Girl Meets Geekdom

Since it seems that people are still complaining about the Wii, I figured I’d throw in my two cents as well.

For those of you who don’t follow the game industry, Nintendo announced late last week that their new console, the Nintendo Revolution, with its uniquely designed controller that will revolutionize gaming, will now be called the Wii. (Pronounced “wee”)

Immediately after the announcement, the internet universe exploded with complaints, heated debates, and even hints of a conspiracy theory.

What I want to know is, how did something as cool as the “Nintendo Revolution” become the “Wii?” Here’s what the official Nintendo Revolution/Wii website had to say:

Introducing Wii.

As in “we.”
While the code-name “Revolution” expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.
Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?
Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone.
Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.
Wii has a distinctive “ii” spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.
And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.

So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.

Because, it’s really not about you or me.

It’s about Wii.

And together, Wii will change everything.

“Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak???” Yeah…needless to say people of English speaking countries will remember it as slang for “urinate.” In fact, when you first look at the word, it’s not even clear how it’s pronounced. I personally thought it was the “why.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but “wii” doesn’t even have a character in the Japanese writing system. In fact, it’s not even a sound in Chinese, and you have four tones per phoneme to choose from!

And then there is the issue of coolness. I mean, let’s face it, video games are already associated with a sort of geekhood that isn’t exactly the epitome of “cool.” At least the PS2 and Xbox tried to fit into that culture. Being a huge Wii fan almost feels like your asking to be teased. Now just sit back for a moment and pretend you’re back in grade school. Now think about all the jokes you can make about the nerdy kid who plays too much Wii. I rest my case.

…And we won 1st place!!! (Despite the fact that at least one of the three judges thought it was a single player game…)

I’m not suppose to make a big deal about it yet, since the official website is not yet up…but I figured it’s not like I get a LOT of traffic at this website anyway. However, just to respect that not making a big deal part, I’ll save my comments for another post, especially after the games become available for download.

I really wished I knew about all these competitions when I was younger. It’s so sad that this will be my last chance to participate in student competitions.

Now with Pixar’s Ed Catmull and John Lasseter running the show at Disney, one must wonder what will happen to the future of Disney? Pixar is a studio attempting to hit a one-film a year production rate. Disney makes a lot more movies…some of questionable merit. Rumor has it that production on Toy Story 3 has already halted. What about Rapunzel Unbraided, Pinocchio 2000, and that Snow White remake? What will happen to those films? I heard Ed Catmull give a talk on the production crisis of Toy Story 2. They were not happy with the story, production halted, and they did a frantic rewrite. Frankly, every Pixar film has gone through a similar crisis, or so I hear. Can they impose that on the 3 production Disney has in the works? After all, Pixar has something like 3 or 4 shows either in development or production as we speak. Will they start to neglect their own productions? Will Disney become the studio that produces the crappier secondary features made to compete with PDI Dreamwork’s winter features? One thing’s for sure, Dreamwork just lost their edge with numbers. In the future, I’m sure we will see as many Disney/Pixar films as PDI Dreamworks.

Yes, I?’ve been absent for a month. I took winter break as an opportunity to pursue some random projects which I will post as I finish up. For my first post-hiatus post, I was going to write something totally relevant about the game industry or computer graphics or something, but I figured I’d scrap all that and, in honor of my new “off-topic” section, write about something completely and utterly random: body wash and loofahs.

After a conversation with my roommate’s semi-boyfriend today, it has been brought to my attention that guys are more “soap” people and tend not to go for the body wash-loofah combination. For those enlightened male individuals out there who have figured out the inferiority of bar soap, I applaud you. As for the rest of you, read on.

Forget the gentle moisturizing components of bodywash that attract the female audiences. Body wash is just more practical than bar soap. It comes conveniently bottled so its contents don’t contact the shower water, and you can bring it with you to the gym, or pour it into a smaller container for travel purposes. But most importantly it saves time. I mean, think about what you have to do to clean yourself with bar soap. First you apply the soap, which is slipping around in your hand, over the part of your body that you are cleaning. Then you have to put the soap down to work up the lather, and you have to pick up the soap again to clean another part of your body. Very often, the soap will be slippery and fall to the bottom of the shower and you have to pick it up. Of course every time you do this, the soap is getting smaller from sitting in the water. It’s completely wasteful! You can never use ALL of a bar soap. With body wash, you pour just a little into a loofah and very shortly after the loofah contacts your skin, you get a lather. Plus the lather does not go away until you are ready to rinse you loofah. Think of the efficiency. Bar soap is like washing dishes with detergent and no sponge! Why would you still use bar soap? It’s ridiculously inefficient!

As for the concern that it’s girly, pretty much every brand of bar soap has a bodywash equivalent. And sure, while you can buy very fancy scented body wash, the normal body wash that sit next to the bar soap on store shelves smell like soap. And if you still think that something as efficient as bodywash is girly, maybe it just goes to prove that women are smarter.

Anyway, I promise, next post will be on video games or something.

Okay okay, it’s an obvious fact that maintaining a blog isn’t my thing. But, I swear, I have been meaning to update for the past three weeks, only to find my webpage rather dead. In fact, it is still dead…and I don’t know why. But, it is in the process of being fixed, and I do intend to post interesting blurbs on a somewhat regular basis, I swear!!!