Me, Mii and my Wii

The most complicated gadgets I own are my Canon Ixus camera and my Treo 650 not until Orie and I recently bought a Wii. I confess, I am not a techie. Even it the gadget comes with an instruction manual, I'd have somebody read it for me and tell me how it works. Being techie has the same effect on me as solving mathematical equations - brain freeze. It was in Vancouver that I had encounters of the 3rd kind that I shall call Wii. I was in the mall strolling with Jen, my friend Abbey's younger sister, when she pointed out that straight ahead was a booth selling Wii Fit. Wii? What is that? Jen explains that it's a gaming console from Nintendo and it allows you to virtually play the game. Sounds interesting. As we approached the booth, I saw a Wii board where one had to step on, play and exercise. Did you say exercise?! My bulging tummy needs exercise badly and I thought a Wii would help me get back in shape or so I thought. Notwithstanding the fact that I still have an ongoing membership at Fitness First, for the most part, I'm just simply lazy to exercise.

A few weeks before, my sister Orie asked me if I wanted to purchase one. Her co-worker was selling one for Php 8,500. Hmm, that's cheap. A unit sells Php 20,000+ in the mall. Was thinking maybe it looked like Wii on the outside but it was an Atari in the inside. I never had my own Atari when I was younger but I got to play one using a joystick. I was playing Pacman. I try to stay away from gadgets because for one, it's too technical. Secondly, I have a bad case of eye and hand coordination. I tried playing Mario Brothers using my brother's Nintendo years before and all it does is toughen up my muscles and whenever Mario needed to jump over a hurdle, I unknowingly jump as well. I cannot restrain myself from feeling so into the game. I never thought of it as a way of relaxing just because, I play really uptight. There's all the screaming that I'd be eaten up alive by the dragon and at the same time, I have to step on a flea looking creature. It's just too much for my simple mind. Even a Game and Watch has that effect on me too. So why buy a Wii right? Besides, I wanted to save money since I'm in between jobs. Ok. That's final. No Wii for now.

After a few days, I got a call from Orie asking me if I wanted to buy the unit and I said I wasn't interested till she said "Atchie (that's ate in Chinese), hati na lang tayo." Thinking for a few seconds, I said yes. This is where my techie life begins. It wasn't long when I finally came face to face with my Wii. It had to be converted so it can play pirated games. Orie brought it a few days ago in Greenhills and she had to pay Php 2,500 for the conversion. Now, it was my turn to install the unit in our bedroom's TV. I dread it until Orie installed it on her own because she couldn't wait. Yey! Maybe that was my way of stalling. What a way to be techie. After it was installed, Orie played Wii Sports and I enjoyed seeing her play tennis with the remote securely strapped on her right wrist and she was on her feet. She was virtually doing her swings - forehand and backhand. Cool.

I tried playing Wii Sports yesterday as well and I had fun. It proved a lot of things that I'm still bad with my eye and hand coordination. I did pretty well with tennis and bowling but not in ping pong, golf and baseball. It was quite common to see YOU LOSE on the screen. I also tried to do some training to get a feel of the games and according to the game, my Wii fitness age was 52. Yikes. I enjoyed playing tennis and my right arm hurt. I'll play another round today and see how I'd do.

What's interesting about Wii is that you can create your own Mii. Mii is your character. You can program your built, features, height and weight to recreate your look virtually. Orie did it for me and when it came to height, she kind of shortened it. Hmp! Needless to say, she made me a bit chubbier too to make it realistic. Here's a picture of the Mii creator. I even got to choose the color of my dress. Of course I chose the color pink. How gay is that?

I was telling Robs, one of my best friends, over chat last night that maybe I could use Wii to improve my eye and hard coordination. Maybe it'll even help me in driving. For someone like me who can be oblivious about my surroundings, a Wii might just be helpful. Well, I'm working on my boxing skills too. It kind of takes awhile to get used to having the nunchuk on my left hand and the remote on my right hand. The nunchuk is what I attach to the remote. I still haven't really figured out what the nunchuk exactly is for but for now it's for boxing.

Maybe a few months from now, I'll be an expert on this and who knows, I might just join a Wii tournament if there will be one. This is something new to me. For now, my whole family has to put up with my screaming and selecting PLAY ANOTHER GAME till I get it all figured out.