Cool.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/technology/companies/13netflix.html
Nintendo is bringing Netflix’s online streaming video service to its Wii gaming console, the most popular in the industry, the companies plan to announce Wednesday.
Archive for category wii
Just read that Nintendo is closing in on selling the 50 millionth Wii which makes it the fastest selling system of forever or something like that.
I think it’s great. I’m a total lifelong Nintendo fanboy and the fact that they just came in and changed the game and pulled it off is cool as hell. No one expected it.
I don’t frequent gamer forums or sites too often, but I have read stuff here and there and as far as I can tell hardcore game dorks are a lot like hardcore coaster dorks – if the product doesn’t cater to them, then it sucks and is a failure…no matter how much real world evidence there is to the contrary. Game dorks hating on Wii is as common and tired as coaster dorks hating on Six Flags. Pick a thread about each from some popular forum on the respective subjects and you’ll see the similarities are a little creepy.
At any rate, I think it’s pretty neat that the underpowered little system that offers mostly silly minigame collections that require mindless waggling and little beyond the goal of simply enjoying the game has captured the attention and imagination of so many people.
They buried this at the end of the show last night. If written a little differently, I really think this concept had the potential to rival the Schweddy Balls skit with Baldwin thats now a classic SNL moment. But instead they kept it simple and put it at the end of the show. Still awesome though.
Just reading an article about how the Wii has emerged as the biggest seller of the current generation of video game consoles by a long shot. This paragraph made me think:
Two years later, that risk has worked out far better than anyone could ever expect. Nintendo is once again back at the top of its game, selling several hundred thousand systems each and every month, exceeding the demand for the system pretty much every week of the year. It has thrust far ahead of both Microsoft’s and Sony’s current generation of consoles even with its inferior hardware capabilities, showing the industry that maybe the market isn’t as concerned with the sharpest HD visuals or the most robust online experience as the hardcore might lead you to believe.
It’s the last little bit that really struck a chord. Immediately I though of coaster enthusiasts. Same rule applies – the most hardcore don’t represent what the average person wants. In fact, they seem to be ridiculously out of touch in most cases. There’s definitely a lot of parallels to be drawn.
Then I started thinking and I’m pretty sure that it applies to almost everything in life. Those who are the most involved, interested, fanatic – the most hardcore – with something are usually out of touch with how people in general feel about said thing.
So if you’re WAY into something don’t bother telling me what you think because you’re probably a tool.
Just a random observation.
I’m sure by now you’ve read some story about kids using Wii as part of their school P.E. program.
I never really thought about it much, but today my daughter came home from school and informed me that they played Wii in gym today. I guess the idea is to play the more physical games (DDR, Fit, Sports, etc).
I feel so old.
Does anyone play kickball anymore?
This afternoon we decided to take care of some of the gazillion things that need done but no one seems to find the time. Jamie had to pick up a PC from the corporate office in Cincy, we needed to deposit some checks we’ve been sitting on for way too long, we needed to get our Kings Island passes, we needed haircuts, we had to take the PC to the hotel.
The plan was to get the PC, slide by Kings Island, hope to hit the bank before it closed, score haircuts, drop off the computer and get home.
We headed out at about 20-to-4 and had to get there before 5. Naturally, it started pouring rain about 10 minutes into the trip…then we hit the Cincy area rush hour traffic. Along the way we noticed a PNC branch relatively close to our destination. We figured we had a better chance of getting back to this one rather than going to Kings Island and then hitting the one we normally stop by on Tylersville Road.
At this point I had to piss like mad and just wanted to find a place to pee. Still getting to the bank in time was more important.
We made it to pick up the PC with 15 minutes to spare and began backtracking in the increasingly intense rain and equally thickening traffic. We pulled into the bank a hair after 5pm and I thought for sure they’d be closed. They were, but they helped us anyway. PNC is cool like that.
Still no pee, but at this point I figured I’d just wait until we get to the park.
From there we hit 71 north (a route I’ve taken maybe twice in my life and never to Kings Island) and I got stuck in a traffic pattern I couldn’t break free from and was forced off the interstate one exit too soon and it was the mother of all exits – backed up, people trying to shift lanes in all directions a big truck honking and trying to scoot over. I was jacked that I got caught up in the wrong lane and even more jacked that I hadn’t pissed yet. I spotted a Speedway and as the light off the exit turned green forced my way across three lanes and whipped into the gas station.
