Since I found the Wii, I have been thinking about trying out the Wii Fit, as I am about 50 bills overweight, I could stand to loose a few pounds.  Granted, if I stopped eating out for lunch all the time, stopped stuffing my face at the wonderful and glorious China Buffet all the time, cut back on the luscious nectar of the gods (I've been on a Heineken Light kick lately), and ended my late night snacking of peanuts and M&Ms, I'd probably loose a few lbs naturally.  But in order to really look like the stud I am inside this pudgy Stay Puffed Marshmellow Man exterior I'm currently sporting, I'm going to actually have to get off my butt.  What better way to do it than to make a game of it?  In steps the Wii Fit concept.

So my quest began earlier this week, much the same way as when I attempted to obtain the Wii itself.  If you didn't catch my antics then, here's the link.  I was talking to a friend of mine at work, J, the same girl who blew her eye to smithereenes playing Guitar Hero.  She stated she'd been given the thumbs up by her hubby to acquire the Fit and it was her mission to find one.  Shortly after our visit, I was speaking with my wife on the phone and after putting the initial bug in her ear, I was able to conclude the conversation with a "Do whatever you have to do" style answer...you see, my lovely bride is of the opinion that spending money on video games isn't a very adult thing to do, especially since she wants new carpet in the house.  But I worked on her, got the "whatever you have to do" I was looking for, and I promptly began my mission.

Google bombing local stores, placing phone calls, and even driving to a Best Buy that was supposed to have the device according to their website netted me nothing.  I even took 1/2 a day (not entirely specifically to get the Wii Fit...there were other reasons too) to allow for some searching time to no avail.  At one point in the afternoon, my PDA rang with an email from J, still at work, who informed me that a Game Stop just up the street from where I would be had some and that she was heading there over her lunch to acquire one.  I had to go pick my Linux using daughter from preschool right in that area about an hour after that.  And even though I was on a vicious time limit to return in order for my wife to head out for her thing, I grabbed my daughter from pre-school, bolted up the road pushing the limits of my alloted time, ran into the Game Stop with my daughter and asked the guy behind the counter if they had any Wii Fit.

He informed me that they had just sold out that day...  I asked him if the last one was sold to a girl "about this high".  He confirmed.  The last one, it would appear, was picked up by my friend J just a short time before I arrived!  She's got my damn Wii Fit!  And of course, she stopped by my cube this morning to tell me all about it's gloriousness.

So my mission will continue this weekend, as I await the arrival of the Sunday paper and the various ads inside, hoping to spot one place advertising that they do indeed have the Wii Fit in stock.  I can see it's going to be another 8am Sunday morning trip 1/2 way across town to a random store to try to get this stupid game.  I sure hope it's 4.8 out of 5 stars turns out to be worth all of this effort!

-Corby- 

 PS On a funny note, as J was describing using her Wii Fit last night, she stated it was confusing at first because every time she had to step left, her Mii would step right and visa versa.  So she played several of the beginning games in this sort of reverse mode, thinking that just must be the way the Wii Fit works.  It wasn't until her husband informed her of the fact that she probably had the Wii Fit board backwards that things really started to come together for her.  I suppose just turning the board 180 degrees seemed too simple of a fix...who knows.  But yes apparently you can have the Wii Fit board backwards just like J did.  ROFL.  

The 5-year-old PC in my daughter’s room, her PBSKids.com and “Daddy, I want to watch a movie you ripped from my DVDs I’ve since destroyed because I can’t put anything away properly and they’ve all become scratched beyond repair” computer, pissed me off for the last time last night.

All I wanted to do was open up the E: drive, an external hard drive where I have all of her DVD movies backed up, a practice I highly recommend if you've got a child.  They WILL destroy their DVDs so if you don't want to be out the $20 each, make an .mpg backup of them!  For whatever reason, this simple task of loading a movie for her caused Explorer to freeze (not responding) and it was like pulling teeth trying to get it to quit being a pain in the neck with CTRL+ALT+DEL repeatedly.  After a few minutes of fighting with it, I actually pulled the plug out of the wall in disgust.  I have never been so angry attempting to do a task (start a movie) that should literally take 15 seconds (Click drive, click folder, click sub folder, click movie to launch VLC and play) as I was last night after minutes of angrily fighting with the idiotic, frozen XP box...  My poor daughter, who was looking forward to some Wall-E, was instead stuck watching the 50-year-old "Snow White" on VHS as her settle down for the night movie.

I am officially moving my iTouch to my Macbook this coming weekend (currently on my daughter’s XP box)…something I’ve been holding off doing but now will make it official.  I am putting the kid on Linux full time.  Installing VLC should handle all of the .mpg and .avi file formats http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ so I should be good to go.  It’ll even handle the DVDs she hasn’t yet scratched beyond repair.  She can have her PBS kids, she can watch her backup .mpg movies while using the original DVDs as coasters for her sippy cups, and if she does want to stream some Netflix, I am going to figure out how to get Safari to run on WINE and stream that way (as Netflix only works with Safari on a Mac and IE in windows).  http://phorolinux.com/how-to-run-safari-in-linux-using-wine.html

That's right, my 4-year-old daughter is switching to Ubuntu Linux.

