Well, John and I have discussed the idea for several months, thinking it could be useful for doing exercises in the winter months when we're reluctant to be out hiking and walking and we finally broke down yesterday and did it. We paid half each and bought a Wii gaming system. It's the first gaming system we've ever bought as I don't game much and John prefers to game on-line. We bought an extra remote, as well, so we can play games together, hooked the system up to our large TV in the living room and gave it a go. Eventually I would like to get the "Wii Fit" program for exercising, but for now we figure the games that came with system will be good for learning how to use the remotes and the program.

It is way fun. The system comes packaged with a "Wii Sports" disc, which allows you to play versions of tennis, bowling, golf, boxing, and baseball. I love the interaction of using the remote and I can see how people are right when they say that playing Wi games can be quite a work out. You really swing the remote in golf, baseball and tennis and you have to really pitch in baseball, as well. Bowling involves moving your arm back and throwing it forward like in the real game. I didn't try the boxing game last night, but John did and he said that game can really wear you out! Well, good :). That's the whole point of buying the system. You do have to be well-aware of the space around you, though- John just about took out a lamp last night! You gotta watch out for the cats when you play, too :).

A set of nine more Wii games came with the second remote we bought, but we didn't enjoy them quite as much. They seemed very simple and John commented that they seemed more designed to help learn how to use the remote than to get full gaming value out of them. Among the nine games were games including shooting, fishing, ping pong, pool, hockey, horse racing and tank battling. We rather quickly went back to the sports disc again (though I did like the ping pong and the hockey).

It's rather cool, too, that you can customize the system with "Miis", little avatar characters you can design how you like to play the games on the TV screen. So now we have little "Allison" and "John" Miis playing against each other when we play :). It's also cool, too, that each game customizes your Mii to right-handed and left-handed characters for when you're using the remote for playing games like tennis, golf and baseball.

My biggest concern right now is being cautious with my recovering left wrist, as, being left-handed, it does most of the activity with the remote when I play the games. I figure twenty to thirty minutes of intense Wii play followed by long breaks should be OK. My wrist definitely felt it this morning, though no more so than when the physiotherapist gives me new more intense exercises. I'm going to mention the new Wii to my therapist at Tuesday's session and see if he approves of the extra work-out or if he's horrified :). I will assure him I am being careful. It occurred to me this morning that something like Wii would be fabulous for setting up independent physiotherapy routines.

John went out to a video rental place this morning and rented a Star Wars Wii game :). He's itching to try some games that involve swords and I guess light sabers are a good place to start for a Fanboy. Of course, I'll give it a try, too.

QUESTION:

So does anyone else out there have a Wii system? (I know Tom and Sue do- he mentioned it in his LJ yesterday! :)) What do you think of it? What games/programs do you use on it? Has anyone tried Wii Fit? What do you think of it?

Why is it everytime a computer system is upgraded to become "better" it becomes twice as complicated?

I took my class to the computer lab today for their first computer reading lesson. Put them in pairs, sat them at their computers. Last year at this time I would have simply asked them to log in with the passwords they have been using forever, but with the overhaul in the system late last year all the students now have a new random password. Get that list from the library- log in all the computers. Time taken- ten minutes. Pass out stickies with the lesson URL on it for the students to put in. Discover the webpage is restricted and they can't get in to it. Perplexed because I double-checked that website just before school started and it was working fine. Ask the librarian and she tells me it's because as a teacher I have to imput all the student names onto a new cyber classlist of mine to open access to the Internet for my students. Had no idea I had to do this. Fifteen more minutes have gone by...

In the long run we open one computer under my name and we do a teacher-directed lesson to get the reading work done. Not ideal, but better than having the students sitting there not completing their reading assignment. And now I have to figure out how to set up the new cyber list and connect all the students, etc., etc., before attempting to bring them to the computer lab again.

'Cause I don't have enough to do with a UT practice on Wednesday and a parent Curriculum Night on Thursday...