The last little piggy went "Wii Wii Wii" all the way home

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I'm still here and that every once in a while I feel guilty about the fact that I don't blog too often. Okay, maybe even a little less than "not too often." And after enough outpourings of guilt from enough people (I'm looking at you mom!) maybe my lazy behind can be persuaded to write a little before seeing you all over pesach. This way you can't lay on too much guilt when I see (most of) you soon.

Part of the reason it takes me so long to post is that I don't just post random daily events that are of no interest to anyone. Of course, I'm not singling out any other family bloggers *cough* but let me just give you a taste of what this blog would be like if I started mass-producing posts like some sweatshop blogger:

"Today I bought some jeans. I like jeans. Jeans are kewl. I have a fish. Swim fish swim! Dovid's apartment is homely."

If you thought that you'd rather see me post more just keep rereading that for a chilling look at what this blog could degenerate into. Scary.

So with that out of the way, here are some things that have been happening over here lately:

A new restaurant is coming to Seattle! Just kidding! Ha ha, made you look! But really there was talk about a new kosher pizza place opening up here, but it fell through at the last minute. Apparently the manager of the place fled with a boatload of unpaid debt. But for a minute there we actually thought we'd have a restaurant with no tofu or spongy cheese cubes or fake meat made from compressed mushrooms (motto: "tastes just like the real thing! You'd never know it's made from fungus!") or any other fungus or bean derivative. Real honest to goodness pizza. Made with products from living things with faces. But that dream is dead. I guess it was too good to be true. There is a silver lining here, though. My inside source at the Seattle Vaad has informed me that they are in talks with another restaurant that is interested in becoming kosher. This one is (drum roll...) a raw food restaurant! Yes, for all you people who thought that vegan food was sinful there may soon be a kosher restaurant where all those face-free veggies aren't even subjected to the horrors of cooking! When the news of this new place spreads I'm sure that hordes of new people will be moving to Seattle. Just think what it'll do to our property value!

Other big news in our household is my recent stint in the world of resale. It all started when Rachel and I started thinking about getting a Wii. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past two years, here you go. Anyway, the main objections to the idea were 1) that it would cost a lot of money, especially once you factor in all the games, controllers, and accessories we'd need to buy and 2) I'd become addicted and spend all my time playing, possibly surfacing for food and/or bathroom usage. I did some research online and found to my surprise that people were still making money on reselling Wiis. I knew that Wiis were a hot item that were hard to get but I pretty surprised that there was still any profit to be made a full year and a half after the system was released. So I figured I'd give it a shot and maybe at least take care of the first objection to getting one myself. As for the second objection, you can ask Rachel if that has become an issue but at least I crawl out of my hole for periodic showers.

I hit the message boards on the internet where other resellers exchanged information to find out which stores were getting Wiis. At first I figured I'd buy one, see if I could sell it, and in the worst case scenario I'd just keep it since I wanted one anyway. I showed up to the store about 45 minutes before they opened and there was already a line, but fortunately they had enough for everyone in line. They gave out vouchers so we wouldn't all have to wait out in the cold. So I scored my first Wii. I sold it on craigslist for $325 after reducing my price a couple times (I paid about $275 including tax) so that was a pretty easy $50. So that's how every sunday for the next several weeks went: Woke up early, picked up Wiis, posted on craigslist. Rinse and repeat.

The annoying thing about posting on craigslist is that you have to contend with "flaggers." Craigslist is pretty open - it's not like ebay where there are rules and things are pretty well controlled. Anyone can pretty much post anything they want. But they have a flag link where anyone can flag your ad if they feel it violates some terms of use. Wii reselling ads are notorious for getting flagged and depending on what time and day you post your ad may get flagged within hours or even minutes of being posted. So if you want people to see your ad you have to be vigilant about reposting as soon as it gets flagged. It's pretty annoying.

So finally after selling a few I decided to keep one for myself. My goal was to pay for everything I bought for the Wii with profit from reselling, which I finally did after selling 8 Wiis. This covered the Wii itself, and all the accessories and games I've bought so far. Cheapness prevails! So I think the whole Wii-selling thing is over for me, and the market is getting worse as Wiis are getting easier to come by. But it was fun while it lasted, and I did get a "free" Wii out of the deal!

But the wildest part of this whole story is definitely the part where I mentioned to Abba and Pat that they should buy a Wii so we can all play when we're home. Of course, like many things I tell them to buy for me, both by asking directly and with subtle mind games and subliminal messages, *cough* house *cough*, I didn't actually expect them to buy it. So I was definitely surprised when Dovid called me asking where to find a Wii because he got the go-ahead from Pat to buy it. And now Abba's house has a Wii. And I'll be bringing my extra controllers when I come for pesach for some mad four-player tennis fun!

Speaking of Pesach, we are really looking forward to seeing almost everyone this year (sorry Mom :( but we'll see you Succos!). What we aren't looking forward to, though, is flying with Levi. He wasn't too bad on our recent trip to Chicago. We were lucky enough to have an empty seat between us going both ways. I guess that's the advantage of flying with a baby. The seat next to you instantly becomes the least desirable seat on the plane, so if there's only one empty seat on the whole plane you can be pretty confident it'll be the one next to you. Unless there's an even more annoying kid somewhere. On the way back to Seattle this past time we got to our 3-seat row and saw the third seat was taken. I politely suggested that the guy might want to switch, and pointed him to a nearby empty aisle seat. He declined. Then I sat down next to him with Levi in my lap and he was like, "you're holding him like that the whole flight?", with a look on his face that was roughly what I would have expected to see if a 600 pound sulfur miner with a contagious rash and bad breath who just won a bean eating contest was about to sit next to him. Needless to say he jumped out of his seat with the alacrity of Road Runner after a cocktail of steroids and speed.

So we got our empty seat in the end, which was really nice because Levi woke up about 30 minutes after take off when they loudly announced how high we were flying, which was much more useful to us than a peacefully sleeping baby. No, we'd much rather know exactly how high we were flying and have our demanding and cranky child awake for the next several hours. But luckily he did eventually fall back asleep - about 10 minutes before landing. Sigh. But with all that said it really could have been much worse. I guess we're lucky that he's usually happy as long as he's being fed. I wonder who he takes after?

So that is about all that's happening here. Sorry about my previous fake post. I hope I didn't get your hopes up too high, but maybe this one will make up for it. But did any of you actually download it to see the fruits of my labor for the past year? Please download it and report any bugs you find! See you all soon!

Ari