Wii Fit

Recently there have been a few new things of interest in the world of Wii. I have a couple things to say about this, so I'll break it up into two posts. Wii Fit was released and the balance board looks like it could be a fun addition to the Wii interactive body movin' game play. I'd be interested to try the We Ski game with this, for example. Anyway, the idea behind Wii Fit is to get exercise in a fun way. Stretching, flexibility, strength training, cardio, and even yoga are some of the draws. What I found funny was that there's a whole bunch of exercises and menus but then there's also "unlockable" exercises.

I don't necessarily mind unlockables; it adds a small sense of accomplishment when you do well enough in a game to get some bonus fun. But there are plenty of times when I would rather just have all the game features available from the get-go. Plenty of fighting games make you work to unlock all the fighters, and I'd rather have those up front. Karaoke Revolution or Guitar Hero games give you both the good and the bad- I'd rather have ALL the songs available up front, but I like unlocking crazy items based on my "good work" (funny hats or costumes, new characters, new guitars, etc.). These kind of unlockables are just icing on the cake and don't take anything away from the actual playable game, whereas not being able to immediately play Sweet Child of Mine on Guitar Hero II definitely bugged me.

Anyway, the main point is that Wii Fit has unlockables and I find it amusing that the game would make you drop and do 20 pushups before you could do yoga or something.

Wii Not Fit

The other new thing that I wanted to talk about from the Wii is WiiWare. It's just downloading games on the Wii like they do for XBox 360. The overall majority of the initial games look pretty ho-hum, and I think I'd rather just have more original Nintendo games available (Castlevania I, II, and IV are available on the Virtual Console, but no Castlevania III. WTF!)

Anyway, I was reading up on the releases and a few notable titles stand out. I'm excited to try the souped-up Dr. Mario game (hopefully they have one and two player classic versions as part of this and you can opt to use classic controls), and I'll probably give in and download Star Soldier R too. Star Soldier was just one of those fly around in space and shoot EVERYTHING games, but it was fun and it looks like the only changes they've made to this new verison is updated graphics with big explosions.

Then I came across "Major League Eating: The Game." Really? From the review I saw: "Major League Eating" simulates the art of stuffing hundreds of hot dogs into your gullet. Flick various consumables into your mouth with the Wiimote and mash on a button to chew, but watch out for choking, vomiting and teeth grinding. Oh, and you can also exude various bodily gases to distract your opponent.

I think I'll save my money for Star Soldier R.

I was actually talking with someone about those eating contests a few days ago before I saw this. I asked what food you think you could out-eat anyone at. This version wasn't based on how much you could quickly eat in 5-10 minutes, but more along the lines of what you could eat over a longer timeframe, like a few hours (Over the course of a SuperBowl, or something- a good day for gorging in front of the TV). This might not be your favorite food, mind you, just the food that you think you could eat the most of if you had mentally and physically prepared for the event.

I think I could take any one of you down with Pizza Rolls (pepperoni/suasage combination) on the menu. If those came out of the oven at about 20 at a time, perfectly cooked and cooled (not cold, but also not "scald your face with lava meat goo" hot either), I would win. Under those conditions, I know I could take down at least two of those 90-count bags during the game. What would your food choice be? Please post comments- I'm interested.

I Feel Like I'm Taking Crazy Pills!

I handed out a quiz for underwriters to take today. All the answers they can find by accessing the product memo and workflows on the homepage, or with a little visio handout that I gave to them with the quiz. It's not intended to be anything super difficult, we mainly just want people to read the updates on the homepage.

The first question says, "What form do you always need?" The second question asks, "What form do you sometimes need?" About half the class put the same answer for question 1 and 2. This type of stuff hurts my brain. If you always need a form, then you can't sometimes need the same form!

This was my favorite, though. One question on the quiz asks: "What are the four questions every underwriter should remember? (See handout for help)" One person answered: "See handout." Thank you.

Not Dead Yet

Second blog of the day. Must be slow at work or something. It's soooo nice outside.

Anyway, I was mucking about on Facebook trying to kill time and I added an application called "Before I Die." It's a little checklist you can put together of things you want to do/see/accomplish before you croak. It's nothing exciting really but, uh, slow day at work.

