Yesterday was a particularly successful day of technology acquisition. I ended up buying and configuring an Apple Time Capsule (802.11n WiFi + network storage for backups) as well as a Wii Fit. Of course setting all that up took a big chunk of time, but there you are. I needed to acquire some more data storage and I had been debating a Time Capsule or biting the bullet and getting a Drobo. But in the last week I had several network outages that ended up being fixed by rebooting the Airport Extreme (my router), so it seemed like the Extreme needed to be replaced. As a bonus that meant I could move the Extreme as a relay in my office (the iPhone has been having some problems lately getting a good signal when I'm in my office). The thing about configuring WiFi is it's always a mess. There are three nodes in the network - the new Time Capsule, the Airport Extreme, and an Airport Express (which also streams music to the kitchen). Getting the Time Capsule to replace the Extreme was pretty straightforward, but getting the Airport Express to reconfigure took well over an hour. And the frustrating thing is that I can't say what I did differently. I'd swear I configured it the exact same way three or four times and then suddenly the last time it went "Oh, you want me to join the existing network? I can do that." And the Time Capsule insisted that my previous WiFi password wasn't the correct length so I had to change the WiFi password and then go teach it to all of the relevant devices. Whee. But now I've got a Time Capsule and can backup Horton (the Mac Mini) and Lorax (my new laptop) using Time Machine. On Wii Fit, they are fairly difficult to find (surprise! Stupid Nintendo!) On our recent vacation we checked out a fair number of Wii games, and Wii Fit, which is only sort of a game. Karin ended up wanting WarioWare and a Wii Fit, and neither is very easy to find. (If you want WarioWare the only choice I found was ordering it from bestbuy.com. It wasn't in any local stores and it's not available from Amazon or Gamestop.com.) Several Amazon Marketplace stores are selling WarioWare at higher than MSRP, so it must be out of print. And what is up with that? If I grudgingly accept some sort of hardware issue with Wii supply and then with Wii Fit, but WarioWare? That's just a DVD for crying out loud! The Wii Fit had worked out that I was just calling a few stores every week and trying places like Target or Best Buy when I was there anyway. We were at Target on Sunday and I figured I'd ask in the electronics department and they seemed to have just discovered they had "two to four units" in the back. Which makes no freaking sense, but whatever. There was a guy already waiting for one, a girl asked for one while I was waiting for them to find the stock in the back. So if they had four they sold three of them before they could even get them. Frankly I have trouble believing that the Wii Fit board is tough to make. It's a neat piece of hardware, but there's nothing cutting-edge inside it. Nintendo really needs to stop screwing around and get their manufacturing sorted out. I'm done trying to guess what the problem is, but it's really getting ridiculous now. Having WarioWare not be in the stores is just absurd. They have plenty of shelf space in the stores for crappy third party titles, and it seems like WarioWare is a game that people might actually want.