Wiiping

Started: 2006-12-09 19:45:17

Submitted: 2006-12-09 20:29:11

Visibility: World-readable

"Wiiping" is supposed to be a combination of "Wii" and "Shopping". This is a verb which means "to shop for a Nintendo Wii". At least, in my little world.

After a bit of waffling about whether I would run out and buy Nintendo's latest console, I eventually decided it would be amusing, especially since the Internet seems to agree that the console is entirely entertaining. And it has new, super-cool versions of some of my favorite franchises, namely Monkey Ball, Zelda, and (sometime next year) Metroid. (No word on a Pikmin sequel, which one could probably dub Wiikmin.)

Last Sunday I set out in search of a Wii. My local Best Buy was sold out; the guy I talked to suggested they may get more through UPS shipments by late morning on Monday or Friday. This poses a minor problem, since I have a day job in Boulder. My day job is rather flexible, so on Friday I worked from home in the morning (which worked roughly 95% as well as I could have hoped) and headed to my local Best Buy to see if any Wiis appeared. None had. I called the other stores in the greater Longmont area (Broomfield, Loveland, and Westminster) and got the same basic story. Some stores suggested I check the print ads; if they mention Wii, that means they will have some to release. Westminster seemed the most optimistic, so I may get to drive down there tomorrow morning. And, in all probability, still be thwarted.

Footnote: Working from home: I cleared off the table in the basement I call my desk, which gave enough space to put Darnassus (my work notebook) on the table and plug it into Ziyal's CRT. This emulates the setup I have on my desk at work (minus the picture window with a great view of Mount Sanitas); while developing set-top-box software, I use VMWare to run Linux on my CRT, where I run X and have all the terminal windows I can fit on my screen. (Being a 1600x1200 CRT, it gives me plenty of room, although the code I'm working on typically doesn't limit itself to 80 columns -- so since I have the biggest monitor, I win. I'd also complain about the entirely inconsistent tabs within the same source file, but it's really not worth it.) Through my employer's VPN, I could ssh into the set-top-box sitting on my desk and copy new binaries. The cats didn't bother me too much; the only real issue was the cold in the basement. I dug my slippers out of the closet, which worked well for my feet, except my fingers were chilled after three hours. I'll have to come up with a better solution for the Megafest, and if I plan to do this again.

Footnote: On Thursday, I took a long lunch to climb Mount Sanitas. The south ridge was almost entirely snow-free; for my descent on the east ridge, I was glad I had my traction assistance handy, at least until I got to the valley and found more mud than ice. For my next hike I may want to bring a stuff sack to put my traction assistance after it's entirely muddy.

In unrelated news, Ziyal's chip fan died sometime Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, after a week of making horrible noises. I had visions of catastrophic hardware failure, but she came back to life with a new chip fan and all seems well at the moment. When Ivanova died sometime this spring, I moved most of my network support (dhcp, dns) to Ziyal but contemplated the merits of a dedicated server for that role.