After sleeping in a bit, having a leisurely long breakfast and getting used to being back home I got to work. I realised I had to install the Wii before I turned on any computers or I would be lost in my computer universe as always.
I took the Wii out of the box, in all it's various pieces, and started plugging in. Within about 15 minutes I was up and running and it looked great on the big flat screen in the living room. The graphics are certainly ridiculously cartoon-like in comparison to an XBox 360 or PS3. But the revolution is in the hands. I played with all the settings, created a Mii for each member of the family, set my firewall to allow the Wii to connect to the Internet, checked out the news, the weather forecasts and the Internet channel (Opera browser) before finally breaking open the Wii Sports game and starting to play. I tweaked the Wiimote so as to be properly recognised by the set and started playing. This was one of those "Wow" moments I so look forward to in what's left of my life. I've played with joysticks for many years (embarassingly too long to specify) and love 'em. I especially remember the release of the Microsoft Sidewinder joystick which vibrated as I ran the cars and trucks off the road or crashed (constantly) my planes in Flight Simulator. But the revolution here is for the first time I found myself getting out of my seat to play in front of a screen.
I played tennis first. There I was leaning left and right and swinging fully at the ball. Wow! Next came bowling. A bit of a let down as it required more precision than I was ready to come up with at that moment. But it still had me leaning down and bowling each time. Next came baseball. This has turned out to be my favourite. There I am in my proper batting stand, which for some odd reason I still remember from my early childhood, and I'm swinging that bat (Wiimote in my hand) for all it's worth. I hit several home runs and the crowd went wild... I almost did as well. Wow!! Finally I tried boxing. This involved using the additional Nunchuck which comes with the Wii and allows one to play with both hands. There I was bobbing and weaving, jabbing and punching with both hands and blocking where I could. I actually worked up quite a sweat! This was just plain physical fun and I felt like a boy again (not that the juvenile feeling is particularly foreign to me {g}) going out to play after school. Wow!!!
I had bought an additional Wiimote and an additional Nunchuck so I could play with at least one of the kids at the same time. I plugged in and set up the second one and I had it working in less than 5 minutes. After playing around with the other Internet options, downloading stuff from the Wii Shopping Channel (including a couple of very old Nintendo games) I eventually decided to play with Alexandra. Alex had already played a Wii elsewhere so she had a bit of an advantage on me. She kicked my ass in boxing and the two of us were hot and sweaty by the time Desney yelled the classic "A table!" which is probably the only phrase known to man which can get me away from a screen at any time.
A great time was had by all!
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