We get out of the HHR and are hit up by a FOX19 news lady and her cameraman wanting to talk about the fucked up exit/intersections. I sort of weaseled myself out of it and Jamie into it. They talked to her for like 45 seconds and we were off.
I finally got to pee (and scored a frozen Coke). We left to find them still outside interviewing people and laughed about having to watch the news on 19 this evening. We got back on 71 and were at Kings Island in a few minutes.
How quickly can one part with $600 – in a matter of seconds! That’s how fast.
Actually, the weekday evening pass purchase/processing thing they have going on is fabulous. It was no more than 10 minutes to part with our money and leave with passes in hand. Good stuff.
We made our way back to our neck of the woods and stopped by for a couple of haircuts and got in with no wait – nice. The chick doing my hair wouldn’t shut up though. I’m not a talker and I hate how no matter who I get, they always point out that this isn’t my real hair color. Yeah, I know it’s not, lady.
After that we dropped off the computer and I hooked it all up and booted it up and everyone rejoiced because the corn was saved. (part of that sentence is true and part is not – you decide)
By then it was going on 8 and there was no way in hell any of us were cooking so we stopped by Olive Garden. The place gets a bad rap sometimes I think, but I dig their Mixed Grill and tonight was no exception.
We got home and watched the stoner dude (who I hated until last night) get booted from American Idol.
After that I flipped to the FOX 19 news. What’s their lead story? The fucked up intersection. They used two clips of Jamie. I was dying – too funny. We’ve never been at that intersection in our lives and probably never will again and she’s on TV going, “This intersections sucks. We almost got taken out by a truck. They need to do something about it.”
Then we watched a little of an Eddie Izzard DVD (getting psyched for Friday’s show) and I played Mario Kart for a while…and now I’m typing this.
I should probably go to bed.
I just realized that if you choose License Settings on the main menu, you get all kinds of stats about your play. Some of mine:
Overall Rating: B
Distance Traveled: 1938
Total Race Count: 260
Total Battle Count: 38
WFC VS Rating: 5926
Wins/Losses: 345/306
% Of Time In 1st: 30%
WFC Battle Rating: 5451
Wins/Losses: 79/55
I suck.
As I may have previously mentioned, I’m totally addicted to Mario Kart. Like to the point where it might be a problem. Seriously, someone should probably get me some help.
…
Anyway, I unlocked the ability to use my Mii as a racer the other day. Like any egomaniac, I immediately took advantage of that fact and soon enough I was zipping around the tracks with the Nintendo family of characters.
But it was short lived.
In Mario Kart the characters all have little voice things they do when they race. Just a handful of sayings to give the the characters…well, character.
The problem is the generic voice they used for the Mii racer (or mine, at least) – it sounds like Special Ed from Crank Yankers. Not that it isn’t funny to think that, but it’s all I can think of when I hear my little Mii racing around the track.
So now I use mostly Toad and Waluigi.
Sunday afternoon I went out and scored a copy of Mario Kart Wii. It comes with a little plastic steering wheel that you stick the Wiimote into. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually like it, but I knew the kids would be pissed if I only brought one home. A second wheel is just $10…no biggie, so I grabbed an extra one.
The kids managed to play for a few minutes while I cooked dinner. Looked fun. Looked like Mario Kart from what I could tell. I did notice Jamie showing interest in the wheel. She made the comment, “I might even be able to race with the steering wheel.”
Another case of Wii taking the intimidation of gaming and making it accessable to all. (hugs and happiness)
I didn’t get a chance to sit down with it until after we did the podcast and everyone was in bed. I like it that way.
I booted up the Wii a little after 11…say 11:15 or so. I started playing through the circuits with the 50cc karts to get a feel for the game and the tracks. Two hours later I had finished all 8 circuits winning them all but one.
So I decided to connect to the Wi-Fi and play a little online action.
