RiiFlex: Another Wii Accessory to Help With Excer-Gaming

I found out about these when I was checking my post on EA's forums about my problem with Active. They are scheduled to make their debut at this year's E3, which is the Mecca of electronic entertainment. There's a 2lbs. version and a 4lbs. version available for pre-order at Riiflex.com.

I'm going to wait for a product review before I consider it. Especially since IGN made fun of both this product and Active in their original video/fake advertisement for EA Huge.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - I Was So Fucking Close!!

Today would have been the halfway mark of the 30 Day Challenge, the bulk of the software's main draw. I was on the last third of the today's routine, feeling really good about things. While in the middle of a shoulder press, the resistance band snapped. TWICE. I was left with nothing but the nylon handles and two pieces of rubber.

Seeing as how I bought a three-pack for the first replacement, I decided that maybe I am getting stronger and it is time to graduate to the next level. Upon testing the mid-range band, I found out that these pilates bands are not designed to be stretched in the way Active wants me to. I was barely able to do a bicep curl, but doing a shoulder press would result in this brand new band snapping as well.

As such, Active is, essentially, unplayable right now. I could just go through all the routines and turn off the upper body exercises, but that would feel like cheating in a fitness program. It's that whole "pushing yourself" thing that's been my ulterior motive through these last several days. Increase my self-confidence in physical appearance, and the rest will hopefully follow suit.

As such, I'm rather depressed right now. So much so, I may take a three-hour walk after my shift with Skip.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 9: Back to Basic

Day 9 was suppose to be Back to Basic routine, but it served as more of an introduction to the most difficult and painful exercise I've ever seen in Active: Squat Hold. I found out from my sister that when she injured her knee, her physical theorpist had her doing this same execrise. She said I was doing it wrong, but no matter how much I tried to correct myself, holding that position for 45 seconds is so difficult.

I did find myself immediately popping in Punch-Out!! after the workout. I also have this strange want to seek out a fighting game that offers a Create a Fighter option that is as strong as Spore. Meanwhile, my porn runs have dropped like a rock since I started this 30 Day Challenge. I wonder if that means something.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 8 (AKA Lather, Rinse, Repeat)

Today’s routine was a lot of the same. It had me doing side lunges, curls, and lifts one after the other. In between each set of those three exercises, I would be sent to the tennis court or inline skating. Both of which I am no good at, causing me to finally hear some negative feedback from the personal trainer that bordered in insulting me. Seriously, one of the lines is “Did you even show up or is that your identical twin falling over themselves? Hit the showers!” Not very encouraging. At least Wii Fit is a little bit nicer about pointing out you’re not doing something correctly.

The projected workout routines have gotten longer, but the calories burned goals have not increased any. It’s kind of contradicting what I was reading about how this challenge works.

All I know is that today’s rating is the lowest I’ve gotten due to my lazy day yesterday. Sitting around for six hours reading internet buzz and listening to iTunes downloads is apparently very damaging to my overall health score.

Scale says I’m stuck between 155 and 156 for the last two days. Still not happy about that.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 7

I intended to take the day off and be lazy, but every bit of slothful actions I did just made me feel very guilty about doing them. Then again, I’m Catholic by association so having guilt is a given. By lunch when I had fast food with my mom and sister, the guilt was so high that I decided to go ahead and bump the Day 7 workout up a day.

Active didn’t mind. It gave me the obligatory warning about how resting is important to developing muscle strength and cardio endurance, but after that prompt disappeared, I was allowed to do the Day 7 workout.

It was a balanced workout featuring an equal amount of lower and upper body exercises with some minor cardio. Introduced into the mix was volleyball, which was a welcome change after failing at the non-Balance-Board version of the tennis drills. Seriously, I hate tennis. I can only imagine how bad I’ll be when they introduce the baseball drills into the workout.

