Friend's B-Day Induces Shock. Film at 11!

This past Saturday saw a funny thing happen on the way to the asylum. My Fair Lady and I went over to Crayola Smoker's house to celebrate his 30th. Already there were Fireball and The Librarian so it was a full house of fun, especially when Crayola whipped out his Wii and told us to have at it.

No matter how many times I write a variation on "ha ha, I said Wii!" it will never get old. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Nintendo.

This was the first time My Fair Lady had actually touched a Wii and up to this point she'd been drooling over the chance to have one in the house. I'd only played the demos at E3 which did not include anything involving Mii's or Wii Sports so my prior involvment was somewhat limited. The first thing Crayola told me to check out was his collection of Mii's.

"Dude, you'll love just how creative some of them are," he slyly hinted.

I picked up the Wii-mote and started cycling through the various Mii's and I had to hand it to Nintendo. The Mii creation all by itself is an ingenius mini-game that stretches players' imaginations. Crayola had Admiral Ackbar and Vitto Corleone among his posse and how he managed to nail them with such accuracy is a testament to just how awesome the tools are.

I went through the process of crafting mine and naturally took in the opinions of all involved.

"What do you think?" I asked when I was semi-finished.

"Not bad, but lower basically everything," said Crayola. "One thing I think Nintendo did was set everything too high by default. You lower all the features right from the start and your Mii will look a lot better."

Upon reflection, the man had a point. I motioned enough with my hand to droop my Mii's face a bit and settled my features. When everyone was satisfied with how my Mii appeared it was time for My Fair Lady to take a spin.

She took the Wii-mote from me and looked at the TV with a "what now?" expression on her face. It wasn't that she was mystified by it, per se, but I could see the wheels turning as she worked to comprehend how something so small with so few buttons could perform just like the Xbox controller she'd used with me on the LEGO Star Wars series. She started waving it around towards the TV and just stared for a second.

"Where's the, you know, the thingie?" she asked. "Oh wait! Is that hand thing me? You know, the one that keeps moving around?"

She figured out which hand was hers on screen when she clicked on the A button and selected the option to craft a Mii. There were four of us playing so three hand icons were transparent on screen at the time My Fair Lady was moving about. She went through the Mii creation process and managed to capture her likeness quite well. As soon as her Mii was finished it was thrown out into the Mii-pasture and she laughed as it stood up and walked around.

Then we were ready for some Wii Sports, the game all Wii's ship with and Nintendo's reigning shining star.

We went through various training stages on Wii Tennis, Wii Bowling, and Wii Golf though regrettably we did not get to the Wii Boxing. Through it all, My Fair Lady steadily improved her Wii-skillz by twirling the Wii-mote through the air.

"Look! I'm getting better! Really I am... ow!"

About then is when she bumped her hand on the sofa in front of her in the middle of a roll during Wii Bowling. That's the caveat about Wii Sports, my friends:

Stand where there is nothing around you and you will lessen the odds of random furniture destruction.

Then Crayola piped in with a suggestion:

"Hey guys, anyone up for Warioware?"

Now, the Warioware games are an odd duck to say the least. Imagine the loudest and most obnoxious anime Japan could possibly conjure then filtered through the prism of 1970's style Saturday morning cartoons drawn by people clearly on ecstasy and you'll be in a good starting point. Warioware refers to the Wii-mote as a "Form Baton" and then instructs you to stand in various poses while it hurls one 10 second mini-game after another at you. For extra points, you play with a group of friends and treat the Wii-mote as a hot potato by tossing it back and forth for each mini-game.

If done right, chaos and laughter will ensue.

The resulting insanity was hilarious. My Fair Lady, Fireball, The Librarian, and Yours Truly tossed the Wii-mote back and forth and between us managed to strike enough silly poses that it makes me happy a YouTube employee wasn't there. Since it was a long week followed by a long day, My Fair Lady and Yours Truly had to leave shortly thereafter. We made it home about 20 minutes later and fell asleep roughly 20 seconds after that. But one thing was perfectly clear:

My Fair Lady wants a Wii, and she wants one right now come hell or high water. To date, I've never seen her express interest in anything video game related outside of the Frogger remakes and the LEGO Star Wars series. But this... this is just something else. It's lust, pure and simple.

Basically I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone whenever the Wii comes up in conversation now because nine times out of 10 she's the one starting the conversation and doing most of the talking.