Refrigerator Copy

Column published the week of January 5, 2009 www.theleeonline.com © 2009, Lee Ostaszewski

Just Call Mii Lii

By Lee Ostaszewski This Christmas Santa left a Wii video game console under the tree for my two sons, Kevin and Chris. For those who don’t know, the Wii is a motion sensor-controlled video game that allows players holding the game controller to simulate actual movements while playing video games, such as tennis or bowling. For instance, while playing Wii tennis you use the controller to simulate the actual movement of swinging a tennis racket. By the same token, to play Wii bowling you simulate the actual movement of rolling a bowling ball down an alley. But when I say “allows players to simulate actual movements” what I really mean is that it allows players to flail, swat and gyrate in such a way to cause the casual observer, someone unaware that Wii playing is occurring, to conclude that these people are fighting a swarm of imaginary wasps or having some sort of seizure. Luckily, we are usually too caught up with the action on the screen to care how silly we look to the casual observer. And let’s be honest, should we really care what the casual observer thinks about us? Besides, who let the casual observer in the house in the first place? Nonetheless, while playing the Wii we generally do look like we need to be placed in a padded cell for our own protection. I can think of only one other human activity that causes us to flail, gyrate and twist in similarly weird, sweaty contortions, but at least this activity is usually done in private. I’m, or course, referring to shaking off Styrofoam packing peanuts that are clinging to us. Whenever we come in contact with Styrofoam peanuts, such as after receiving a package in the mail, the Styrofoam peanuts will play this game called, Last One Stuck to the Human Wins. The object is to be the last Styrofoam peanut left hanging on. The ultimate winner is the one that manages to hang on without the human realizing it as the human heads off to work, attends church, gets married, etc. Styrofoam peanuts get a big chuckle out of this. Despite how ridiculous we look playing the Wii it is a

lot of fun. The best part is that unlike most video games, which involve only using the muscles in our thumbs and eyeballs, the Wii can be a great workout tool for our entire body and gets those of us with generally sedentary lifestyles off the sofa and up moving in ways that cause us to strain ligaments and tendons almost immediately. After just one day of playing Wii tennis I developed a condition known by me as Wii elbow. The technical term for it is: a sore elbow. If left unchecked, this can lead to another, more serious medical condition, known as: a really sore elbow. Doctors recommend that if you begin experiencing the pain and soreness of Wii elbow you should “ratchet it back there a notch, Nadal, this is a video game after all, not Wimbledon.” The other fun part of the Wii is that you get to create your own Wii person called a Mii. For most people, their Mii resembles them about as much as a preschooler’s drawing would. I’m thinking here of those young children’s drawings where the person is just a head with stick legs coming down from their chin and two stick arms coming out the ears. Kevin and Chris, however, swear my Mii looks just like me, which is depressing. That’s because my Mii is balding with grey hair on the sides, has droopy eyes, and a bushy (but not Eastern European Soviet dictator bushy) grey mustache. To be honest, my Mii looks like it could be an actor in a commercial for Supplemental Medicare coverage. I blame my old-looking Mii on the fact that some days I do terrible on Wii fitness. This is a once-a-day fitness test you take on the Wii that supposedly ranks how old, in fitness years, you are. Although I occasionally rank younger than my actual age, other days I come in a good two decades older. Obviously, the Wii is ageist and using my Mii looks against me. Still, there’s nothing better after a good Wii session than to sit down in my rocking chair, put my feet up on a hassock, drape a shawl around me, sip some hot tea and wonder, “How long has this Styrofoam peanut been stuck to me THERE?” ■