This may be the most addictive thing since masturbation. I kept saying, “One more race” over and over until I finally forced myself away from the TV and to my desk to write this. It’s now past 3:30am. I’ve played for a little over four hours and haven’t even gotten to try out the bikes yet.
What can I say about the game – it’s Mario Kart. It’s a lot like every Mario Kart game you’ve ever played. I suspect people either like Mario Kart or they don’t.
There’s a few new features or new ways of doing things, but nothing that should be too foreign to those familiar with the game. I happen to LOVE the little plastic wheel as a controller. The driving motion feels so natural (and familiar from other Wii racing titles) and it takes just a few moments to get the ‘feel’ for it. Nothing sweeter than lounging back deep in the couch and racing away.
The online aspect is where this game is going to shine. This is worth the price alone. Racing people from around the world is a blast – complete with a scoring/rating points system. I didn’t check out the online battle mode, but it also has the scoring/rating system in place. It looks like they’ll be doing tournaments in the future and already you can see record-holding times from your country or worldwide and compare your times. You can even download ghosts of record holding runs to study or race against. It just feels like there’s so much potential there – more than any Wii game to date.
This looks to be a HUGE time waster for me. Don’t expect me to get much done online anytime soon – I’ll be racing.
I play as Gonchar – big surprise. If any of you guys score the game, drop me a line with your friend code if you’re feeling froggy.
I gotta get to bed, school in the morning (for the kids, not me) and more Mario Kart!
UPDATE – I’ve since had the chance to check out the online battle mode and it’s even more addictive than the online racing. My kids can’t turn the damn game off, I’m staying up until all hours of the night playing kids in Japan, it’s Mario Kart Mania around here.
Definitely worth the price, but avoid this one unless you have large chunks of life to give to the game.
Pretty cool stuff (originally brough to my attention by Nasai):
“You essentially get your head-mounted sensor bar in a nice, sporty safety-goggle form factor.” – Fucking awesome hilarious!
So I still haven’t even touched Mario Galaxy, but my son is a huge Mario freak (he even liked Sunshine on the Gamecube) and has been playing it since Christmas day.
Today he got the 60th star and saved the princess. Granted, that’s only half the game, but I have to question the level of challenge involved when a 6-year-old busts through 1/2 the game (and the main quest, really) in just 16 days.
I suppose that’s not always the point with the Mario games – it’s about the journey, the sheer fun and whimsy. Just seemed funny.
The sad part is I find myself less motivated to play as over the last two weeks I’ve watched him do much (most?) of it. Hell, maybe I just cheer him on to 120 stars. I wonder if he’ll still be motivated after saving the princess?
As for my time, I spent a very short amount of time with Raving Rabbids 2 the other night.
Meh.
Flat out – it’s less inspired, engaging and fun than the first. I dig mini games (even the micro games of Wario Ware), but these are lame for the most part. There’s also no real quest or goal tying it all together as far as I can tell – the first progressed from point A to point B. This just feels like pointlessly shaking the wiimote around. I’m not impressed for the most part.
Of the seven new Wii games we got this christmas which one did I pick up and play first? I didn’t grab Super Mario Galaxy. I didn’t DDR my fat ass across the floor. I didn’t even go for the silly fun of Raving Rabbids 2. Nope. I jumped on Thrillville. I suppose that’s a testament to the coaster geekdom embedded in my soul (if I had one) at this point.
First things first – this is not a good game. The catch is, I’m a sucker for a bad game. Hell, I seem to prefer lame games. Not only does it suck, but it’s short. There’s an in-game timer and you can see exactly how long you’ve played. Total time invested from initially opening the box and inserting the disc into the Wii until I got the ‘Game Complete’ message and the credits rolled? Would you believe 11 hours, 32 minutes and 23 seconds? Yeah, It’s that short. If you just completed the bare minimum to get through the game and did it quickly, I’d bet it could be done end-to-end in about 8 hours.
So what is it all about. It’s a bunch of mini-games tying together the storyline of someone trying to sabotage your park(s) set on the backdrop of a stripped down, more arcade feeling (as opposed to sim feeling) RCT3.
I hear you groaning already, but somehow it worked for me – as a timekiller, at least. I’m to the point where I like my games light, airy, dumbed down and over-easy. Thrillville delivers all of that.
