Apple Business Games Health How To Humor Innovation iPhone iPod Music Post The Internet Wii

Nintendo Wii and your mother

Most people out there I will not be able to convince either way about the Wii.  Either you are already in love with is, as I am, or you hate it and Playstation/Xbox/MMORPGs are the way to go.  But you are here reading this post, so you must be interested a little. So, if you already love the Wii, what else can I say to you? We could converse about how great the system development is.  We could have lenghty chats about how great Wii Sports is, and that no, we don't understand who would actually buy for $50.00 bucks since it comes with the system.  The conversation has probably already been had at how incredible games like Zelda and Rayman are for the system and how sore our upper bodies are from the constant use of the Wii. Prose is already exhausted over how awesome and revolution- (see, if you knew that this was the system's orginal name you would think I was cool right now)ary the controllers are even though you have to buy the wii-mote and the nunchuks separately.  But, we have already had this conversation. Right now I want to talk about your mother.  Is your mom already playing your Wii?  Cause she will be.  The Wii is designed for people of all age groups, heck, the installation pamphlet has elderly people playing inside.  So, your mom is a lot younger than the elderly, right?  Has your mom already bought the Dalmations Nintendogs for her pink or teal DS Lite?  If so, your Wii is in danger of consistanly dead batteries and parental abuse.  I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but your mom may even be better than you at the Wii.  I know it's scary but it's entirely possible.  We have to face these problems together as a generation.  Games are no longer being marketed to just the youth and single men over the age of 40.  No, they are being marketed towards our mothers and grandmothers. And your mom is going to be addicted to making Miis.  She is gonna have a little parade of Mii replicas of herself and her friends in your Mii Plaza.  You will go to play bowling and in the next lane, you see your mother!! She will be on your baseball team.  You will see her everywhere.  It's going to be a Mii infestation. My solution to you?  Buy your mom her own controller.  Then, she can store all of her little Miis on her controller and not have them leave their dirty footprints in your Mii plaza. And, I mean, it is kinda creepy when a Mii that looks exactly like your mom (how did she get it so close?) is always hanging out in the bowling alley. Another thing before I wrap this up.  Any one of you who thinks that the Wii isn't worth it's weight in whatever you find to be not worth it's weight should try to play it first.  At least three of my friends who were like, 'man, the Wii is stupid, I wanna play Gears of War!' completely changed their tunes after playing just one round of tennis in Wii Sports.  They are all trying to find Wiis now, and to them I say, good luck!  They do have a better chance of getting one than if they were looking for a PS3 (way to drop the bomb Sony!) and they will have more friends in the long run since playing the Wii in a group is much more fun than playing alone. So, in conclusion, what did you learn here?

Saving the earth, one lawn mower at a time

It turns out electric lawn mowers are better for the environment and would take some hassle from my schedule.

I have a small yard, with a lot of shade – depending on the weather, I only really need to mow every two to three weeks. When I bought the house, it seemed silly to buy a new lawn mower for such a small yard, so I accepted a hand-me-down instead. The hand-me-down has always been hard to start, and now no amount of cord pulling seems to help.

What could be wrong? Simple. It could be bad gas, old gas, water in the gas tank, sediment in the fuel filter or the bottom of the tank, a gummed up carburetor, not enough air, too much air, a dirty (or just dead) spark plug, a problem in the ignition system, or it could need an oil change. Of course I should have done more regular oil changes, changed the filters, and drained the gas before last winter.

Add to all that the time I spend pushing this loud, heavy thing around and this does not sound like an appropriate amount of effort for my tiny, wimpy lawn. Buying a new gas-powered mower will only alleviate the immediate problem, not the gas, oil, filter, etc., hassles.

And guess what? Gas-powered lawn mowers are horrible polluters! Apparently cutting for one hour is about the same as driving for 100 miles! I have a hippy-treehugger hybrid, so I can probably drive two hundred miles on that emissions budget. There have been moves to add pollution controls to small engines, but they are often blocked by industry lobbyists, or valiant crusaders against evil regulatory expansionism, depending on your point of view. I'm always interested in living more efficiently, so I think it's worth considering.

Let's add this up:

Things I like/don't mind:

  1. Being outside, even if it's cold.
  2. Walking
  3. Pushing things

Things I don't like:

  1. Adding maintenance of some device to my already busy schedule
  2. Polluting, apparently much more than I would have guessed
  3. Pulling and pulling and pulling and goddamn you why won't you start!

As I see it, I have three options:

  1. A manual push mower, just like grandpa used to have. Apparently modern reel mowers are not like grandpa's, since they are light and easy to use in many yards.
  2. A corded electric mower, just like that one neighbor used to have in the 80s. Corded mowers are apparently about as good as gas mowers with the drawback being the cord.
  3. A battery-powered mower. Although they don't last long enough for big lawns (not a problem for me), there are even robot models available.

