Highmoon's Ponderings

My wife had been preparing a surprise birthday party for me for a couple of weeks, and though I knew the party was coming, I was left in the dark about the theme. I had my suspicions, but I decided not to give it any thought, so I would be surprised when the time came. Indeed, Saturday night rolled around and when I got home from synagogue, I had been right in my suspicion: it was a Star Wars themed party.

I had to help put up stuff, like the Darth Vader piñata, and get the music playing. My wife made a playlist of a bunch of Star Wars music, including pieces from the soundtrack to all six movies (including the Yub Nub song!), and homages, like Metallica’s Imperial March and Rage Against the Machine’s Imperial March, and spoofs, such as Weird Al Yankovic’s Yoda and The Saga Begins, plus some cool stuff like a French techno mashup of Thriller called When I Was a Child I Was a Jedi/The Jedi Dance. We also had the original, low-budget, no-CGI trilogy playing on the laptops, and LEGO Star Wars and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed playing on the Wii. Oh yeah, my wife also made a drink she dubbed the Dagobah Punch that, well, lived up to its name.

I had a lot of fun, as is evident by the photos. The only bummer is that my buddy Josh couldn’t come because his little girl was sick (though she’s fine now), which made me realize quite accutely that I need more guy friends. It also would have been awesome if my friends from the Star Wars Primetime Adventures game at Gen Con had been there, but given they live all across the US, it would have been a bit difficult. That’s what happens when most of your friends are online.

The birthday loot was awesome as well: My wife got me the Wii Fit, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (at which my wife naturally excels and can kick anyone’s butt in a Jedi duel), a deluxe toy Darth Vader lightsaber, Star Wars Risk and a new back rack for my bike. From my generous guests I got a nice bottle of Italian wine, a Star Wars book of (really friggin hard) trivia, as well as some cash (which went towards buying materials for my sukkah, but see my next post for that story).

Kudos go to my wife for an awesome birthday party, way above and beyond anything I imagined or deserved. It was a great way to welcome my 34th birthday.

You can check out the photos in the slideshow below, over on Flickr: Danny’s Star Wars Birthday Party set or on Facebook: My Star Wars Birthday Party set.

So I gathered all the Best Buy gift cards I got for my birthday, plus some cash I also got as a gift, and put in the difference myself, and I went to Best Buy last Friday and got myself a Nintendo Wii as a birthday gift. I was there around midday, which was good because they got less than 20 in the restock and they just would not survive the weekend.

I played with a Wii when I went to PR a few weeks back and LOVED it! The interactivity fostered by the remotes and the games was just fantastic and I felt about a video game console like I had not felt since my last system, the original Nintendo Entertainment System. What’s even cooler is that my wife also likes the Wii, and we’ve been playing together a lot, which is just great, as she is just not a gamer and normally could care less about video games. Right now we have Wii Sports and Wii Play, and we have lots of fun with those, though she has already been checking out the games for the system and calling out a few favorites (Boogie, we’re looking your way), while I have my own, of course.

It’s a very neat system, and the fact that it is welcoming enough that a self-proclaimed video game “hatah” can sit down to play and enjoy it thoroughly is a testament to the design philosophy that shaped this console. Awesome work, Nintendo. Now send those two dudes from the commercial so they can bring me a new game.

And to all the Wii haters, I will let this speak for those of us who love it.