Late to the Wii party

Back in the early 80's there was the Atari 2600...and I wasn't all that impressed. Yeah it had pong, and asteroids and a few other cool games that you could now play at home, instead of feeding quarters into some machine in some game room at the mall, but I didn't really want one. It was followed by the 5200, and I still wasn't all that interested. I had friends who had these game machines, and I played them occasionally, but I really didn't covet them. Then came ColecoVision. In late 1982/early 1983, I had to have one of those. The big difference, and what made it justifiable in my eyes, was the ColecoVision machine was supposed to be expandable. "Yeah, it's just a game system now, but we're coming out with pieces/parts to turn this thing into a full blown home computer"....which in 1982 was pretty huge. I bought one, and reveled in Donkey Kong and a few other games, and watched as the promise of that home computer died. They made a serious effort to make that promise a reality, and that effort eventually bankrupt the company that also brought us Cabbage Patch Kids. The ColecoVision hit the dumpster when it became evident it would never be more than an obsolete game machine and I bought my first computer, the Commodore Amiga. It was so cool, because it was kinda like a Mac in that it had windows and stuff, but Macs back then were strictly balck and white, where the Amiga had colors. To give you an idea just how computer savvy I was back then, I bought a $100 word processing program with the computer....because I wanted to be productive with it. I wanted to do more than play games. I wanted it to be useful, and boy howdy, "word processor" sounded useful, and made the thing at least a very cool typewriter when I watched the salesman put together a document in the store. It was only after I got it home and typed up my first document that I sat back and asked...now what? It was then I realized the word processor was pretty useless without a printer....and printers, especially color ones, back then were far from cheap....like 4 figures, and the first figure wasn't a 1. Commodore, like Coleco, also went nipples up. Yeah, I knew how to pick 'em.

Yes, friends and neighbors, there is a reason for this little walk through early 80's video gaming/computer trivia. Since then we, as a family, have owned one video game system. The parents (as in my parents) bought the youngster an X-Box about...oh...6 or 7 years ago...when the X-Box was the best game machine there was...long before the X-Box 360. He still has that thing. It has never been replaced, nor did we have plans to do that. It sits in his room, where he plays it occasionally. I may have picked up the controllers a few times, but I could probably count the number of times on one hand.

Then some friends of ours went north to visit family and friends over Christmas. In their family, dad and two sons are into video games. Mom, the accountant, is the exact opposite. She has nothing to do with them. So, we were taken aback a little when they came home from Christmas break and she said, "Have you played this Wii thing? I'm hooked. I want one."

No, we had never played the Wii thing, but in a few weeks, they had one, and we spent several evenings at their house, playing Wii sports. With the Wii, you actually use a bowling motion to bowl. You use a sort-of swing motion to play golf and tennis. It's not all button pushing...and yeah, we had fun with it.

The wife, who had, to that point, NO interest in any video game stuff, was talking about buying one for my birthday...to which I countered...I know of a bike jersey I want for my birthday...how about we get this Wii thing for your birthday.

So now it's March and no birthdays have come this year yet, but John of the Lumberyard got a bonus at work and...we discussed it. We have home maintenance things that bonus has to do, but on top of that, it could buy us a family bonus present....a Wii. So Sunday, I went and bought one...and yeah, we're overdoing it a bit, but it's new. We'll back off in a few days, I'm sure, and make it manageable. I'll admit though, I enjoy that far more than watching regular programming on my TV screen.

The thing is, I'm finding pretty much everyone I know...already has one and just never mentioned it. I don't know when/where they all got them, because I'll tell ya...finding one was a bitch. The demand is still far exceeding supply...yet all these people seem to have been successful in acquiring one, and they've had them for a while now. I kinda feel like the last person who got the real juicy gossip, and tries to tell all their friends...only to find they already know. Every time I tell someone about this really cool Wii thing, I hear..."Yeah, it's pretty neat. We've had ours for a year, or six months, or whatever". I'm OK with being the last to know. I'm just surprised that I am.

It is fun though. It has the Lumberyard seal of approval...if there is such a thing. Not only that, it eliminates talk of buying it for my birthday, which brings that bike jersey that much closer to being on my back.