The thing that I took away from today’s workout was how strangely compact the setting is. I was expecting a different location for the volleyball drills, but noticed the court is next to the track during the running portion of the workout. In fact, with the exception of the inline skating drills, everything is near the track. You can see the gazebo where the boxing and cardio dancing drills next to the tennis court next to the volleyball court. On the other side of the gazebo are the platforms you do the upper and lower body exercises on, which are next to a basketball court. Across from that is the baseball diamond. The whole setting is very utopian, and I swear one of the NPCs looks like Oprah. I guess the visuals are not very stimulating any more and just serve as instructional now. As a result, I am starting to take note on little details that I failed to notice the first several times through.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 6

Today's routine was fairly light. Running, combination bicep curls and upright rows, some boxing drills, and an introduction to basketball using the Balance Board. Seems weird how I just breezed through that workout and still managed to burn 10 calories more than the projected results.

Another strange bit that happened this morning is that my weight dropped to 154. Dropping anywhere between 2 to 3 lbs. over the course of 24 hours is said to be normal, but keeping it off is where the challenge is. I'm using Wii Fit to keep track of my weight with a goal set to be around 150 lbs. by the end of the 30 Day Challenge. I'm actually aiming to be at about 135, but I'm not expecting to get that lean.

That said, the Journal today did something rather funny. It assumed that because I haven't reported eating fast food that I've been cooking my own meals at home. In reality, I have been going to fast food resturants but I've been ordering off their healthy menu. That's one of the interesting things about where I work. You can go to the burger joint down the block and still find something that will please the health nuts. For the Journal to assume that I've been cooking my own meals when I haven't even logged in cooking in the Other Activities Survey is rather strange.

Tomorrow is a break day, and I intend to keep to it. My arms are now what's hurting since getting a new resistance band. It's also the first day off I've had from work since getting Active, so it should be interesting to see if my behavior has changed any. Why do I say that? Because normally I just sit around and surf the internet on my days off. When I'm not walking to the bank to deposit my check, that is.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 5

You want to know the strange thing about today’s workout? I almost forgot I did it. I was all set up and ready to go this afternoon only to find that I had a little red check mark next to today saying I completed the workout.

I’m not saying that Day 5 is easy, as I still have the program set to a medium intensity and I have a new resistance band. I’m just saying that it is starting to become routine and habit forming.

What I do remember is the odd looping that today’s workout had. Basically, it started with some running, transitioned to squats and lunges, had me do a combination exercise involving bicep curls and shoulder presses, and then had me hit some boxing targets. After the boxing exercise, the program went through the previous exercises in reverse order. The only thing that broke it up was a run of inline skating, which still is taking a toll on my knees.

Wii Fit says I dropped back to 157, though it still feels rather odd that I was ever close to that weight at all given how much I’ve been eating and what I’ve been eating. Thankfully, I’ve been avoiding MacDonald’s for at least a month now, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear from fatty foods. The only thing that’s making this change in my diet so damn difficult is my love/dependency on soda. One every so often is okay, but I really want to have at least one a day, and I know that’s a bad thing.

God, I miss soda...

The Resistance Band Goes SNAP!

How unfortunate. I was expecting this to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

In an effort to increase the intensity of the strength training exercises, I decided to shorten the space between the two grips instead of opting to fold the band over itself. The result was the band snapping. Well, tearing, technically.

Not knowing what to do, I called GameStop to see if they sold replacements. The person I talked to said that EA only sells a kit for multi-player options which includes an additional leg strap and resistance band. I was planning on buying this, but that would ultimately mean I would still be down a band. The person I talked to was very knowledgeable about the product, and suggested I go to Wal-Mart and pick up some pilates band. They are essentially the same thing, and they are cheaper.

So I did. The $10 set comes with three different colored bands, each representing a different level of intensity. Immediately, I noticed that the "easy" band was thicker than the band that came with the game. It was also significantly wider, which made tying it to the grips that much more difficult. I tested it with a shoulder press, which is the farthest the band should stretch on any given workout session for the game. And I got a stronger resistance than I did with the pink band that came with the game!!

