The playful mispelled title was just too tempting to pass up. As most of my family already knows, the Wii has officially arrived in my household. On any given day, I idle away all kinds of time that could be spent on constructive pursuits playing the Wii, the aforementioned Xbox 360, or my recently retrofitted PC.

However, over the holidays this year, I have a new appreciation for the Wii. For the first time in my life, I have seen my entire family get in line to play a game. It’s an incredible phenomenon and entirely unexpected. I had an idea of the Wii’s accessibility, but had no idea people normally not interested in videogames would step forward to give it a swing.

I’m just glad I can share the mindless time wasting with family. After all, at it’s best, that’s what spending time with family is: just having fun spending time.

Oh, and I sustained my first Wii injury. The welt is healing to a nice bruise. Hurts so good.

Recently I had the privilege of taking a business trip to Paris, France. The trip wasn’t long, and while there was time for an otherworldly meal at a bistro (think new heights gastronomic intensity), there wasn’t time to do much more than work. However, I did get a chance to stop by the popular Parisienne store Colette. I had been hoping to find some unique chotchkes to bring back w/ me to NYC, but I could find none. Instead, I felt like I was browsing a museum store, with a selection of 60 euro t-shirts, all of which can be had in NYC for less. I should mention the sneaker selection was nice; the few styles they had were high quality.

The one thing I did purchase for myself, strangely enough was a US based magazine Wax Poetics. Little did I know I would wander across an interview penned by a relative, in a magazine I don’t normally read, in a hip boutique in Paris, a city I haven’t been to in 10 over years. So I purchased and paid museum store prices. And it was worth it on the flight home.

Is it too soon for New Year’s resolutions? Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet, but you’ll find it easy to find something to work on for next year with personal-kyoto.org. Register with this site, enter your ConEd account # (apologies to the New York impaired) and view your own personal energy usage. My usage is 1.2% above the average for New York. I think this makes sense as we tend to have a lot of doodads and doohickeys sucking up juice around the house. The water-cooled PC and aforementioned Xbox 360 aren’t really helping any. In any case, the goal for next year is to reduce usage by 25%. The site kindly tracks my usage and compares to the goal.

One of the first things we’ve done is replace our incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs. Being the lazy lump that I am, I am happy to say I’m not only replacing 60W bulbs w/ 13W bulbs, but also extending the amount of time between bulb changes by three-fold at least. The incandescent bulbs we used to use apparently blow out after about 2400 hours. These CFLs are rated at 8000 hours. “Huzzah” go the lazy lumps. No more sitting in the dark while contemplating whether or not the bulb should be changed.

Slashdot has brought up a few nuggets of pure fun over the past couple days…

Bacterial DVD holds 50TB - Back on the storage tip, these will be ready about in time for the unveiling of Sony proprietary, ultra-mega-compact-mini-disk storage, to be filled with super ultraman-go-ranger hi-definition movies that will be released 6 months before they hit your local cineplex. That is to say, perhaps never. However, the idea of storing approximately 7,000 of today’s DVDs on a single disc is inspiring.

Procedural Synthesis - About.com catches up to .kkrieger, which we reported on 2 years late. This makes About.com 2.5 years late. If you read the article, you’ll see the Spore hype machine marching on in full gear.

Cow Power - Ever driven by a cattle ranch? What thoughts run through your mind as you cruise by with the windows down on a hot, breezy day? If you’re like me, you’re thinking “How can we burn all this stink and power a state?”. Well darn it, someone in Vermont has gone and done it. You can buy 25%, 50% or 100% of your power from the system. Wake up call New York: We need to figure out a way to turn all the stink on the NYC streets into power for my PS3.

Even as allegations of Mac “phone home” sensibilities (via gizmodo) have surfaced (read: evil), wherein your sweet and homely Mac is forced to check in with the mothership every 8 hours, there is some good news to bring the universe back into alignment… CrossOver Mac promises to allow you to run Windows applications within Mac OS X. Planning to ship in early August, this app, while anticipated widely, arrived a bit sooner than expected. Based on Wine, an open source “compatibility layer” for *nix and Mac OS X, the package will retail for $59.99 and will draw a considerable huzzah from that annoying Mac guy (right) in the Apple commercials. Of course we all want CrossOver Mac, but nobody wants to be mr hoodie.

If you haven’t had the good fortune of checking Uniqlo’s temporary flagship store in Soho (they’re opening a permanent flagship store on Broadway shortly), you probably have missed out on the dope t-shirt designs that have dropped as part of their T-shirt festival. In case you haven’t tried a Uniqlo t-shirt, they’re about as soft and comfy as you can get in a T. The tag is placed in a more comfortable spot down on the lower left so you’ll never get that itch on the back of your neck. Most designs are on point… I picked up a Yamasa Soy Sauce T and they have a dope Kewpie Mayonnaise spot that is the bee’s knees. What can I say, I like my products. Anyway, best thing is, they’re running for only $10 a pop. In the high flying NYC t-shirt world, that’s a pittance.

