Where have I been? Have I simply been stewing about the awful selections on the Sirius Christmas station? No! Wii have been playing with our Nintendo Wii!

Wii managed to get a Wii almost two weeks ago, all thanks to AEJ. She’d had her eye on the Wii for months before its release, reading about it regularly on sites like Engadget and Gizmodo. She pretty easily convinced me that wii needed one.

The trick, as you know if you watch TV or spend any time on Ebay, is that the Wii is hard to find. The PlayStation3 was supposed to be a hot item this Christmas, but Sony managed to manufacture less than 200,000 units for sale in the US, and those were gone almost immediately, so there’s little point to even desiring one as it’s an exercise in futility. Plus, the reviews for the PS3 have been awful, and the thing — if you only paid retail and not what it’s fetching on Ebay — cost $600. The Wii has gotten universally glowing reviews, and is, as I learned, pretty readily available if you do some research in advance, and are willing to wait in line outside of a Circuit City for an hour. Oh, and instead of costing $600, the Wii is $249.

Roughly two weeks ago, AEJ read that a bunch of stores, particularly Circuit City locations, were holding Wii units for release on Sunday, December 3. Wii live near a Circuit City (although wii refer to it somewhat affectionately as Ghetto City, due to its lack of upkeep and somewhat skeevy location), and wii got up bright and early that Sunday morning to check out the scene. Wii were late getting out the door, not leaving our place until 10am — the opening time of the store. There was a half-marathon taking place in our neighborhood, and it meant that most streets were closed, so by the time wii’d navigated our way to Circuit City — a drive that would normally take less than 5 minutes — it was 10:15. And there was a line outside of the store.

I wasn’t optimistic. There were probably 25 people in front of us, and wii learned that roughly 30 people before them had already received Wii (is the plural of Wii “Wii?”). Both of us had to admit that the whole experience of waiting in line outside of a store early on a Sunday morning (well, early for us), talking to the people who were also waiting, most of whom had been to several other stores that morning and left Wii-less, it was a lot of fun, and made the whole experience feel like… I don’t know, an experience. People were incredibly friendly, and just got happier as the likelihood of success increased. There were ups and downs for the crowd as Circuit City employees came out of the store and reported vastly different “facts” about how many Wii they had left, ranging from 9 — when there were easily 20 people in front of us — to 30, when it suddenly seemed that we (no, I’m not going to spell “we” as “wii” the entire entry) might be the first people in line not to get one.

Well, I’ve already revealed that we got one. We bought the system, an extra controller, and three games: Madden NFL ’07, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and, of course, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The system also comes with an instant classic, Wii Sports.

The first thing you do, besides setting up your connection to the Internets, is design a Mii. This is a virtual you — what your character will look like as you play various games that implement this feature (like Wii Sports). Here, for example, is Mii in the Wii Sports bowling game. Behind me, cheering me on, you’ll see (from left to right), Melissa, our imaginary friend Cranky Sue, and AEJ.

Making a Mii is awfully fun. So much so that we’ve probably spent a few hours making Miis other than ourselves. In addition to AEJ and I, we made Melissa (above), Cranky Sue, Jonathan Newman, our cat Loki, and a virtual Stephen Colbert (click to see the YouTube video of Colbert playing a Wii on his show a few weeks back). Here’s Newman. The resemblance is striking, really.

And here, left to right, are AEJ, me, Loki, Melissa, and Newman.

So, how do you play the Wii? The concept behind the whole system is in the controllers. Whereas the PS3 is all about the graphics capabilities, the Wii is about using one (or two, for some games) controllers that are motion sensitive and are able to tell where they are in 3D space. If you hold the wiimote in your hand — it looks and feels like a small remote control — and rotate your wrist in any direction, the system can tell. You can point it at the screen, grab things, move them around, throw them — pretty much anything. There aren’t that many buttons on the wiimote itself. In the games designed specifically for the Wii, you’ll control a lot by just moving your arms and hands — not so much your fingers.

