3 day wii-kend

I'm not gone. I have been considering it, but at the same time, I've continued to write blog postings in my head throughout the day, so I think there still is a need to have a place to just dump thoughts. Could it just be a diary on my laptop? I suppose, but I still have a fantasy that I am writing for an audience, one who's noticed that I have been gone, one that keeps returning. I don't have that alone, on my laptop.

Facebook has fully infiltrated my age/profession/what have you group. At business conferences, networking events, and social gatherings, I've heard people talk about how their teenage kids are appalled that they are now on it. (My generation is now parents of teenagers. These shifts in relative age go much faster when you're one of those without children yourself, watching from the sidelines.) All agree it's fun to catch up with former high school friends, college friends, etc.

But I think also there's a weirdness to the sudden connection with your past - you accept someone's friend request, and then you can visit his or her facebook page and see pictures, read comments by and conversations with other people (and check out what the other friends are like), and very often read a few status postings on what the person is up to. (Note that the majority of my friends are "cold," "tired," and "enjoy" weekends.) There is usually an exchange of short messages - what have you been up to since college? and then we retreat back into our boxes. Yet now we are connected, and if I want to, I can observe them casually from now on.

I'm not sure what I expected. It's not like I'm going to suddenly become best friends with these people, right? Yet I guess I thought we'd have more of an email dialogue or conversation before simply watching each others' lives unfold. But maybe it really is just like running into someone at a reunion - you only get x number of minutes for polite, high-level chitcat, and then you're pulled away into another conversation.

I don't regret being part of it, and I will continue to explore to see who else I can find out there, but my expectations have - okay not lowered, but at least shifted.

The big news this week is that I finally found a Wii in stock and purchased it. I am now, 100% hopelessly addicted. I have long known I have an addictive personality when it comes to video games - my old Nintendo NES, varied computer games, the Sims, etc. I even became fully addicted to word games on Facebook (Scrabble and the Boggle-like knockoffs, Tetris) before this.

I don't have too many games yet for the Wii (my "Guitar Hero" is winding its way on a UPS truck as we speak), but the first one I bought was "Sims Castaway." Yes, I know my sweet spot! I set up the system at 8:30 on Friday night and at 2:30 am, was still playing. Went to bed and woke at 8:30, turned it on again at 9:00, and had to pull myself off playing at 3:30 pm.

Note that: it's a three day weekend, and bitter cold outside. So I have excuses.

I played a little less yesterday, and it's now Monday, and I fully intend to get out of the apartment to see a movie and do some grocery shopping. On the other hand, I did some research online this morning, and now know how to plant crops in Sims Castaway, and maybe I'll just try it out before I jump in the shower...