Ride choices are limited and building the park is pre-structured to a large degree. In fact the only reason for building/maintaining the park is to open new missions (mostly mini-games) to push the story along.
Nothing about the game is realistic (sorry, coaster dorks) and as I said, is has much more of an ‘arcade’ gameplay feel than a ’sim’ gameplay feel. It really takes not thought or effort to maintain a parks and the rides in it – in fact, unfinished coasters that wreck are encouraged in some cases. There’s no different kinds of coaster pieces (lift hills, brakes, etc) – just build track skyward and anywhere the coaster would stall becomes a lift. The bit of track before the station becomes a brake-run. It’s all automatic and dumbed down for the masses and small children…and of course you can ride your creations.
The one thing I did kinda like was the way you build coasters. Twisting, turning and angling the wiimote changes the track as expected. Need a swooping turn down and to the left? Tilt the remote forward and to the left – voila! Want to bank it? Lean the nunchuck to the side and it becomes and swooping banked curve. Really intuitive stuff. A full-blown park sim using that build system would be accessible to all and fun to use.
The mini-games are all based on what you build in the park. Build a pool-hall and play pool. Build a go-kart track and race park patrons. Build a mini-golf course and try to beat par.
I hated the “play/ride” what you build angle in RCT3, but for some reason found it tolerable in Thrillville (and you kind of have to – it’s the entire basis of the game). But I think it goes back to intent. RCT3 sort of sold itself as an amusement park simulation game – more Sim City than not. (hint: that’s exactly why the first two worked so well)
Thrillville doesn’t really sell itself as anything more than an over-the-top, simplified, arcade-style game…and that’s what it delivers.
Would I buy it again in hindsight? For me, no. But the kids dig it and I did play through the whole damn thing. Which kind of leads me back to the beginning of this whole this. It’s not a good game by most traditional standards – it’s short, stupid, easy and quite frankly, lame.
But that’s exactly why I played though it.
I just read an article talking about game system sales for November. I’ve also been reading a lot about how people are still having a hard time finding a Wii.
It seemed a little silly at the time, but I’m glad we waited in line all day to get one last year.
It really is amazing that one thing has remained so in demand for two seasons in a row. I’d be bold enough to say the Wii is the must-have item for Christmas this year and it certainly was last year. Pretty amazing being as just 18 months ago, the geeks of the world were writing the system off as a repackaged Gamecube that would be the final nail in Nintendo’s coffin.
The sales numbers for November 2007:
Wii: 981,000
Xbox 360: 770,000
PS2: 496,000
PS3: 466,000
I think it says a lot when the last generation seven year old system outsells a newest generation console. I’m not sure if it speaks of the greatness of the PS2 or the lack of excitement for the PS3…or both, but that’s nuts. Even crazier is that the PS2 and PS3 sales combined roughly equal Wii sales.
Nintendo delivered – simple as that. They didn’t get wrapped up in the same old approach, they took a chance and they scored.
Yay, Nintendo!
The same old, same old.
I did start some X-mas shopping. I have six Wii games sitting here (including Super Mario Galaxy) and can’t touch them for the next six weeks. In a weird sort of way, it’s more tempting than the Wii sitting here last year was.
Sigh.
Just in the last few weeks the Wii is doing this weird thing where it freezes right in the middle of gameplay and just makes an annoying humming sound. The only way to get it going again is to cut the power to the Wii and reboot. It’s kind of annoying. It doesn’t happen on specific games – pretty much any ol’ game will do. At first it seemed to just happen with Carnival Games, but since then the kids have run into it on a couple others (both Wii and Gamecube games). Pretty sucky.
I did a search to see if anyone else was having issues and found this video on YouTube:
(actually there’s a lot of examples on YouTube, I just chose that one)
Ours is doing the exact same thing and it’s annoying – and every last video uploaded has that same god-awful humming/buzzing noise when it freezes. Hopefully, it’s something Nintendo can easily fix with an update.
My holiday weekend started with a nice little gift – a few of those White Pepper & Spice candles courtesy of Joe (a really cool thing to do for essentially a complete stranger). With a little supply built up, I spent the weekend burning one down. I dunno what it is, but I find the scent of those candles entirely relaxing.