As I read mainly internet news and literature (can you call it that?), I’m often surprised I still go for the paper-in-hand publications now and again. Theme magazine hit the scene about a year and a half ago, and IMO has been absolutely excellent in every issue. The only downside is it’s a quarterly… but the reality is that makes it even more dope. I get Wired magazine monthly and can barely find time to crack it. A quarterly allows me to proceed at the lazy pace I’m accustomed to.
Anywho, the issues started off with profiles of people I personally admire (Towa Tei, Hiroshi Fujiwara) and they keep bringing it every quarter. This month, they had me at hello with a Jeff Chang spot, and they kept the oohs and ahhs going with a Wooster Collective piece followed with a rip of DJ Krush. If I am not in this demographic, I don’t know who is.

Recommended+ for any commute or commode.

I’m not wearing glasses for the first time in almost 20 years. About two weeks ago I had Epi-Lasik performed on my eyes. Guess what? I can see.

I had the option of bringing in a blank VHS cassette for a tape of my operation, but neglected to do so. In case you were wondering, here is a video of what my tape might have been. (warning: this isn’t for the squeamish) Oh, and there’s really very little discomfort and no pain… even though the video makes it look like Dr. Moreau is implanting a monkey fingernail at times.
I’m not fully recovered yet as the procedure takes about 1 month for vision to stabilize, but it’s getting better all the time.

Following up on our mention of Maid Cafes in Tokyo, another less obscure type of cafe has surfaced in America’s newspapers. The New York Times is reporting on the preponderance of media immersion pod cyber-cafes in Japan [via slashdot]. While you must surely be familiar with cyber-cafes, you may not be aware of the Japanese take (not to be confused with the kind where people die in fires or from sheer exhaustion). You rent a cubicle outfitted with various media devices: television, internet access, playstation, books, papers, magazines. Then you proceed to read, and listen, and consume sugary beverages and tasty sandwiches. All the media is included with the price of admission. The foodstuffs are not. I wasn’t under the impression that this was a new phenomenon. Over the past few years, Aya and I have learned to hang out in just such a place in Naha, Okinawa. What with Okinawa being somewhat isolated from mainland Japan, I’d have to expect this to be a longstanding business model. I do have to say that the cafe in Naha is not as dark, and does not stay open 24 hours, but they do have fancy massage chairs for your use. In any case, the concept is great, and I’d love to have that here, but something tells me this would never fly in the states. I think here, geeks still like to geek out at home.

Richard McManus at ZDNet has an informative review of the fledgling WebOS market. What is a WebOS? According to McManus, that’s still a very good question. WebOS stands for Web Operating System, but perhaps is most aptly described by YouOS (winner of most honorary and canonical vowels in a WebOS startup name contest):

YouOS is a shared computer that houses your data and applications, but you are the owner of this data and applications.

I read the article and still found the underlying concepts and benefits to be abstract and unclear at best. However, once I tried a demo of YouOS, I saw and understood the bandwagon, although I haven’t decided to jump on it. I’m going to wait and see how fast and cool this bandwagon can go, and reserve judgement for a little while. Check out YouOS (or one of it’s peers/competitors) and let me know what you think.
I have to say that the idea of having all of your personal computing available to you wherever and whenever you want is enticing. Even at a very early stage of development, the app provides basic functionality.

However, why do I get the distinct impression/fear that all of this will degenerate into the next hot and stanky ad-delivery mechanism? Is this what our kids and grandkids will be using to post lascivious pictures to MySpace? Will I be able to play Morrowind on it?

I read more blogs and magazines these days, and I’m constantly bombarded with sneaker ads. I guess I’m the demographic. Anyway, this Asics Onitsuka Tiger ad is the cats pyjamas. If I were to sell shoes, I’d probably write some beige caption like this:

I own a pair of rarely worn Mexico 66’s. It’s a long story but my feet hurt _really_ bad in a new pair of leather Rod Laver’s when strolling in Okinawa. I broke down and had to buy a pair of the super comfy Mexico 66’s. They’re alright overall, but that day, they felt like wearing 3 new pairs of socks after the Laver experience.

I don’t think I’m ready for the J Peterman catalog just yet. Anyway, less is more, especially when it comes to sushi.

I got back from Portland on Sunday after spending a few eventful days with my fellow beige contributor. I’m a little under the weather, which is sort of strange since I slept so well on the plane. I flew direct from PDX to JFK on the redeye, and luckily I got a whole 3 seats to myself. I felt a little self-conscious because there was a row of 3 people full behind me, but they were sleeping: I was _that_ guy. Anyway, here’s a couple shots of us at the Ira Keller fountain which is a dope spot to lamp.