So I was searching for Angry Birds on iTunes in order to get the link for it. I’ve already bought the game, and it’s an awesome one for $1.

I noticed that there are a number of “Angry Bird” apps, but only two of them are the original. Angry Birds and the lite demo version. The others are all either cheat/walkthrough guides, or random knockoffs. The insane thing is that the price of the actual game is $1, and so are the knockoffs! You can buy the game for the same amount as an unauthorized guide, which has information freely that’s available online! The craziest one is the app called “The Angry Bird,” which has an angry looking bird trying to kill worms or something. I am assuming all of these apps are legal under fair use and whatnot (if they’re only stating facts), yet something tells me they could be violating trademark rules…

I wonder if other popular apps have this same kind of thing happening to them. And I wonder if the developers of Angry Birds are bothered by it. If they got angry enough, they might be able to make a spinoff game called “Angry Developers of Angry Birds.”

I looked in the preferences for downloads, and noticed that I was connected to their Chicago datacenter. I tried switching it to Detroit and I still got some lame speeds. Then I switched to Phoenix, Arizona. And voila:

My hypothesis was that the datacenters were dying from the load of the Steam summer sale. So I tried picking a datacenter in a less sparsely populated area (Phoenix probably isn’t serving that much load compared to Chicago or New York), even though it was further away. I think my hypothesis stands. So if you’re experiencing slow downloads, try picking a datacenter that’s further away. Just wait until my download is finished first.

I’ve sort of been slacking with my Wii Fit schedule, but I just got Wii Fit Plus to see if I could inject some freshness into the routine. Wii Fit Plus is the pseudo sequel to Wii Fit, which includes a few extra activities and some new features as well.

One of the first things I noticed was that the female trainer (which I usually use) is showing a bit more skin! Take a look at some comparison shots:

Before:

After:

I also like her new hairsyle. I wonder. If Wii Fit Plus means that the female trainer shows some more skin, will Wii Fit Plus Plus have the female trainer go topless? I guess we have to wait to find out.

One new feature that I was excited about was the ability to set up your own routines. So instead of picking each activity one by one, you can save a bunch and just go through them quickly without interruption. This should have been a cool feature, but it was ruined because picking an activity automatically selects the lowest number of reps, and I do the higher number of reps for almost every strength training activity. For example, I do 10 push-up side plank reps. But selecting it in the routine menu automatically picks 6. You could theoretically pick the exercise twice, but that would give you 12 reps. Plus you have to stop and start again (I thought initially the program would be smart enough to just combine them into one exercise).

Nintendo lost a lot of my respect for how badly they handled this feature. There are a lot of different ways they could have designed this, all better than the way they did design it. They could have just combined reps as I figured they should. They could also just ask you how many reps you wanted when you picked an exercise. The added complexity would be justified by the fact that you’d only have to do it once. They could have asked for default rep values somewhere else.

But instead the interaction designers (I’m assuming they have them, but now I wonder if they really do) at Nintendo decided to pull this shit. Maybe you can tell that I’m pretty unhappy about this feature. In the end, I think Nintendo err’ed on the side of simplicity, which ends up pleasing nobody. I usually like the way Nintendo products are designed, and for the most part I think Wii Fit Plus is designed well, but this feature was just not fully baked. I think I am going to email Nintendo and try and get an actual response on why this feature was done so badly.

Overall, Wii Fit Plus is better than Wii Fit because it just adds new features. I’d question whether they are really worth the extra $20 that the upgrade costs.

So today is the very near anniversary of me starting Wii Fit. My first day was actually May 23rd 2008, but I think If I wait to post something I might forget to do it in two days. So here’s my anniversary post.

It’s actually kind of interesting that for the last few sessions I’ve been feeling pretty tired. Today I felt really energized though. I have no idea why. I was sick the past few days but today I feel pretty much at 100%. Maybe it’s because I got a lot of sleep while sick. I also had a Twig and Berry salad from Zingerman’s today for lunch.

Anyway, when I started Wii Fit about a year ago I was obese (according to the machine) and weighed about 202 pounds or so. Today the Wii Fit declared I am merely overweight and that I weigh about 179.9. So within a year I lost 20 pounds. I actually lost the 20 pounds between May and November, I wanna say. Then between November and now, I think I hit some kind of ceiling (or floor). I’ve sort of slowly been losing again. I think it might be a seasonal thing.

Besides the lost poundage, I’ve been consistently feeling better (physically) ever since I started, and have been getting better and better. These days I can walk to and back from campus very easily when a year ago it’d feel like a hike (it’s a little over a mile each way, I think). I believe my general endurance and energy levels have been better, too. I haven’t only been doing Wii Fit to get healthier though. I’ve also been trying to eat better and live more healthily in general. No more soda (pop) for me.

I’m pretty happy with my progress with Wii Fit so far. I wish I had done better between the November-Now time points, though I will admit that I made non-pound progress (I am now doing 20 push-ups instead of 10 and lunges are doable when before they were insanely hard). Hopefully I’ll be able to report back in a year with even better numbers and results.

Bonus actual anniversary update: (5/23/09)
I look at my time completed in Wii Fit and it appears that I did 83 hours and 33 minutes of working out. Not too bad. I know I did less in the beginning and have been ramping up to about 34-45 minutes of workout each session though I don’t do it every day. I’ll probably have more time to commit to working out over this summer though.

