For my 30th column, I wanted to do something worthy of what, for me, is a huge accomplishment. Writing this column (more or less) consistently since last fall is a major feather in my consistency cap — one of only a bare few. 

It can sit right alongside the feather that represents my unquenchable love of mystery stories and the one that symbolizes my tendency to be awkward in public.

Initially I thought, “Thirty columns? Oh yeah, I got this. I’m making a list.” It turned out to be a list of the top 30 reasons why that idea was lame. Then I started working on a more introspective piece that reflected on all the things that have happened since I embarked on chronicling my journey almost one year ago. That piece instead ended up chronicling my ability to write something with about as much life in it as a fillet of carp and all the appeal of a flaccid piece of wet cardboard.

In fact, I wasn’t fired up to write anything until two days ago when I had my second encounter with our Nintendo Wii Fit.

I can’t explain it, but somewhere along the line my interest in video games went out along with my ability to give a crap about professional wrestling. Admittedly, some of the Wii games can be fun, but most of the time I am trying so hard to handle the controller the right way that focusing on the coordination needed to expertly wield a computer-generated golf club escapes me completely. I mean, I gave up trying years ago to beat the final level of Bowser’s Castle in "Super Mario World," so wherever the place is that resides between that and a good old-fashioned river fording on "Oregon Trail" lies my skill level for video gamery.

Then came the Wii Fit.

In a gesture that smacked of affection and personal bravery, my boyfriend bought the Wii Fit in an attempt to make it easier for us to squeeze exercise into our lives. It would be fun, he told me, after seeing my eyebrows reach skyward with skepticism, and we could exercise in smaller time increments whenever we could fit it in. And while I feel a pang of guilt for my aversion to that small, sleek, white machine because he bought it for us as something to help, I will not stand by and take crap from a video game machine. There, I said it. Now if the Cylons really do take over, I’ll be in trouble. (Battlestar geeks holla if you hear me.)

So Wii Fit, how did we go so wrong?

Well, for starters, you’re never going to get a girl if all you do is make fun of her all the time, call out her faults and then rub it in when she fails to meet your expectations.

Here’s the thing: When you want to use the Nintendo Wii, you need to create an avatar called a Mii. Essentially you create the computer equivalent of yourself that has all the fine attention to detail of a Lego person and is meant to superficially resemble you. You can make it look like anything you want, but this is the idea - i.e., it sports a certain hairstyle, color of clothing, etc., that you choose for it. But the Wii Fit takes this avatar building business a few steps further than having a baker’s dozen of different eyebrow sets to choose from.

You have to enter certain other personal details in order for the Wii Fit to allegedly help you realize your fitness goals. So now the damn thing knows your height and weight too. However, instead of leaving the way your Mii actually looks alone, thank you very much, the Wii makes your Mii fat too.

Yep. In much the same way that Mario has excited little sparkles burst out of him when he runs into a mushroom or a raccoon tail that gives him special powers, I watched my Mii go through a fun transformation too: the out-plopping of my spare tire - and I could have sworn there were computer-generated sparkles when it happened.

One might think for a video game suite that was designed to help people get in shape, maybe they would give the user a regular Mii, a thinner version to look forward to, or even just the option of not having a fat avatar, right? I mean, it’s entirely possible that I reached my ideal calorie-burning heart rate “zone” by standing on the scale/Wii Fit board and having my blood pressure escalate at the sight of my Mii’s mid-section expanding with a “pop!” as it shrunk me vertically and stretched me sideways.

Then, as I fought to regain control over my volcano of rage, the Wii Fit asked me to enter my weight loss goals. “Okay,” I thought. “Just enter what you want to lose and get it over with.”

So, a), when you enter the number of pounds you want to lose, you have to press the button on the controller each time for each pound, exacerbating an already tedious process; b), apparently no one creating this software could fathom anyone needing to lose more than 20-plus pounds.

Seriously, it literally stopped letting me enter how much weight I wanted to lose somewhere in the 20s.

I don’t know what enraged me more, the fact that clearly it was ludicrous to the Wii Fit that anyone could possibly be that overweight, or the fact that I couldn’t gain some exercise points by throwing the vile thing through the window.

That was roughly 106 days ago. Then, about a week and a half ago, I started Weight Watchers. Lord knows I need structure. I’m not down with the whole low-fat/no-fat foods stuff or anything like that, but good foods that are naturally low in the bad things — I can deal with that. However, you need to weigh yourself weekly to chart your progress.

I was all prepared to go out and buy a scale when my boyfriend reminded me that the Wii Fit doubles as a scale. I had preferred to leave it shoved under the chair in the living room, forgotten and alone, but I didn’t want to shell out for a scale if we already had one in the house.

So I got myself up on the Wii Fit board, and braced myself to see if I had lost anything in my first week on the Weight Watchers plan.

Reasons why trying to do a simple task like weighing yourself on the Wii Fit is maddening:

a) It takes forever just to get to the weighing point. I dig the old-fashioned bathroom scale of the ilk that my Grandma had — step up, the numbers spin in front of you and in less than 20 seconds, voila! You have your weight and it is not saved in some computer’s memory for future judgment.

b) You have to turn the machine on, wait for it to load, then select your Mii, which brings back all of the lovely memories you have of creating it, and then it tells you how long it’s been since you’ve deigned to work out with the Wii Fit.

c) Then it doesn’t just let you weigh yourself — it has to assess your balance first…

d) After which it has to berate you about your need to disperse your weight more to the right (in my case anyway).

e) Once you’ve been told that your balance is for shit, then it asks you to stand and be weighed.

f) Ah, and here’s the best part: If you’ve gained weight since the last time you stood on the scale, in my case 1.5 pounds, it condescends to tell you that maybe next time you shouldn’t set such lofty weight loss goals.

g) No, I’m not kidding.

However, according to my WW online tracker, I have lost 1.5 pounds since last week, and my best friend Myrtle made a good point: Maybe since 106 days ago I had gained weight and then lost it from there, so my Wii Fit weigh-in might not be as horrid as it seems.

Regardless, I found myself nearly brought to tears of incredulity after realizing that a computer had just worn away my defenses with its snide commentary on my weight-loss efforts. My boyfriend, who was making dinner in the kitchen, looked into the living room and saw me sitting on the sofa.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

(My responses have been made PG with the aid of "Battlestar Gallactica" euphemisms):

“I hate that fracking thing.” I responded. “I’m sorry, I know you bought it to be helpful, but I hate that gods-damn fracking thing.”

So tonight, after my eye appointment, I am going to the store to purchase my own, low-tech, no frills, Grandma-style old-school scale. Preferably something in gold or powder blue — an echo of a simpler time when the scale I knew matched the color scheme in my Grandma’s bathroom and hadn’t yet gained the awareness to talk back.

Elizabeth Palmer writes about several things, one being her experience as a (very) curvy girl. You can find her at her somewhat regularly updated blog, http://sustainliving.blogspot.com/.