Specifically, here’s how you control some of the games. Let’s start with Wii Sports — consisting of Boxing, Bowling, Tennis, Golf, and Baseball. In bowling, you hold the remote in your hand, lower your arm to your side (you basically need to stand up to play this), hold the trigger button to indicate that you’re holding the bowling ball, and bend your elbow to raise the ball up to your chest. Your Mii will walk towards the bowling lane, and as it does, you lower your arm, pull it back behind you, then pull it forward and release the trigger to let go of the ball. It’s just like real bowling, except that the wiimote weighs less than a half-pound. Oh, and because I can bowl a 213 in Wii Bowling, but I’ve never bested an 85 in real bowling.

What about golf? Same idea. Stand with your side to the screen, pull your arm back, and swing forward — just like you would with a golf club. Boxing? This one is physically exhausting. You’ll need the second controller in your other hand — the Wii nunchuk.

How do you box? Just like you would if you were stupid enough to box in real life. Stand (or I suppose you could sit and play this one) and, well, swing your fists. You can also pull your hands in front of your face to block, and move your entire body left and right to dodge swings. You won’t believe the workout you’ll get from this one. Check out this YouTube video of some girl playing it. She’s not exaggerating. This is, I’m sure, the first video game system that will keep people fit.

Tennis is almost as difficult, at least physically. Ever get tennis elbow? You’ll get it on the Wii. AEJ was totally sore the day after we got the Wii. She said — and I believe she has coined this brilliant term — she had an injuwii.

The differences be
tween standard Madden NFL and Wii Madden is, again, in the control. To hike the ball, rather than pushing “X” like you would on the PlayStation, you just make a hiking motion with your hand. To pass, make a passing motion while holding down the button for the corresponding intended receiver. To stiff-arm, you simply stiff arm. Yeah, just throwing your right hand towards the right will stiff arm to the right. Running is done with the nunchuck joystick. If it all sounds a little confusing, it’s not once you start playing. Even if you’ve mastered the original Madden series and its controls, you’ll adjust to the Wii’s infinitely more intuitive control within minutes.

And then there’s Zelda, which is, in all of my 20+ years of gaming experience, the best video game I’ve ever played. I don’t even know what to say about it, except that it’s kind of like the original Myst, but with live control and in 3D. AEJ and I are about 10 hours into the game so far, and according to what we’ve read, we’re at least 30 hours from finishing it. The puzzles are difficult without being irritating, the graphics are beautiful, and the game is completely absorbing. The other night, we started it up because AEJ just wanted to check the map for something, and we didn’t turn it off for more than three hours. (We play Zelda as a team. I’m pretty good at the battles and executing the moves required, and AEJ figures out all of the puzzles.)

I can’t say enough about how fun this system is. People who have previously had no real love for video games — AEJ is just one example — are addicted to this thing because of its intuitive and fun method of control. (Here’s a story about that phenomenon, and here’s a fantastic link to photos of unexpected folk enjoying the Wii.) Wii Sports is a fantastic party game. Zelda is smart and engrossing.

Wii love our Wii. You need one. Then you can make your own Mii and your Mii can be friends with our Miis, and we can all cheer for each other while we bowl. Won’t that rule?! And if this story is to believed, retailers are releasing a whole batch of Wii this Sunday.

Get in line now.

I love Christmas music. It’s kind of a sickness. I do my best to wait until Thanksgiving Day before I start listening to my massive — ridiculously massive — collection of Christmas music, and once it starts, it’s on steady rotation until December 26. There’s plenty to “enjoy,” too. My iTunes library contains 1172 Christmas tracks, totaling 5.22 GB for a total play time of 2 days, 11 hours, and 35 minutes. Yeah, it’s a bit much.

