Where's The Monkey?

I know there's currently a shortage of Wii systems out there, but when I read articles like this one where Nintendo officials are saying there 'may' be a shortage at Christmas and if you see a system you should just buy it. That comes across as an attempt to create even more demand artificially (which given the current demand, I don't think they need to do). It especially comes across that way when that same official is the senior vice president of marketing of corporate communications for Nintendo of America. Speaking of the Wii, we bought two more controllers so now we have a total of 4. This will let all of us play when we head down to the beach on vacation next week. Although now I'm thinking I may need to buy stock in a battery company since the controllers eat up batteries pretty quickly. Mario Party seems to be the game everyone likes (I like Zelda myself), even Ginger plays it once the kids have gone to bed. Ginger already regrets having bought the Monkey Ball Banana Blitz game. While Quinn loved the Monkey Ball games on the Gamecube, he just hasn't taken to the one on the Wii. I actually think he liked Monkey Ball on the Gamecube for the mini games it had more than the actual game play, which probably explains why he likes Mario Party so much since it's almost nothing buy mini games. Zelda is pretty well done, with puzzles that are entertaining, but not overly challenging. The only thing I've noticed is at times you can tell what you need to do, but finding that one area you need to get to in order to proceed can be tough sometimes. It took me a long time to find the last room to rescue that 4th Monkey so I could get across the broken bridge. Which leads to a lot of frustration sometimes as you're there going "Where's the *#&$# monkey?"


The kids had swimming lessons today, and after that they went bowling in the after noon with Perry and Drew. I don't know if Cece or Ginger bowled, but I suspect not. Ginger didn't take any pictures of the lessons or the bowling, so you're stuck with some flower photos I took at Frying Pan Park back on the 4th.


I watched Æon Flux a while ago. I really wasn't expecting it to be very good at all, and I wasn't overly disappointed in that regard. I will say the underlying plot was much better than I was expecting, but the crazy super powers people seemed to exhibit and the over the top crazy technology that defied any rational explanation were more than enough to drag the plot's premise down. The movie is flashy and colorful, and has almost no resemblance to the same named animation that aired on MTV other than the main character is named Æon (although I don't know for sure that we ever knew that Æon Flux was the name of the character in the animated shorts on MTV, just that was the name of animation) and that she seems to have a thing for dressing up in tight black leather. And while that's entertaining the first time you see it (if you like that sort of thing), it quickly loses any luster it had as you're constantly bludgeoned with it. The special effects are maybe slightly better than average, but aren't even anything really unique. It's all stuff you've seen before (and better I might add) in other movies. Overall the film is pretty, but lacking any substance.