The Nintendo Wii has been harder to find than Waldo, even two Christmases after its launch. I’ve liked Nintendo’s stuff for ages, even had a copy of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600, and the first Mario Bros. (before he started hitting the ‘shrooms) was great co-op fun. Yes, kids, we had co-op back in the day, though the only point back then was trying to get the highest score.

By virtue of being at the right place at the right time, I managed to get my hands on the Next Big Thing from Nintendo. I felt silly asking the girl at the store if they had them in stock, when there clearly were three in the display case. She said they had received a shipment the night before, and there had been a line of eager buyers waiting at 1201 when they went on the floor, so these had been sitting in plain view for just under a day.

The bastards were ‘bundling’ them though, so I had to take a copy of Wii Play along with the unit. It was no big deal, though, I was going to get it anyway. After a quick stop at Best Buy for Super Mario Galaxy, a component cable and another Nunchuck, I drove home with my loot, ready to flail away until repetitive stress disorder kicks in.

It actually might happen, too. I once got ‘tennis elbow’ from a combination of a boring-ass graveyard shift job, a Nintendo DS, and Meteos.

The Wii itself is pretty solid, weighs about as much as the Xbox 360’s power supply. -rim shot-

I love the “protective sleeves” (resisting temptation to crack a joke about protecting one’s Wii) they put on the Wiimotes, the part facing the TV has about half an inch of padding, presumably to protect precious plasma-owning players. I own a 32-inch flat screen tube TV. If a Wiimote can crack that thing, Nintendo needs to give their engineers a raise.

I bid Mr. Gamecube farewell, its final destination will probably be a shoebox up in the closet, as the Wii plays Gamecube games as well. We had us some good times, there… -sniff-

Setup was pretty straightforward, just like every other “next-gen” console, I get to do a system update. 😛 The Weather and News channels are pretty cool, being a news junkie (thanks, Dad!) I can see myself using them quite a bit. Its pretty cool, using the remote feels natural, and I suppose I should actually play some games on it now!