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We’re running a little late today. Sorry! The kids have spring break, so my schedule is a little out of whack.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve done a “Move It Mama! Monday” post, and thought I’m no longer writing those as a regular feature here, I did recently come across something fitness-wise that would be perfect for that topic. Last week I bought a Wii jOG. The jOG is a little device that clips to the waist and counts steps like an ordinary step counter would, but this one hooks into the Wii-mote and the nunchuk as well. The idea is that you have to keep moving (I jog in place) in order to power the nunchuk, so if you’re playing an RPG that requires you to use the nunchuk to move your character around on screen, this thing is IDEAL!
I’ve been playing Rune Factory: Frontier for ages, and I love it. It’s a very lengthy game that involves farming, dungeon crawling, character interaction (my character has to woo and marry one of the village girls), etc. There’s a pretty interesting story line, and so I enjoy playing it. But I could never find the time to just sit on the couch and play, so the game has just sort of been languishing on my bookshelf. Now that I have the Wii jOG, though, I have an excuse to play video games. I’m not just killing time, I’m exercising!
This gets back to what I love about Wii Fitness games, which is that they are games, and the good ones don’t just run you through the standard exercises, they also entertain. The Wii jOG transforms just about any RPG into an exercise game, ala Walk It Out (another favorite of mine). Unlike Walk It Out, though, the Wii jOG and Rune Factory now give me a story to explore as well as a landscape to run around in. I’m loving it!
The only downside is that the company that made the Wii jOG went out of business last year. I don’t know what the problem was, because the product is terrific, but they’re no longer around. However, you can still find the Wii jOG for sale on Amazon.com for a very reasonable (i.e. liquidation) price. I got mine for $5, and that included the shipping. And another company has come out with the UMove, which combines both the pedometer and the nunchuk into one device. The cost is more (this company hasn’t gone out of business yet), but the idea is the same and I’d recommend giving it a try.
So that’s my fitness update, which I know you’ve all be longing for all these months. On a few last notes, I just wanted to let Rebecca know her husband did exactly what she asked him to do at the InterventionCon meet up on Saturday, and he also made my day by telling me how much he enjoyed the webcomic. Moments like that are gold to a webcomicker. And to a writer. And to a podcaster. And to anybody who produces creative content for the masses. Seriously, we live for feedback. And cheese. Cheese is very important. But complements and feedback are even better 