Warning: Be prepared for a rant.

I just learned that Nintendo is releasing a lime green DS. The thing I’ve wanted ever since I learned of the DS. I have a lime green Gameboy color and a lime green Gameboy Advance. Lime green is my favorite color ever. Left to my own devices (which I have been), everything I buy is lime green. Basically when I wear my backpack, jacket, shoes, hat, etc, I look like a ninja turtle. This is just some context.

I just got the DSi like a week or two ago. It’s really nice. Not that much different from a DS but it has some interesting features like the cameras and new software. I figured I’d buy the DSi when it came out and then if it was ever released in lime green, I’d get that one. Because I’m a sucker and I gladly pay the Nintendo tax.

Anyway, now I find out that the lime green DS I’ve coveted since forever is a reality! RIGHT AFTER I BUY THE DSi!!! Interestingly, my emotions are a combination of rage, acceptance and really wanting to buy the lime green DS anyway. I wish I knew how to quit you, Nintendo. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU!

Also, this one looks like it’s for moms. Does that say something about my taste in video game console colors? Hmm…

I got Mega Man 9 for the Wii about a week ago. When I first got it I played it for a while and beat no one. Then I tried again today and so far I’ve beat three bosses.

Mega Man 9 was made in the tradition of the old-school Mega Man games. So there’s instant death spikes. Question: Why didn’t Dr. Wily make “Spike Man?” That’d pretty much make it impossible for Mega Man to beat him.

I had a chat with my 8 and 6 year-old nephew and niece, respectively, this evening over the phone. They’re really into Pokemon now. What weirds me out is that I was playing Pokemon before they were even born!

Apparently there’s a lot more Pokemon around now. I know the original 151 and some of the ones after that, and I have Pokemon Diamond (or is it Pearl), but seriously, there’s too many for me to remember.

My niece and nephew both have their own favorites. One likes the scary legendary ones (I told him they look scary and he disagreed), Palkia, Dialga and some other ones. And the other likes Togetic, the evolution of Togepi. Yes, I remembered that!

Is it strange to have this much common ground with 8 and 6 year-olds? I guess it’s kind of cool, but sad at the same time. Pokemon is pretty freakin’ rad though, and I look forward to battling them at Christmas time when I see them. Bulbasaur, I choose you!

I really love how users on Amazon have rebelled and made the average score of Spore = 1. I’m not sure if the game is really that bad or not, but it seems the big beef so far is with the DRM scheme. If that’s so, I kind of feel bad for the developers. They probably have no say in whether or not their game gets DRM slapped on it, so it’s punishing them for something out of their control.

DRM sucks, but I dunno if it’s “okay” to act like a baby and give the game 1 star if it’s really better than that. But hey, I haven’t played it so maybe it really sucks. Probably has to do with the years(!) of hype the game got that couldn’t possibly be followed through in the end.

In other video game news, I got Disgaea 3 and have been playing that for a bit. It’s pretty much the same as Disgaea 1-2 but it’s still fun. I’m a bit dissapointed that the vector graphics are still pretty low res. If it’s the PS3 I’d like to see at least a few more pixels on those characters. 3D would probably ruin the game, but higher res would be very much appreciated.

I also got Resident Evil 4 for the Wii but haven’t played it yet. Too scared of dogs jumping through the window like in the first one… Fuck that was scary!

Today I reached a sort of achievement (personal, not xbox live style) by doing the 10 reps of push-ups and side plank without collapsing or “dropping my hips” as my trainer likes to say. Although she asked even though I didn’t. Oh well. At least I know I accomplished this task.

Also, the lunges are freakin’ hard. I wonder if I’m doing them correctly. They make the leg that I step back with feel like they’re going to explode around the 9th or so rep. Lunges are probably the only exercise that hasn’t gotten easier since starting Wii Fit. I wonder why…

So I’ve been playing Wii Fit for a while. One of the really neat things about the program (it’s not really a game, right?) is that it automagically graphs your progress as you lose weight. It’s pretty nice getting positive feedback when you put hard work into something. I think this is one of the very well thought-out features of Wii Fit.

Anyway, I was looking at my weight going down and figured I’d do some rudimentary linear regression on it. I’m pretty much just eyeballing it because I don’t want to throw stuff into R or Matlab. It seems as though I’ll reach a threshold (away from Obesity) around the end of August. Though I’m basing this on a linear fit. It’s possible that the actual plot will end up looking more like a power law since it’s easier to lose weight when you’re way overweight. The point is, I’m losing weight and it’s nice to try and see when I might reach my goals.

I also think it’s worth noting that Wii Fit seems to overestimate my weight. Because when I use my bathroom scale my weight is always lower than what Wii Fit says. I guess I could adjust the “weight of clothing” but since I always pick the same thing I don’t want to mess with the consistency.

Now, if Nintendo had programmed some regression in automatically, I’d have to give it a 10/10 for science! But for now I’m pretty happy with just the graph functionality. It’s fun seeing large local fluctuations with a general downward trend. Now, if I can only keep this graph from turning into a parabola like with my DDR Diet…