A lot of it, you’ll be shocked to hear, is crap. For every Mel Torme “Christmas Songs” (one of my favorite non-classical Christmas albums), there’s Tex Ritter’s recording of “The Merry Christmas Polka.” For every Robert Shaw Chamber Singers “Songs of Angels” (among the best a cappella, unaffected Christmas carol CDs around), there’s a recording of Mel Blanc performing “Yah Dis Ist Ein Chrismas Tree (1953).” We won’t even get into “Jingle-o The Brownie” (click for the horribly awesome MP3, possibly about Santa’s gay lover with a red rocket ship and a magic eye) or the 45 tracks of Gene Autry singing Christmas songs, 4 of which are different recordings of him performing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (AEJ’s contribution to the collection).

Although my nearly 1200 Christmas tracks would indicate otherwise, I do have standards. I don’t generally take my iPod into the car, but we do have Sirius satellite radio in the car, and I usually turn to Sirius 2 which plays Christmas music at this time of year. Man, who does the programming for Sirius 2? It’s like the lamest of lame Christmas song ghettos on radio. I’ve wondered about Sirius in the past. Where else can you hear that much Van Morrison that goes unplayed elsewhere for good reason? Do we need an entire station dedicated to the music of The Who? Can’t we just watch the different CSI spin-offs for that?

But this Christmas station is the worst. Today, on my drive to the post office and back — roughly 15 minutes of total car time — I heard Clay Aiken singing “Silver Bells,” The Pretenders performing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and the worst one yet, Kenny Rogers singing something called “Christmas in America.”

First off, I’m not a fan of Clay Aiken, but the combination of Clay Aiken (in a duet with some other loser from American Idol) singing “Silver Bells” — one of my least favorite Christmas songs — sucks.

Second, I have no problem with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” When I was, like, four years old, I had the Christmas On Sesame Street album — oh, how I loved that record — and I couldn’t get enough of that tune, as performed by the cast of Sesame Street. I specifically remember Grover and Big Bird having some excellent “We Are The World”-quality solos. So, I really like that song. But come on, Sirius, the best version you could find is by The Pretenders? Is it 1982? If you’re not playing “Back on the Chain Gang,” I don’t need to hear Chrissie Hynde’s voice.

Lastly we have Kenny Rogers singing “Christmas in America.” Thanks, Kenny. Christmas totally wasn’t jingoistic enough. Every time I hear a Christmas song, I wonder, Why doesn’t somebody write a Christmas song that takes the worst things that Christmas music has to offer and combines with the chest-beating patriotism of a song like “Proud to be an American?” And could it have a children’s choir (oh, my favorite — hold on while I throw up a little in my mouth) singing “America America America” over and over again? It should be noted that the lyrics for this song are nowhere to be found on the Internets. Believe me, I tried, but every lyric site says “lyrics removed by request of the artist.” Perhaps Kenny realized that this garbage should be forgotten. Sirius didn’t get the memo.

And don’t even get me started about the biggest piece of Christmas schlock, “The Christmas Shoes,” an excruciating 4 minutes about a little boy who wants to get shoes for his dying mother in case “Mama meets Jesus tonight.” And he’s totally in a hurry, ’cause “Daddy says there’s not much time.” Way to be optimistic, dad. “Hurry along to the store, son, with your pockets full of pennies and buy your mama some shoes, and hurry, ’cause she’s about to die.” Because if your mama is dying, what Jesus would want, is for you to go to the shoe store.

Turns out — surprise, surprise — that the kid, even after saving pennies “for what seemed like years” (valuable time that could have instead been spent with said Mama), lo and behold, well, he doesn’t have enough pennies! (Maybe he didn’t account for tax?) Don’t worry; our songwriter comes to the rescue and pays the difference. “Mama’s gonna look so great” — but only if you get home before she’s dead. If not, well, your mama and Jesus will never forgive you, little boy. Jesus doesn’t want to see your mama’s nasty, dead feet.

Thank you, Sirius channel 2, for showing me the true spirit of Christmas.

Can anybody tell I had a shitty day?

