Wii will rock you

I've been known to waste perfectly good time playing video games from time to time. I'm old enough to remember Pac Man, in its original incarnation. We had one at the local 7-11 called "Lady Bug" which we preferred, possibly because it's what we had a the local 7-11, but it was just more or less the same game.

When I was 11 or so my father had his Intellivision, which blew the neighbor kids Atari out of the water. I spent many the mindless hour skiing, ruling my own continent, or running half-baked football plays.
More recently I've had a Playstation 2 since shortly after they came out. No need or urge has hit me to step up to the Playstation 3 yet.

You could say I'm a little old school with my video games, I suppose. I like a controller with buttons on it that you use to tell your little guys where to go with. I like pushing buttons to punch or shoot or jump. So this Wii phenomenon that's been going on for a while now just struck me as silly. They expect you to stand up and do stuff to play their games? HA!

So at a recent birthday party I half expected to laugh at it and be bored in minutes. I was wrong. The damn thing is fun.

I had no idea of what I was doing half the time (Boxing seems like luck as much as skill to me to be honest, and I'm the one who was winning it). I avoided my previously lamented competitive Yoga, but Wii Fit offered other gems like tightrope walking, running (in place) skiing, and something similar to Mable Madness of olde where you use your ballance to tilt the platform for the marbles.

I tried a bit of the Mario Kart, tennis, bowling, etc. The damn thing even made golf kinda fun. So that's why the damn thing sells? It is actually kinda fun.

I'm not sure when the last time was that I laughed so hard. Watching someone get high score in Hula Hoop? It's safe to say that it's a really good thing that they closed the front curtains first.

Next thing I knew it was after ten and I had to go home. So once again I was wrong. I've been wrong before, so I'm no stranger to this feeling. But it's a little hard on the fan of the standard hand controller to admit that they enjoyed a wireless controller that requires a wrist strap to keep you from putting it through the TV. And being up and moving while playing a video game? It's just such a strange concept to my old world brain.

I get the feeling that if I owned my own I might well not get anything done... ever.