Creating a Monster
Saturday night, my father-in-law and sister-in-law came over to watch movies with us and some friends. They arrived a bit earlier than anyone else, so before long, the inevitable phrase was spoken, "Hey, show Dad the Wii Boxing!"
About two and a half hours and many boxing matches and bowling games later, we finally managed to switch the TV's input over to DVD Player so we could watch the movie, 3:10 to Yuma (which won out over Fistful of Dollars by popular vote, since nobody had seen it yet).
The movie captured everyone's rapt attention, but out of the corner of my eye, despite my father-in-law's keen interest in the film, I would swear I noticed the Wii-inspired twitching of his fingers. "As much as he's liking this movie," I thought, "his subconscious mind is dying to finish that bowling game, I think."
The movie ended, and after the standard ten minutes of post-movie discussion (What did the ending mean? Do you think that's believable? And so on....), the question came. "For this Wii thing. Can you also get that guitar game? Hm, okay. Is it true some pubs have that where you can play it? [to my sister-in-law] Want to stop by the pub on the way home? No? I can drop you off first then...."
I don't think they went to the pub after all.
But at 11:30am the next morning, as I sat down to dimsum brunch with the family, my father-in-law tucked a folded slip of paper into my hand. I looked at him questioningly, and then unfolded it.
A Future Shop receipt.
For a Nintendo Wii.
And an extra controller. And extra nunchuk controller.
And Rock Band Wii.
"Why spend ninety-nine dollars only on the guitar, when you can have the whole band for less than two hundred?" he chimed in, with a huge smile. I couldn't argue with that.
Towards the end of the meal, he asked, ominously, "What plans do you guys have for the afternoon?"
"Hm, not much, really. Why?"
"I need to try the Rock Band out and make sure it works. You want to?"
* * *
. . . Which brings us to today. I have a painful plastic-guitar-induced blister on the side of my thumb. My arms, shoulders, and right thigh are so sore from four hours of uninterrupted drumming that I can barely walk straight.
In my head I hear echoes of him insisting, "No break! We've nearly got this song down! Tell it to retry! Same song! I have to beat 95%! Retry!"
I think I'm happy about this. I think I think it's really cool. But next time I'm bringing a back brace and some gloves. I'm getting too old for this kind of thing....
About two and a half hours and many boxing matches and bowling games later, we finally managed to switch the TV's input over to DVD Player so we could watch the movie, 3:10 to Yuma (which won out over Fistful of Dollars by popular vote, since nobody had seen it yet).
The movie captured everyone's rapt attention, but out of the corner of my eye, despite my father-in-law's keen interest in the film, I would swear I noticed the Wii-inspired twitching of his fingers. "As much as he's liking this movie," I thought, "his subconscious mind is dying to finish that bowling game, I think."
The movie ended, and after the standard ten minutes of post-movie discussion (What did the ending mean? Do you think that's believable? And so on....), the question came. "For this Wii thing. Can you also get that guitar game? Hm, okay. Is it true some pubs have that where you can play it? [to my sister-in-law] Want to stop by the pub on the way home? No? I can drop you off first then...."
I don't think they went to the pub after all.
But at 11:30am the next morning, as I sat down to dimsum brunch with the family, my father-in-law tucked a folded slip of paper into my hand. I looked at him questioningly, and then unfolded it.
A Future Shop receipt.
For a Nintendo Wii.
And an extra controller. And extra nunchuk controller.
And Rock Band Wii.
"Why spend ninety-nine dollars only on the guitar, when you can have the whole band for less than two hundred?" he chimed in, with a huge smile. I couldn't argue with that.
Towards the end of the meal, he asked, ominously, "What plans do you guys have for the afternoon?"
"Hm, not much, really. Why?"
"I need to try the Rock Band out and make sure it works. You want to?"
* * *
. . . Which brings us to today. I have a painful plastic-guitar-induced blister on the side of my thumb. My arms, shoulders, and right thigh are so sore from four hours of uninterrupted drumming that I can barely walk straight.
In my head I hear echoes of him insisting, "No break! We've nearly got this song down! Tell it to retry! Same song! I have to beat 95%! Retry!"
I think I'm happy about this. I think I think it's really cool. But next time I'm bringing a back brace and some gloves. I'm getting too old for this kind of thing....