Bobcats are Wii, or Nice Shot Clefty!

For those one or two of you that actually saw my last post (and didn't delete it faster than an ad for an astounding way to make zillions working at home) I normally wouldn't be writing again so soon after a post, but an event occurred this week, the likes of which we may never see again in our lifetimes. Indeed, it was truly an historic spectacle of the first order. Am I speaking of the inauguration of the first black president in the history of our great nation? Hardly. By comparison, the events of Saturday, January 24th at the LaForce household dwarfs the inauguration in historical significance. It made the inauguration as significant as a mere bicycle ride was to the Wright brothers debut of the flying machine. The world will never be the same.
Amazingly, Saturday dawned much the same as countless other Saturday's in which the Bobcat Six (Yes the same six banished forever from the tropical paradise known as the Tahitian Islands) get together, over eat, liquored up, and then fall asleep (usually during one of Rose's er, uh, stories). It was scheduled to be "German" day, a reflection of the fact that my dear wife Sandy invited our soon to be ex-friends to the house for a day consuming cabbage rolls, pierogis, fruit of the vine, various barley malt mixtures, snacks and curdled milk products. Liederhosen optional. And this is the way the day progressed. At least initially. Somewhere along the line it was "mutually" decided we should play some games on the "Wii". To be fair, this part of the get together may have, in fact, been previously agreed to by the female Bobcats during their many telephone calls necessary to achieving the maximum efficiency in one of our little soiree's. So as usual, the men were totally clueless as to the plans for the day. So, it was decided to warm up the old Wii machine and engage in some friendly competitions to enhance our afternoon's conversational enjoyment.
Now at the outset, those of you that know me, will undoubtedly know that I, throughout the rest of the entire time of playing various games, kept absolutely quiet, without making snide remarks at any time (even though, believe you mii, there were vast mountains of justification). Nor did I once give deceptive tips or directions to the combatants, I mean players, in order to elevate my own chances of victory. There was no laughter or ridicule on my part whatsoever. In short, I remained throughout the evening, the picture of graciousness and decorum.
The first order of business was for Cathy and Craig to try out the Wii Fit program as they are already the proud possessors of a Wii system, and after having it for several years now, have played about 2 games. As I understand, Cathy was actually told by the game system itself to, and I quote "Give it up and go drink liquor!" I was further told that the Bennett's had recieved a letter from Nintendo's lawyers that if Cathy ever tried to play the Wii again, a warrant would be issued for her arrest. The reason for Nintendo's concern soon became evident. In trying out the Wii Fit game you must, upon pain of death, take what they euphemistically call at "body test".
Now, Cathy in her haste to get started, knowing she was at our house and thus effectively beyond any Nintendo long arm statutes, proceeded to pick as her "Mii" my daughter's character for the analysis. Without getting into the physics of height, age and weight ratio's the game essentially took Melanie's age, height and weight, and applied them to Cathy in order to do a "fitness" evaluation. And, Cathy being somewhat taller and just a tad, a tad, a wee bit heavier than Mel, was irate when the Wii Fit cooly and calmly calculated her "statistics" and pronounced in that tinny robotish voice "You're Obese." Well something hit the fan and I was extremely happy that it would be Craig going home with her that night and not myself. However, to her credit, Cath calmed to a slow boil when we explained that the Wii innocently used Mel's statistics to evaluate, and was not, in fact involved in a massive, video game plot to ridicule and demean her. They figured she was doing fine on her own.
For about an hour, we tread around Cathy as though she were a hungry lion, soothingly feeding her cheese, crackers and a few vats, I mean, sips of wine. Eventually, it was felt that it would be safe to suggest that we play some other games on the Wii, to which she agreed, but only if we would shoot the Wii Fit board with a machine gun.
With Cathy back in the fold we decided it would loads of fun to play some games, but we decided that we should create new characters for all Cathy, Bean, Rose and Dude that would accurately portray them in the most complimentary fashion. After Bean and Dude made up their characters, which looked like Brad Pitt and Robert Redford (in his younger days, of course) I naively allowed them to make the characters representing Rose and Cathy. This was only accomplished because the women had foolishly retired to the kitchen to cook a little and have some more liquid refreshments in order to be fully prepared to battle the menfolk. Of course, with total freedom, Dude made Rose's caricature a mirror image of her mother, Martha. Bean was not as kind. The most accurate description I can give of Cathy's character, was that it closely resembled Momma from the "Throw Momma From the Train", but with a cleft palate and fatter. You can imagine how well Cathy took this.
