Oui, we Wii

We spent the past week at Mat's parents' house in South Carolina, basking in the heat, sweet tea and boiled peanuts of the South. We always experience a bit of culture shock leaving "the island" (as Mat's mom refers to California) and Mat's translation skills in southern drawl were put to the test multiple times during our stay. We hadn't been there in the heat of summer for quite a while, so we combated the stifling temperature and humidity by spending as much time on the lake as possible. The highlight of the aquasports was a day full of high speed (and impact) tubing off the back of the boat with Mo's brother JP and his girlfriend who drove up from nearby Clemson for the weekend.

We also used the week to catch up on all the new-fangled technology we had been missing on the island as we broke in Mat's parents' newly-purchased Wii and Wii Fit. To be fair, we supplied them with the Wii Fit device, after purchasing it from a 16 year old Vietnamese kid in San Jose whom we found on Craigslist. Not knowing we had one of the hottest consumer items since the Cabbage Patch Kids in our hands we were a bit surprised to field all of the comments that we got as we carried it through the airport - had we had more of them we could have paid for our plane tickets in the time it took us to walk between Terminal A and D. We're very rarely ahead of the curve when it comes to things like this, so we were eager to check it out and find out for ourselves what all the Wii madness was really about.

We were a little skeptical that something so seemingly cheesy could be so much fun - let's just say they've come a long way since the Power Glove. The technology is honestly pretty amazing, and through some magic of gyroscopes and infrared transmittal the Wii senses every single move you make, your motions fueling such family-friendly games as golf, bowling, and even boxing. The Wii Fit was pretty rad as well, and while it's not quite the same workout as hauling all your stuff up El Cap and back down again, one could see how it could develop into a fun and easy fitness routine. While the yoga poses were not always 100% accurate, they were straight forward enough to do, and having some feedback regarding your center of mass was actually quite helpful in certain positions. We definitely got hooked on a few of the balance games and the sight of someone frantically hula-hooping an invisible hoop and gyrating their hips with reckless abandon in your basement is almost worth the price of the system.

When we could drag ourselves away from the Wii we also caught up on our movies. Wanting to check out all the hype around the new Batman venture we bought tickets for the local IMAX online and rented The Dark Knight's predecessor, Batman Begins, to watch on Mat's dad's big screen TV. We were quite impressed by the first one, even without the depth of comic knowledge that many fans might have, and our excitement for the new one on the big, big screen rose with every day. We filed into the IMAX dome theater at the Charlotte Discovery Center and then sat reclined in our chairs, teeth cleenched, fists gripping to the arm rests for the next two and a half hours, trying to keep our lunch stomached and the vertigo at bay. In short, it was a bit much - the wraparound screen so large that much of the action sequences were just a blur accompanied by super-loud gunshots and kabooms. We felt like we missed more than half the movie as we just couldn't focus on anything going on, and Mat was literally covering his ears with his hands whenever he anticipated an explosion. From what we did gather from the movie, Heath Ledger turned in an amazing performance, and if you didn't know that he killed himself shortly after the filming it would have been one of the most amazing feats of acting in a long, long time. Knowing about the O.D. and how twisted his life had become somewhat put a damper on his performance, as the lines between his acting and actually being a bit crazy became blurier and blurier. We haven't given up on it yet, however, and might try to catch it in regular screen format or eventually rent it when it comes out - chances are we'll be able to handle it a bit better on a 15" laptop screen.

All in all it was a great trip back to the East Coast full of excitement that can only be found in the Carolinas. We're set to enjoy the last remaining days of summer, although we're both currently battling nasty colds. Hopefully we'll be able to head to the mountains for a bit between Mat's trainings and meetings, and soon enough we'll be settling into our new home in Berkeley.