So after slamming every store in Omaha over their lack of Wiis and giving the kid at one particular Walmart a hard time over his belief that they'd have the Wii "tomorrow early", I phoned said Walmart at 8:01am the following day, got the same kid, and sure enough he said they had just put a few out.  I, being a guy and very happy about the fact that at any given moment I am 3 minutes (max) away from leaving the house, tossed on my Misfits hat, flip flops (faster than shoes and socks...and yea, it's Jan. in Nebraska...not a smart idea), and jetted 13 minutes across town, a drive that should have taken 22 minutes.

When I arrived at the Walmart, I swear I saw two dads dropping off boys aged, perhaps 12, from different cars.  I just knew those little bastards were on a Wii hunt, too.  Knowing that if I cut through the sheets and pillows area, I'd be able to cut of about 15 seconds worth of walk time, I opted to bail left when those two boys went right.

Much to my surprise, they weren't headed towards the land of Wii, as I didn't see them in the Entertainment area.  So I go to the counter, ask the guy if they had any Wiis, and he said "Yes, right this way sir."  Now after my initial desire to punch him in the head for calling me 'sir', I'm only 32 after all, I followed him to the Wii case, watched him unlock the glass box, and pull out a very Mac-like Wii package.  I politely declined, twice, the extended warranty, plopped out my xmas money that had been burning a whole in my pocket for weeks, and exited the Walmart with my Wii. 

Quick, simple review of what I've seen so far...  Wii sports is fun.  Tennis = Aces.  Baseball = Aces.  Bowling = OK.  Boxing = not into.  Golf = fun but my 4-year-old daughter likes it better than I do...probably because she beats the tar out of me in it.  Wii Play = kind of worthless except for the fact you get a second Wii controller.  Mario Galaxy = aces.  A blast, so fun.  Worth it if you are a Mario fan from the 80s like me.  They have come so far...

Well, that's it.  I got the Wii, me and my daughter enjoy playing it, and now I'm working on building a wii bowling league management website for my wife's co-workers, all of whom are Wii league bowlers, but are forced to email scores to one poor sucker with a massive Excel document and apparently way too much time on her hands...

-Corby- 

Venting time, appologies in advance.  I am working on a website that is driving me crazy....as all of my past GoDaddy Windows hosted .NET website have been.  I blew nearly $200 last year getting away from GoDaddy hosting in order to get decent database support for my Visual Studio 2005 because I was so damn frustrated.  Here I am again, a year later, doing something completely different but needing cheap hosting, .NET 2.0, c#, Visual Studio 2005 and I'm back to GoDaddy hosting because I am poor.  Surprise surprise, I can't connect to my mySQL database with VS, I have to jump through hoops to even read a table and I have just blown 3 hours google searching how to get an Insert to work.  Did I mention I'm a .NET web developer for a living who deals in SQL every freaking day???

 I now recall why I plopped out the $200 for discountasp.net hosting last year.  GoDaddy Windows hosting when it comes to working with Visual Studio 2005 and asp.net websites SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS....  I am so pissed right now, I'm giving up for the night.  This is just flat out stupid.

Just found this out, thought I'd share.  For some reason, iTunes skipped downloading a podcast episode last night of http://www.keithandthegirl.com and since I have listened to every show of theirs in order, all 871 of them so far, this freaked me out.  872 was missing, but 873 was there.  So I went to iTunes using my iTouch, selected the episode for download, and off it went.  A few minutes later I thought it would be a good time to update any Apps I have on the device.  Two updates were available and when  hit the "Update All", the iTouch crashed back to the desktop.  Tried again, same result, tried again, same result.

It appears that, unlike a PC/Mac that can handle downloads from multiple sources and stores them in some sort of queue, the iTouch / iPhone doesn't have this ability.  If you're downloading App store updates, you can't download a podcast from iTunes at the same time....and visa versa, as I described above.  The apps are so independent of each other and the iTouch / iPhone seem not to notice or care, that nothing running on the device knows what else is running on the device and when you do something super crazy like try to download a podcast and update your apps at the same time, all hell breaks loose.

I guess I shouldn't complain...The podcast download is nearly done, I'll be listening to my show in no time, and then  can update my app store apps.  I just found it odd that such a whicked cool device like my iTouch can only download one thing at a time...

