There is no C in Wii

Mood: ?:/
Currently listening to: Nothing, but a ice-cream truck just went down the road

Last Thursday, Nintendo's secret weapon, the Wii was unveiled upon Australia and did a very just thing to suck $400+ AUD out of the wallet of every parent and child that bought into this new console. Already, critics are debating whether the Wii will be the console to end all console wars or just Nintendo's next counter-attack to their biggest rival Sony. Since Microsoft entered the console war and redefined the meaning of 'huge' with the big black brick known as the XBox, things have been looking a lot like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the console gaming industry.

*Note: A picture of the XBox could not be shown as it would be way too big and you would need a 200" monitor to see it. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Many gamers are speculating if the following of the Nintendo Wii will actually become a religion (ie. Wiiism with three i's), or just another ignored cult (eg. Halo Fanboys) or if Wii is actually the devil incarnate hiding within that harmless looking white shell. Leader of the Wiiist Movement, Andy Ess, commented, "The Nintendo Wii is the greatest console ever and Nintendo is the best and we loooooooove Pokemon!" Immediately following this interview, I had my associate pick up an empty Wii box and threw it on the ground and drive a car over it. Over 80% of the Wiiists who watched this horrible act of lunacy had to be admitted to hospital because of shock. The other 20% ran away to "call for reinforcements".

Now, I saw my fair share of pre-Wii excitement and criticism from both the gaming and non-gaming community. Remember the Nintendo Dolphin? No you don't but just pretend you do. When Nintendo revealed that their latest console was to be called the Nintendo Wii, people were shocked and threatened to boycott the next Pokemon Championship held on Planet Nintendo. People weren't sure whether it was a joke or whether Nintendo was planning to really release a console with such an absurd name. Some were even saying sick and tasteless speculations like, "I bet the Nintendo Puu is next." I, as a student of journalism and slave of satire, am here to dispel all doubt and clear everything up on Nintendo's behalf. Yes, on Nintendo's very own behalf.

Contrary to popular belief, "Wii" is not pronounced [wee]. It is actually pronounced [wai] as in 'why'. Seriously, I got this information from Nintendo's director, Bowser the turtle-shell dinosaur, distant relative of Barney the purple dinosaur. This means that people who've been calling the controller a "Wiimote", vaguely rhyming it with 'remote' have been totally wrong. It's a damn [waimote], get it right. And not only that, Nintendo's marketting expertise is really shown in the name of their new product. When people ask each other, "Why wouldn't you get a Wii?" and they pronounce Wii correctly, they would have said 'why' twice in the same sentence and when people hear this they will just laugh and go "Why wouldn't you get a Wii? Ha, ha, ha." and this is surely to become one of the great memes of all time. This just reminds me of the time when Final Fantasy X was released and people weren't sure if Tidus was pronounced [teedus] or [taidus]. It really brings me back and brings a tear dripping down my emo glasses.

Your local Nintendo correspondent,
Cii Wong (in this instance, it is more correct to pronounce my name as [see], not [sai])

C is for Casino Royale

Mood: Tired and unwell
Currently listening to: Chris Cornell - You Know My Name

Casino Royale happens to be the first Bond film I've seen since I turned critique-of-the-world, thus I cannot provide any comparison whatsoever to the previous Bond movies.

But when you look at the older Bond movies, we can clearly see that the opening was better; there was less gadgets; the Bond girl was more French and more gorgeous; the stunts weren't CGed and actually real + more.

I have three words: See it. It is really good.

I guess that was a little more than three words.

**WARNING: Counter-Strike fans will experience intense deja vu and/or withdrawal symptoms from doing something other than playing Counter-Strike during the embassy raid scene.

And yes, I said I was in no position to compare then I compared. I DIVIDED BY ZERO... O SHI-

TLC puts the C in Static

Mood: Slightly better than yesterday
Currently listening to: The dull and creepy sound of air conditioning

Having been a fanboy of webcomic MegaTokyo for a reasonable while now, I have always wondered if the whole deal with static affecting computer parts was really true. I had never really attempted at putting a computer together before at my life until today (Geek's things-to-do list, #15).

As I used my trustworthy stanley knife to cut open the box containing the tower, which has been called a variety of other things, such as: case, rook, fortress, skyscraper, bird's nest and top-of-the-world, I was greeted with a metallic box wrapped in a plastic bag and cushioned with some white foam (I was unaware that foam came in any other colour, but behold, at work I was greeted with a large quantity of pink foam which is used to cushion hard drives in their bulk box). I turned the cardboard box upside-down to slip it out, as anyone would have logically done, and then proceeded to strip the tower of its plastic wrapping. At this point, I was zapped. This wasn't your everyday run-of-the-mill light static discharge. What I experienced was one hell-of-a-mongoose-beastly discharge. It was big. I could literally feel the force of the discharge pushing my fingers away from the case. The only bad thing about this experience was that there was no lightshow.

And so, after being shocked by the static discharge (ha, ha, ha, pun intended?) I start taking away the side panels so I could install the hard drive, DVD-rom and floppy drive (I honestly don't know why ANYONE needs a floppy drive anymore; nobody could take one even if you paid them). While I'm innocently trying to get the "fake" drive panels off the case (which looked very real and funky), I cut my finger along the metal frames inside the case. I must concede I was "asking for it" when I stuck my hand in there without even looking where it was headed.

So anyways, to cut a long story short, I install the floppy drive, and then I install the DVD-rom. Now this is the climax of my epic tale. I picked up the hard drive, which was wrapped in some strange dark, transparent, hard plastic pouch which looked like it was polarized (like sunglasses). Sealing the bag was a rather amusing sticker which said:

The content is made in Thailand

The pouch said something like this (I will photowhore the pouch when it's time to finish work and go home):

DY3650 Static Shielding
Bag

DOU YEE LOT NO.
06060053

REUSABLE CONTAINER
DO NOT
DESTROY

ATTENTION

HANDLE ONLY
AT

STATIC SAFE
WORK

STATIONS

ELECTROSTATIC

SENSITIVE

DEVICES

FRAGILE

HANDLE WITH
CARE

Now, I could not get over the hilarity of this warning label. DO NOT DESTROY? I honestly couldn't think of how anyone could possibly destroy this hard plastic quasi-aluminium polarized plastic silky shiny pouch thing. Heck, I'm not even sure if a nuclear bomb could destroy it. But, who would have thought, there was a slight incision where you were meant to tear it, and I, being the tank that I am, had a go at it and succeeded in tearing it. However, me being able to tear it is besides the point. I am still unable to understand how anyone can destroy this pouch, like, vaporize it or something. This stuff is made from some off-world material, seriously.

And just some miscellaneous information: no, I did not take off my clothes. ;3