We decided to play ‘pick-up’ around the house on Saturday. Everyone just started going nuts – spring cleaning style and the place looked great by late afternoon. Even the kids chipped in. In the evening the kids had a friend stay over which meant pizzas and a giant chocolate chip cookie (like those big cookie ‘cakes’ you can get) that we made ourselves.
Sunday found us at The Greene with a quick stop at Finish Line to exchange a pair of shoes for little man that fit just two months ago when he picked them out for school. The kid’s growing like a weed. The best part was when three totally fly black dudes who were clearly just hanging out and blowing time while their ladies were off shopping asked if they had any Vick jerseys. I swear the entire store busted up laughing. One of those great moments that you had to be there for. It’s times like that that I miss being young and fun like that. The 30-something dude with his wife and kids exchanging a pair of shoes asking the same question just wouldn’t have worked.
We left there and headed back towards home and made a quick stop at Best Buy. I have a bunch of reward certificates and gift cards from buying stuff (like the new TV) and credit card rewards. Mostly wanted to take a peek at the small LCD TV’s. The TV my daughter has in her room is the very first TV my wife and I ever bought together and it’s showing it’s age. She’s due for a new one and with a couple of hundred dollars worth of rewards, we could probably snag a nice little TV she could hang on the wall. So we casually looked around (we’re thinking X-mas gift for the TV) and found that we could end up with a decent on for less than $75 out-of-pocket. Guess what she’s probably getting for Christmas?
We ended up letting the kids grab a Wii game too. Everyone settled on Carnival Games. Another set of mini games with a carnival theme. Lame by gamer standards, but it’s crap like this that’s keeping the Wii in high demand. This is exactly the kind of game that requires no commitment, is a fun time waster and anyone can get right into and have a little fun with. In all honesty, it gets old, fast. I figure you can get 10 hours or so out of it before it gets so repetitive that you feel the urge to murder, but the kids have really enjoyed it and my wife plays too. That’s what it’s all about.
From there we stopped by an open house. We’ve been hitting those lately trying to get ideas of the houses, communities, prices and all of that. We’re still not sure what our long-term intentions are in the area, but it looks more and more as if it might make sense to settle here with each passing day. No reason not to have the knowledge – just in case. We really like the subdivision/community the house was in. We’ve seen several there, but the prices are usually just out of our range. This one seemed like a really good deal for the price (especially compared to the area), but we’re not committing to anything yet. Just being nosy/gathering info.
Stopped back home and blew and hour or two playing the new Wii game. Then headed back out around five.
Something else we’ve been really mulling over (that I’ve intentionally left off of this little blog o’ mine) is a new vehicle. We finally decided the time has come. Here’s a fact that most people can’t believe when they find out – we’ve functioned as a one-vehicle family since we were married. Tell people that in this day and age and they look at you like you’re fucking batty. We’ve just always been able to do it with very little hassle.
However, time change. The kids are both in school now and have more and more commitments and obligations. The wife is doing the ‘moving up the corporate ladder’ thing and has more obligations and commitments. Even I (the perennial stoner/slacker who doesn’t hold a ‘real’ job) find myself growing up and needing to be places more than I used to. It’s time to add a second vehicle to the mix.
The only problem is that the door is wide open. We can get whatever the hell we want (within our price range, of course) – but that still leaves an overwhelming number of choices. Most people will try to put you (and by ‘you’, I mean a family like ours) in an SUV or crossover of some kind. That’s a possibility, I suppose – if you’re reading this one, J-Pizzie, I apologize in advance :)
The thing is, we really don’t necessarily need that. We’re driving an Altima. The car meets our needs in every way. It holds all of us and everything we need to drag around – even on the big park trips. We’ve done trips as long as two weeks in that thing and been just fine. The trunk is huge and the interior spacious. It’s a comfy travel car that’s done every big trip we’ve taken since the Canada trip in 2004.
However, I have to admit that an SUV/XUV is not out of the question. But if we do score one, I’d prefer something…ummm…for lack of a better term…luxurious. That’s still not the right word though. If I’m driving an SUV, I want it to kick some ass. Loaded. Navigation, DVD entertainment systems, big stereo, sunroof, leather. The whole she-bang. And quite frankly, that can get costly.
