300

Wii Sports bowling has been one of the main family activities while I'm here at my parents' home. Unlike most other video games, my dad likes to play and can usually keep up with us kids. I suspect that's the main reason why he's all for playing it.

I'm fairly good at this particular game, but as with real bowling, my performance is subject to being off just a little here or just a little there. I was in a pretty good groove today. I'd won two of two games, with the latter concluding with eight straight strikes in a 268 game. Of course, when a new game started, that streak was essentially meaningless.

Yet there I was throwing strike after strike and feeling like I'd found the right rhythm. If I'd been doing this in real life, the tension definitely would have been increasing as I approached a perfect score of 300. As a virtual bowler I didn't have nearly as many pressures. All I needed to do was move my Mii's position to the same spot where I'd been putting it and maintaining the same throwing motion I'd been making. Easy enough.

About halfway through I just took it frame by frame, but the heat was undeniably on when it was apparent that rolling a 300 game was within reach. On my eleventh ball the ten pin wobbled and was slow to fall. For a second or two I could feel the disappointment start to seep in, but the pin fell, which left me with just one more strike to throw. I probably threw that last one harder than necessary--I felt a twinge--but all the pins went down.

Game playing with the family can be competitive, so I've been very pleased at achieving this feat, which can only be tied, never broken, by my dad or brothers. At least in video game bowling I am and will be the kingpin.

Fail

I suspect that there's something fake about the video of a man throwing his Wiimote into his HDTV even if I have no reason to believe it's staged.

While I'm skeptical that someone would record themselves playing Wii Sports bowling, The King of Kong taught me why people videotape themselves playing video games. (It's a way to prove that your high score is legitimate, although even that gets dicey in the film.) Anyone who has ever played with a Wii knows that the Wiimote wristbands are there to prevent the very thing that happens in the video, which isn't to say that someone would not use them.

If it's real, I'm not proud to say that this struck me as really, really funny the first two times I watched it.

Virtual knitting

I've read where some musicians are annoyed by the idea of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The argument against the video games is why spend your time learning to play pretend guitar when you could pick up an instrument and develop a worthwhile skill. Fair enough, but I enjoy playing the game and wouldn't mind learning the guitar now.

I suppose I'm more sympathetic to their point having become aware of KNiiTTiiNG. The currently in-development video game uses the Wii remote and nunchuk to simulate knitting. The game could be a good tool for assessing technique, but I confess that my first reaction is that it wouldn't be worth playing when you could learn the real thing. Sound familiar? Then again, maybe this game is what I need to free me from always looking at what I'm knitting.

From what I can tell, if KNiiTTiiNG gets out of beta, it looks like something that would be a WiiWare download, not a disk that Nintendo packages and sells in stores. (The site specifies that they have no affiliation with the company and its game console.)

Vorsprung durch Technik

For the past month or so I've been making a concerted effort to eat better and exercise regularly. I had been good about it for awhile, but six to nine months ago I broke the good habits and resumed some bad ones, namely being less discriminating in what I ate and not exercising. Naturally, I put some weight back on that I'd worked hard to lose. I've been tired of carrying it around, so it's back to the grindstone.

At least five times a week I've tried to walk around the neighborhood for an hour. If my pace is anything like what it used to be, I estimate that I cover four miles in that time. It's all level, so there's not much to it other than putting one foot in front of the other again and again and again. I can tell a difference more in how I feel moreso than in appearance, although the weight loss is starting to become a little more noticeable to the naked eye. Feeling better makes me wonder how I stopped doing this in the first place. (Well, I know why...a lot of work stress, lack of time, etc.)

Finally I feel like I'm at the point where the food cravings have settled down, which should help too. Water consumption has increased a lot while drinking pop has dropped substantially. (Those kidney stones sure have me focused on staying hydrated.) I'm really curious to see how the latest addition to my routine affects things. It took a lot of effort to locate one, but I finally found and purchased Wii Fit. (If you don't know, it is is notoriously hard to find in stock.)

I took the balance board for a spin this afternoon and certainly worked up a sweat. On the plus side, Wii Fit provides immediate feedback and tracks your progress. It also gets the internal competitiveness firing, especially if and when you don't perform well at some of the games. I don't think it's probably recommended as one's sole form of exercise, but it looks to be a wonderful complement to a routine.

On the downside (or maybe it's a positive), the game alters the look of your Mii to reflect your body mass index. At least it doesn't change the optimistic hairline I've bestowed to my digital avatar. Then again, it's just another way--negative reinforcement--of encouraging exercise.

In the thirty minutes of exercise time I learned that I have terrible balance. No surprise. I'm interested to see what the results are as I continue to exercise and play this game.

When I lost weight before, I didn't weigh myself once. I figured it would be discouraging. I'm changing my mind now that I have the Wii Fit. It's silly but I want to show the machine that I can drop the weight. (With it you can't fool yourself through selective reading of the scales.) While the number I saw displayed wasn't where I would like it to be, it reinforced that what I've done for the last month has worked. I've lost a decent amount already. Now it's time to show the Wii who's the boss.