I don't have much I need to get done before I die. I've done a lot so far. I've lived and travelled in Europe and Asia. I've caught a homerun at a baseball game. I've written a book. I've caught a Callahan. I've painted a self portrait. I've climbed a mountain. All good stuff I think.

So not having too many ideas for what I need to do, I clicked on a "suggest stuff" type link. I thought it'd give me a list of ideas or something, but I guess it just automatically sent an email to a couple dozen of my Facebook friends just asking them to post suggestions. I hate that! I think it's fun if people willingly want to participate in the little checklist discussion, but I'm not a fan of the auto-send. Plus, Facebook just randomly picks these people from my large Friend list. It goes to people who I might be close friends with, people I'm just kinda aquaintences with, and even relatives who I might see pretty much just around holidays. They don't hear from Ben since Christmas and then out of the blue get an email from him saying, "Hey, just curious, what should I get done before I die?" Wow, thanks Ben, that's random!

I think I might use the application to list super mundane everyday things. Like, "Before I die, I want to sharpen this pencil." Then I'd go sharpen it, and go back and check it off my list and feel like I've accomplished something pretty significant with my day.


If you have any suggestions, be it really good stuff to do before I die, or mundane things too, please comment here or on Facebook.

Kersplash

Wow, it's gonna be a slow day at work today. It's only 9:00am and I'm already blogging. Work has been icky as usual. Last week 73 people were let go from the company. This has left a few things in disarray. I'm currently working on quite a few things for training right now, but let me sum up how the company's "restructuring" has completely doinked one project. Since talking about work and how someone was taking complex visio flows for a new workflow process and translating them into step-by-step online documentation can be boring and/or difficult to describe, I shall use pirate metaphors.

Captain: Yarrr! We are sailing on a journey to greatness! But I wish to enjoy a greater share of the plunder. I shall make several members of my crew walk the plank... Yarrr!

Splash, splash, splash, splash (that's people falling into the water after walking the plank). Several days later...

Pirate 1: Having sailed through those treacherous seas, let us resume our pirate work and get the buried treasure! Hand me the treasure map!

Pirate 2 (checking pockets): Um...

Pirate 1: The trasure map, man! Yarrr!

Pirate 2: Methinks we tossed the holder of the map overboard.

Pirate 1: Then get me the map holder's immediate supervisor!

Pirate 2: Yarrr! He walked the plank as well.

Pirate 1: Yarrr (this is a sad yarrr). THE END

Super Bloggio-ing

Sometimes, like today, I change the title of my blog. Originally this was just called "Ben's Blog," but I've changed it about a half-dozen times just for kicks. One time I changed the title of my blog without actually adding a new blog, and that annoyed someone. I don't have much to add today, I really just felt like I wanted to change my blog's title again.

Last night I played poker at the bar and won a $10 gift certificate for 3rd place in the first game and then saw a bar fight near the end of the second game. I was at the final table again and was just playing cards and then there was a big crowd around the door trying to separate two guys. I got knocked out of the game shortly after (6th place, I think. The grand prize for the second game was Bryan Adams tickets. BRYAN ADAMS! WOOOO! I was trying to get 2nd place- more gift certificates to the bar).

Anyway, as I was walking out one of the fighters (inside the bar) was mopping booze off himself and saying, "What's he thinking? I've fought him tens of times!" I guess that's more accurate than fighting someone tons of times, but it sounded weird. Then I went out the doors and there was the other fighter who had a bloody, busted nose and was all, "I don't care how long I've known him. No! I don't care!" and someone who sounded like a mutual friend of the the two scrappers was holding him back and saying "Dude!"

Ocho-Cinco

Just a quick blog about this week's cafeteria menu.

In case you can't read it clearly: Monday- Cinco de Mayo Beef Chimichanga, Tuesday- Country Fried Steak, Wednesday- Meatloaf Dinner, Thursday- Cinco de Mayo Made to Order Burrito, Friday- Fish Fry.

Que? Cinco De Mayo on Monday AND Thursday! Excuse me, but Thursday is OCHO de Mayo! Even Chad Johnson knows that. The work week is long enough, I don't need to go backwards. Also, if they're gonna double-dip on the Fiesta food week, why not have a Taco Tuesday?

ADIOS!