Costly for something I’m not sure I even need isn’t good.
But with that said, I don’t want just another middle of the road car. As I’ve established we love the Altima. But I don’t need two of them sitting in the garage. The point is we have middle-of-the-road covered.
Maybe something smaller. (we have the trip/travel thing covered, right?) But again, by smaller, I don’t mean more economical, I mean sportier. More fun. Something with balls.
At any rate, we’re looking to buy a new vehicle soon and have no idea what we want. So we took advantage of it being a Sunday evening and a holiday weekend, to stop by dealerships knowing they’d be closed and we could just mull around the lot without the hassle of dealing with anyone and wasting everybody’s time as we’re still just at the beginning of the ‘just looking’ phase. Researching online is a great head-start, but nothing beats seeing the cars in person.
In the end, I think we walked away more confused than when we started. Too many choices can be a bad thing.
On Monday we took care of some errands during the day. We considered the car thing some more. We generally blew the day with little things. Had some stuff to deal with late in the evening, but nothing major. Ended up crapping out on this week’s podcast. A mostly nothing day.
On a positive note, I did discover that AmericanLife occasionally runs episodes of WKRP, so that was cool. I never even knew we had that channel or what it was, but it seems like they run some cooler old stuff. I’ll have to keep an eye on them. I eneded up watching WKRP and an episode of Bob Newhart. (the old Bob Newhart show, not the newer Newhart – although I did notice they also run Newhart…so that’s cool)
According to the numbers gathered by vgchartz.com, the Wii is the top selling console of the current generation of systems.
This interests me for multiple reasons:
1. For pretty much my entire life up until I had kids, I was an avid gamer. (having kids changes everything – keep that in mind) Up until the original Playstation was released I bought just about evert goofy system anyone would release. For some reason, the PS1 just didn’t grab my attention. Plus, a lot of friends had it, so I played it quite a bit regardless of the fact I didn’t own one.
The last system I bought for myself was the N64 the day it hit shelves. The next fall my daughter was born and well, the N64 gathered dust. In the next eight to ten years I sort of fell out of the loop. I’ve never owned a Sony or Microsoft sytem and I totally missed the First Person Shooter revolution. In fact, to this day, I don’t ‘get’ FPS games. They’re lame. I have no desire to ‘frag’ anyone. (a little handjob between good friends sounds like a much better time, but I digress…)
A few years ago we scored a Gamecube on the cheap for an X-mas gift for the kids and they took right to it. This past year we scored a Wii on its release date and the kids had it under the tree. That thing gets played constantly – by pretty much all of us. I’ve owned every Nintendo console that’s ever hit the market. Which leads me to:
2. I’m a total Ninty fanboy. I dig Nintendo. Always have, always will.
3. I love it when someone bucks the system. I just do. Anytime someone goes out on a limb and ‘changes the game’ I think it’s the coolest. No one gave the Wii a chance. Gamers called the idea a gimmick and the system weak. It’s such a cliche at this point, but Nintendo proved making something fun to play will beat all the ramped up technical specs that can be spouted.
I have no doubt that hardcore gamers don’t exactly see it that way and that’s fine. Nintendo hit on something. They tapped that nerve that the other companies were ignoring. Why cater to the gamer niche when you can make something that everybody can enjoy?
I dunno. I just think the idea that preschoolers and grandmas and moms and dads and the Aunt Bertha’s and Uncle Charlie’s of the world have changed the market – and that Nintendo saw that potential – is great.
It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years and, if the trend holds, what each company will do with their next system.
For some reason I find this pretty funny. I imagine if you’ve spent any time with the Wii, you probably will too.
Well, this is pretty nifty. Looks good, but I’m not sure I could stomach the $1200 price tag.
This is more my speed. (and I’m digging the chrome)
I bet the kids would dig these.
I had one of those weekends where I really didn’t do much, but somehow felt busy. Those are the worst because it feels so unproductive.
