Day 1.

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

"..urgh..."

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

Dave stumbled out of bed and across the room to hit the alarm clock. Placing the alarm so far away had seemed like such a good idea last night. Would have to get him up. Well it had worked, but he hadn't slept well at all and now he didn't feel all that great. A double bed simply wasn't designed for single use. It became cold, empty and lonely.

Dave staggered off to hunt for food. Breakfast consisted of 4 Weetabix with some dried mixed fruit, which he consumed in front of the computer whilst checking emails aka deleting spam.

After breakfast he went to play on his Wii Fit. Started off with some lighter stepping exercises, moving on to workouts. An hour later he had a very much needed shower.

He returned to his computer, checked emails (more spam deleting) and opened up his file labelled "thesis". Then he got down to some hard work, stopping only every few minutes when MSN let him know he had some more spam to delete.

Around 4pm he went off to make some more food. Some veg, shallow boiled (like shallow frying, but replacing the oil with water), with added oyster source. Yum. He ate in front of the TV, despite nothing worth watching being on, then went off to work at his door to door job for the Echo.

Having failed to convince even a single person to sign up to have the Echo delivered, Dave returned home at around 9pm. Cooked himself a fried egg-tomotoe-mince meat meal, with added oyster source and ate in front of the TV, despite nothing worth watching being on. He then washed the dishes and retired upstairs.

Parking himself once more in front of the computer, he deleted spam, opened up his file "thesis" and got down to work. Around 11 his mind started to wonder a little, but he argued with himself and carried on for another 2 hours, although at a much reduced efficiency.

Finally exhausted, he set his alarm and placed it as far away from the bed as he could. Otherwise he would just wack it and go back to sleep. Then he finally went to bed.

... where he found he could not sleep... a double bed simply wasn't designed for single use... it became cold... empty... lonely.



Note, for day 2 onwards, simply change the title. For days off from the Echo (Friday-Sunday), replace the work with going food shopping, parking in front of computer, deleting spam, "thesis".

Two weeks down, two months to go.

Back to work.

Apart.

Coming home from work, Dave's daily routine involved pulling out his phone, dialling Jean's number and saying hi. The conversation would lead on from there, usually in a somewhat random direction. A somewhat pointless routine really, since it took less than 30 minutes to get home and Jean would be waiting for him on arrival, but a routine he wouldn't miss for the world.

Today was different. Today Dave's phone stayed in his pocket. Today a phone call would have been too pointless even for Dave, because today Jean wasn't at home, she was thousands of miles away, travelling at ridiculously high speeds on a rather large metal bird. Today, Jean left for China.

Since meeting several years ago, Dave and Jean had not been apart for longer than a week, rarely been apart for more than 3 days and usually not been seperated for more than several hours. They had been joined at the hip and enjoyed every moment of it. Now Jean would be away for over 2 months.

Why?

There were 2 main reasons for her going while he stayed. The first, Jean REALLY needed a break. The job she had just recently quit had caused her far too much stress (for far too little pay). She now had just over 2 months free before she returned to Uni to do an Msc and she needed to enjoy it. The second, Dave REALLY needed to get ALOT of work done. He was way behind his original schedule (and his second, third and fourth schedules) and needed to get his PhD back on track.

There was little Dave could do about the first target, other than prayer. For the next 10 weeks he would throw himself whole heartedly into the second.

Starting right now.

Wii Fit

There is an episode of South Park in which Cartman buys a failing fairground, closes the doors and keeps it all to himself. Suddenly, because he doesn't allow anyone in, everyone wants to get in. Discovering a fairground costs too much to run, Cartman is forced to open it back up to the public and it becomes a huge success again.

Why mention this? Well it is clearly the source of inspiration for the marketing people down at Nintendo. In the real world, no body seems to play the "You can't have this, nah nah" card better. The Wii is still not easy to find, games such as Mario Kart are few and far between and the Wii Fit simply doesn't seem to exist. Retailing at £70, the Wii Fit is in such high demand that it sells regularly on ebay for £150. Yet Nintendo still splashes out on TV ads and public demonstrations. For all these reasons, Dave was pretty darn happy to say the least when he finally tracked one down.

So what is? The Wii Fit is a game which comes with the Wii Board. The Wii Board is a sensitive weighing device, which can measure changes in balance side to side and front to back. It can thus be used to play games such as virtual skiing, to measure performance in work outs such as push ups and to improve posture through various yoga stances. In total, Wii Fit offers around 50 such things to choose from, ranging from cutely additive to physically exhuasting.

Although true a large amount of the activities on offer COULD, quite easily, be done WITHOUT a Wii Board or the Wii Fit, the majority of people simply don't do them. Tell a person to stand on one leg for 30 seconds a day, then swap to the other leg and repeat and it simply won't get done. Put them on a Wii Fit and the same task becomes fun. It shifts exercise away from the "work" catorgory that alot of people have placed it in, back to the "play" slot where it belongs.

But most importantly, it produces pretty graphs.