You gotta lurve geeks!

[Nick]

When a new bit of kit comes out I used to be amazed at the number of people that would fiddle with their expensive new kit, taking it apart to see how it worked.

Now, however, I'm indebted to these 'fiddlers' as without them I'd be well and truly stuffed.

I've just set up a new wireless router to plug all my consoles into and whilst the Xbox 360 and PS3 are quite happy with a wired connection, the Wii likes a wireless connection which means I've got to go into the setup screens and change a few things.

This wouldn't be a problem except that the WiiMote was all over the place, making typing in a hexidecimal WEP key a bit of a nightmare.

So I went into the Wii options screen and had a look at the sensitivity of the WiiMote and there were dots all over the place... and nothing I could do would make it any better.

A quick call to Nintendo and sure enough, they diagnosed my sensor bar as being the culprit... and then the WiiMote wouldn't work at all meaning my sensor bar had definitely died.

So it's a 10 day turn around on a like-for-like replacement, free of charge, which isn't bad but does leave me without the Wii... and with games to review this is not a good thing.

Then I remembered those geeks that have to rip everything apart to see how it worked.

And I remembered that they discovered that the sensor bar is nothing more than two infra-red LEDs.. so all I need to use the Wii is two new sources of infra-red light.

So, two tea-candles later, I'm back on the Wii and everything is good.

The Wii is now hooked up to the net, the WiiMote is working perfectly and I'm back up to speed.

I just have to remember to blow the candles out after each session or I might set fire to a kitten or worse, my Wii!

Geeks, I hail thee! Without your obsessive compulsion to pull everything apart, I'd have been stuffed.

All hail the geek!

[Moby-Dick]

Ttiuwp !