Playing Wii: The (rare) benefit of being old school

A very generous family member bought the boys a Nintendo Wii this Christmas, and so we've been playing it a lot. Floyd, the eight-year-old, wanted me to play with him, so he was teaching me some of the games. We started with Mario Kart, which is a cross between a road race game and the bizarre events in Alice in Wonderland. Okay, I didn't do so well with that one. Floyd gloated a little bit until I glared at him. He commented that perhaps I just wasn't that good at video games, but that's okay.

Then we tried some other games, and lo and behold, we came to one that I beat him handily at. He and I were both surprised, and then I figured out why I did well--it's a game similar to the old missile command video game, which I used to play a lot.

After that, Floyd was a bit discouraged, and so he suggested we play a different game. He described it as laser hockey, but with one look I knew I'd do just fine--it was simply an updated version of pong. Sweet...finally some benefit for living in the 1970s.