Incidentally, these bands are the same ones that my sister used when she was in ballet with her warm up stretches. She said she used to use the green one, as the orange one was not strong enough for her. And I'll be using the orange band for tomorrow's workout. This should be very interesting.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Journal Discovery

I didn't score high enough today on the break day to get a Gold Medal rating without exercise. But I got something I didn't expect from the program. Suggestions based on data I gave.

The game said I've been consistantly unable to reach the ideal of liquid intake. So, it suggested that if I don't like water, I should drink tea or broth or even skim milk. I didn't expect to see suggestions based on data. Randomly generated compliments or suggested based on the data I entered five minutes ago, yes, but not something that appears to be built from the previous days.

Another surprise is I'm not sore, but I'm also kind of energetic. Not to the point where it feels like I've been alert for hours, but enough energy where I almost did my normal/long route of walking Skippy. I'm taking that as a good sign.

Wii Fit says weight is the same, staying just a few ounces over 158. I still feel fat, though.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 4

Before I go into my Active experience, I would just like to point out that it’s been over a month since I started this whole “exercise gaming” regiment with Wii Fit. Upon looking at my BMI and Weight line graph on the Wii Fit Channel, I was slapped in the face by reality. Since I started, I only lost and kept off one whole pound. It’s kind of depressing to me. So I talked to the two athletes I know from work, and only one was able to help me out. It became clear that I had to up my intensity. Burn more calories, breathe harder, and if I don’t feel different as a result of the workout, I’m not doing it properly. And if I had the time, work out until you can’t move.

Hence why I held off doing the Day 4 exercise until later in the day today. Not only did I change the intensity from low to medium, but I also added some other workouts to extend what I was doing. Outside of walking the dog, that is.

But the whole “work out until you can’t move” angle was a stupid thing to go by for today. The routine featured Jump Lunges and Jump Squats, both of which took a toll on my knees. Apparently, both my sister and I inherited my dad’s bad knee. Did my body feel different after that routine? Yes, and it hurt more than when I first started and I felt like my thighs were going to explode. Could I move afterwards? Just barely, but only enough to get me to the nearest chair so I can take all the pressure off of my knees. Looking ahead, I’m not out of the woods yet. These Jump Lunges and Jump Squats will become a regular part of the routine now that I upped the intensity.

All is not bad news, however. Much to my surprise, I got an instant Gold Medal rating today before doing the workout for the challenge. How? Because I improved on both my eating habits and outside activities. Whatever I did yesterday was enough to warrant a rating of 86% by themselves! With another break day coming up tomorrow, you can bet that I’ll be trying to repeat that accomplishment again when I record today’s activities in the Journal tomorrow.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 3...ish...

If you don’t count yesterday, today would be Day 3 of the 30 Day Challenge. Why? Because technically I didn’t do a 30 Day Workout yesterday.

Today’s workout was kind of a false advertisement. The Trainer Audio said at today’s prompt that we would be focusing on Upper Body stuff while incorporating the Balance Board. I thought, ”Gee, I wish I knew that yesterday so I could have done that then.” Turns out I was wrong. There were some track stuff and lunges thrown in there to give the work out some balance.

The Balance Board workouts were Tennis—which I hate—and cardio dancing—which for some reason isn’t as fun. Again, I had sensor issues and my first Wii Accident since getting the system. During the tennis exercise, I hit the armrest of a chair that was closer to me than I though. I guess the next time I do those exercises I need to step farther back. Either way, the Balance Board didn’t register my lunges properly nor did it register my steps on and off the balance board during cardio dance.

Speaking of which, what the hell kind of dance move is “The Shopping Cart?” I looked at the on-screen people to see how to do it for the short time you are suppose to do it, and it didn’t look like any dance move I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of cheesy dance moves come out of this cardio dance exercise on YouTube.

