Yep, today on 8th December, I am the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii! Quite a morning really. Got up early to sit online to try and grab some tickets on presale to see Muse live at Wembley Stadium in June. Yep Wembley Stadium. Anyway, managed to jump right in there and order tickets, so fingers crossed, it should all be good!

So yeah, ordered me Muse tickets then it was off round to my local HMV in Newbury to pick up my Wii. Have to say having heard all the stories online about people queuing that I was worried I might not get one, but yep I did.
Actually when I got there, they asked my name and said “Oh yep, we know you, you’re top of the list”, which is always nice to hear! Anyway, they take me over to one side of the shop and tell me to wait there. Turn’s out there is some guy kicking off because he didn’t get one, and they don’t want to cause a scene. Anyway off goes chappy, and yep, then it appears! So chuffed to bits, I leave the store with my Wii, Zelda and an SD card and toddle off to work to pick up some pies from the guys.
Anyway, I unpacked it and here it is:

And this is what you get with it:

Finally, here it is in all its tiny glory sat next to me TV:

I ought to post a full review, but hey I can’t be bothered. I just wanna go play. Basically, should you buy one? - yes. Is it any good? - You wouldn’t believe! Yep it truly is remarkable. The Wii-mote is fab - it gives you tactile and audio feedback and its use in Wii Sports is amazing. I had my work friends around at lunch and we had alot of fun. We had a game of bowling and a few rounds of golf, and it was like no other multiplayer game before. The Wii is definitely designed for playing with your mates. Not only is the whole control system completely intuitive, but you look really stupid too.
Anyway, I’ll post more Wii based stuff soon. The Virtual Console looks like its going to be fun too. Perfect for those boring evenings in. Instead of renting a movie, just buy an old classic.. NES games work out at £3.50, while SNES and Mega Drive games weigh in at about £5. I can see that getting really addictive. And I think the web browser and other online channels will be great too. All hail the might Wii!
Right back to some Tennis me thinks…

OK, so I phoned HMV today to find out what the status was with my Wii preorder - well I just wanted to know if I was getting one!
Anyway, whilst the manager couldn’t tell me exactly how many they were getting, he could tell me that they could only fill 20% of the pre-orders, but that I was one of the lucky few!!! So yep, I will definitely be picking mine up on Friday. Apparently if I phone tomorrow then they will be able to tell me what bundle deals they will be able to offer me, so I might be able to get a bit of a bargain.
This then got me thinking - I wonder what I could get for it on ebay? Well I know I’m certainly getting one! It looks as though at the moment they are going for about £260ish.

However, as tempting as it may be, I know that if I do sell it I won’t be able to get hold of one before Christmas, and well I’ve been waiting for ages, so sod it!

In other news, today I had a day off work (I’m off until next Tuesday). Didn’t really get up to a lot - watched lots of trashy TV and went for a wonder into town. Talking of the trashy TV, watched the new Vanessa’s Real Lives show today - it’s completely bonkers! The highlight had to be the woman who went on to talk about her fear of “naturally occurring holes”. Yep, the woman had a fear of holes. Holes in sponges, holes in vegatables, holes in rocks, and holes in cheese to name but a few.

They even brought out a covered tray with some holey-cheese on it. Even though she couldn’t see the cheese, she broke out in a sweat and became physically sick. Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.

Yep that’s right - the Nintendo Wii launches in the UK on Friday, and what with my pre-order being placed way back in September, my chances of having one on launch day are good - or so I’m told.

I can’t wait. In fact, I’m off work for a week now (I had to take the time before the end of the year), so I’m hoping to have a few relaxing days* jumping around in the living room playing Wii Sports, and then immersing myself into the world of Zelda.

*I’m not a gaming geek. Honest!!!

Yes, finally at long last (having taken well over a year!) I’ve actually managed to sit down and sort my site out! Most of the problem lied in trying to work out what blogging system to use, and the other main one was coming up with a design that I was happy with. In the end, I went with this design, which I hope you like too. I shall probably tweak it over time, but I think I’m actually happy with this one!

Anyway, on to more blog type things, well I’ve spent most of the weekend sorting out the site, uploading thousands of pictures to flickr and browsing the little shops of Newbury (when it wasn’t raining!). It all paid off though, when I managed to get some bargain priced salt and pepper mills in the Camp Hopson sale, and the Transformers movie on DVD for £1.97 in Woolworths - how awesome!

Anyway it’s back to work tomorrow, and as I don’t have much more to say at the moment, here’s an interesting photo…

Oh and don’t forget to update your feedreaders - my RSS feed has now moved to here.

Yay - at last I’ve managed to be bothered to actually sort myself out with a new blog - as you can see here - and a flickr pro account.

I’ve had a flickr account for quite a while, but after Cole showed me a funky flickr plugin for wordpress, allowing your flickr images to be easily added in to your wordpress posts, I decided to sod it and get Flickr Pro (only £13.44 per year), and to start uploading my photos to flickr. As of the time of writing, I currently have over 1,000(!) photos uploaded to flickr - and I’m playing with ways of linking flickr into my site.
It’s interesting to start seeing random people enjoying my photos, such as this one…

Things are starting to happen - at last!