Random Bits

...why did no one ever tell me this game existed? It is awesome. (for those that don't know it is like apples to apples - but rated NC-17, XXX - so totally hilarious)

One of my top ten memories of Ascendio is playing this game on Friday night with a whole group of people - Mark Oshiro of "Mark Does Stuff" included. That man is a total riot (also way way WAY clever).

And I got to say incredibly wrong and dirty things out loud to a whole bunch of people. Good times.

Finally home from Ascendio. Exhausted (so exhausted I actually slept on the AUTO TRAIN). Con report:

Was awesome. Spent too much money. LOVED seeing everyone. Chalk Twins was another top ten highlight - along with Cat Tosenberger - because she is Cat Tosenberger.

Afshan Azad is a total sweetheart - and Chris Rankin can SING. Hotel was gorgeous; food was great; all the pre-con work paid off.

Bed now.

So, for a holiday bonus, my company gave me amazon.com gift certificates. And I live in the northeast where if it is not snowing in the winter it is generally unpleasant outside in many other ways - cold, rain, ice, etc. So I can't get out and walk around as much as I'd like - and there is only so many times one can do the mall-walking thing before the whole thing drives you a little crazy.

So I've used the gift certificates to get a wii gaming system and the balance board to do some fun workouts in my own house. It cost me basically nothing - the holiday bonus certificates paid for the whole thing. So, way cheaper than a gym membership or the yoga classes I was contemplating, since I don't like how I've lost some flexibility as I've gotten older (hello middle age! We've not been introduced yet, but I am not looking forward to you!). And I can take a half hour to forty minutes out of my day to work out, as I work from home already. And this is something I could do at any time - first thing in the morning, or as a mid-afternoon stress relief, or in the evening just for fun.

Here's where I need advice. Having never owned a gaming system before (not even an atari back-in-the-day - although I have used one, but not for a really long time) I have no idea about actual, y'know, GAMES.

Hit me with your favorites! Are the Lego games good? Good for a beginner? What about other games? Are used games the way to go - they cost about a third of the price of a new game? What are MUST HAVES - games that catch your attention and hold it? What games suck - ones you wouldn't get again in a million years?

This is completely new experience for me, and since it comes with wii resort, I'm going to be learning the system with that. Hopefully, it will be a good introduction on how to use the controllers. I've stood in Best Buy trying out the system - and the demo game loaded was Epic Mickey - which was frustrating since I had no idea what I was doing and coordination seemed to be difficult - the changing camera angles were disorienting for me. And my left hand is definitely going to be an issue, but I can work around the awkwardness of the damage there. So... Anyone who games with a system! Talk to me!