Because I worked out yesterday during a break day, the journal is still encouraging me to take some time off. My next break is this Sunday, so I may actually listen to it. After all, my thighs are still about ready to explode.

Oh, and now weight change since yesterday. I'm still hovering over 159 lbs., which Wii Fit is calling Overweight for my height and age.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - The Break Day That Didn't Happen

Okay, I know I said I'd give Wii Fit some attention today, but the fact of the matter is my thighs still hurt from the days before. And since the bulk of what I do on Wii Fit involves the legs, I opted out of it for my own health. Ironic, no?

Strangely enough, Active gave me the option of taking a break, which was all over the Journal today, or actually doing the next workout session. Early in the morning, I decided to not bother with the program, much to the software's dislike. Talk about fickle! What does it want me to do? Take a break or not?!

But later today, I decided to create a custom workout that focused on my arms. They weren't burning yet, and I figure burning something is better than nothing as far as how today went. I mean, 20 minutes walking the dog? Not really a work out.

And Active let me perform this session. It even graded me for the day. And in case you are wondering, I didn't do very well, favoring only a 79% overall for the day. Why? Because I didn't meet the calorie burn goal for my custom work out. Who knew boxing the heavy bag 400 times in under two minutes would be so difficult?

The biggest surprise is how much my diet has changed in just two days. I work around soda and for the first time I didn't fill up on it. I work next to a hamburger grill, but instead of ordering my usual, I got something off of the healthy menu. I hope to make a habit out of this. It's bad enough the software keeps getting on my ass about not eating enough.

In other related news, my dad tried out the resistence band that came with Active. He said it doesn't give much resistence. I trolled the EA Forum set up for Active, and it appears he's not the only one that believes this. In fact, a lot of people are going out and buying better, more resistent bands to use. While it is a smart option to consider, I'm sticking with this one for now. Despite my first impressions, it's actually doing the job as advertised.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - Day 2

I knew I was going to feel it in the morning, and boy, did I. I lost a good three hours of sleep because I woke up with sore legs. But, as the cliche goes, "No pain, no gain."

So with sore legs and all, I hit the second day of the 30 Day Challenge. Today's workout was centered around limbs and strengthening them. It incorporated variations of exercises that was done the day before as well as including the sport I suck the worse at second only to Baseball. Tennis.

And it is there that I noticed some failing programing within the software. You can fail, and I did. I failed hard. None of the tennis balls coming my way hit the blue target on the other side of the court and my counter didn't go up at all. Both on the forehand and backhand strokes. Strangely enough, my calorie burn went up as normal.

But today should be a day of oddities. The Wii Remote failed to send a signal that said I was doing an exercise drill properly. Then, when I was signing out, I noticed that the battery life was already at 50%. And to top it off, my trainer today sounded like Greg Grunberg if he smoked several packs a day. Yesterday, he sounded like Duo from Gundam: Wing.

But the oddest thing was the fact that I burned more calories than projected but didn't sweat as much as I did. I somehow gained 2 pounds since yesterday, so this morning I was training at 158 lbs. The math said I would burn 112 calories with today's workout, but I ended up burning close to 130.

My journal was loaded with compliments on all my achievements from yesterday, as well as from today's work out. It's also the first time I've noticed how much of the workout takes up in your daily medal, which is about 50% of your daily score. But that's where the compliments end. My food survey said I need to eat more in general, as well as take in more fruits and veggies. The Outside Activity survey apparently scored me lower than yesterday by at least half due to some fine print I didn't notice where it recommends not recording any activity that wasn't done for at least 15 minutes at a time. Go figure.

Thankfully, I got a score of 81%, which is still a Gold Medal for the day. I even got a congrats video from Bob Greene for completing a fitness goal.

Tomorrow, the 30 Day Challenge is telling me to take a break. I think since that will be the case, I'll be spending some time with Wii Fit. Yeah, I know, I'm cheating on my outside activity survey, but walking Skippy for 20 minutes isn't really an intense activity.

