Due to my pathetic lack of posts lately, I give you two in the same hour!

What’s up with Wilson Betemit? Most of the year he looks like total garbage, then they bring up LaRoche and he starts hitting. All I know is one of them needs to break out and shine.

Speaking of baseball, I’ve been reading about MLB ’07 The Show on PS3. I’m really in a precarious situation. I love my Wii, but it will never have a classic baseball game on it due to the motion controls. My other console is the original xbox, which only has one new baseball offering this year, and it’s probably the last.

As I consider my inevitable purchase of either an Xbox 360 or PS3, the baseball title offerings are a huge priority. Sega has a monopoly on the MLB license, so MLB 2k7 is the only baseball title made by a 3rd party publisher. SCEA, Sony’s publishing house, is exempt from that exclusivity, so they can make their own MLB game. It’s only available for PS3 though. That means Xbox 360 has one game to choose from, and PS3 two games.

Of course the PS3 costs $600 and the game is another $60. There should be a price drop eventually, but the kid in me still gets excited reading about new games even though I don’t have a lot of time to play them. I still need to beat Zelda, and I have Paper Mario on the Gamecube waiting.

We’re back from our little trip and had a really nice time.

Our first stop was Seqouia, and we weren’t really sure how that part of the trip would pan out. Originally I thought it would be rainy and we might spend one night in a hotel, and the second night camping…but it actually worked out the opposite. When we got there it was wet, but not raining, so we decided to throw down the tent and camp! It was cold out, but not unbearable (thanks for the Merino wool suggestion Angelo!). It started to rain around 7 o’clock, so we made our way to bed nice and early. We survived the first night of rain and dampness, but by morning we were ready to leave. The sun was out, but totally covered by low lying clouds. Everything was damp and there was zero hope for drying off, so we packed up and left!

We started driving towards Turlock and never saw anything worth stopping for. Since our camping trip was shortened we ended up arriving in Turlock the same night as everyone else! Not a lot of note happened in Turlock, just a lot of time with family. It’s nice to see people up there because it really only happens once a year. The only really touristy thing we did was visit the Hilmar Cheese Co. It is the single largest factory in the United States. Kraft and all the other guys have more facilities altogether, but this is the single biggest. We ate lunch there, tasted some cheese, and took this funny picture of Stacie and Sarah as cheese workers.

Hope everyone has fun plans for New Year’s Eve tonight. I hear there will be some Wii gaming at Kurtii’s tonight, so I’m excited. Happy New Year everbody, see you in 2007!

The next Wii game I’m looking forward to is called Wii Play. Much like Wii Sports, Wii Play is a compilation of what are really full fledged tech demos. There are 9 total games, from a duck hunt style game to a laser hockey game.

The best part is that the game comes packaged with a Wii Remote, so for $50, it’s like getting the game for $10. Even if the Duck Hunt style game is the only decent one, it’s not a bad deal for $10.

Hopefully third-party developers are paying attention to what works on the Wii.

 

 

I also picked up some silicon cases off ebay from HONG KONG! If you didn’t know already, they sell silicon cases for everything imaginable…ipods, ds lites, palm pilots, wii remotes, etc. They’re cool because they don’t add a lot of bulk to items, protect them from scratches, and they’re a little see through (unlike leather). Here is the wii remote cases I bought today.

 

I just beat the first dungeon in the new Zelda. Woot! I’m 7.5 hours into the game now. Only another 30-50 to go.

I’ve been told I need to make it known what my Christmas present desires are. If I have to make a list I’m sure I can come up with stuff, but there’s very little that I "need." Between my Wii and TV my entertainment needs are covered. Then I’ve got the dog to play with. I’m only on book 4 of 7 in the Dark Tower series, but then I’ve got a 6 book series by Robin Hobb to read. If you do the math that’s 10 books to read. I guess I need to do some serious thinking.

Thirteen more days of school until Christmas break.

Last night we got our Wii on. Here are some pictures.

My Wii makes me insane-o.

I want to eat the Wii.

Junior High Emo Myspace Pic

My Wii Will Kill Your Wii!

Swing the Wii

Even the dog likes to watch the Wii.

Denise goes for the gusto.

Boxing = Nothing but arm flailing.

We’re having a last minute Wii party tonight! Come by around 5:30 pm for some wii, a light snack, and stuff to drink. If you want dinner I recommend bringing some leftover turkey or hitting up your favorite fast food restaurant on the way over. I will have the Wii ready to go for tennis whacking and bowling ball throwing goodness. See ya then.

A small break from the Wii to do a little giving thanks. Michelle Malkin has a great article up detailing why we live in the greatest country in the world! Technically it’s more about giving thanks that we don’t live in the worst countries in the world, but the effect is similar. It is great to live in a country where you can say most anything you want and not get killed for it, something we all take for granted.

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.