Over the last 3 days, I have made approximately 11 physical store visits and another 40 phone calls to Game Stop locations, Best Buy stores, Walmarts, Targets, Shopkos, ToysRUs, shopping malls, and anything else under the sun I can think of that might sell gaming systems.  Not one, not a single one, has the Nintendo Wii for sale and 95% of them claim they have no idea when more will be coming in.  Two of the Walmarts I spoke with said to come in at 7am tomorrow (Sunday) and they "should" have 3-4 but taking that claim and putting it up against the "no idea" I got out of all the other stores, I somehow doubt the Walmart employee manning the electronics counter on a Saturday afternoon really knows much about anything.  

In fact, the same claim came from my local Best Buy during one of my calls yesterday..."We've got a truck coming in tonight.   Get here when the store opens and I'm sure you'll get one."  So 8:30am rolls around today, I bundle up my 1-year-old as momma and the 4-year-old were still sleeping and off to Best Buy we go.  Surprise....I arrive, the spot on the shelf that is supposed to hold a massive 2 Wii boxes is empty, and I hear from the girl running that area stacking Guitar Hero boxes literally to the rafters "No, no idea why she told you we'd have some today....we never really know what's on the trucks."

Question, why are there 800 Guitar Hero boxes if there's not a freaking Wii in this city to connect them to?!?!  UG! 

My frustration level with finding a Wii a week after Christmas has just reached it's tipping point.  I am a 32-year-old guy, nostalgic about Nintendo, excited for a Wii, and I've even got my wife and 4-year-old daughter on board with the $250 purchase (amazingly!).  But what is a man to do when he has $250 cash ready to plunk out for a gaming system and 40 phone calls and 11 trips to the store later, I have no Wii to show for it? 

Even alternatives like eBay and Craig's List are netting little results, though oddly if I were so inclined I can find a 400lb man on Craig's List to punch me repeatedly with chicken livers while singing Black Flag's "Who's Got The 10 1/2?" that appears to be no problem.  *shrug*  At best, there are Wiis listed on Amazon $100 overpriced, on eBay $300 overpriced, and the most promising post on Craig's List from Dec 24th for my area had the Wii up for $700.  Riiiight.

So I am Wii-less, yet don't want to be.  I find this a very odd situation.  I want something that I can not have, yet I know there are countless bratty, spoiled, snot-nosed 12-year-old ungrateful boys just down the street in every direction, in my very own neighborhood no doubt, playing their Xbox or Playstation 3s while their new Wiis sit left unattended to and unloved.  The world, it appears, is unfair.  What will I ever do for fun?!  Maybe I'll call up that guy and let him beat me up with the chicken livers...

Two weeks ago, I posted a video podcast episode discussing the Roku player, how it worked, the ease of setup, and so on.  After having two weeks with the device, I thought I'd write a quick review regarding having the entity as a living piece of technology in the house.

First off, I still love the form factor of the player.  It's very small, smaller than most external USB hard drives I've got scattered around the house.  The built-in wi-fi is genius, the connection options are great, and the remote is so simple, a 4-year-old child could (and has, in my house) run it.

Disappointing, though, is the Netflix selection.  On Christmas day, I had a handful of family members over, movie buffs all of us.  With their curiosity fueling the fire, they tossed out movie after movie to me as I searched each one on Netflix to see if it was possible to stream.  Much to everyone's disappointment, 85% of the films they named were NOT available to stream.  Netflix would happily mail them to me, but not deliver them to my Roku on demand.  Now please note, these were not all brand spanking right from the box office movies like Iron Man or The Dark Night (neither are streamable at the moment).  We hit some oldies but goodies like One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest, Annie Hall, Dances With Wolves, Top Gun, and even Porky's for God's sake!  None were available to stream.  These movies are 20+ years old and any viable financial benefit to keeping them in the "for mail only" category is just flat out crazy!

Not being a business man, I really don't know much about how Netflix determines what they turn into streamable items and what they don't.  I'd sure like to know so if any of you have inside info or links to details, please post in the comments.  

So after two weeks with the Roku, I still give it a 10 for 10 when not taking the lacking Netflix content into consideration.  I'd have to give it a 4 of 10 when you do take into consideration the poor movie selection.  If Netflix would please be so kind as to focus on getting a LOT more movies in their stream queue and focus less on getting old episodes of Family Ties (yes, I'm serious...you can now get season 1 of Family Ties streamed to you....but no ALF?!?!  WTF?), they'll have a LOT more success selling Roku players.

On a good note, I can and have been streaming the first season of Dr. Who...and had I paid $4.25 per DVD (I think there are 4 episodes on a DVD) it would have already cost me about $15....so in terms of financial savings buying the Roku vs. renting from the local Hollywood Video, the Roku has almost paid nearly 1/6 for itself so far just in Dr. Who episodes alone.  Though it must be said I can't stream any Battlestar Galactica nor Stargate.  *sigh*.  Netflix, get your stuff together and start digitizing your ENTIRE library.  You will, only then, slay Blockbuster...