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So the shortages of the Nintendo Wii in my area of Canada are pretty much over. You can find a few units in most Wal-Marts or other stores, and so I finally picked one up. My bosses, a few co-workers and friends have been playing their Nintendo Wii’s for months now while I have waited in envy for my chance.

It took a while to get to this point though as I already have two laptops, a desktop computer, and an Xbox 360. I worked on convincing my wife that it could help me lose weight as I could really use some help in that area. I explained that she could download games from the original Nintendo, as she really enjoyed those games. I told her about the sports games that came with the unit, and how it was so much cheaper than the PlayStation 3, or another upgrade to my computer (which I will still be getting, but now its delayed by a fair bit).

Eventually, she countered me by getting me a recumbent bike to exercise with. We brought it home and built it, and two days later, the over engineered piece of junk broke.

We lugged it back to the store and traded it for a Nintendo Wii, and ever since, I have had less than an hour on the console. My wife rips the Wii remote from my hand, almost breaking the cord wrapped around my wrist, and loads up the original Super Mario Bros. from the good old Nintendo Entertainment System.

Laughing as she remembers where all the secrets are from when she was a young girl, she quickly jumps to level four, and then level eight. Getting to the last castle before meeting her demise numerous times. She curses at the television, and at the controller.

I sit next to her, asking if I can play, and she looks at me as though I am dumb before letting me know that she has two more lives.

Being part of this, I understand what people say when they talk about how smart Nintendo was in creating the Wii. They have designed a system that not only lets us relive the glory days of games with simpler graphics from our youth, but the barrier for entry is very low.

Now if only I could have more than ten minutes at a time with the console, I could actually review how good it is. So far, from what I’ve seen, it is a winner in this household.