I have been out of the video game world for many years. I grew up when home games were just coming out. I did have the 8-game Radio Shack controller that played “tennis” and “Target practice.” Later, the Atari system was popular, and cool kids had an Intellivision or a ColecoVision. My brother and I had the Odyssey2 game system, which we got probably about 1982 or so. It was cool to us because it had a keyboard, and you could use that to extend the video game to a pseudo-board game by using an overlay on the keyboard. Granted, there was only one other kid in town who had one, so our game swapping was limited, but we liked it. It would turn out to be the last game system I would own for 18+ years.

Fast forward to college (circa 1990). One kid on the hall had a NES system, and we spent many hours playing baseball. Yes – the same baseball the grandson is playing at the opening of the movie The Princess Bride. I was amazed at the sound and graphics. Very impressive.

Once I got out of college, I more or less forgot about game systems. I was vaguely aware that my younger brother went through several systems (Sega and XBox for sure, maybe a Nintendo 64 in there somewhere). Out of curiosity, I would check them out when I was home. I was impressed with the graphics, but I was turned off by the multiple buttons and joystick pads. It seemed like it was too much work just to learn to play a game, so I never bothered.

Fast forward to January of 2007. I kept hearing about the Wii video game system. I had read about it out of curiosity, and I liked the sound of the motion-controlled system. Sometime in January, I decided it would be time to try a Wii, so I went to buy one. Imagine my surprise when I could not find one that day. Or the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month. Apparently, lots of folks liked the idea of simple and intuitive game play.

I was out running errands about a week ago – we had the day off for Good Friday, and our VCR had stopped working after 15 years. I went out to get another one, and while I was out, I stopped in at a GameStop store. Much to my surprise, there were two people in the store buying Wiis. I got in line, and I got the last one. They had sold out of all nine units in one hour in the middle of the day. Amazing.

Anyway, I am pleased to report that the Wii really is easy to use, and it is really fun. My shoulder tends to hurt the next day after I play, but that is okay. It turns out that Meredith is quite good at tennis – she has beaten me many times, and I have only beaten her once (and that was on a four-person team play, after four or five games). I hope to use the Wii to be social – I have four controllers, and most of the sports games can be played with four people. I have already had my friends Ron and Ken and Janet over to play, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

I have resolved (and stuck to it) that I am not allowed to use the Wii unless I have practiced my dobro or have practiced Italian. So far, so good.