I must eat my words. I hope that they aren’t written on hot shards of glass, of course.

The Nintendo Wii is fun beyond words. And this is only after playing Wii Sports. The physics, timing, and ease to learn is amazing — it is astonishing how fast one develops skill with the games in a short period of time. Not only that, but it gives you one hell of a workout. It took about 3 rounds of Wii Bowling before I had the technique mastered, but then it was a matter of trying to keep my body in good condition. If you’ve ever bowled, well, that is the sort of physical exertion you should expect to endure while playing Wii Bowling — the swing in your arm, the bend in your step, the timing for hold and release, it is all there the same, even the twist of the wrist to get a curving ball.

Wii Tennis introduces a new level of timing, which even twitch gamers who sit on the couch will have plenty of skill with. I found this to be the easiest to stay stationary with, but the most difficult to quickly master. Once I figured it out, it began a matter of, well, not endurance, because it’s not physically tolling on you to play it — you just have to outlast the HELL out of your opponent (in my case, the computer), which may take a very long time. Winning is a true glory, however, considering the difficulty of gaining points later on.

Wii Baseball was the one I had the most difficulty warming up to. Like Tennis, you can play it in a twitch gaming style, or with a full batter swing, but it’s much more difficult to make your hits into good ones. Most of mine, at first, were strikes or fouls. Eventually I got the timing (which is a lot harder than Tennis to quickly master) and was able to make a few good hits. Most seemed to get caught by the computer, but they were good just the same.

Wii Boxing was even MORE physically exhausting than Bowling, and seemed to be the easiest to “slow down” in your skill in. It’s the only one of the sports I played (I ignored Golf on principle) that required the Nunchuck attachment, allowing you to sock the living snot out of your opponent. The action is so intense that it’s easy to get caught up in beating on the other guy and thus also easy to leave yourself open, but like a real boxing match, you’re sweaty and panting at the end of it. This was the most fun to win.

So, I admit it. I stand corrected. The Wii is immensely fun — not that I really doubted that aspect, just that it would be able to carry a lot of replay value with it, which it does extremely well. I watched some of action for the new Zelda game, and it looked very fun, but not the type of game I would want to play on that system. I want more games like Wii Sports, which is why I anticipate playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids in all its cow-hurling glory.

A side note, which I need to embellish on from my last post:

Guitar Hero II is AMAZING fun. I wasn’t sure if knowledge of playing the songs would help with the gameplay. It does, and it doesn’t: more often than not, it’s knowing the songs themselves that helps. Even if you can air-guitar the songs, you’ve got an advantage to people who don’t know the songs to begin with. For this reason, I tore through “Mother” by Danzig, “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana, and “Them Bones” by Alice In Chains, scoring over 80% my first time through on the first to and 96% on the third one (again, first time through). It’s also a lot easier to play than DDR or any of its similar cousins, and in my opinion it’s because (1) you play songs that DO have notes/rhythms you can follow, and (2) rather than changing one or both of your legs with each beat (or even arms), you need only change the fingering on ONE hand, so it requires less ambidexterity.

Anyway. Two incredibly fun games, two innovative new ways to play. I’m hankering for more, and wish I had the cash to shell out to get both things. Sadly, they are both far outside of my price range, and not “necessary” right now. So I will have to content myself with playing on friends’ systems. In the meantime, however… ahhh, it’s good to have days off again. Off to bed.

Thanks to some recent — and legal, mind you — business ventures via eBay, I’ve acquired a nifty set of gadgets. Despite my great temptation to run out and buy lots of shiny, glowy — but pointless — gizmos, I’ve managed to restrain my niffler-like nature temporarily and purchase items that would also be very useful to me. Thus, here they are:

First off, a device I’ve wanted for a long period of time, a Palm pilot. I chose the Zire 31, for many reasons. It has a backlit, light-up screen (and color, to boot); it has a speaker and headphone jack for playing music; it has an SD card slot which has as of late come in EXTREMELY usefully; and the synching ability has always been a favorite of mine about these devices, as it’s simply the easiest, fastest, and cleanest method of synching data. I say this having also played with devices that had Windows Mobile, and had all sorts of glitchy failures while trying to sync their data (gotta love Microsoft, right?) Most of all, the Zire was cheap and easy to find on eBay for a low price; I got mine for $40 from a professional repair center who said the owner had dropped it off and never come back for it after it got fixed.

