Friday, July 18, 2008

where Wii Fit pulls down my pants and makes me cry.

I’m still a big fan of the Wii. In fact, of all the games things I’ve ever messed with, that’s the only one I’m sort of giddy and dreamy over. And people all around me have them, which means I hate people all around me. (sigh) The newest cool Wii thing is the Wii Fit. It’s a game! No, it’s an exercise device! WAIT, you’re both right! And it’s also the first sign of the apocolypse. (up next: Carrot Top for Senate.)

Right, so someone I know (and this time we’re protecting their innocence by using NO NAMES) just got a Wii fit, inviting me to check it out. If someone gives you this opportunity it will SEEM like a good idea. But it is really a trap and you should run away. And your friends who invited you are really just wanting to spread the abuse! And they don’t actually love you! (or they’re very skinny and don’t realize what they’re offering.)

Wii Fit is two things: extremely cool, and MEAN!! And you have to claw through the MEAN to get to the extremely cool. You set up one of those “mii” things, right? You’ll notice that those things aren’t particularly detailed; they’re innocent and simple. They don’t expect you to include your droopy eye or your slight limp or your secret incontenence – just hair color and eye color and maybe height or a kicky little hairdo! But when you take your innocent, helpless mii and run it through the registration of the Wii Fit bad things could happen. I’m just sayin’.

Here’s one thing I do like about the Wii Fit: though I’m sure the fancy pad thing that you stand on has the ability to determine your weight, it doesn’t tell you what it is. It does not bill itself as “most expensive scale ever” But it does ask you for your height and your age. And then the first bit of evil: it takes that precious little mii, all innocent and simple and not hurting anyone, and it throws it up next to a range of, oh lets call them body types. Ranging from something like “skinny” to “normal” to “overweight” to “obese” (yes, it uses the “O” word.) The arrow zooms up and down this range and then it lands somewhere. For instance, if you are ME, it lands on OBESE. According to that rat bastard the Wii Fit, I’m OBESE! And then, just to show you who’s boss the damn thing takes your mii and MAKES IT FAT! Like “First I call you names, fatty-fatty-fat-fat, and then I make your Mii my bitch! Next I’m going to have your Mii eat a bunch of Twinkies and drink an entire Big Gulp! You are FAAAAAAT!”

And does it stop there? Oh no! The festival of abuse is only half-through! (I’m telling you this so that you can weigh your options before you step on the magical pad. Sure, virtual hoola hoops SOUNDS fun, but is it worth the mind games and manipulation? IS IT???) Next the Wii Fit makes you do this balance test where you sway and lean and bend over and I KNOW that there are scores of robot cameras flying around the country filming people doing this in their living rooms for some robo-gag reel that our robot overlords will watch at the Christmas party after they take over the world! Once the balance thing is done if you didn’t balance just right it MOCKS YOU! “Do you find you trip when you walk?” DO YOU FIND MY FOOT UP YOUR WII ASS???

After all of this there’s still one more super-awesome part: your Wii Fit Age. In other words, “now that I’ve told you that you’re both fat and also clumsy, I’m gonna top it off by calling you old before your time. Also I’ll ask if you wore that shirt in public and make you spell endocrine.”

Get this: my friends are both in better shape than I am in real life, and neither of them were honored with the “obese” title, and yet their Wii Fit ages were OLDER than they were, while mine was YOUNGER. And the only thing with which I had more success was the balance test. The message I took from this was “young people have good balance.” Which I KNOW is not true, because the youngest person I know is Princess Long Toes and she is SUPER easy to knock over! Heck, just give her a tiny nudge and she’ll fall right on her ass! She can’t even WALK! So I fear I must call shenanigans on the Wii Fit for that.

Where was I? Oh yeah, fat but with fabulous balance. (by the way, a quality I’m sure most men are really looking for. I’ve already added it to my profile on the free man-attracting website: “not slim, but exceptional balance. Will consider yoga positions during sex!”)

After ALL of this you get to do the Wii Fit stuff, and this is the worst part of all: it’s super-cool! Seriously! There are BUNCHES of things and they’re challenging and fun and yet they really do seem like they’re fit-inducing! Not just aerobic stuff (which we all knew was coming once we worked up a major sweat boxing virtual-dude with the Wii Sports) but also balance stuff (let us all bow our head for a moment of silence for my friend who plummeted to her death off of the tight rope. Like 6 times…) and yoga stuff and strength stuff… Like I think this could make sit-ups actually fun. And I HATE sit-ups!

In the end, even though I felt like I was being hazed for the first 20 minutes, the Wii Fit is still something that I covet and envy and super-want. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go walk around the house with a book on my head to give me a feeling of superiority. Obese, well-balanced superiority.

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