rebecca and Kasia, then to a sort of pre-wedding party for a couple other friends afterwards. I won't feel bad about spending too much money cuz I've been saving money playing Wii for a while now.

If you've never tried the Wii you should. I've seen so many people who hate video games say they really enjoy the Wii. The only downside for me is the fact that I have a Korean Wii. It's really hard to figure out all the instructions. And for some reason, like the Ipod, the Wii hasn't caught on in Korea so there aren't many games available. But with any luck I'll be able to get English games and maybe get a mod chip so I can play them on my Korean Wii. I'm going back to Canada in the summer and you can bet I'll be figuring all that stuff out while I'm there. If not before.

Anywii, I think I'll go golfing. Keep yer stick on the ice.