Somehow we persuaded the girls to play some bowling games, and these proceeded enjoyably and uneventfully and everyone was getting along famously. After several games someone, and I blame Craig, suggested we try a game of golf in which the couples would play as teams. This was an extremely bad idea. But we are young and foolish, so off we went. By the way, the reason I know that Dude did not suggest we play golf, apart from his infinite patience with Rose's game playing abilities, was because Dude judges the success of a game of golf by how it sounds. In other words, he could slice a shot into Pittsburg and if it sounded good that would be all that mattered.
For the uniformed, the way you play a game of video golf with a Wii, is to try and coordinate your shots with animated figures, on a golf course layout, using the Wii controller as a golf club, and the computer somehow analyzes things like the strength of a swing and the terrain and wind and produces a shot that, more or less, resembles actually playing golf, but without the beer carts, bugs and heat stroke. In order to gauge the strength of your swing, and thereby letting you know how hard to swing, a "power bar" with increasing levels of distance shows up on the screen and you try to keep your swing strength within the bar. It also compensates and penalizes players for things like landing in the rough or a sand trap by restricting the power of your swing's accuracy.
On the first hole, the men teed off and the shots were all magnificent, right in the center of the fairway. Then came the girls. It became immediately apparent there would be big and I mean big, trouble when neither Cathy or Rose could quite grasp the concept of holding a button down during a swing, and not holding the button down when practicing their swing. This led to much confusion and bloodletting. Sandy did not have as much problem with this concept of the game since she has played many other games on the Wii, and so knew the basics. This lack of ability to remember to hold down the button led to incidents of swinging and totally missing the ball, a very hard thing to do with a video game, and also to much consternation when their characters would hit the ball without them trying to hit the ball, and doing so only because they held the button down while talking and gesturing. The other problem the ladies seemed to have was one of developing a sense of touch in their shots and by that I mean learning how hard to hit the ball in situations where a full swing was not required. For instance, and again an omen of dark clouds on the horizon, on the first green after managing to get the ball about two inches from the hole requiring a simple tap in, Cathy, Rose and Sandy gently hit the putts with a bazooka.
And thus it went. The guys, with the notable exception of Dude (for reasons already mentioned) would get the ball in great position close to the green or the hole itself, and the women would blast it into kingdom come. On several holes the Wii pleaded with us to give up and go to the next hole because we were melting the its circuits setting off fire alarms all over the city. During the entire time the men (me excluded like I already said) would give the girls tips and directions at lining up shots, how hard to swing and how to compensate for the wind, all with the same result. The girls would launch the ball like a Titan missle. At one point, Rose became so terrified of hitting the ball too hard, she just curled up and whimpered piteously, "I'm scared!" It was pathetic. After what seemed months, we mercifully finished the game. Somehow the Wii, the men and the dogs survived.
That is enough for any masochist right? Wrong. For some reason, and I blame the alcohol we persuaded Cathy and Rose, MY GOD! CATHY AND ROSE! to try out the tennis game. Surpisingly after several hours of missteps and bitching in general, they seemed to get the hang of it and really get into the game. They moved back and forth and for some reason forward like they were actually on the court. Now you might think this a good thing. Then you might be an idiot. Getting into the activity did not make it better, it made it worse, and dangerous. The evening came to a crashing halt when Rose, doing her best Monica Seles impression, lunged at the TV set, about to deliver a crushing forehand smash to Cathy's backhand, whomped the TV with controller with enough force to be registered on several seismographs.
The reason I say this is because I don't believe we (or should I say Wii) as a group have laughed so hard and so much as we did during these games over the eons we have known each other. So, forget what I said last time, the Wii is actually a lot of fun. Of course, being well over 50, uncoordinated and stupid helps.
Now I have to get going I here the Nintendo police have orders to shoot to kill.

