I was watching an interesting program on public television about the elasticity of the brain and new thoughts in how to keep your brain young and physically in shape.

As I was watching the show, it kept breaking for the public tv version of an infomercial. They try to sell elderly people a mental fitness video game and they accept payments in the form of donations. I%u2019m sure the game helps, but its still just a video game and its also still just an infomercial. I%u2019m not being critical of public television nor what they have to do to stay afloat, but I am calling it what it is.



Anyway after the show, or actually about three quarters of the way through the show, I let tivo do its thing and I went out to the barn to play Wii. (Yes we keep our Wii in a barn. When I was growing up chickens used to famously play electronic versions of tic tac do, so why not wii?)



I waited my turn in line for the Wii and just as soon as the pig beat the goat at bowling, it was my turn.

I strapped the wrist guard on and scrunched some rubber bands around my pant legs so that the barn mice wouldn%u2019t run up my leg while I was playing tennis. That wasn%u2019t the kind of %u2018wii-eeeee!%u2019 I wanted to play.



So anyway, I took a lesson out of the tv show and played several rounds of golf. Golf is not a sport I am good at in real life nor in the Wiinerverse and I was purposely trying to improve something that was outside of my comfort zone so that I could recondition some neurons and fire up some new synapsis and generally remap my brain like a hippy on peyote with an eye for getting laid.



I played three round at the beginners level, then 3 more at the intermediate, then 9 holes after that. By the time I got to 9 holes, I was holding my own with about 3 up until the 9th hole, when I lost it and started shanking the ball into the water over and over again trying to do an impossible shot like the scene in Tin Cup but without the sexy psychiatrist(Rene Russo) to jump me in a trailer after the match. That last hole put me at 15 or something (Wiinerds will catch my white lie right away.)



Then I went and played Tennis. In real life I like to play tennis, even though in real life I never get the chance any more. I played in high school until I was screwed over by my Tennis coach. It was a weird life lesson that I still face every now an then. The coach set the rules for advancement. I followed the rules, won and won and won and should of advanced, but was held back by the coach. So I told him to F off and stopped playing tennis competitively. He was fired a few years later for giving students one of the answers to a state placement test. I do not wish him any ill will, but I needed that type of authority figure as a teenager about as much as I needed another bipolar father.



So anyway, here I am in the barn playing tennis on the Wii with the pig and goat cooling off on the sidelines and a horse snorting its derision in the background.



Horses think everything about the Wii is funny as hell and will snort endlessly while anyone else plays, but put them up on Wii Play for a round of racing cows and they are fierce competitors. Horses don%u2019t like to lose races, and horses especially do not like to lose races when the horses race cows!



Now, I do not know how common it is for most people, but I like to play doubles Wii tennis against myself. This manifests in several ways. Sometimes I play against myself with a single paddle and sometimes I hold one in each hand. There I am (Brett) with my doubles Partner (Brett) getting ready to serve to my fierce opponent (Brett) and Brett%u2019s equally fierce and wickedly funny doubles partner (Brett).



I serve, its one of those super fast Ace like Wii serves. Brett amazingly returns the serve at lightening speed, and my doubles partner Brett just barely reacts and reaches out to hit Brett%u2019s return, but his reactions are a little off because I have just swung to serve and swung to return by reflex and Brett at the net is swinging not on purposes but because Brett the returning hitter is finishing up a swing, so Brett%u2019s return of the return at the net goes out of bounds!



I%u2019ve repeated that scenario about 3 times, and can only rarely return a return of an ace serve (velocity) and still keep it in.



So anyway, I play the four Brett%u2019s for about 20 minutes and do pretty well. The trick is to either get in the zone and hit the ball staring at just one side of the screen and interpreting which way to swing (forehand or backhand if the ball is going to the Brett%u2019s at the bottom of the screen are normal, but if the ball is going to the Brett%u2019s at the top of the screen, then forehands and backhands are actually reversed and so you have to swing in the inverse of a forehand or backhand immediately after you had to swing the forehand and the backhand the normal way. This is very tricky when the two Brett%u2019s at the net are going back and forth 5-6 times and none to easy either when Brett at the net is trying to work the ball from one corner of the backcourt to the other hoping to get Brett in the back court to get tired running back and forth and make a mistake.



After a while I get a little dizzy of this, but the pig and goat offer me some encouraging words and the goat points out that my form would be better if I would train my eyes to glance back and forth from the right screen to the left screen each time the ball goes up the court. This means that when the ball is on the right side I%u2019m swinging normal and when its on the left side I am also swinging normal. Maybe those slitty goat eyes figured this faster than my circular human eyes could (with or without cheap eyeglasses) or maybe it's the fact that goats are kind of like other herbivores a bit and are used to looking out the right and left side of their heads part of the time and not always straight ahead like us carnivore types.



Eventually, I realize that playing Wii tennis this way is not boosting my score at all, so I switch over to just 2 Brett%u2019s on one side of the court and play against the Computer at Wii scores of 2000 and 1900 respectively (I%u2019m holding at about 1590 these days playing about twice a month).



I play pretty well, but the first two games go to the computer. I%u2019m still in 4 Bretts mode and have to settle down a bit playing less reactively and more strategically against the computer. The first match of 3 games goes to the computer 2 to 1 and the next match of 5 games goes to me 3 to 2 and then the last to the computer 2 to 3.



Its about this point that I realize I%u2019m getting a little tired, so I figure I%u2019m past the warm up stage, its time to test my Wii fitness level. I quickly go sit over on the bench next to the cows. I take a couple squirts of warm milk, spit it into the cream bucket (I have no idea what I%u2019m talking about.) and towel off. I jump up, get ready to play and I start in with bowling.



Now, I like Wii bowling but not when I%u2019m playing solo. Bowling alone is too much like practice and about as fun as watching the chickens play baseball (they like to pitch but never swing. I have no idea why.)



So, my enthusiasm takes a hit right off the bat or should I saw lane. I get through the bowling thing, but not too well. Bowling is my sons sport and my mother%u2019s too for that matter but not mine. I can do it well, but not when I%u2019m tired or my attention span is weak.



I get through that and move on to the Tennis section returning balls. This one is pretty easy for me. I return all of them except one that barely hits the net. I could probably do just as well with real tennis balls, maybe better as I could use a real swing.



Then its on to the tennis section where you have to hit the target on a brick wall. This is one that I can definitely do much better in real life and I%u2019m still trying to master it in Wii tennis. In real life, I have a hell of a reach and good reactions and control. In Wii tennis I have no reach, good reactions and control that is not as accurate in real life as you can only judge direction by the placement of the ball and not by spin or angle of the hit.



This time I do fairly well, and only miss about 4 targets in total. Then my Wii age calculates and comes up as 25. That's actually about the best I have done on Wii age so far (27 being the previous best).



So to cut to the chase, I'm curious what is your Wii age?

Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterz. Replies.