Jamie left work early on Friday with the news that the last ‘class’ she has to complete for work is available either in May in Chicago or June in Dallas. First thought was a chance to check out the Texas parks by piggybacking onto her work requirements. (a situation we’ve taken advantage of many times in the past) So I spent a bit of Friday trying to figure how viable it was to think I could get all four of us to Texas for a week. Two days later and we’re still pretty undecided, but I’m really liking the idea of a ’surprise’ trip to Texas falling into my lap. At this point as I already have much of (ok, pretty much all of) our travel plans set through the first week of July and Texas would require both a restructuring of time and money. I might even be willing to give up the trip to Tennessee (Dollywood & Ghost Town) to make Texas happen. We’ll see, I guess.
Friday night no one felt like cooking so we did Chinese take-out. Mongolian Beef is good. Then my daughter and I ran out in search of a new Wii game for little man. He had to have a tooth pulled Saturday morning (long story) and a spacer put in. So being as this was his first ‘big’ dentist visit I wanted to be able to hook him up with a little sumpin-sumpin if he did well – and he did ridiculously well with the whole thing. Especially given that we had to be up and on the road by 7am to make his 8am appointment at the dentist 47 miles away. (another long story)
They didn’t put him under to pull the tooth, but rather gave him what I refer to as ’silly juice’ when we got there and we had to sit in the waiting room for about 45 minutes for it to totally kick in. The kid rewarded me with 20 minutes of the funniest action I’d ever seen performed by a 5 year old in my life. I’d try to describe it but it won’t be nearly as funny in words, if you weren’t there and if you don’t know my kids. Three strikes there for almost everyone who’ll read this. But those few moments when he started getting silly until he got called back had us in tears from laughing.
So he was a champ and we left the office with his tooth and a plethora of ‘prizes’ fom the dentist and I gave him the game for doing so well. We ended up deciding on Wii Play just because it was the short, simple, multiple game type of title that we could all dig and it hooked us up with another Wiimote. We spent a little time playing when we got home. Good stuff. A little shallow. Ok, a lot shallow, but considering the $40 remote is included the other $10 for 9 mini games was an ok value. Nothing groundbreaking and it even feels more shallow than Wii Sports, but it’ll be fun to pop it in every once in a while and screw around. Plus, it includes a tank game that feels an awful lot like a 2007 version of the old Combat game on the Atari 2600. That alone makes it worth it to me.
I crashed for a couple of hours in the afternoon (I’m not a 6am kind of guy) and after dinner we watched “Stranger Than Fiction” – decent enough movie but with the obvious happy ending. Whatever. The kids crashed and the wife and I decided the catch up on a bunch of episodes of Desperate Houswives that had accumulated on the DVR. (no snide comments from the peanut gallery please)
So it turns out we haven’t seen it since before Thanksgiving. We had 7 unwatched shows. At 11:30 we started the first one and in typical lame-ass fashion got interested and kept saying, “Just one more” until…well…we finished the last one around 5:30am. Man, that’s so lame. But at least I’m caught up on my Housewives. (rolleyes here)
Late start for all on Sunday. We dragged our asses to Meijer around 1pm to pick up some things. Stupid crowded and the closest I’ve ever come to physically attacking morons in a store. We were glad to leave, but spent way too much on way too little.
On the way home as we turned into our little subdivision, we noticed a sign for an open house relatively close to our place. (why we’d be interested is another ‘too long’ story for this post, but we were) So on a whim we went to check it out. Decent enough place. Not something I’d buy in the end. A few things we liked a few things that wouldn’t work for us. Still our first hands-on look at what the money (this was listed at $225,000) buys you in this section of the world. I still have no idea of our long-term plans in regards to the area, so scoring another house isn’t exactly priority until we have a better idea. It blew a half hour, what can I say?
Spent the afternoon/evening getting some house stuff done. Everyone crashed in the living room watching TV, so around 9pm I got them all to bed. Did the podcast (just Jeff & myself this week) and headed on over here to finally add this entry. Plan on either catching some TV tonight before I get around to bed or hitting shuffle on Winamp and working on the website for a little while…or both.
That was pretty much my weekend*.
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*I hate telling stories like this because I either get too long winded and essentially too boring or I try to keep it short and leave out all the details that make reading something like this worth it and it becomes boring. I’d really love to find that balance between telling a good story and telling a short one. Clearly, I’m not there yet.