I haven't had a chance to really look into manual reel mowers, but I did a little searching about electric mowers and came up with some ideas.

Anyone have first-hand experience with these, or other manual and electric mowers? I might even buy one just for the emissions savings, I'm that lame. But it sounds like any of the choices above would be more convenient, too. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Old People Need Technology, Too…To Poop On…

I have to start out by saying that my step-dad and mom are truly intelligent and business-savvy people. But they really baffle me sometimes with the stuff that they do. Case 1: My mother just informed that she got an MP3 player. She's had it for a whole month collecting dust. She wanted to wait until she visited my brother for him to download songs on it for her. All that she can tell me about her MP3 player is that it's the size of a cigarette lighter. Case 2: A few years ago, my step-dad bought a really nice digital camera. One of those ones that you would pay over $1000 for. He at least took pictures with it; however, when I came 6 months later was when I taught them both how to recharge the camera and take the pictures off of the camera and put them on their computer. Case 3: About two months before my step-dad and mom got married, he got a new computer...a really nice one, I might add. It stayed in the box for two months because he wanted to wait for my husband (and I) to come visit for the wedding (2 months later) to come and hook it up. Computer manufacturers were even so nice as to start color-coding all the connection points in the back for the mouse, keyboard, etc. back then. So there was no real excuse for that behavior. Case 4: Forty percent of the time that I visit my parents, they ask me to re-hook their stereo system up. For some ungodly reason, they find a need to unplug it and take it apart often, even though I tell them not to. What did old people do when they were little and received a new toy or board game? Did they ignore the directions that came with the box and stare at the game/toy until someone that was willing to read them the directions came along? All things come with instructions now. Must they be ignored all the time? This annoys me to no end. When I get a new gadget, I start opening it up in the car on the way home and spend, at least, the next 48 hours gushing over my new toy. I don't understand why it's so hard to read instructions. Most people operate their 5 remote controls that they have for their stereo system fine. On the other hand, they can't tell you the operation of more than five buttons per remote control. That's it. Talk amongst yourselves.

Low maintenance living with Swank

Hello boys and girls. Who has time to clean in this day and age? And be stylish? Not the average busy loser (don't worry, I'm not talking about you!), that's for sure. I can help! I know, I know. I can hear your doubts because I am psychic. But just read on, and I will enlighten you to a world of low maintenance style and class. The first thing you need in order to get your nerd pad in order is disposable dishes. I mean, yeah, you do have those ones that your mom gave you when you moved out (she was so happy that you moved out, too), but all they do is sit in the sink covered in their own filth and ferment (how dare them!), making your pad smell like a convention hall of old homeless folk at the mid-summer convention of old homeless folks under the bridge by the stagnant waste water of the nuclear power plant on the Eastside. You know, the annual OHFCBTR (old homeless folk convention by the river). Instead, throw your plates and glasses away. You don't need glasses, either. Now, I know that you can reuse the same glass several times, but what happens if you break the glass and cut yourself? Would your roomie find you and take you to the hospital before you bled to death or would s/he just leave you there, throw a towel over you and use you as a new ottoman? I think we both know the answer. Use the plastic cups. And, for you stylish guys and girls out there, they come in more than just Styrofoam snow white and ballgame beer cup red. And these, too, are reusable! So, you get two birds with one stone! Don't forget the plastic cutlery! Who wants to eat off of metal when you can have disposable "silverware"?! It's much more stylish than normal "silver". I found out it's not even real silver, cause that would be cool. All medieval and stuff. NO, my friends, it is STEEL! Blasphemy! And stainless steel at that! Like those liars at Teflon, I won't have it! (Nothing sticks to Teflon, eh? Oh, and Teflon doesn't stick to the pan, either. Liars! It doesn't taste like much, either, once it's all in your food and not on your pot. Couldn't they make it flavored if it's going to become part of whatever you cook, anyway?) Either way, check out all the colors available. You could mix and match all your colors and it would be sweet. See, your pad smells better and you are much cooler than you were before you read this. I realize that there might be some naysayers out there to criticize my ideas, that's just because I am cooler than you and you know it. Yeah, I said it. If you don't agree with my ways of waste and laziness, you are a hippie. A dirty, stinky hippie with those nasty dreadlocks that look like poo hanging on to your head for dear life in fear of the moment that you might think about showering. Cause the environment loves stinky people. Ask the people at the OHFCBTR. They just may invite you to their gala, but only if you bathed at least once this year. And patchouli doesn't count! It doesn't hide the stink, it just makes it worse. Seriously. Sorry, I got off topic. Anyway, please wait for more updates on how to live the swank life on low maintenance but high style. Because you know you need it.