While the misses and I were out Christmas shopping Friday night, we bought some stuff for ourselves as well (Toys R Us was having some good deals and we had a ton of coupons!). We picked up the fourth wiimote as well as three nunchucks for the wii so that we can make best use of our console. Now two of us can box at the same time. We also picked up a new game, wii Music. You’ve seen the commercials (at least you have if you watch tv for any amount of time) and after a bit of research Amy and I were both excited about the game (you can play both the hand bells and banjo, no not at the same time). Plus, its a game we can play with the girls (Emma and Grace are good at waiving the wiimotes around), family and friends.

I’ve looked at RockBand for the wii, but everything I’ve read says that the wii version does not come anywhere close to that of the xbox 360 one, plus, now that Guitar Hero World Tour is out, I may have to reevaluate. Anyways, back to wii Music.

We picked this game up as a “christmas” present for ourselves and as such we haven’t played it yet (it wouldn’t be right to play it before christmas!) but I’ve done some more research and I’ve come across a bunch of unflattering reviews of the software. It theory and from the commercials, it seems like a really cool game that makes excellent use of the motes, but according to the reviews, its not all that. I guess we’ll have to see for ourselves. Has anyone had the chance to play it yet?

Also, I have marioKart and I’m always looking for more people to race against, if you have Mario Kart as well for the wii, let me know and we can trade “license numbers” so we can race!

I was out cruising the intertubes today and I came across a post at Cromely’s World where he was talking about recycling an AC unit. Not one of the big ones thats tied in to a thermostat in your house, but a window unit, and how he had to PAY $50 to have it recycled. Somethings you get paid for (like copper) others you have to pay to recycle and I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if you could make money from your stuff? Thats when it hit me. Gazelle!!

I had come across a site that claimed to Buy Your Used Cell Electronics! Phones, Ipods, Cameras, Laptops & More! I thought it was a little good to be true until I checked it out. I could send them some old phones (Nokia e62’s) that had been replaced with blackberries or iPhones and I’d actually get about $30 per working unit. Granted, it doesn’t pay for the iPhone, but it covers one month of data service.

I was FLOORED!! I wanted to know what else I could push on them. Old Laptops. They’d give me $147 for my laptop. Granted, thats roughly 10% of what I paid for it originally, but its going on two years old and by todays standards is WAAAAAAAYYYYY out of date! Besides, with $147, I’m almost half way to the cost of a new eeePC or one of the smaller notebooks from HP.

It appears they take almost any kind of electronic you could throw at them as well. Cell Phones, MP3 Players, Digital cameras, GPS Units, Game Consoles (sell your PS3 for $200 and put that towards a wii!), camcorders, portable hard drives and satellite radios (just in time to pick up a dual xm/sirius radio). They’ll pay you for it! And if they won’t give you cash, you can still ship it to them free of charge for them to recycle (who knows, maybe they’re building a huge Transformer out of used GameCubes or something).

Its worth a look if you have old phones or computer stuff laying around. Who knows, maybe you can Cash In Your Old Gadgets and get that new model you’ve been eying at Best Buy…

Talk about a major WTF?!?!?! We went by the mall this past weekend, something we rarely seem to do these days but we had a coupon or something IDK, anyway we stopped in to the GameStop there and perused the growing display of wii games and came across two games we thought looked interesting.

I’ll get in to the second game another day, as we actually play it and the little one is fairly good at being a penguin… its the first game I want to talk about today.

Octomania cannot possibly be described with words. We purchased this game because it resembled Super Puzzle Fighter II on the playstation. Or at least the little images on the back of the box did. Boy were we wrong.

Part of it is like SPII in that you can battle against another player (either via the network or the second controller) and they do fight based on the number of Octipi you remove from the screen but thats pretty much where it ends. The screen is full of boxes with numbers and the point is to get a certain number of same colored octipi in the square based on the number. You can then “kill” more octipi by linking them to the “cloud” of dead ones.

All of this is accomplished by rotating the octipi in a square pattern to get them where you want, needless to say, its a little frustrating. Add to it, the odd japanimation back story and this game makes for a splended waste of $15.

If you’re looking for an interesting game that will cause you no end of pain, look no further!!

We’ve had the wii since last summer when I bought it second hand off a friend who found he wasn’t playing it enough to justify having it. I played it off and on again for a bit, and then I bought the wii fit. Since then, Amy and I have been playing several times a week (we like competing against each other) and have expanded our game gallery to include several games the WHOLE family can enjoy (Dogs, Disney Princess, Game Party) and have been staying up late many nights out of the week trying to best each other at Skill Ball (Ski ball), Shuffleboard or Darts.

An article on engadget recently about the latest wii update and the “hole” it patched piqued my curosity a bit about hacking the wii, but since this console was one the whole family enjoys (emma and grace like making mii’s) I figured I wouldn’t bother.

