It all started Saturday night as the launch of the Wii drew near. At 9:30 pm we drove by Best Buy and Target, both of which revealed a precarious situation. People were camping out for the precious Wii (which I failed to pre-order) and my hopes for a Wii were endangered!

After failing to convince Stacie that camping out might be necessary to get a Wii, we decided that an early morning would be all that we needed. We woke up today at 5 am sharp and made it to the local Target by 6 am. I hopped into the line (which had grown since the night before) and Stacie made a Starbucks run.

Someone one the internet got their hands on how many Wiis each Target would be receiving on launch day, and according to that data, this Target would get 81. The guys in front of me were saying they’d counted about 70 people in front of us, and I wasn’t too worried because there were some adults with young children. The plan was for them to pass out tickets at 7 am, and if you received one, you could buy a Wii when they started selling them at 8 am. Well 7 am rolled around and they began to pass out tickets. As the moment of truth drew near, I started to get worried. The guys in front of me were already into the late 70s. Would I get a ticket?!

Turns out I did get a ticket, and it wasn’t just any ticket…it was the LAST ticket! Number 81 baby! I would take a picture for you, but they took it back and destroyed it after I bought a system. There was a guy taking pictures of the line and my very exciting #81…you just have to find his website. They let us in at 8 am, but being the last in line, we didn’t get to the counter to purchase until almost 9:30 am. I picked up the system, an extra remote and nunchuck, Zelda, and Monkey Ball.

I should post pictures, but I’m currently too tired. Most of the afternoon has been spent playing Wii Sports, which is really awesome. It’s much better than I expected, and some of the sports are really spot on. I put an hour and a half into Monkey Ball, and I gave it a chance…but it’s pretty terrible. In fact I’m putting it on Ebay to try and cut my losses. I haven’t even had a chance to try Zelda, but I have very high hopes for that one.

Overall I am a Wii Believer, but Monkey Ball has shown me that developers will certainly have a learning curve. They need to master the programming of the motion technology first so that it behaves properly, and then they need to find unique gameplay experiences where it works well.

I have been stuck in the dark ages. For the last 10 years I have used extended wear contact lenses. Every night I take them out and clean them, using the same pair for over a year. I have tortured myself with the constantly degrading comfort that accompanies this type of lens. However, starting today, I’ve finally moved on to disposables.

Six months ago I had my glasses prescription updated, and ever since my contact prescription has seemed weak. Today I was fitted for new disposables, and I have high hopes for them. My prescription hasn’t changed much in recent years, so I’d like to look into laser eye surgery soon, but for now these will do fine. The doc said I have 20/15 vision now, yay.