Wii Be Not Fit

A hectic schedule, drinking, and poor diet habits, have led to a lifestyle that is a lot less fit than in my 20’s. While I wouldn’t consider myself obese, it wasn’t until a few months ago I realized just how much larger I had become. My friend Ricardo graciously offered to take some pics of Michelle & I just before Sydney was born. When Michelle & I reviewed the proofs, I was suddenly hit with the reality that I was heavier than I imagined (or not as skinny as saw myself daily). In fact, at 5ft 6in my weight hit a peak of 220lbs in January, but when I looked in the mirror I saw the beer belly that made me appear as pregnant as Michelle this past year. I didn’t notice how round my face had become or that I was slowly losing my chin as my neck had widened a great deal. The brutal truth had been revealed, and I could see what other people had been commenting on for over a year.

I had a chance to pickup the Wii Fit game released earlier this month, but had not set it up until this past week. I chose the Wii Fit mainly because the idea intrigued me, and I have already seen the benefits of playing Wii Sports. The game comes with with Wii Fit controller pad, which is a large floor unit roughly 18×9 inches. The unit is plastic, but felt solid and was fairly heavy. It’s powered by four AA batteries, which come in the package. Setup was a breeze, I simply inserted the Wii Fit game disc, and was walked through the process of creating my fitness profile.

In creating my fitness profile, I was asked to choose a Mii. This is the first game I have played where the Mii had hands & feet. That was not the only visual adjustment made to my Mii. After choosing the Mii you are put through a Body Test. You are asked questions about your height, age, and the weight of the clothes you are wearing. The test measure BMI, weight, and balance. The results of my first body test:

  • BMI 30.46 – Considered obese
  • Height – 5ft 6in
  • Weight – 196.5lbs
  • Balance – Poor (Afterwards, I realized the measurement is based on how quickly you find your balance)
  • Wii Fit Age – 42

Upon being told my Wii Fit age, my Mii character suddenly transformed into a heavier obese version. I was impressed and disgusted at the same time. Family & friends had chided me about my weight, but now the Wii Fit was piling on too. My results were certainly less impressive than when Ben Sanders jumped on his Wii Fit.

After completing the Body Test, I was asked to put a stamp on the Wii Fit calendar to mark my results. From there I had the option to go and try different workout routines. There are four main areas including Yoga, Strength Training, Balance, and Aerobic Conditioning. Keeping with the gaming theme, users are awarded Wii Fit points, which unlock various fitness games within the Wii Fit plaza. Being the first day, I simply went through a sample of each area.

I did well in the Yoga & Aerobic areas, but was weak again in Balance, which I attribute more to learning to master the floor controller, and my Strength was decent, but not great. You are led through the various routines by a virtual fitness instructor, and your overall fitness time is tracked to help create the graphs found in the Wii Fit plaza. I kept my first day pretty light, and worked out for about 45 minutes.

This morning was the second time I had used the Wii Fit, and upon entering the plaza I was told it had been 5 days since my last workout. The reminder can be encouraging or nagging depending on your mood when playing the game. I was asked to do another body test, and was surprised to see the following results:

  • BMI 30 – Still considered obese
  • Height – 5ft 6in
  • Weight – 193lbs
  • Balance – Good (Better since I understood how to take the test)
  • Wii Fit Age -31 (Yeah me! I’m 11yrs younger)
  • It was nice to see the progress graph after taking the body test.

Conclusion – My first impressions of the Wii Fit is that the game is well suited for anyone new to fitness. The instructions are clear, and the exercises are challenging, but not overly difficult. The gaming aspect is a nice touch to keep your workouts fresh & interesting. For someone who is active already, and in good shape, your opinion might be different. I think a fit person will initially enjoy the game, but soon become bored by the routines. However, I have not unlocked all the fitness routines, and I could be mistaken in that assumption.

I’m going to continue to use the Wii Fit to see if the routine can actually achieve some quality results. Not only am I trying to achieve good health for the sake of my family, but I was recently inspired by the CNN story on Muata Kamdibe who reduced his body fat percentage from 44% to 6.5%. His progress is documented on his blog “Mr. Low Body Fat.”

Update 6/6/2008Laura weighs in on the Wii Fit over at her blog.

Movie Review – Kill Bill Vol 2.

The Plot – “The Bride” has already dispensed with Vernita Green & O-Ren Ishii, but there’s still Budd & Elle to deal with. Already a footnote in her memory, the audience will get a recap of events before the lady is off to Kill Bill.

The Review – As many know I’ve been waiting for this sequel ever since I reviewed Kill Bill Vol 1. The plastic wrap hadn’t even been broken on my DVD yet and Mich3lle & I were at the theatre last Friday for the premiere. Where the first movie was a whirlwind of action sequences Vol 2. firmly chokes up the reigns for a storytelling pace. Here the encounters are even more personal, the deaths seemingly more deserving, the overall tone more conflicted. “The Bride” seems less invincible this time around and we learn a little more of the back story via flashback. We also get to meet Bill.

