The Nintendo Wii came out six months ago. In November. Remind yourself of this as you read this story.

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Monday was my 29th birthday, and as I do every year, I picked out a nice gift to buy for myself. This year, I decided to buy a Wii. Problem is, you can’t just walk into a store and buy a Wii — the things are so ridiculously popular that six months after their release, stores still cannot keep them in stock. I stopped by the Nebraska Furniture Mart on Monday night on the way to the bar, and of course, found none in stock. Upon relying this story to Dick Herculanuum, he decided to do some snooping and figure out a way to procure one for each of us.

His brother, who used to work for Gamers and knows about these things, told him if you go to the Mart for three weeks every day when they open, you will get ahold of one. You have to go every day, because you never know when they’ll get a shipment of them in. Not satisfied with this, he started calling around. Gamestop told him its luck of the draw — they never know when they’re getting a shipment until they arrive. Toys R Us told him a similar story, but added they received 30-some in their last batch, and all were gone by noon the same day.

I meant to post this about six weeks ago, and just never got around to it. All I had to do was finish it — 90% of the post was already written! — and I forgot to do so. No matter.

I recently went to visit a college acquaintance, and as I entered her house, I noticed an atrocity. Remember how the movie “Little Nicky” starts with Jon Lovitz getting raped by a man in a bird costume — and somehow manages to get worse over the next 85 minutes? Well, on the first wall a person sees when they enter this house, this full-size poster greets you:

The movie poster from “Top Dog”. Holy crap. Finally, a worse greeting than the first five minutes of “Little Nicky”!

This poster took a skilled artisan no less than 6 minutes and no more than 8 minutes to produce. 7 minutes. Not a second more. Quick! Drop the background out! Fast! Throw a gradient over the movie title text! Stop moving, its too hard to crack a whip on a moving target! And make sure to not get too fancy when you drop the dog in behind the letters, it might affect the readability of the text, while also doubling the time you’ll spend producing this poster! Hey! Typeset an awful tagline with 250% leading! Save your work! Send directly to the printer! Whew, that was close.

I challenge you to watch this :59 clip and not laugh at least twice. Hell, the mullet and the shades will have you laughing twice before he even opens his mouth to speak. So make it three times.

“Well dude its like this. I saw this guy comin’, and I took the most excellent hit of my life! Next thing I knew, I was on the beach, takin’ in some cosmic rays, gettin’ healed by Mother Nature! Takin’ a little brewsky, holdin’ onto a beautiful babe, and I’m fine today! Sweet!”

I miss American Gladiators. Malibu was the greatest.

You bet.

The waitress looks on, stopwatch in hand, as The Blazin’ Challenge riots on

Ah, the Blazin’ Challenge. Friday night, we celebrated two birthdays — mine and my buddy Josh’s (my brother’s wife’s brother) — at Buffalo Wild Wings. The previous time we’d been there, we had noticed with some degree of curiosity the “Blazin’ Challenge” sign and honor wall. Unfortunately, this was on the way out. We decided the next time we went, it would be high time to give it a whirl.

Friday night was that time.

There were three of us that attempted this spicy contest — my brother, Josh, and myself. Now, I don’t usually like high-end spicy food, or at least, not to the extent of those two. Their tolerance for spice borders on masochistic. But I couldn’t say no, not when it was a celebration.

The waitress immediately said, “Are you sure? You know its the Blazin’ wings, right?” as though she was literally scared for our livelihood in the aftermath of the contest. We nodded and said we understood this to be true.

29 is the highest possible score in Cribbage. A Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 29 moves or less. 29 is the interstate designation of a freeway running from Missouri to North Dakota. 2029 is the year when Buddy Holly’s music will move into the public domain. Ray Charles released an album in 1980 named “Genius+Soul=Jazz”.

I bring up these points because I am 29 on Monday. And this past Saturday night, 29+25=Awesome.

But that’s not where this story begins. No, its really an inter-connected four-pronged story that is more “chapter in a book” than “short story”, but more “short story” than “blog post”. In other words, print it out and read it on the couch, because its long.