So far, mine has had absolutely no problems; it works well and I’ve been able to stuff it full of data and additional software. While there is probably a myriad of dodgy software available all over the ‘net for it, I managed to acquire DocumentsToGo, the main Palm Office software, so now I can edit my Excel & Word files wherever I go (it updates the remote files with each sync). My only complaint was that the device did not come with the main disc (which contains a lot of software not found anywhere else) but that is currently on the way from my original seller, so soon I will be able to use the Palm to the full extent.

Following my purchase of a Palm pilot, I discovered how extremely difficult it was to pull the stylus out quickly, so I set out in search of a stylus, and soon after, a stylus/pen hybrid. Stemming from my desire to purchase a stylus/pen/light/laser hybrid, I soon myself acquiring the Inka Pen and the Swisstech Multi-Tool, and I had one main reason for these two as opposed to their quadra-useful counterpart: they could be attached to my keychain and be readily accessible at all times.

The Inka is very stylish and shiny, and only has a few marks on the outer case now (which is saying something thanks to the huge clutterance of items on my keychain), and writes very well, though I can’t say that I like the difficulty in getting to the stylus. The Swisstech tool is a new acquisition, so I’ll have to play with it a bit more before giving a proper review, but the light is bright (can be set to be always on, or on at the time the button is pressed, which I find very nice despite the button being hard to press!) and the tools feel very strong and sturdy in the hand. The main convenience is their universal carrying ability, which I am sure I will utilize more and more.

Next up is the Griffin PowerMate, which to be honest was more of an impulse buy than anything; however, I have been finding it to be extremely useful! It looks like a shiny aluminum knob pulled right off an expensive stereo, and to add to its magpie appeal, it has a glowing blue LED base. I didn’t think this would be too fascinating until I turned the “pulse” on — this causes the blue glow to, well, pulse, at a customizable rhythm which is eerily exciting. More important than its visual austerity, however, is the fact that the PowerMate is a knob that can be programmed to do anything, whether it be volume control, scrolling, resizing, etc. — and can be set independently for each application. Universally, I like that it can instantly mute the volume of the computer by just pressing it (it can also be “clicked”, like a mouse), and that it can also function as a volume knob even when the computer is locked — I’ve never found a keyboard that can bypass this setting. Per application, I have found it’s very easy to set up (software is a little glitchy, but I’ve been reading that it is more Mac-based to begin with, anyway), and I now have most of my main applications customized just the way I need them to be.

My final acquisition was a bit of an accident — the BrightFeet Slippers, which I found in a thrift store for $3, and purchased without noticing the little LEDs poking in the toes. Upon walking around my darkened room, however, I discovered their true greatness, and I must say I am VERY pleased and impressed with them. Being a gadget lover, how could I not? But also, they prove to be very useful — I was able to walk all over my house without turning on a light once, which I feel is a great accomplishment on behalf of my footwear. I don’t think I could pay the $30 asking price for them, so I do indeed feel that I got quite a bargain.

And I’ve also compiled my shiniest gadgets into the video below. Enjoy!

If ever you were curious how close we are in this day and age to being able to fully render human beings in 3D, you need only look here.

Yeah. That there, that is un-freaking-believable. Aside from some portions of the hair and smile, which I can only notice having seen about a billion of these… there would be no way I would believe that it wasn’t real. That is AMAZING.

Anyway, I felt that merited a bit more attention than just a del.icio.us post. I’ll have an update about my Palm pilot soon.