We Wiilly, Wiilly Wanna Wii

I've been aware for over a year of the planned release of Wii. Last year, when the first videos started appearing around the 'net, I thought that controller looked really awesome. When Xbox 360 came out I thought we HAD to be soon to follow but then I heard it was still going to be another 6 months. Then another report in the summer said it would be released before the holiday season. I thought, wow, they must have had problems getting it to work for it to take so long. Maybe it's not all that great?

Well, I have seen all the videos and heard the hype... and because we don't have much money, I just was not sure that I would go out and trade in my modded Gamecube for a Wii which wasn't going to be that different or may not be able to deliver what it promises.

Our local library closes quite early except on one night of the week - Tuesday, it is open until 8pm. We don't often get to go there because of the short hours, but Tuesday my daughter had a Sparks meeting held there so we decided to hang around the library while she attended her thing in the "kid's room". The library also has what they call a "Teen Room", where they have video games like an Xbox and PCs for use by teens.

And on Tuesday, one of the kids in the teen room brought in his Wii.

The videos don't even touch on the story. Watching kids play Tennis, Golf and Boxing on the Wii was just amazing. It was fantastic seeing it work, and the realistic movements they used to control their in-game players. There didn't seem to be any radical glitches or problems, it was just smooth and it was delivering on gaming that was an order of magnitude over and above what M$'s Xbox and Sony's Play Stations deliver. The kids were playing like they were IN the game. They were moving around and instead of mashing buttons were swinging virtual rackets and clubs in the form of the Wiimote control.

Nintendo has really come through. Sure, the console does not have the uber-powered graphics that the others offer but let's thing for a minute - what has been more popular, the straightforward Gameboy systems with basic graphics or the hugely overpriced PSP? It is the game play that counts and that is where Nintendo has delivered and taken the lead - again. Adding to that that you can plug in Gamecube and old Nintendo controllers and download all the "retro" Nintendo games to your console, and that you can still play every one of your Gamecube games because it is completely backwards compatible, and the Wii may be the best gaming machine in the history of gaming machines.

Unfortunately, even though it is the least expensive of any of the new consoles, we can't afford one and I don't know when we will be able to.

Having so little money sucks. Anyone want to give a Wii to a low-income family for a holiday gift? I promise, we'll be sure to give it a good home.

The Camera Giveth - and the Camera Taketh Away!

An interesting story at the CBC about some new digital cameras equipped with a "slimming" feature. If you read it, you get down to the end of the story where some Sociology Prof nitwit starts expressing all these "concerns" about the cameras.

Apparently the woman has never heard of Photoshop - I guess that's understandable, after all she is a Professor at the University of Winnipeg, not exactly what you would call a technological capital in Canada. Basically all the cameras do internally is change the aspect ratio of the photo slightly - which also leads to the enhancement (and I use THAT term very loosely) being called the "pointy-head" feature. Anyone can make a picture look thinner, there are lots of freeware solutions out there to let you edit pictures and most cameras have at least one piece of image-manipulation software bundled with them. If someone has issues with their body and wants to make themselves look different, that have been able to do it since digital photography began. Heck, they could have done it in a dark room back when people had to have film processed and developed, it doesn't take much manipulation using your enlarger to adjust a photo's aspect ratio either. Perhaps her concern is that now it is "easier"? Maybe I'm too conceited for my own good, but as a photographer myself I have never considered taking a good-quality picture "easy", and having such a feature on cameras might (although I doubt it) reduce some of the downright AWFUL pictures some people take. If someone has body image issues then the least of the concerns about them should be whether or not they can take a picture of themselves looking thinner. Maybe she'd like to ban funhouse mirrors, as well?

If you aren't even sure that the old chestnut about the camera adding 10 lbs is accurate, well, it is. It is simply a question of how an image is interpretted - where your eyes see in 3 dimensions and you can discern that a person is not flat, the camera cannot. Without taking the time to do a lot of lighting work to enhance and show shadows and depth, a photo more or less simply interprets all the points of you the same - and making you look much wider and therefore heavier. It explains why some people are notoriously unphotogenic too - they have features that just don't interpret when placed on a single plane. Often portrait photographers take shots of you sitting around a 45 degree angle to the camera to help reduce this effect. The foreshortening effect on an angle helps demonstrate the real distance across your body, rather than forcing your eye to (poorly) interpolate how close or far the center of your thorax is from the point of the hip or shoulder as happens in a straight-on shot.

Confused? So am I. Just understand that a camera is taking something 3D and making it 2D and without a skilled photographer, you're going to look heavier. Try taking a picture of a car straight from the front, and compare it to what you can see actually looking at the car - sometimes they don't even look like the same vehicle. The camera adds 2 tonnes, man! It turned my Cavalier into a Hummer!

Belinda's Boner

I hope by now you have all heard about the Ralph Klein comments at a celebrity roast (see video below).

Sad thing is that it is true. Stronach - bitch that she is - doesn't give a rats ass about what party she is involved in, she has some delusional idea that she should be the Prime Minister of Canada. I am sure she would soon jump to the Green Party if she thought they were going to win the next election and had an upcoming possible leadership change.

Stronach is a power-hungry freak show. My opinion was that she was involved with Peter MacKay hoping that if she could not be in power, she could be close to power... then crossed to the Liberals hoping that when Mr. Dithers inevitibly stepped down she'd be able to try out for that spot. Then when she realised she didn't have a shot at it, instead of admitting that she was just outclassed, she said she wasn't running because she doesn't like the way the party chooses a leader.

Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought that at least PART of the idea of seeking public office was that you wanted to serve the people. Not so with Stronach; to her it's like some kind of fashion show-beauty contest. I don't know if anyone has told her that she would not, in fact, be Canada's first female Prime Minister because I don't think she realises that either. She's a spoiled-brat, multi-millionaire heiress seeking attention and acclaim without any actual experience to warrant holding an important position.

Belinda Stronach - Canada's very own Paris Hilton.