Tech savvy at this house

What did my wondering eyes see this weekend? Two good gadgets - an Amazon Kindle and a Wii Fit. Steve is borrowing the Kindle from work. It's the first generation edition. Since his department got a second generation Kindle, which just came out last week, the first generation Kindle can be borrowed more freely now. Yay! I played with it a bit and I had a little bit of a problem figuring out how to click, find things, etc., but quickly got over it. I don't think the searchability is very good, and I'm not sure why it isn't exactly the same sort of searchability as on the Amazon website. I would love to be able to keep this Kindle and use it for lugging books around rather than actually having to lug books around. The font is adjustable so no problem with eye strain. The page turns are slow, though, which would take some getting used to. Steve said all the readers on the market right now have slow page turn.

The Wii Fit arrived via Steve's parents. We were in Maine last month, and looked for a Wii. They are too hard to find here in the city, so we thought we could certainly get one up in Maine. Our Wii also came from Maine. Apparently, we were in Maine the wrong week. The very next week, Steve's dad was able to get the Fit from one of the stores we had visited looking for it. The Fit arrived Saturday and we hooked it up that afternoon.

Seeing your BMI flashed across the screen isn't too gentle, but I really like the exercises. The exercises are divided into categories - yoga, strength training, aerobic, and balance. There is a virtual trainer - your can choose the male or female trainer - to guide you through the strength training and yoga activities. For the other two groups, you are on your own to follow instructions.

The Wii does not offer you a personalized recommended exercise schedule or routine. You have to figure that out on your own. It does keep track of how much you use it each day, what your BMI/weight flux is, your Wii Fit "age" (mine was only 34, which isn't too bad, but Steve's was 43! hahahaha), and you can take the body test as much as you'd like to see how you are improving. I don't really know yet if it will actually measure how you are improving fitness-wise or how you are improving how to move on the balance board. My guess is that it measures a little bit of both.

So far, my favorite activities are the ski jumping, step class, and hula-hoop. The more I use the Fit, the more activities I unlock, so I'll have to see what else comes up as I go.

Even if the Fit boils down to being just a video game and not a valid exercise tool, that will be okay. It is anything but a passive game, so there must be some kind of benefit.