Maybe Wii?

It's been on my mind for a while. Should I get another Wii?

I had a Wii before, but it was stolen when my house was burglarized last June, along with my TV and Xbox360, not to mention I didn't have renter's insurance at the time and didn't get reimbursed for any of it. Since then I have replaced my TV, and I do have a 360, but it's one that I'm borrowing.

I of course needed a new TV since I watch all the time, but I've been hesitant to replace the gaming systems because I really don't play them that often, so I'm not sure if it would just be a waste of money. I think it's also partially because I'm hoping against all odds that I'll get my stuff back, or at least they'll find who stole them and I'll get reimbursed.

Right now though I'm sort of at a transition. I'm living in a fairly small place, and it isn't that close to my friends, so I rarely have people over. I plan on moving though, once my lease is up, and while it may or may not be to a bigger place, it will definitely be closer to my friends and I will probably have people over a lot more.

See, I sort of consider the Wii to be a system that excels at fun games for multiplayer, but not so much in the single players games. Sure I have Rock Band on the 360, but even that game can start to get old if you play too much. That's when the Wii would really come in handy.

So, I'm thinking that when I actually move and start to have people over again, I'm going to want to have a Wii, if for nothing else than to provide a variety of entertainment. Even the Wii Sports game that comes with the system can provide hours of fun, especially for people who have never played it before.

So with tax season coming around I'm hoping to get a pretty good tax return, and I'm really thinking of using that on a Wii and maybe a few extra games and accesories to go along with it. Actually I might buy one before I even get the tax return, because when I turn in my taxes I'll know how much I will be getting back.

I guess at this point it's a matter of priorities, but I'm hoping that when I do move and start to have more people coming over I'll have a bunch of options in which to keep them entertained. Plus this time I have renter's insurance, so I'm not quite so worried about things getting stolen.

Reconsidering the PC

With Windows 7 on the way, I've been reconsidering my earlier decision to get a Mac as my next computer. From all the testing that's been done, it's looking like the new Windows has fixed a lot of the problems that was making me hate Vista so much.

My big reason for going with a Mac was how much more reliable they are. I hate troubleshooting computer problems, and this isn't to say that previous version of Windows didn't crash every so often, but with Vista it got to be ridiculous. If Windows 7 is as reliable as XP, then I really won't mind the occasional error.

I'm also thinking it might be time to go back to a desktop. I love my laptop and how I can take it anywhere in the house if I so choose. The problem is they are hard to upgrade and the parts are way more expensive if you want them to compete with a desktop. Not only that, but they overheat very easily, and I think that's partially to blame for my computer crashes.

What I really want is a computer that I'm familiar with, and those are PC's. I can build a PC from the ground up, which means I'm only paying for the parts, and not all the labor and testing that I would be paying for with a pre-built system. Some of my older games aren't even made for Macs, and that's a big factor as well.

Doing some research online, I found that if I look at the specs on a brand new pre-built PC and then compare that to the price of the parts that would actually go in it, I could save about $600 by building it myself. And this isn't a low quality system either; I splurged on the main parts, like processor, motherboard and graphics card.

With money being tight as it is, I'm thinking a Mac may not be the way to go. Their products certainly are more reliable, but the price tag and compatibility with software, not to mention the inability to upgrade individual parts, may not be what I'm looking for.

In the meantime my laptop suits me just fine, so I'll wait for Windows 7 to be officially released before I actually buy a new computer.

Sci fi planets

I read a lot of sci fi books, watch a lot of sci fi movies, and consider myself pretty well versed in the genre. There's one thing that I find very interesting, and that is how the other planets we encounter almost always tend to have just one uniform climate and the land features are the same across the planet.

Let's take Star Wars for example, since most people can relate to it. In Episode IV the first planet we see is Tatooine, which is entirely desert. The only other planet we get to see in that movie is Yavin 4, which is actually a moon, but still it's entirely jungle. Moving on through the series we see Hoth, which is all frozen and snowy, Dagobah is all swamp, Bespin we don't really get to see except the clouds, and Endor is another moon which is all forest.

Sure it can get more creative depending on the athors. Worlds that are entirely ocean, some with no continents but lots of mountains sticking up surrounded by water, some are just entirely like Hawaii (which would be awesome). Gravity can be different, there can be strange weather features, and obviously the animal life will vary, but this still tends to be uniform across the entire planet.

So why is it that Earth can have such a huge variety of climates and land features, but all the other planets we imagine don't? Do we just not have the imagination for it?

Maybe it's just our idea of travel and going to new places. Right now we live on one planet, where you can travel around and see various climates and land features that are much different from what we're used to.

Then in the future we imagine ourselves traveling not to different places on one planet for vacation, but to different worlds altogether. Well what would be the point of that when every planet had such a variety like Earth; where you could spend a lifetime just seeing everything on the world you're already on? They are basically expanding our own planet into a galaxy, where lightyears in a spaceship is analogous to hours in a plane, and where other planets are analogous to other timezones.

I'm not sure if these sci fi writers know it or not, but I think it's just human nature that makes us think that Earth is perfect, and no other planet can possibly be like it. I mean, it's our planet after all, and while nobody actually knows how it would be to live on a different world, I don't think we'd entirely feel at home anywhere other than Earth.

Not to say this takes away from the experience of a good sci fi. Sure it may be a little unrealistic, but sci fi is obviously fiction anyway, and I don't think I'd even want to think about how long a book would be if it had to describe every planet when those planets are each as diverse as Earth.

Does anybody else notice this or is it just me? What do you think?