Shortly after the Gregorian New Year, I decided to really look into the fact that my Wii wouldn't connect to the internet reliably.  It was so slow that it would usually drop the connection with an error.  I went on Nintendo's support site, and was REALLY impressed.  Sure, it asked me for the platform (Wii) and kind of connection (wireless, wireless via USB dongle, etc), and the error message.  But then it asked me about what brand of wireless base station I had, told me models that didn't work well, and then gave me detailed configuration instructions specific to my model of base station.  And it worked flawlessly!  Who knew that most base stations operate on 11 frequencies within the standard and that numbers 1 and 11 were best for the Wii?  Okay, so half of you probably do, O Geeks, but I didn't and I was really impressed.

So I've been poking around the world of the Connected Wii.  There are some cool looking games for WiiWare, available only via download.  I went and got the Everybody Votes channel, and now ali_wildgoose , Zuko, and I are competing to predict how the world will vote on silly questions like whether you prefer the blue of a tropical ocean or the blue of the midnight sky.  For the record, Ali is the weirdest (votes furthest from popular opinion) but also the most accurate predictor of where the vote will go.  Zuko is the furthest from popular opinion and the worst predictor, presumably because he grew up isolated by his royalty and his general self-centeredness.  I'm halfway in between.  These things are important, I know!

There is enough cool stuff in WiiWare, in fact, that I really want some of it, but am keenly aware of my expenses right now.  Agony!  So here is my motivational plan: there is a bunch of stuff that I've been wanting to do for a while, but keep putting off as low-priority or as A Pain.  Each time I tick off one of those things, I become eligible for a WiiWare game, as budget allows.

The tasks are:

• Boxes/papers in my office: two credits, because damn there are a lot of boxes.  7 boxes a credit.
• Hanging shelves in the apartment.  We just got some little sheves for the kitchen and I still haven't hung some media shelves from when we moved in (!!!).  Hanging all of them is worth a credit.
• Four consecutive weeks of doing WiiFit four days a week.  No cheating, no excusing myself for a park walk.
• Catching up on Quicken AND using it to make monthly budgets

And the current list of games that look interesting (recommend others?):

• Mega Man 9
• Lost Winds
• World of Goo
• Art Style: Orbient (is the Art Style series what used to be Bit Generations or something like that?)

This feels silly but also fun.