EA SPORTS Active's 30 Day Challenge - The First Day

Originally, I was going to do a comparison review of Active against Wii Fit, but I figured blogging on a daily basis during the product's 30 Day Challenge would be better. It's also going to be the only series of posts I'll tag for this blog for easy searching.

To start off, this product is hardly a game. The marketing team from EA was right in saying it is a personal trainer in a box. What they don't tell you is that there is some assembly required. Though simple, it is kind of slap in the face to the ill prepared that just wants to jump right into the program.

After all the physical set up is done, I fired up the Wii and was prompted to create a profile. It asked for the same things that Wii Fit asked for. Age, height, gender, but I had to input the weight myself. The product is designed so that it is compatible with the Balance Board but isn't needed. As such, there's no "scale" feature for you to utilize if you don't own a bathroom scale of your own. It's because of this that I've installed the Wii Fit Channel and placed it next to the Disc Channel. That way I can remember to weight myself every day and update Active's profile for me when appropriate. Apparently even one pound in either direction causes a different calculation of calorie burn for the workouts. Go figure math would be involved.

Oh, and today I weight in at 156 lbs.

Alright. Main Menu. It makes sense here, the biggest button here is the Journal where all your information will be saved and recorded. They want you to go there first, so it is the biggest button on the screen. Second biggest is the 30 Day Challenge, which makes total sense. Third is the Preset & Custom Workout button, with the smallest going to the Settings and (much to my surprise) an Info button that essentially functions as an online manual.

The Settings menu is fairly limited. Check to see if you have a Wii Balance Board and if you want to use it or not in your workouts. Create a custom playlist of music that came with the game so that you have something more pleasurable to listen to while you are working out. You can even review tutorial videos for exercises you've done in case you forgot or are bored.

The Preset & Custom Workouts are for those that don't want to do the 30 Day Challenge but still want to work out. You are presented with a slew of options ranging from both easy and hard settings that run the gambit of a 15 minute work out to a whole hour! Surprisingly, you can even access the various 30 Day Challenge lists in all three of their difficulty settings. If you have a favorite set of exercises or you can't find the workout that's right for you, you have the option of creating one. All of the events are unlocked from the start of the game, so no need to play through the 30 Day Challenge (although, I think that kind of helps get you familiar with the program). Simply click on what you want to do and a nifty little bar at the bottom will tell you how effective your workout is. For example, I created a 10 minute demo for my mom that will only burn 50 calories by the end of the session. Very low impact and very short. You know, to gently usher her in.

In any event, the big chunk of meat of this product is the 30 Day Challenge. And the bulk of this series of blog entries.

On your first day, you are given a special video from EA SPORT Active's celebrity sponsor Bob Greene. You know, Oprah's personal trainer? He pretty much gives you some words of encouragement as you start your 30 Day Challenge and hopes you end up living a healthier lifestyle by the end of it all. You then pick the gender of your personal trainer, the intensity of your workout, and what kind of music you want playing in the background while you work out. Don't know why that is an option, but that's probably because I'm paying more attention to the trainer's audio than I am to the background music.

From there, Active takes care of the rest. You are given a 20 minute workout for that day with a goal to meet by the end of the session. Today's goal was to burn 96 calories. Today's session also included the Wii Balance Board, which was a nice first day introduction, if you ask me.

My session began with a warm up of walking, running, and then doing some squats. We then went on to doing some kick boxing and then some inline skating simulations, both of which used the Balance Board. From there we went on to doing some side lunges, bicep curls, and low rowing pulls. The last two on that list involved the supplied resistance band, which out of the package smells like dental floss. From there, we cycled back around to boxing and ended with a jog around the track.

When all was said and done, I actually burned more than what was projected for the session with two minutes to spare. The data was recorded on my Journal, which then was promptly filled with positive feedback about how impressive I performed.