Love
Dad

Wii Bii Iidiots.

Been awhile, I know, but industrial strength writer's block, mega apathy, supersized malaise and no life whatsoever will do that. The final ingredient to the mix however, my having one foot on Methusalah's age and the other on a banana peel, plays prominently into this piece. Approaching the "golden years" at the same speed as a runaway freight train, I find myself noticing more and more of God's wit and humor in the practical jokes he plays as we age. "This will be a good one, " it says, and presto, I'm bald! What a kidder that Great I Am is. I mean if he had to make me lose something, why couldn't it be weight?

There have been a couple of incidents in the last several months that have really caused my reflection on the passage of time and its effects on the mind and body. And these are not good reflections. More like fun house reflections. The first of these incidents was when my lovely wife, or as I like to call her, Hecate (look it up, everyone except Sandy that is), decided that We needed a Wii. Now I am way too sophisticated for any wee-wii jokes here, although I could come up with several. Anyway, the reasoning was it could be our Christmas gift to ourselves. We could have saved a lot of trouble pain and money if we just bought dueling pistols.

For the unenlightened, the Wii is an insanely popular video game "experience" made by the good sadists at Nintendo. Wii is not your run of the mill, humdrum, everyday kind of video game, but a system that creates virtual experiences that allow you to physically participate in a variety of activities that are designed to optimize both your gaming enjoyment and the depletion of your bank accounts. In future divorce cases, custody of the Wii will surpass custody of the children in terms of most coveted assets. I can see the lawyer ads now..."Call Dewey, Cheatam and Howe at 1-800-ASSHOLE because we're tough and we'll fight to get your Wii from the rotten son of a buzzard adulter, spouse abuser your married to, all at bargain basement prices."

Anyway, once your have shelled out the kids' college fund for a Wii system, you then can begin consigning your paychecks directly to Nintendo for the privilege of buying the next "big game" they put out, which everyone MUST HAVE, OR ELSE YOU'RE NOT FIT TO LIVE IN CIVILIZED SOCIETY AND ARE LOWER THAN WHALE POOP OR ELSE YOU WOULD NOT DEPRIVE YOUR FAMILY OF THIS UTMOST NECESSITY OF LIFE! Not that I'm bitter.

Now that is all well and good, but they don't make your aware of the Wii side effects which are way worse than any of those chintzy little effects you get from Ambien, like sleep walking, sexual promiscuity or waking up and finding yourself in the hoosgow for breaking into the local Food King and eating the entire frozen pizza section. Wii side effects are much more insidious and debilitating. To start, before you can even begin playing the games, you need to create a cartoon version of yourself (called surprise, a Mii) to represent you in all of your Wii activities. I created what I thought was the perfect Mii and was promptly laughed all the way to Pittsburg by my ruthless and thoughtless family members, most of whom are still hospitalized from the laughing spells they incurred whenever my character came on the screen. And they deserve it. Other than becoming the first laughing stock in your circle of friends, more nasty things will begin to happen. You will decide that you need the Wii Fit system which allows you to not only play fun exercise games, but experience the very real strains, pains and bruises that normally accompany being the running back for the New York Giants, but it has music to accompany all your exercises that will move into your brain and immediately take precedence over all the ridiculous commercial jingles that you once thought you would be hearing in your mind on your deathbed. These songs go straight for the aural jugular and lodge immovably and irrevocably in your spinal cord. I'll tell you this, the first time I catch myself humming out loud the ditty that plays during the aerobic stepping exercise, I am going to wrap my lips around the nearest gas pipe.

Getting back to how aging fits into all of this, it is my understanding that the Wii is now being used as an innovative source of rehab and conditioning for people in nursing homes and as a preventative against the onslaught of aging by those looking to keep young and fit. I am quite sure this is a conspiracy between the Nintendo people and the osteopathic professional associations to increase business.

The other incident could be classified really as several incidents and are due to the fact, as I've said many times, that I didn't learn my lesson in the Marines about not volunteering. The AARP, of which I am now a proud card carrying member, was looking for people to help the elderly, the really elderly, do their upcoming tax returns. Sounds nice doesn't it? Yeah, right!

I called the area coordinator for the Lake County program and he informed me I needed to attend training. Well, how much work could that be, so I said OK. Around Christmas time I get a letter from the guy telling me I had to go to two weeks of all day training and take a certification test to meet IRS (whom I love as much as my own children, maybe more so, hey you never know who might be reading this) regulations.

Anyway, when I showed up for the first class, I found that the average age of my classmates was a tad over 112. At the door they handed out a stack of IRS training material the size of a small skyscraper along with an extra strength truss. Several of the ladies had enlisted the help of a local front end loader. I wish I'd thought of that! The classroom that first week was in a community center I am convinced doubles as an extraordinary rendition site. It was a dungeon, er, I mean basement, with whitewashed brick walls, no windows with a porthole for passing the bread and water to the inmates. Since this was the basement of the building the boiler room of course, was about two feet from the room. Hence another fear of growing old. It had to be about 800 degrees in there and 90 percent of the class kept their winter coats on for the duration of class. I can't wait until I am 80 (God forbid) and I vacation at the beach in a Depends bathing suit and gortex parka. Some image eh? No barfing on my watch, please. I wear a very expensive Timex.

AARP was good enough to supply plenty of hot water for tea, decaf coffee (which is like making love in a canoe) and Dick Cheney autographed Nike defibrillators. I must say that this was the only class I ever participated in with an ambulance on site. Now the instructors were, unbelievable as it sounds, older than the entire class. Combined! This made for some humorous situations involving misunderstanding of what the instructors and the class were saying. For instance:
Student: "What is depreciation?"
Instructor: "Out the door, down the hall on your left. Don't forget to flush."

However, a good time was had by all, and we all agreed to get together next year for a wild party at the Sea of Tranquility Nursing Home, or the next funeral, whichever comes first.
So everyone enjoy your birthdays before they become "How much time have I got left" days. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm bald.

Love
Dad