A mother of three in California died trying to win a Wii for her brood on a radio station promotion called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.” The idea was to drink a lot of water and see how long you could hold it. The 28-year-old died of water intoxication, a condition more commonly associated with frat hazings. It’s easy to dismiss this as another Darwin award, but this mom clearly bought into the mania of the Wii launch – as we all did. (I, for one, spent 12 hours in various lines before succumbing to eBay.) Factor in the fact that she missed the holiday season and Nintendo consoles are still criminally scarce. Also, even though KDND 107.9 radio station employees warned participants not to risk their health, they still fed them an excessive amount of water (no doubt to speed up the outcome) and apparently didn’t have a doctor on hand to monitor participants. And, it seems, they missed the episode of ER where a remarkably similar college prank led to tragedy.
There was some bright Wii news this week. For those who have them, there are three new Virtual Console titles:
- Moto Roader (TurboGrafx) – $6
- R-Type III: The Third Lightning (SNES) – $8
- Xevious (NES) – $5