I was then prompted to fill out the various lifestyle surveys in the journal in order to be rewarded a daily medal. These surveys appear to be nothing but a way to keep track of your personal habits like how much sleep you are getting or how many glasses of water you drink verse sodas. It also records and scores you on your outside activities such as walking the dog or the time you spent in yoga class. This was kind of surprise to me, as it gave me a reason to still use Wii Fit. And with the summer weather being as it is right now, getting 20 minutes of walking in won't be a problem until Fall rolls around. The only downside to these surveys is that it asks you about YESTERDAY's events. Who knew that having a good memory was part of being healthy?

According to whatever mystical math this product uses, I scored 88% on today. That score was high enough to get a Gold Medal and even more positive feedback added to my journal.

Tomorrow should be interesting. My trainer said we'll be doing lateral exercises as well as upping the exercises I apparently excelled at today.

The Untapped Potential of the iPhone/iPod Touch app Remote

Last week, my family and I (FINALLY) had a meal at The Aquarium over at OpryMills. This has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, mostly because of how strangely attracted I am to water. (It’s a star-sign thing.) While having dinner there, we heard several tracks of music play over their dining room that we actually liked. It was at this point that I had an idea related to my iPod.

The origins of this idea date back several weeks before this dinner. I downloaded a free application for my iPod called Remote. It was suggested I get this application now that iTunes 8 has the option of being able to be controlled remotely from iPhones and iPods with this application. It actually helped me out greatly, because now I don’t have to get up from the dinner table to skip a track that my parents don’t want to listen to. You know, on those rare nights were I can actually play my MP3s because they actually found a collection of tracks that I have that they like.

Probably the best feature I like about Remote is the fact that it will tell you what is currently playing when you first launch it. This is especially useful for those tracks you like but don’t know the title or artist playing it. All you do is fire it up and your iPod/iPhone displays the information right there for you to take note of. This feature is what I wish I could have used in The Aquarium a week ago when the three of us heard a track all of us liked. If I had my iPod on me and if The Aquarium’s audio system was Remote-compatible, I would have found out what was being played.

An interesting feature that I’ve been playing with is the Request a Song option that you can open up in Remote if you or another person has the iTunes DJ playlist open. Just as the feature suggests, you can request a song to be played and iTunes will update the playlist to feature that song. As an added bonus, the music library’s owner has the option of allowing people to vote for songs. The most requested/voted song gets higher priority on the upcoming selection of songs until what is currently playing ends. The request then starts playing, and the whole process repeats itself. When no request is made, iTunes DJ just goes into its normal shuffle mode.

When you combine these two features together, you have a very interesting marketing potential for places like Starbucks or Panera Bread. I know Starbucks often will sell CDs, but they also have free wi-fi internet. As such, they could have an iTunes library that features tracks from those CDs on it that would play over their dining room. Customers with an iPod/iPhone with Remote could use it to check out what’s playing from those CDs, listen to tracks from them that they may be curious about, and hopefully like the music enough to buy it to import into their own iTunes collection.

The economic synergy of this idea can be pushed even further when you think about it from another angle. In order to have control over what music plays in your dining room, you need to have an iPod/iPhone with Remote. Which would increase sales of iPods and iPhones. And the more restaurants that feature Remote Controlled dining room audio, the better the dining experience is for the customer, which could mean a bigger tip for the waiter/waitress if it is that kind of establishment.

I mean, imagine this scenario. You go to a restaurant that has some rather loud dining audio and the hostess says in her spiel that their dining audio is accessible through an iPhone with Remote. You can make a request and keep an eye on the line up to know when it will play. You take a look at their selection and notice a track or artist you like and request it. While you are waiting for your food, the track plays. And then say you like what you heard. You ask the waiter if you could buy the album that featured the track you just heard, showing him the album cover on your iPhone. And then he replies that he will bring a copy out for you to purchase along with your check. How awesome would that be?

I hope someone for Apple stumbles across this blog entry and actually goes through with this idea. If it isn’t already in the works. I see a great untapped potential for this application and its simple features.

