Monday, November 20, 2006

Nerds on Parade!

Here we have a photo taken on the morning of Saturday November 18. I guess "Nerds on Parade" is kind of overselling it, when in actuality it's more like "Nerds Standing Quietly and Sometimes Sitting in the Tent on the Sidewalk." What we have here is the ultimate demonstration of human desolation: Nerds Camping Out for a New Nintendo Wii System.

I never understood the whole "Camping Out for Stuff" thing. A concert ticket I can almost understand, because unlike a video game system or Star Wars screening, the concert won't be oh, readily available in a week. Maybe it's because there's nothing so important in my life that I would trade for that level of moderate discomfort. Unless a loved one was dying and there was a line for say, the cure for cancer. I would probably camp out for that.

At any rate, the funny thing about this, (being somewhat of a mild nerdette girl myself), is that Mr. Litelysalted drove around Sunday morning to see if he could actually find us a Wii. Because I'd be lying if I said the Litelysalted household wasn't a little intrigued by the new Nintendo System.

After he drove by Best Buy and Target seeing hundreds of people lined up around the buildings, he took a chance and headed to Sears, where he pretty much just walked in and got one. Out of three they had available. And he got the first one. Suck on that, nerds!

And now. Onto my... Review of the Nintendo Wii!!!
This is a ridiculously fun and well planned out video game system. The wireless controller (pictured above) comes in two separable parts, so for simpler games and actions you need only use the wand on the right. The system comes with a Wii Sports game in which you actually act out the sports using the intuitive motion sensitive controllers, with avatars you create in your likeness. It's crazy. For example, since I kind of suck at baseball in real life, I kind of suck at Wii Baseball. Whereas, on the other hand, since I am pretty good at bowling and Mr. Litelysalted has only ever bowled once in his life, I easily mopped the floor with him. This is also the perfect solution for our Fat American Children. I was easily winded and slightly perspiring after a couple rounds of Wii Boxing.

However, one possibly downfall I can see with this system is that there will likely be a high injury rate and probably a few good lawsuits coming to Nintendo. In the short time I played with it, I bashed the fuck out of my thumb playing the boxing game, (when my focus was finally torn from the game I noticed that had blood dripping down my hand) and I almost took the Mr.'s head off with the "bat" playing baseball. And I'm 29! Can you even begin to imagine the kind of destruction a child could do with this thing? Or forget kids... what about the nerds?

I was at a barbecue once, where the host's nerdy brother and friends dressed up at Renaissance Dorks and pretend fought each other with sticks. So one of them ended up breaking something and they had to call 911 to get an ambulance, and then there was the whole thing about it being a barbecue with kegs and not entirely an "Over 21" crowd. I'd hate to see what a pair of nerds like that could do to each other with the plastic Nintendo stick. No, actually... I probably wouldn't hate that at all. Now excuse me whilst I search YouTube for Wii Related Injury Footage...

4 comments:

Meech said...

The man and I picked up his pre-ordered Wii at midnight Friday/Saturday. We got a picture of the campers, but it was blurry because I was scared that they would jump us... seriously.

We spent an hour making little Miis. I was squealing when I discovered there was an option to put a mole on my face!!

TJ managed to crack the controller off my wall twice while playing the tennis game. and not just a little tap either. It shook the wall and vibrated my teeth.

Yeah yeah, kids might get hurt. But the important question is: will the Wii hold up to the abuse?

litelysalted said...

Hm... I was kind of wondering about that myself... Also since my the wrist loop is comically oversized for my tiny wrists/hands and it almost went flying from my grasp a few times. We shall see!

Anonymous said...

You do know you can adjust the wrist loop's tightness, right? :-P
Anyway, so far I've had fun with the Wii (when Weasel's not play Zelda - he's the one who bought the system & games, so I guess I shouldn't complain). My Mii looks freakishly too similar to me; you'll have to contact Weez and get him to trade Wii numbers for a Mii Parade (assuming you've got yours hooked up to the internet).

Anonymous said...

Oops, that was me.
- Tad