Bitches Ain't Shit

A friend quipped to me a long time ago that women were either directly or indirectly responsible for almost every piece of bad music ever made. I told him that they're equally responsible for every piece of good music as well.

And on top of that, they're probably just as responsible for everything else, too, from the beginning of time. Eve in the Garden of Eden. Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. Nearly every significant event in the history of the world was directly or indirectly influenced by a woman.

No, I can't explain it. Love makes people do some crazy shit, for better or for worse. You can never really blame anyone for it, either. There were plenty of reasons to assassinate Ronald Reagan in the '80s, but John Hinckley, the guy who got closest to doing it, was inspired by Jodi Foster. Jodi Foster ain't my thing, but if Hinckley had it in his head that she'd fall in love with him for killing the president, I can't really hold it against him.

The most embarrassing thing about that, I think, is that after you snap out of it, you wonder why you ever thought of that in the first place. Everybody comes to the realization that they've done some stupid shit. Case in point: a few summers back, my parents were pissed at me for one reason or another, so they wouldn't let me drive their cars anymore. I spent that summer riding my bike 20 miles round-trip to see my girlfriend every day. One night, I accidentally fell asleep at her house and had to ride the bike back home at 3 a.m. And now, I probably wouldn't walk across the street to hang out with her in most cases (no offense). I don't think I'm the only one. John Lennon took primal scream therapy and experimented with avant garde music for Yoko. Sid Vicious killed himself for Nancy. I've got no love for Kobe, but his wife's massive diamond ring was a very public apology.

Even in times of betrayal and desolation, they've got a hold on us. John Cusack's Rob Gordon says it best in High Fidelity when he finds his girlfriend cheating on him with a co-worker: "Charlie, you fucking bitch! Let's work it out!" And when something or someone's got a kung fu grip on a person, it tends to turn out as inspiration. Part of me believes that the guy who wrote about Adam and Eve was just bitter about getting dumped.

What the hell is it about them? Aside from the necessity of procreation, why are we so captured by women? I've known some of my best friends for more than half my life, but they've got no chance of keeping me around if a girl I like makes plans with me. Girls have a definite advantage over my friends. While I can still shoot the shit with a girl, I can't (or won't) make out with my friends. But then, what is it about making out that enraptures us so?

I guess it's one of those laws of nature, but being with a girl who knows what she's doing is just plain irresistible. I hate throwing around the L word, but as Betty Everett sang so eloquently in "The Shoop Shoop Song," if you want to know if he (or she) loves you so, it's in his (or her) kiss. A great kiss from a cute girl leaves me helpless, completely incapable of walking away.

There's just something women have in common with the rest of the world's inspiration. They invite passion, sometimes the most savage and primitive of feelings, or perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum, immense restraint and taste. A man would go to the ends of the earth for a woman he loves, and he'd just the same show his love through uncontrollable desire. Much like any other humanistic inspiration, the right woman can force a man to exceed his own potential. Like Lennon and McCartney, a man and a woman in love are greater than the sum of their parts. I guess those dudes were right. All you need is love, indeed.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Thanksgiving break is my favorite time of year, I think. At least it would be, if it weren't so short. The reason? I'm a nostalgiaholic. And Thanksgiving break is a non-stop nostalgiathon. Also, engorging 15 pounds of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and pie is a plus. But mainly, the break serves as the best excuse for everyone to meet up with old friends.

This year, I got my fair share of old-time meetups. Wednesday night I saw Sean, Matt, and Dan, the three guys I hung out with through most of my later formative years. Drinking beers with them was like a clashing of two eras, since I never drank beer back then, and it's all I seem to do now. But it's good to know that I can leave home for any period of time and converse with old friends without a hitch.

After catching up with family on Thanksgiving and hanging out with the same old crowd as usual for Spicy Dan Ross's birthday on Friday, I spent Saturday night with my best friend from high school, Jim. Much like Wednesday, there was no awkward catching up to do. We jumped right into Jim's Wii, and spent about five hours playing video games, between Jim's Wii and Guitar Hero II.

The original name for the Wii was Nintendo Revolution. It doesn't disappoint. The game that comes with it is Wii Sports, which features tennis, baseball, boxing, and bowling, in addition to some other features. We started off playing tennis, which is kind of fun but I imagine playing a full match would get repetitive. We only really got one good volley going. Baseball also has its issues. It's much, much easier to pitch than it is to bat. And bowling is fine once you get the hang of it, but like tennis, it's repetitive.

Boxing, however, is amazing. If you weren't aware, all the Wii Sports games use a remote which moves by a sensor rather than a directional stick. When the remote moves left, so does the cursor. In boxing, the remote hooks up to the Wii Nunchuk, a controller for your left hand to go along with the remote. As you punch with the nunchuk, your character punches with the left hand. It gets quite intense, and quite fun. I went through two bottles of water from the boxing matches.

It was a brilliant move by Nintendo to package the Wii with an athletic game. They tried this with Track and Field for the NES, but for whatever reason I didn't know too many people who got that with the system (along with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt). But promoting physical activity to go along with video games is a great move. Video games and sports are both very competitive, but there's obviously a large athletic difference between them. Wii closes the gap by almost forcing sedentary gamers to actually move to play the games. There is a drop-off with the graphics on the system as compared to the XBox 360 and PS3, but Nintendo's hallmark has always been gameplay and performance over graphics. They even (somewhat hilariously) promote outdoor activity with intermittent messages encouraging the gamer to "take a break," with a picture of a window looking outside to a sunny day.

Nintendo may merely be taking ammunition away from detractors of video games, but their methods are sincere. Wii Sports also comes with a physical fitness test which determines the gamer's "fitness age." Directed towards adults, the lower the fitness age, the more physically fit the gamer. It could be, at the very least, a wake-up call to those gamers who don't get enough exercise. If you're curious, my gamer age was 29. Sounds like I've got a lot of training to do.

The best games for the Wii are yet to come, but Wii Sports is a great step forward for the video game industry. All of a sudden, it's going to become acceptable for adults to play video games regularly, and perhaps even as an alternative to exercising outside, if the Wii gets developed that far. I don't know how many calories I burned playing that boxing game, but I broke as much of a sweat doing it as I did playing hockey for an hour on Friday. For 250 bucks, it's cheaper than most gym memberships. And you don't even have to leave the house.

Speaking of not leaving the house, the Wii has basically taken every useful feature from the internet and packaged it into one system. Using Wii numbers, users can add each other as friends and send messages to one another from the console. And with the Mii feature, it can seem like you're looking right at the person when you talk to them. With 15 minutes of tinkering, a Mii can be a mirror image of anyone.

The PS3 is probably going to be pretty freaking cool, but it's also 600 bucks. XBox 360s beat this generation's rush for consoles, but it doesn't have the cool factor that the Wii has. At 250 bucks, and given Nintendo's usually excellent enjoyment level, the Wii is easily the best choice for a next gen system. And you might lose some pounds with it, too.