The Wii hurts!

So it happened, as it was bound to. Although the Wii gives you numerous warnings, Scott and I were sitting to close togther and I got nailed. Luckily it was my arm and not my face. Live to fight another day!

Razor Blades

I'm 100% sure I'm not the only shaving technology aficionado out there, so I just want to address a situation. I had recently run out of razor blades and used my last one past the point one should, so I made the trip to Target this evening to replenish my supply. I am currently a Gillette Fusion Power user. (duh, what else would anyone use?) I arrive at the shaving aisle and easily locate the bright orange area of Fusion blades. Lo and behold, there are two different options: the Gillette Fusion blades and the Gillette Fusion Power blades. I don't want to get into the details, but lets just say the Power blades are about a quarter more apiece.

Out of curiosity, I take both off the pegs to compare the packaging. They are nearly identical. Both packages contain the nearly identical statements: "All Fusion cartridges can be used with all Fusion razors." and "Fusion Power cartridges can be used with all Fusion razors."

I found two differences. One was the color of the plastic around the blades. Not really worth a quarter. The other was the note on the packaging that Fusion Power blades are "PowerGlide™ Blades," which means they have a patented blade coating for incredible comfort. I couldn't determine if the regular Fusion blades included the PowerGlide™ coating or not.

Either way, I bought the Fusion Power blades. Once you reach a certain threshold for cost, you just go for the gold, even if it's fool's gold.

Side note: As I was looking for links for this post, I checked out the Gillette Fusion website. Holy crap, talk about overkill. There's also a weird section for "razor bumps" that actually targeted toward black men, but it never actually mentions that. Are razor bumps more of an epidemic in the African-American community? I know they're a problem for me. And that music is pretty annoying. Interesting site. Apparently the new Phantom razor has an automatic shut off and battery light indicator... is it time for an upgrade?

Wii + HD

Normally, I'd just comment, but this would be a little longer response. One of the reasons I wasn't keen on getting a Wii was due to the low resolution it supported (which I had heard was 480i, but is actually 480p, standby). Once I decided I wasn't that worried about that, I bought it and fired it up to see what I would end up with. I was expecting it to need to be in normal mode on the TV, leaving me with black bars on the sides. No big deal. However, once I started setting it up, I found a few settings that made things a little better.

1) The Wii has a Widescreen mode. The way it works is not very high definition or anything, but it fills the screen without making things out of proportion. It actually keeps the picture at 720x480, but it squishes the picture to fit in that area. Then you can change the wide mode on your television to stretch it out to the right proportions.

You can see how the effect works in the picture above. It definitely does the trick for my eyes, but maybe I'm just not that picky.

This method has varying results. That bowling game is from the "free" game that comes with the console that I didn't technically pay anything for. However, in Mario Party 8, which I did pay for, the menus and animations are all widescreen, but once you get into the game, the game actually has built in bars... kinda lame. Hey, but at least they're nice blue argyle.

2) The Wii supports progressive scan. It's not high def or anything, but 480p is better than 480i. Unfortunately, you have to get a component cable to make this work. It didn't come with the console. So, I don't know if it actually works or not, but the option is there. I'll let you know when I pony up for the cable to see how it works out.

Hutchinson Sunset

Got this shot earlier this evening while I was sitting out on the back patio grilling some burgers for dinner. Not a terrible view.

Playing With My Wii

I guess it's been a while since the last time I posted anything on here. The funny thing is, Katie was gone most of last week and she just left again today, so I've actually had more free time lately. Actually, I had so much free time, I went out and picked up a Nintendo Wii to fill a little bit of that time. So I guess maybe that's why I haven't been doing anything else.

After laughing at Jeff for about month while he tried to find controllers all over the state of Indiana, I felt kinda bad going and grabbing one at only the third store I walked into, but since setting it up almost a week ago, I've been playing it a little each day, working my way up the rankings in Wii Sports. The bowling game and the tennis game are both pretty killer, and I enjoy doing the Fitness test each day, even tho I'm not sure it's a very good judge of my fitness. I'm pretty sure bowling is my best event; I've scored 235 and worked my ranking up above 1200 already.

We also picked up a copy of Mario Party 8, which is pretty similar to the Gamecube version, as far as I can tell. The boards are different and the minigames are different, but it's still the same game. I'm looking forward to having four real people play it together instead of Katie, me, and two computer guys who rip us off. Anyway, it's pretty fun.

And if you want to be our Wii Friend (Jeff) our Wii number is 4620 0202 3248 2630.

Day at the Zoo

We just got back from a trip to the Sedgwick County Zoo. We rolled out of bed bright and early this morning and headed down to Wichita with our friends Daniel and Kim and their daughter Allie. I haven't been to a lot of zoos, but I always thought the Indianapolis Zoo was nice and this was easily as nice, if not nicer. The zoo was divided up into each of the continents and had some really cool design and decor to add to the feel of each continent. They also had a lot of animals and some good food.

Anyway, I took a barrel of pictures, but here's a selection of the finer ones:

Hanging at America's Drive-In

As I'm sure you all know from the barrage of advertisements, Sonic was giving away free root beer floats from 8pm to midnight tonite. So you know where Katie and I were from 9-10! We had a tough decision on whether or not to pull into the parking lot, due to the mass of cars and people who were also in attendance, but we pulled through and managed to get some rockstar parking in the process. After that, we stood in like for about 20 or 25 minutes probably, and snagged our floats. We made a quick getaway and were home a little before 10. We managed to get some guerrilla footage of the action with a secret spy camera and we're posting it here for you all.

Couch Update

The new couch arrived. We got it put in place and are lounging on it currently. I figured I'd throw a picture up so you could all see it in place.

Forecast: Windy

When I was in Indiana and the weatherman said the forecast was windy, it usually didn't mean anything. I just assumed it would be breezy, and it wasn't a big deal except maybe back when I had practice or a meet. Now that we're here in Kansas, if they forecast it to be windy, you have to take note. It's always windy, so if they bother to mention it, it's going to be bad news. Today, the wind is gusting up to 50 miles an hour. Other than than it's a beautiful day. It's pretty strange.

Uncomfortable Fold-Out Couch No More

The old fold-out couch has been dropped off at the dump (preciate it Daniel). The living room is looking pretty empty, and the new couch won't arrive until Tuesday. However, once the new couch arrives, life will be pretty good. Surely I'll blog at least twice as much due to the comfort I'm lounging in.