AEJ and I were fortunate to be invited to the huge UCLA-USC game on Saturday, courtesy of Gordon Henderson, the conductor of the UCLA marching band. Gordon conducted “Redline Tango” with the UCLA wind ensemble in May, and he and I met through those rehearsals. Gordon is a great guy.

I haven’t been to an important college game for several years, when I attended Ohio State-Michigan at UMich. (That game did not go so well. The drive back to Columbus was… quiet.) I had a blast at the UT-Sam Houston State game on September, but that one wasn’t pivotal, nor particularly suspenseful, ending with I believe a 56-3 victory for UT. Saturday’s game, though, in addition to being a huge rivalry game, would determine whether or not USC would face My Team — The Ohio State Buckeyes — in the National Championship. For UCLA, the game was a chance to be a spoiler.

The Rose Bowl grounds were packed. It took us 10 minutes to get there from our place, but a solid hour to park. Along the way, we saw lots and lots and lots of tailgaters. The tailgaters don’t just bring a little grill and some beer. We saw rows of plasma TVs hooked up to DirecTV satellites on generators. Good times. That was too much for these guys, though. They kicked it old school. Drink up, boys!

Here’s the outside of the stadium.

After much walking, we found the band, warming up for the big game. Go tubas!!!

Gordon had arranged for us to be guests at the Chancellor’s Luncheon. When we arrived at the tent, though, the “luncheon bouncer” didn’t see our names on the list, so we made our way back through the crowd to find Gordon. By this time, there was no way he could get us into the luncheon and still meet us to get us into the stadium with the band, which had been his original plan. His solution: instead of sitting with the band, he’d give us physical tickets. On the 45-yard line. Oh, just wait…

Since we were no longer rushing to catch up with the band, we were escorted back to the luncheon by Jennifer Judkins, the Assistant Director of the UCLA marching band. Jennifer totally took care of us — and I’m sure she had much more important things to be doing — and a sincere thanks to her for that. The luncheon was pretty incredible. There was an omelette bar…

… as well as an open bar. Drink up, boys!

And cupcakes in festive UCLA colors! What goes better with a Jack & Coke than a cupcake?

I wish I could do ice sculpture. That would rule. I would totally make an ice sculpture of Loki. It would be wicked classy. This one’s cool too, though.

On the walk from the luncheon to the stadium, we saw, as you’d expect, a lot of spirit on display.

Here’s the view as we entered the stadium…

And here’s the view from our seats. Gordon Henderson totally hooked us up. This was going to be a great time…

The USC marching band takes the field, pre-game. These guys can’t even spell right-side up. This game isn’t even going to be close.

And then UCLA takes the field.

After the national anthem, the jets fly by. Loud. Even louder than “Turbine“, I think.

The USC fans tried to get excited about the game…

… and even the Goodyear blimp was rooting for USC…

… but this drunk guy sitting with us, well, his shirt thought otherwise.

The UCLA band’s halftime show was great.

Plus, they had a juggler! Seriously! This is totally what my music has been missing!

A few minutes before the end of the game, it started to look as though UCLA was going to pull out the upset. The crowd — all 90,622 of them — was warned in advance…

The Bruins fans looked a lot more excited than the USC section as the seconds ticked down…

And it happened. The unranked UCLA Bruins pulled out the huge upset, defeating #3-ranked USC, 13-9.

The whole game was mad-exciting. The Rose Bowl got deafeningly loud at times. Even with the big rivalry, and all of the excitement, people were well behaved, and no USC fans threw anything at us on our walk back to the car. (We were in our UCLA hats — hats that will be getting a lot more wear now that we’re totally converted UCLA fans.) And as it should be with any exciting event — sporting or otherwise — who gets the last word but the marching band?

We can’t thank Gordon Henderson enough for the incredibly fun day. We still can’t believe that he hooked us up with tickets to the most in-demand game of the season, and that we sat at mid-field and were treated like VIPs throughout the day. Gordon Henderson: I hereby knight thee Lord of the Bands.