Until I came across this little gem. Granted, I still do not know if I really want to hack the wii and add the homebrew channel, but I do have Legend of Zelda (though pilotg2 is playing it right now…) and it might be fun to add more games to the box (like duck hunt!) I just don’t know if I really want to try it.

Has anyone out there hacked their wii yet? Was it successful??

Oh and if you shoot me your WII ID I’ll send mine and add you to my friends list….

I’ve never been on the cutting edge of gaming technology. I bought my first nintendo second hand from a friend years after it first came out. We had a Sega Genesis that I never really did much with and Amy and I still have an original Play Station that we fire up once a year for Scrabble or a Super Puzzle Fighter match. Otherwise, I’m content to not game too much. Except for the wii.

I bought the wii last year from a friend who found that he played his xBox more (xbox is still the ruler for FPS like HALO) and I’ve played it a bit. Downloaded the free stuff and even bought Super Mario Brothers for it (talk about OLD technology). I was surprised when I tried to locate a Wii Fit online last Wednesday when it came out, that I was able to order it no problems from Toys R Us.com. They even had a deal where I could get We Ski on sale at the same time, so I went ahead and got it as well.

The wii fit came yesterday. Amy’s having a Heritage Makers Celebration at the house tomorrow, so we said we’d put the Fit away and clean the house. Maybe pull it out on Sunday. Well, after a night of cleaning, I sat down on the couch to unwind a bit before bed and I pulled the box out and started opening it. Amy didn’t object. What followed was a hour and a half session of Wii Fit and Super Mario Brothers.

I have to say, I was pretty impressed. So far, the only thing I don’t like about it is the fact that you have to sync it with the wii for EVERY game that works with it. So I had to sync it for the wii fit game, and when we finally open We Ski, I’ll have to sync the board again. Its not too much of an issue, just a pain, but I can understand why it does that (it uses the 4th controller location, and if it sync’d permanently, then you wouldn’t be able to use the 4th wiimote). We setup out mii’s and were checked out in no time.

According to the Fit, my BMI is about 18 and amy’s is higher (but we knew that for the most part). My wii age is 39 (only 9 years off) and amy’s is again, higher. Not too much of a surprise. Amy was the first to go and she tried the yoga, needless to say, we weren’t dressed right, for it, but it wasn’t hard to follow and the basic exercises were easy to do. After amy got done with the yoga, I tried my hand at the balance games. Talk about hard.

The game where you are head butting soccer balls, is near impossible on the beginner level and the shoes and panda heads don’t make it any easier. The downhill slalom is fun as well and will take a little bit of time and the ski jump is pretty cool as well. Table tilt was by far the one balance game that was the best workout, as you really had to stay on your toes to drop the balls through the holes. We haven’t tried the strength training or the aerobics yet, but if they’re anything like the other areas, they’ll be pretty good as well.

Nintendo has done an excellent job with the wii fit. The package was nicely put together and the board seems sturdy enough (its rated up to 330 pounds). It came with 4 AA batteries, which is nice as thats what it wants and was pretty easy to get going. We’re going to keep track of our improvements over the next couple of months and I’ll post updates….

I’ve been a certified Scuba diver since I was 14. I’ve been diving a total of 5 times (thats in about 15 years). I’ve introduced Amy to snorkling (we’ve even bought our own snorkel gear) and she likes it enough that she’s willing to get dive certified as well when we have the time and the money. I’ve had the wii for about 7 months. Outside of the sports games that came with it, we haven’t really played with it until I found Endless Ocean for the wii.

This game is the coolest thing outside of being in the water… and the best part is no sea sickness!! I’ve been diving a total of 5 days so far on it and I’ve swum with dolphins, penguins, sharks, whales and a myriad of other aquatic life. I’ve been down to a depth of 500 feet (something that I don’t think I’d ever do in real life) and I’ve had a ball.

While the people in the game could use a little work and the dialog is all text based, the underwater scenes are amazing. The fish life like and it has a pretty good knowledge base for all the fish. All in all I’m pretty impressed with endless ocean and would definately recommend it.

Of course, I’m also preordering my wii fit!

Not the Georgia Lottery game either, this is something that could be considered more valuable by many. Starting on the 12th (thats Wednesday for you people who don’t know about dates), Charter Communications is opening an auction where you can bid on High Speed Internet for LIFE!! Whats even better is the starting bid is a whopping TEN (YES 10!!) dollars. HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT??

BUT Wait! There’s more!! “what?? How can this incredible offer get any better??” Well, you can also enter to win a Wii Game console!! Thats right. A cheap bid on Internet for life and a wii game console all at the same time?? AWESOME! Why its so good, even charter can’t believe they’re doing it.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this” said an undisclosed charter insider.

What do you have to do to get in on this amazing goodness? Its easy. Its simple. If they made it any easier, Gruntled from gettinggruntled.com might even have a chance at scoring! Alls you have to do is Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo® Wiiâ„¢! It doesn’t get any easier than that.

And remember, the auction starts at $10 on the 12th if you qualify for service so get your bids in early!!