Akting Out

Two Days Ago.

Hell of a way to spend an Easter.
My hands are on my knees. I’m trying to control my breathing, and sweat is running down my forehead, into my eyes. The muscles in my arms feel like worn-out rubber bands; if I throw one more punch, they’ll snap and go lifeless.

But this choice is not mine. The woman I have knocked down twice now trots out to the center of the ring for the third and final round. She moves quickly, a spring in her step, as though I have not spent the past six-some-odd minutes turning her face into spaghetti sauce. Disgustingly, there’s not a mark on her.

I’ve fought ten straight; all victories, all by knockout, none going very far into the second round. No one has challenged me until now. But this woman, Sheila, she’s come out and absorbed everything I could throw out her. She then repaid my first knockdown by using a jab-cross-uppercut combo to send me promptly to the canvas. I had never been knocked down before.

But I got back up. We traded more punches, both nearing exhaustion, when we were saved by the bell. Check that; she was saved by the bell. I would’ve thrown punches till the end of time if it would’ve put her on her back.

But the third round is about to start. My shoulders ache and throb as I raise my hands to my face. The announcer starts the fight and I’m immediately on the defensive. Rules don’t seem to apply; I protect my face and she still slips that damn jab through. I try to sway and dodge and she stops me by sending a cannonball into my ribs. I feel it. I did not get enough of a reprieve in between rounds.

Come on. Focus. Think.
She makes a classic mistake and sends her jab too wide.I slip beneath it and send my own into the side of her face. She took it! She’s stunned!
I capitalize, following through with a cross. Another jab, and another, and another. Hard cross. She can’t keep up. Time to make my point. I send body blows crashing into her with such force that her hips appear to be dislocated. When she looks as though she will block low, I begin to pepper her face with jab-cross combos again. She’s against the ropes; she has no idea what to do.
Heavy body blow, heavy body blow, uppercut to the body, colossal uppercut to the chin. I put everything I have into the punch because I have nothing left.

Blessedly, she flops to the canvas. As she’s counted out, I try not to rest my hands on my legs. Part of me wants her to get up. The wiser part of me hopes she stays down.
The count reaches ten without her showing any signs of life, and I feel like Rocky Balboa after the last fight with Clubber Lang.

This was not a day in the street; I haven’t gone back to fighting. This was Wii Sports. Boxing, to be specific

Two days later, my entire body still aches as though I had the fight of my life. My blood sugar has noticeably dropped. I didn’t do anything but play a video game.

I’ve been playing video games for over twenty years, and I have never seen anything like this.
It hits me; Sony and Microsoft will never catch up. I wonder if they both know that; they’re fighting for second place, and maybe that’s why they felt the need to make their consoles total entertainment packages instead of dedicated gaming machines.

I won’t lie; I have never been Nintendo’s biggest fan, mostly because the family-friendly games that made up a lot of their library didn’t appeal to me, and the few MA games they had, well, they weren’t good (SNES Mortal Kombat, anyone?). When the wars were going on, I was one of Sega’s loyalists.

But as I have gotten older, although I never foresaw myself owning a Nintendo console, I have learned to respect Nintendo more and more. They do one thing; they do games, and they do it better than anyone else out there.

Not that I don’t love my 360, I do. But coming home to pad-gaming after literally punching my way to victory on the wii is one hell of a reality check. The way of the pad has begun its epilogue. Now, sure, we’ve had the Sega Activator and even the (ugh) Virtual Boy, but this is the first time we’ve ever had true, motion-sensing control as a mainstream method of interaction on a gaming console.

For Sony and Microsoft, it gets way worse, too; you can actually get into shape using the Wii! Screw a gym membership; pay roughly $350 for a console and a couple of boxing games, and it’s better than a morning run. I’m still bloody sore, for crying out loud.

Oh, that $350? That’ll buy you a new Wii and a couple of games. That will not get you a new PS3.

I love gaming, I love the culture, and I love waiting to see what happens next. I’d love to see how Sony and MS plan to keep up, because they have their work cut out for them.

For now, this is clearly Nintendo’s house.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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I feel I should preface this blog by saying that I am, in no way, an “expert” on technological matters. I consider myself a mid-level techie, meaning I can walk noobs through software installation and even troubleshooting minor problems, but I leave coding and frankensteining entire machines to the pros. Google solves a lot of problems for me.

That being said…

I purchased my little 4-Gig Zune about a year ago, thanks to a deal Wal-Mart still runs. There’s a fifty dollar difference (in the Zune’s favor) between the 4-Gig Zune and 4-Gig iPod.  So it’s still a good idea for the economically-minded consumer.

Also, the whole DRM thing really rubbed me the wrong way (why do I have to keep authorizing computers to play music I purchased?!) so I went for the alternative.

Since then, I put a lot of wear and tear on the armband accessory, and sadly, it’s no longer with us. I haven’t had any major problems with the device itself; save for the last software update causing the player to freeze occasionally, it’s been fine. Watching videos can be a bit of a challenge, but hey, it’s a small screen, and you get what you pay for.

Noobs might have a hard time getting videos to play on the device. I recommend Prism while it’s free; you can convert downloaded videos to play on your Zune without worrying about some obtrusive ‘trial version’ crap taking up most of your screen.

Hardware isn’t much without software to back it up, and this, in my opinion, is where Zune takes a brutal fall down the stairs and snaps every body part along the way.

Before I tear into this thing, I have to point out the pluses; Zune does provide a cheaper, DRM-free alternative to purchasing songs (.79 cents, compared to the .99 cents from itunes, and you can play them anywhere). The social aspect is a great idea, and I think it’s cool to tap into other people’s tastes. My favorite feature is how you’re awarded ‘badges’ for listening to a song or album x amount of times. It’s a good way to publicly display what kind of music you’re really into.

It’s podcasts can be somewhat touch-and-go; generally, I’ve had no problems, but I went through a rough spot about four months back where I couldn’t get anything to download. I nearly got kicked off of twitter for that ceaselessly ranting about that.

Problem #1.

Why, oh why, does Zune not allow you to create video playlists?! This is a readily accessible feature in Windows Media Player (which is also created by Microsoft, but I’ll get to that momentarily) that members of the Zune boards have been crying out for vainly for over two years now. If it hasn’t happened now, chances are it’s not going too.

Problem #2.

The software also tends to tie up a lot of processor; I no longer run the program from my laptop, as it wasn’t uncommon for it to be hogging up to seventy percent of my cpu’s processing ability. If I had Outlook 2007 and my (addin heavy) Firefox running, Zune would often be the straw that broke the camel’s back. You want to run the software, you should have some horsepower to back it up.

Problem #3.

I know quite a few people who were/are familiar with Windows Media Player and purchased their zune expecting the device to be compatible. Why not; Microsoft makes both the hardware and the software. It only makes sense the two should work together, right?

Wrong.

There are still a ton of people in this world who’re not technically savvy; why in the name of Optimus Prime would you make them download and then learn an entirely new piece of software when you have one readily available?

I know coders who will intelligently counter this point, but I steadfastly maintain that the Zune would’ve fared much better, had it been an add-in to the existing Windows Media, instead of making it a standalone.

An article run by Businessweek prompted me to write this blog. You can cite your own reasons; poor marketing (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Zune commercial), bad design, poor software, whatever, one indisputable fact remains—the Zune is failing.

So I close by saying; you get what you pay for. The Zune is a cheaper investment, but with so many ways to get around DRM these days, and the ease of using iTunes, you’re better off with the iPod.

Pony up the extra cash and get yourself a Nano.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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