One has to wonder if Quentin Tarantino might resurrect another career. Anyone catch David Carradine on Alias tonight? He was perfectly cast in this volume. I can’t imagine anyone else pulling off the role of Bill. Maybe you remember him as Kwai Chang Caine on the Kung Fu TV series, but I recall he played a sly villain opposite Chuck Norris back in 1983. And who could forget Death Race 2000 or Shane? No apologies for being a cult film guy.

The fact this isn’t the hack & slash fest the first movie is might throw some people, but I felt it complimented the overall story very well. It had predictable moments, but I thought the delivery by its cast well done. The kung fu training sequences were a humorous nod to that genre and yours truly is probably one of a few people that owns Shogun Assassin which was a character favorite in the film. (Imagine this totally geek moment – OMIGOD I HAVE THAT DVD! I KNOW WHAT DVD THEY’RE PLAYING!) Once again, no apologies for watching late night kung fu theatre as a kid.

Grade: B+ (It did have some slow moments)

Mobloggin’ Mobloggin’…

… we interrupt our regularly scheduled bikini posting to bring you this geek heavy complaint…

Moblogging is a simple enough idea – configure your blogging software to accept posts w/attachments via e-mail and DING! you can update your blog with your cell phone. At least that’s what I thought I’d be doin’ once I got a toy upgrade. Being the autonomous web guy that I am, I wasn’t about to rely on some outside hosting service to put up a moblog. No, I figured I have the savvy & the technology, shouldn’t be a problem.

Unless you consider the need for Procmail filtering on your webhost. Mine doesn’t have that nor do they have any similar mail technology installed. OK, so I did a search for services that would still allow me to keep my moblog on my webserver. Mfop2 looked promising. Setup an account through their service, send your e-mail to them and they’ll route the post to your Movable Type site. Did a test run over the weekend and ended up with this archaic entry. Drat… foiled again.

At the moment I’m more than just a little annoyed. You see, whenever I send an e-mail from my SprintPCS phone with a picture attachment my original message gets encapsulated in an HTML entry that they create. Sure looks pretty for an AOL user, but if I want to send a PLAIN TEXT MESSAGE from my SprintPCS phone I can’t.

Aarrrrgh!!!

If AOL & Sprint insist that Joe Consumer must have technology training wheels fine, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let us tech savvy peeps turn that shit off. As it is, I’ll have to find (or Lord help me write) a script that sifts through the Sprint generated code to find my message & attachment so they’ll post properly. My other option is to have my moblog hosted on a service like Text America or Buzznet, but I could still run into the same Sprint issue.

If you’re an early adopter using the SprintPCS service and you got your moblog workin’ drop this fella a hint please.

Bloggers Anonymous…

Metal Bands Will Never DieMy name is A.J. and I am a blogaholic. When I’m not reading other blogs I’m actively planning what I should write in my own blog. Like many addicts my condition didn’t happen overnight. As a geek in training I suckled on my first 2400 baud modem connection waiting 20 minutes for image downloads while slammin’ BBS chat rooms with anyone who happened to stumble through. I’ve typed feverously in DOS with only the X-Modem protocol for e-mail exchanges. Those were the days. When geeks of the world got excited that a 210MB hard drive could be found for as little $650. I’ve survived CompuServe, Netcom, MindSpring, Earthlink, skipped over AOL, enjoyed Netscape and I once made $4K building a static website with only two animated GIFs and three pages of content.

Recently, I was forced to come to grips with my addiction. Quite a few bloggers seem to be on again, off again. Whether it’s brief intermissions, finding your inner-voice, or the hoopla that comes with thousands of adoring (drooling) fans, strangers & personal favorites alike are stepping away from their computers and unplugging from the Matrix. The state of the blogosphere has been the topic of many a discussion and while the realists call bullsh%t some have plenty of advice to pass long.

With this instability I’m left with a problem. If all the blog links I feverously click on aren’t updated with daily content what am I supposed to do? How will I write my own posts if I can’t trackback to everyone on the planet? What about all my comment companions? Surely, Fred needs to tell us what happened with his dog Sparky so Bettie can say something cute? And I about died when one of Ryan’s readers posted a link about Mariah Carey trashing a Def Leppard song. I mean I just saw them last Friday so that comment really spoke to me…

I’m just a wreck I tell you. Lots of free time and no f#ckin’ direction. My blog is my life, it’s like bloggers get me ya know?

…and then he said f#ck it.

[This entry has been cut short due to complete & total brainfart interuptus. Please bring your seats to their upright position and kindly move on to a funny blog. For those of you NOT clicking the link, I’ve got pictures here.]