Walking Wounded

Little may you know, my getting a hampster was doing something I wanted to do no matter what people may think. The other thing on that list is getting a Personal Water Craft (Jet Ski/Waverunner). I’ve wanted one since Jr. High when I went out with a friend on his. Well, I’ve never done it because either it didn’t make financial sense or people would think I wasn’t practical or a number of other reasons.

Well, I’m throwing caution into the wind and pursuing this dream of mine. I know I want a 3-4 man one. This allows me to take a lot of friends out and even do tubing and possibly water skiing on it (two other things I love to do). So many of my friends have never even been on a Jet Ski! I think taking friends out on it would be the most enjoyable thing for me. I’d love to take it out to the Indian River and boat on over to an island and camp for the night.

I’m really getting serious about this idea. I’ve been thinking about it for about a month now and am starting research it more (if you know anything about this, tips would be great). Hopefully I get to start test riding some soon. I’ll keep my blog updated on this.

The Wii is sure to be a great system. But there are some games that (in my opinion) have to be made for this sytem. Here is a list of titles I’d love to see on the Wii.

Punchout Wii

This game was great for the NES. Then the sequel for the SNES was also amazing. People have wanted a new Punchout for a while and with the Wii’s motion sensing capabilities, it’s a perfect time to resurrect it. Nintendo tried to get people play with the u-force controller but it didn’t take well. I’ve tried using the uforce and it didn’t work well. Now we have a full motion sensing controller that could detect all of our punches and jigs/dodges away from our opponents attacks. If a Wii Punchout came out, that would be really cool.

Pikmin 3 – Wii got treasure to find

I want this game more than any other unannounced game. It would have definitely been in my top 5 games I want for Wii if it had been announced. The first Pikmin game was revolutionary. It was a whole new type of game and was so clever. Nintendo fans everywhere grew attached to Olimar and the Pikmin. This game had character. Pikmin 2 took the original Pikmin and blew it out of the water. After going back and playing Pikmin 2 I may add it to my top 10 games because it was so good. I know this games controls could be really cool with the Wii controller. Really I just want more Pikmin!

Kid Icarus 2

I still don’t know why a Kid Icarus sequel was never made (not counting the handheld version). I would just love to see this game brought back. They’ve added Pit (Kid Icarus’ main character) to Super Smash Bros Brawl but I want more than that. I can’t even say why I want this game so much. I just loved the original and think it’s something Nintendo could easily bring back and do well with. I also hope it would stay 2D because there is just an over abundance of 3D games.

Wii hunt ducks

Hasn’t everyone always wanted a new Duck Hunt? This is more a novelty than anything else. I don’t think they could actually get anyone to pay much for a new Duck Hunt game. I’d plunk down $5 to download (from their online service) a new version that uses the Wii controller inside the new gun shell. I know they actually had a tech demo of this at E3. Next to a new Pikmin, I actually think is very likely to happen. From the E3 video, it looks like they can do some really cool multiplayer stuff. Bring back Duck Hunt!

Ikaruga 2

I really don’t see this one happening but it’d be great. They just don’t make Ikaruga anymore (Think Galaga on crack). It didn’t sell all that great but had a big cult following. I think out of the ordinary games like these are essential for the Wii. I would love to see the plane shooter games come back. I loved 1943 and Sky Shark and Galaga. I think these games can make a hit on the console again but they’ll probably just stay in the arcades because they don’t sell that well. If you want to see an insanely good Ikaruga player, check this out. I don’t know how he does that.

I lead music this past Sunday at my Church (UPC). This was very exciting for me because I’ve never lead a congregation in worship before. I lead worship for a couple years for my college group but that’s a much different story. The biggest difference for me was leading a band. This was difficult at times. I can’t by myself make the song full, or make it sound exactly how I want it to. I have to combine everyone’s ideas and what they are doing into what I feel the song should be like. It was a lot of fun. About half the time the band would do what I was looking for without me saying anything. The other half they were doing something different. Most of the time, I liked it better than what I was thinking. Sometimes I would try and give direction.

Directing the band was the key part. Leading with the acoustic, I can’t as much as say drums bass or electric guitar, fill out a song and make it really interesting. So I have to depend on getting the rest of the band there. It’s an experience I’ve never gone through before. Fortunately for me, I had an amazing band behind me full of great ideas and skill and that made it a lot easier on me.

I’m very pleased with how everything went. Yes, playing well and people enjoying it is important, but I feel I actually lead people in worship. It was cool to look out and see people with their hands raised, eyes closed, worshipping God. I was like, wow, I can’t believe God is using me this way to lead other in worship of Him. It was a really cool experience. It wasn’t so much (except for my friends) about, wow, Brett is leading worship, and it was about worshipping God. Who I am and that it was my first time was completely transparent to most people. My friends were all so encouraging during the whole thing and that really helped me get through this first time. Thank you all!
I’m really excited to do this again sometime. I’m not sure how leading worship will fit into my life direction but I know it will always play some sort of role. We’ll see….

(by the way, can you spot me in the picture?)

I Love the world cup. I’d take the world cup over any other sports event. I’d take it over the World Series, over the Olympics, over any sporting event. I love watching the different teams, seeing countries complete, and watching what (to me) is easily the greatest sport in the world.

I’d like to give some of my impressions so far. First is the US was very bad this year. They never do amazing but they are a young team and this is the first year I thought we actually had a good chance of doing something. We played great against Italy and some bad calls might have cost us the game. However, we played terrible verses Ghana and Check and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Now onto one of my new favorite teams. I’ve never been a big fan many teams so far besides the US. For the most part I don’t care who wins as long as some teams I just don’t like lose. But this year Ghana has now moved into the spot for my other favorite team. I watched them play a phenomenal game against the Check and then take down the US. They were a huge underdog in this tournament and really showed up.

It wasn’t luck that got Ghana past the first round. That played their heart out. They played some of the best soccer I’ve seen. Their loss to Brazil today was a shame. I felt they played a better soccer game but just couldn’t capitalize on any of there goals. Brazil didn’t play great but almost always put the ball in the net every time they had a good chance. I’m sad to see Ghana go but they went out with a blaze of glory against Brazil and we can expect to see Ghana as the team to watch in the 2010 World Cup. Oh, my favorite goalie is now the guy from Ghana who is pictured above.
With US and Ghana out I’m having trouble knowing who to go for. Here are my predictions

-France and Spain are playing now and I think Spain will take that game.
-Italy will beat the Ukraine but I really hope they don’t.
-Germany will take out Argentina and then Italy and go to the Final
-Brazil will take out Spain
-England will beat Portugal and then Brazil
-We’ll see Germany vs. England in the final game and I think Germany will pull it out