Sunday, November 19, 2006

Nintendo Wii Release, Ground Zero

For the first time all year, nerds everywhere popped a gigantic boner this morning in anticipation of the release of Nintendo's new video game console, the Nintendo Wii (pronounced "wee").

Signs of the Wii's imminent arrival were visible before sunrise this morning. Around 6 am, I noticed the power went off in my apartment, no doubt due to desperate nerds trying to infiltrate the Best Buy and Future Shop stores within walking distance of my home. I pictured a goatee-wearing 20-something fleeing the store, precious console tucked in a big sack with a Nintendo logo on it, while pursuing security personnel shouted, "Stop him! He’s taking a Wii!"

I check out the reviews of Wii games on Gamespot. There are about 10 already, about half have good reviews, the other half, mediocre. The quirkier games, intriguingly, seem to have the best use of the new controls, while the more traditional fare, like first-person shooters seem to have issues with the controls. In fact, one of the more anticipated new games, Red Steel, has scored a dismal 5ish out of 10. The game I most want to try is the boxing game, because let's face it: gamers haven't had the opportunity to pretend to punch their television since the release of the Nintendo Power Glove, back in the 90s. Come to think of it, hasn't this whole motion-sensing control gimmick been done before?

But time's wasting. By 10:45, I'm off to Best Buy, the closest store most likely to have the Wii. Sure enough, there's a good-sized line up and a helpful sign outside. The sign informs that this particular store has 87 Wii consoles for sale on a first-come, first-wii basis. I walk past the people, chairs and sleeping bags and count the line while trying not to snicker. It's mostly men and a few women who looked embarassed to be there, not to mention cold. There's only about 60 people, meaning if I was willing to stand in line for an hour until the store opens, I could probably get my own Wii. It also means that it was totally worth it for those people who camped out all fucking night to get one.

I can see Future Shop without leaving Best Buy (the two stores' redundant proximity to each other being a good sign of people's eagerness to fill the holes in their empty lives with superfluous electronic gadgets) and the situation there looks pretty similar. I don't bother walking over.

I head into the mall, knowing there's at least two retailers there who would be carrying the Wii. I hit Zellers first - no line up. The store's still closed, but a rather dismissive little sign informs me the store only has 9 Wii consoles and they're going to whoever shows up at 10 am in the "south parkade" entrance...where ever that is. Yeah, that makes much more sense than, oh I don't know, going to the store. But at least they're dignified about it. There's also a tiny sign mentioning the store didn't get any Playstation 3 consoles, due to Sony's planned - oops, I mean "unexpected" shortage of crucial components. "So nerds," I would've added, had I written the sign, "you can fuck off and stop asking, okay?"

I wander past EB Games. There's a few bored-looking, 20-something guys outside the store. A sign in the window mentions something about lining up here to pick up Nintendo Wii preorders. There's even a few people outside HMV, which has recently started carrying video games, but no sign.

But let's be honest: aren't I a die-hard video gamer? Isn't this the most revolutionary new console to come down from the great gods of gaming in the last few years? Doesn't that mean I would automatically step over my own family and friends to obtain one on the day of release?

Um, yeah, let's put it this way: if I had the chance to buy one without waiting in line, I probably would've. But all the excitement was too much for me. By 11:15, I had already returned home to rest, relax and play the greatest video game ever made: Robotron: 2084.

Year of release? 1982.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Last Wednesday night, the immortal words of Grandpa Simpson kept ringing through my head..."I can finally get me a crazy stripper wife!" This while watching women undressing in a bar in Osbourne Village.

It was The R-Unit's 30th birthday, an evening he had variously been referring to as "the night of ridiculous drinking" and "alochol poisoning evening." His mighty plan was to go drinking at every bar in Osbourne Village in the same evening. Well, we made it through 4 of them anyway. It's not like we'd leave the fourth one, knowing we'd be missing strippers if we did.

Despite being no less of a pervert than any other guy my age, my life had been remarkably stripper-free up to this point. Sure, there's always cable TV and the internet. Both had taken the novelty and mystery out of the female form years ago. But live naked women were still a rarity. It's a little harder to watch something so intimate and sexual when the viewing is no longer a one-way street. While you watch strippers, they can watch back. Or do they? I was curious if I could get any of them to make eye contact, and they never seemed to. Not that they were oblivious of the audience; one of them even made a smart remark as me and my group switched chairs several times, moving ever closer to the stage. Not that there even was much of an audience. 10, maybe 12 people...is it even worth taking it all off for just them?

Apparently it is. A documentary I had seen on the W Network years ago (which curiously seemed to often feature content more appealing to men than women, in my opinion) revealed that many women who do strip are actually in it for more than the money (one woman mentioned she realized she'd liked it a lot more than any other of numerous jobs she'd had over the years).

And while it was hard to watch at first, eventually it was hard not to. When the R-Unit got up to use the washroom in the middle of the show, I couldn't help but scold him. Perhaps the copy of The Alphabet of Manliness which I gave him as a birthday gift will help him better re-evaluate his priorities.

The thing I find ironic about the whole experience is...the natural state of any person is naked. I mean, it's not like people are born wearing clothes. So why is the act of undressing so compelling to watch?

Nevertheless...it's still fascinating, in any case... And addictive; I may have to cancel my plans for next Wednesday night. Or would have to, if I had made any.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

So I finally gave in to the peer non-pressure to start a blog. I've blogged before; I've always liked the idea but gave it up for various reasons. But now that friends have blogs on this site, I feel compelled to fit in. I say "peer non-pressure" because the peers in question didn't actually pressure me to start one. Sort of like in school, when no one pressured me to try drugs. I sure felt left out. I mean, what was wrong with me? Why didn't anyone force me to do things that were stupid but ostensibly cool? But I digress.

About the blog...this blog is named, in a convoluted way, after a woman from my past. We'll call her Anne, which is actually her real name, because I'm too lazy to come up with a clever pseudonym to preserve her anonymity. Oh wait! I could call her Enna. Okay I will. Okay, forget that I said her name was Anne.

But here's the creepy and ironic twist, because anyone who knows me knows there's always a creepy twist: I never actually did get to meet Enna. Many years ago, I was spending far too much time online and not nearly enough in reality. Sure, that sounds fun in a William Gibson-esque kind of way, but the truth is, I was addicted, and depressed. Enna, it turns out, was my ticket out...

She was the one who convinced me there was life outside of the internet, and it could be a pretty good life, if you were willing to work at it. Needless to say, I was in love with Enna, at least insofar as anyone can be in love with someone they've never met. I always promised myself I'd meet her in person someday, but the years have been flying by and there's no hope of that in sight. Of course the fact that she lived thousands of miles away, was married, had five children and was 15 years older than me were complications I couldn't quite find a way around.

These days, it would be even a bit of a stretch to say that we're still friends. It's been over a year since we last spoke. Still...the impact she had on my life is undeniable even to this day.

Anyway...as for the blog. One day I tried to put into words how I felt about Enna and wrote a poem about her. The very last line of it was, "You were the brightest spot in an otherwise grey existance." Because at the time, that was a pretty accurate description of how I felt about her relative to the rest of my life.

Things you can expect to see in this blog:

-complaints about my miniature painting work
-updates on my game design work
-scandalous gossip about people I know
-clever and insightful (read: dorky and inane) observations on every day life
-obscure and not-so-obscure references to Enna
-fiction I've written