Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Happy Birthday, Mark

Mark's birthday was actually on Monday, so blog greetings are a little belated. But he should have known they were coming. However, it does provide an easy segue into my topic for the day that also happened to be his primary birthday present (from his parents, not from me, I'm not that generous): a wii. That's right, I now live in a wii house. People walking by on the street can now look in and catch sight of people flailing their arms about like mad people and this doesn't bother me in the slightest.

So I had witnessed a wii being played in my presence before, but had never actually touched the thing until faced with a series of duals against Mark on Saturday. For some reason he was not entirely impressed with inability to hit a tennis ball, my inability to his a baseball, and my inability to get a golf ball anywhere near the hole. And well, anyone can bowl on the wii. Luckily, instead of discouraging me completely and me never going near the thing again, I opted to 'practice' all of these skills and therefore spent a sizable portion of Sunday doing just that. And while I have since then improved, and discovered that boxing can provide some good cardio, I still have a long way to go. And I'm still worthless at baseball (despite repeated attempts, my skill level is still 0).

Of particular interest to me in regard to the wii is that for a small fee (no idea what it is in the US, but it was £3.50 or so in these parts) you can download original nintendo games and play them on your wii. Backtracking on that, you can hook your wii up to your wireless network and look at the internet as well. So Mark has downloaded the original Super Mario Brothers in its true original form. You just turn the wii remote sideways and it's like the handset of old. You even get the same sore thumb as you did back in the day. I haven't had a look at all the old games on offer, but if Paperboy is available I might be tempted. Oh, and I'm already tempted to get Super Mario Bros 2 and 3!

We (and by 'we' I mean Mark has ordered, but I will feel free to use) have also ordered a wii fit that is set to arrive later this week, so we'll see how that goes!

Side note: I've got tickets to go see the Sex and the City movie tonight! No one knows why it's being released here before the US, but I'm not going to argue!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, Mark!!

So, did the folks try out the wii before giving it to you?

mark said...

they did when they came round - well my dad did - but they all have mii's!
:-)

mark said...

ooo and it has pre NES games too...like pacman - for some reason these games sound much more appealing than the new ones on the xbox and ps3! i say bring back lemmings on the commodore!

Anglo Mango said...

Dude, how old are you that you remember pre-Nintendo games? Weren't you in the womb pre-Nintendo?

And a 'mii' is the little character that you play as, so it keeps track of your tennis ability and stuff. Mine has a sassy bob and is called Mango.

Buehler Recipes said...

Happy Birthday Mark!

Any plans for Guitar Hero?

My mii is grey haired with glasses. It's name is 'Mom'. Needless to say, I didn't create my own mii. My lovely daughter did - now I know how she sees me, sniff.