I was tempted by that Que pro reader, but I still can't find a place for an E-book reader in my life.

There were highs (Curse of Monkey Island) and lows (Escape from Monkey Island) but all in all, what a great series. And Telltale has done a great job on the new game. Making a balanced adventure game with puzzles that are solvable but not too easy is very hard...as I can attest to from the other games, none of which get it right. So I'm happy to report I didn't have to cheat or use the hints on the latest game, something I had to do on all the others (and wanted to do on Escape so it would just end faster...).

Anyway, time to get some food and ponder what to play next, which will likely be an attempt to finish up Final Fantasy XII. It's so nice to finish games for a change. Thank you World of Warcraft hiatus. :)

That's the question I'm trying to answer this week. My company offers a 1 month sabbatical to all employees every 5 years they work there. And if you travel to a company you've never been to before, they cover most of the travel costs. So I'll be taking mine to Japan, obviously. I booked my flights last week and now I have to sort out what all I'm doing while there.

I need to figure out places to visit, hotel types to stay at, how long to stay in each area, and of course, what sorts of awesome food I need to try.

So if anyone has suggestions on what I should make sure to do (I'm looking at current and former Japandemonium columnists especially...) or visit, I'd really appreciate some help.

I've been reading on wikitravel and the whole bathing and do's and do not's have me slightly intimidated. I guess I'm realizing how foreign of an experience it's going to be. At this point, I'm hoping I don't accidentally book lodging at some rural ryokan that doesn't like foreign guests and accidentally blow my nose while I'm there and forget to not step on the tatami in my slippers and take a bath in the water before taking a bath on the stool...yeah.

Slow computers may not like it so much.

In the jumping lunge you put a foot in front of you and kneel forward, your front leg is making a nice right angle with the floor and your rear shin is nearly parallel to the floor. Your front foot is flat and the rear foot is on the ball of the foot. Fine, just a normal lunge, right? Then you are supposed to jump into air from this position, switch your legs and land with the other foot forward, completing a crouch back into the original lunge position. Only now your legs are opposite they way you started. Oh and do it slowly to help work the muscles.

Yeah, I don't know how to land that slowly, or even safely. I tried like four of them and felt like my leg muscles were going to end up getting ripped off of my bones. Not to mention the game was complaining that I was doing it too fast, even when I waited for the little animated guy before doing it, apparently I needed to control my landing and do it slower. No idea how that's supposed to work.

So I skipped the jumping lunges, and am going to go back down to a medium intensity workout next time.

Other than that, I'm still really enjoying doing the workouts. I really hope this continues. :)

Oh and I'm now wondering if anyone at EA actually tried wearing the strap and completing a workout. I cannot understand how it can stay on for anybody at this point, I have it fall off 3 or 4 times a session.

First off, I've been twittering a lot, as it's faster, easier, and less time consuming than bloggin, so most of my updates can be found at http://www.twitter.com/sabin1001. You can watch what I"m doing without having an account, though it's much more fun to join in and post as well. I'll spare you by not reposting tweets on my blog as I'm not sure of anyone who actually likes to see those.

So onto the Wii, on Tuesday Nintendo made out rather well from me. I picked up Big Bang Mini (a shoot 'em up for the DS), Punch Out! (I'm a minor circuit champion!) for the Wii, a Wii Fit, and EA Sports Active. While the first two games are fun, I'm most excited about Active, as it's my new plan to lose some weight. I was down to ~170lbs after an initial cholesterol scare in 2004, but now I'm back up to 220, so I need to cut some weight again and this looks like a better way to do it than DDR.

I'm done with the first two days where I burned around 500 calories in the two "medium intensity" (I'm really scared to try the high intensity option) workouts I've had so far. And I hurt all over, especially my legs. They burnses, they do. SIlly fat hobbit legs...okay so maybe gollum isn't the best workout motivator but still.

Mikel tells me I should work out in the evenings too to help loosen up the muscles. I just wish the game would affirm that as well, as I was kind of hoping it'd be taking the full on "I'm your personal trainer" roll. Nevertheless, I will definitely keep going with this, it's fun, I know it's working cause of all the sweat, and most importantly--it has me doing excercise. Hard to have a more successful fitness product than the one that actually gets you to do work. More posts to come.

Oh, and if anyone else who has the game can figure out what I need to do to make it recognize lunges with my left leg better (like...at all) and get the strap to stay on my right leg better, please let me know.