$5 Towards TellTale Games on Me

Use the following code to get $5 off any TellTale Game item in their store to help them celebrate their 5th year in business.

FED-TVL-B2Z-WR7

This company is responsible for putting out classice adventure game titles like Sam & Max and recently the Strongbad series. Most of these games only cost less than $10 to begin with, so it's a pretty sweet deal.

As a member of that site and a regular customer, I can tell you right now you won't be disappointed with their products even if you are not that big into games. Try it out. I mean, hell, I just gave you $5, for crying out loud!

How Online RPGs Screwed Up My Consumer Sense

For those that don’t play online RPGs or any kind of online games that involve a community, item collecting, and rare treasures, let me educate you for a moment. These games all have one thing in common: rare items. These items are not like the rare items you would normally come across in offline RPGs where you are pretty much promised to come across it if you play long enough or are lucky enough. No, these items are items that you can get for a set timeline—most commonly for about a month—and then after that set timeline is up, the item goes away. When they go away, those that bought them or acquired them will no doubt hold on to them with the vain hope their price will go up. Owning a discontinued item is a very exciting investment.

In an online role-playing game only.

In real life, rare items don’t really lend themselves very much to exciting investments anymore. Oh, sure, you could use comic books as examples, but that market bubble popped a long time ago. The only ones worth anything any more are well over 50 years old and so rare they are spoken like legends themselves. Disney has been known to pull this trick every so often, but whenever they need a buck, those DVD reissues that they “threw back into the vault” come out again. But what about those items that have been discontinued by the manufacturer for whatever reasons those may be? Those obscure collector’s items that geeks like myself try to acquire and keep shrink wrapped are often sought after to the point of personal bankruptcy.

Which leads me nicely to my little epiphany I had just now. I was adding something to my Amazon Wish List when I noticed one of Samurai Jack season DVDs has been discontinued. I fearfully looked to see the alternative buying options only to fear potentially being conned into buying a bootleg copy… again. And in that panic, it suddenly dawned on me. The reason I wanted that item in the first place wasn’t because I was a fan of the series and wanted to relive it. It was to study the art style. But I already had a DVD that fit that role just fine, so why did I need the entire set?

See, this is where the collector in me will start yelling and screaming with illogical reasons as to why I would want the entire set. Yes, it’s nice to have the entire series of stories to relive and revisit whenever I’m feeling nostalgic, but in the end, what I was looking at was something I didn’t really enjoy to the point where I’d seek it out in its entirety. Which is sad given the fact that I love Samurai Jack but found their stories rather hit and miss. At least with the Batman: The Animated Series collection, I knew I would enjoy every story they put out, even the bad ones. It’s also why I haven’t bothered looking into the Justice League collection since I only like a handful of episodes and not the entire series. And yet here I am still waiting on Animaniacs vol. 4 just because I love the show and its nonsensical humor that is not only dated but still able to stand the test of time.

I guess part of me just wants to hold on to something from the past like a photo album. I know another part of me wants certain things so that I can show them to other people in the future, hence why I have some Queer Cinema titles on there that I need to buy the moment they become widely available. But the rest of the stuff on there as far as my entertainment goes is pure nostalgia. It won’t bring me any kind of good short of being able to relive a happier time in my life that doesn’t exist anymore save for the vague memories of that time.

So the smart consumer in me came out and looked at my wish list and deleted that which served no real purpose or things that I wouldn’t miss. It actually freed up several hundreds of dollars I could have potentially spend. But looking back on it all, I can’t help but wonder why I was behaving that way in the first place. Why did I want so many items where I already got what I wanted out of them?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the behavioral trait I picked up playing online games where there was an emphases on collecting rare goods in the hope of being able to make a profit out of it. And sadly, those days are over in the real world, thanks to mass production.

I really need to get back in touch with reality. Living a cyber life 80% of the time is proving to be damaging to the little exposure of reality I get in my daily life now.