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In our on-going effort to prepare the house for selling I decided to rid myself of all my gaming consoles except for my Wii. I traded it all in and got a decent chunk of change for everything, enough to buy a new game or two.

With the extra money burning a hole in my pocket I decided to pick up Wii Play. I was a little more than disappointed with it. Wii Play plays more like a game demo than an actual full fledged game. It’s a collection of 9 simple to play games - ping pong, skeet shooting, cow riding, and pool just to name a few. None of the games have any depth to them at all. Single player ping pong requires the player to “volley” the ball back to the computer. That’s it, there is no game. Just volley the ball back as much as possible. While skeet shooting has more of a competition feel than ping pong, it still falls very short of fun. In skeet shooting you are quickly hustled through 5 rounds of shooting. First you shoot at balloons, followed by targets, then clay pigeons, cans, and lastly aliens. It’s funny for a few minutes but quickly loses it’s appeal when you realize that regardless of how lousy you are at shooting, you will always and only go through these 5 rounds.

This brings me to my actual point about the Wii. Nintendo and their developers need to start cashing in on this thing. Demand is still soaring high but there’s a glut of games out there. Of the 15-20 games available very few are worth spending $50. I hope they get their act together otherwise the Wii will end up just like every other console I’ve had.

Yesterday I read an article on Digg proclaiming the release date for the new Nintendo handheld had been broken and it was available at Targets and Walmarts across the country. Up until yesterday I had little to no interest in getting a DS Lite. Prior to yesterday the only games that even peaked my interest were the new Mario Bros. game and one called Brain Age (it’s supposed to make you smarter). But after hearing that I could procure one 10 days before the official release date sent me into a tizzy.

Court and I went to our local Target to pick up a few necessities for the weekend. I casually RAN to the game isle in hopes of scoring one at my first store. No luck. In fact, it looked like they had stocked them, then pullled them because their shelves were mysteriously very empty. The hunt had begun!

We returned home. I threw on a more comfortable outfit and told Court I was heading out for a Geek Hunt. I needed to find a DS Lite. I invited her along fully expecting her to turn me down. To my surprise she was game. We hopped in the car and started driving.

We ran around to a few more Targets and one Walmart but I wasn’t able to find a DS Lite on sale. The best I found was a demo unit at Walmart. Although I never found one I still enjoyed the thrill of trying to. Being the first nerd on the block to have one is always fun. Of course, most of the time I’m the ONLY nerd on the block.

Will I get one when its finally released on June 11th? Maybe. By then, though, I bet I’ll be on to the next greatest thing. But until then I’ll continue to check the local Target hoping to score one. Today rumors are floating around that Nintendo moved the date to June 1st. My hunt continues…

One more minute. One more click. One more kill.

Just one more minute. That’s all. Then I’m done. Then I can sleep.

I can’t sleep, I’ll play for one more minute, one more click, one more kill.

I picked up World of Warcraft about three weeks ago. It’s a massive multi-player online role playing game. I like to think of myself as being on the edge of nerdism. I have the capability, and choose to be, to interact with actual people outside of the computer. I try to stay away from video games like this because, well, they start to consume my life. Addiction to a game like World of Warcraft is too easy. But, after both Frank and Kyle started playing, I didn’t want to be left out.

So now I’m in, addicted, just like everyone else.

Courtney has been kind about it. I try to limit my online time to an hour or two and when we have schedule conflicts. I’m waiting for the time she has to pull me away after a 10 hour stint that included 18 Mountain Dews. I’m hoping I give up before then.

To make matters worse, Chad and I started using Skype to communicate while playing. Courtney drew the line with me when I started insisting that we only communicate with Chad through the computer. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the VOIP service. Last time I attempted to call someone over the internet was circa 1998, when my brother was living in the dorms at Madison and I had a one way cable modem. The service was subpar. Any internet surfing done during our conversation caused the voice communication to breakdown. Chad and I are able to chat away with very little, if any, interruptions. Still, Court will not have anything to do with it.

I started reading A Million Little Pieces to keep me away from the computer as much as possible. It’s a first-hand account of a drug addict’s recovery at Hazelden. I picked it up after 3 separate people all suggested it to me within one week. The only catch, it had just been added to Oprah’s book club. I was assured that I would still enjoy it, even if Oprah enjoyed it too. I’m half way through it, at my typical breaking point. I have a horrible tendency to leave a book half way in if it doesn’t keep my attention. I’m having to fight my way through the rest of this one. The first 100 pages were stunning, almost breathtaking. Frey recounts every minor detail of every situation which allows the reader to become emotionally involved. He shares his addiction with you. His writing style is more of a stream-of-conciousness. He uses no quotation marks and repeats himself, repeatedly. To me it feels like how my brain processes things over and over and over again.

So why am I stuck? I’ve hit a dry spot. Eventually he is bound to turn the corner right? Rehab sucks, treatment sucks, everyone sucks, right? That’s the gist of the book. It’s a 400+ page novel. Around page 140 he flips. Life is no longer hard. Sure, he’s getting rehabilitated which is making his life that much easier. But it also makes it monotonous. That’s part of rehab though. Give people a pattern, a rut they can follow. Give them a path to walk down so they don’t have to think about it. It just makes for some repetitive reading at some point.

Now I’m assured that it picks up again soon. So I’m fighting through the dryspell. I’ll let you know what I think when I finally finish it. Hopefully soon.