From the Inside Out

Foreclosures hit another record high in August. According to CNN Money, 304,000 homes were in default and 91,000 families lost their houses. More than 770,000 homes have been repossessed by lenders since August 2007, when the credit crunch took hold. The numbers are staggering. While the worst hit area has been California, no state is immune to the crisis.

If you’ve ever wondered how widespread the problem is in North Texas, the Dallas Morning News recently launched an interactive foreclosures map. It lets you view the foreclosures that have occurred this year in your neighborhood. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/graphics/0908/foreclosures/.

On a brighter note, here’s a different map that provides hours and hours of fun. It tests how well you know your geography, so not only is it fun, it’s educational. The Traveler IQ Challenge lists certain locations across the world, and you have to find that location on a map. The faster the better because part of your score is based on how quickly you can pinpoint the location.

Check it out, but I warn you, it’s addictive: http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq

Unfortunately, the only Monday night game of the season fell on the same night as rehearsal for Saturday Night Life. Thank God for technology. We set the DVR and headed to rehearsal knowing we could watch the game later. Since many of the actors were also recording the game, we made sure that no one reported the score during rehearsal — we didn’t want to be spoiled before we got a chance to watch it.

SNL Rehearsals were fun; it was a good night even though we were missing a couple of actors. The sketches are coming along nicely, and some performances still provide laugh out loud moments even though we’ve seen them a number of times. It’s going to be a great show!

No one hung around after rehearsals were over. There was a mass exodus as soon as we dismissed. It was time to watch the game. The cool thing about watching the game on DVR is that you can fast forward all of the commercials and boring moments, not that there were many in this game.

The Cowboys played the Eagles, and they didn’t disappoint. It was an exciting game from start to finish. Dallas had a decent lead until Romo faltered and the Eagles scored 14 points in 14 seconds. Argh, not cool. From that moment onwards, the lead switched back and forth between the two teams. It was a high-scoring, nail-biting game.

In the last few minutes, the Cowboys took the lead and managed to hang onto it until the end. Whew, what a relief. We’re 2-0. Go Cowboys!

One of the funniest moments happened after the game. A female reporter was interviewing Tony Romo, and he mentioned his failure in the first half of the game. The reporter said, “You must be referring to the fumble in the end zone. What are you thinking when something like that happens?”

Tony adjusts his hat, smiles and responds, “Dang.”

Classic.

USA has taken the gold again. More specifically, Plano has taken the gold. Nastia Liukin just won the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition at the Beijing Olympics. She trains at her family’s gymnastics club, World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, in Plano, TX. It’s the same gym where Carly Patterson (the previous winner of the all-around competition) trained. Yay Plano!

Coming in second place was another amazing girl from the USA, Shawn Johnson. Take that, China! After all the lies about the ages of the Chinese gymnasts, I feel like justice has been served. According to a news article today on Yahoo! Sports, nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government’s news agency reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13 making her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold metal earlier this week. The Chinese government states that her age was incorrect in that article. To quote Mike Myers from Wayne and Garth, “Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my butt.”

Regardless of the age controversy, the lies, and the cheating, the real champions showed up tonight and demonstrated that they can get the job done with honor, grace and integrity. I’m so proud that these are the girls representing my country.

Go USA!

Nintendo recently released a new fitness game for its popular Wii game console. Tonight I decided to try it out. The Wii Fit uses a wireless balance board for all of its games. Here’s how it works. You step on the board, and the magic begins. It measures your center of gravity to determine whether you are doing the exercises and movements correctly.

Getting Started

At first, you create a user profile by providing basic information (age, height, etc). The balance board then measures your weight and calculates your body mass index (BMI). It puts you through a couple of balances tests to determine your “fitness age.” Mine was a devastating 43, but in my defense, it took me a couple of times to understand how to work the balance test. I’m sure I’ll do better next time.

After undergoing basic tests and setting fitness goals, you can move on to the fun stuff.

Working Out (or for those who don’t like to work out: Game Play)

Wii Fit offers about 40 different activities, and they are divided into four basic categories: Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics, and Balance. I started with Yoga. Wii Fit offers a handful of Yoga poses, but you can unlock more by earning credits which are gained by performing activities. At first glance, I enjoyed it. Some of the poses were easy, and others were more challenging. I do wish that the Wii Fit had an option for a complete workout rather than just a choice of individual poses. In addition, it should have a way to bypass all of the talking and instructions provided by the trainer. That will get old really fast once you’ve done the exercises a few times.

After Yoga, I moved on to the Strength Training. I enjoyed these exercises because they were more challenging than the basic Yoga poses. One of the neat things about the Wii Fit is that even though you are doing strength training exercises, it feels more like a game. For example, you get points by doing the exercises correctly, and you can earn status rankings (i.e. high scorer lists, etc).

I skipped Aerobics since it was almost midnight, and I didn’t want to get my heart rate up. Instead, I played the balance games. There are some fun skiing activities that will give your legs a good workout. I wasn’t the best at these, but they were fun.

All in all, I think it’s worth the money. If you already have a Wii, you should check it out.