On October 1, Nintendo announced the Wii Remote Jacket — a durable, non-slip cover for the Wii Remote made of silicone and designed to provide a number of benefits to the player. Most notably, the benefit of not accidentally throwing the controller through your television screen. Although, I guess, if you really wanted to, you still could. There’s nothing to prevent you from doing it on purpose….

The Wii Remote Jacket will be available in all new shipments of Wii hardware as well as all new Wii Remotes sold separately or with copies of “Wii Play”. Current Wii owners should go to Wii.com or Nintendo.com, or can dial 1-866-431-8367 to get Remote Jackets free of charge. Nintendo began taking orders on October 2 and are expected to be shipping them out by October 15.

As for what I think of all this, first of all, what’s up with the guy over at Nintendo who’s responsible for naming things? We were just finally getting past any and all jokes related to the name Wii, and then they come out with this: The Wii Remote Jacket. I wonder what other, slightly pejorative metaphors they could have come up with as names for this. The Wii Raincoat, perhaps? Was that in the running? How about Wii Rubber? It’s bad enough that it looks the way it does, let’s just be thankful they didn’t keep referring to it as “protection”; although, referring to it in the press release as a “cushiony shield” really isn’t any better.

The necessity of this product seems more than superfluous when you consider that Nintendo went to all the trouble of releasing new wrist straps only months ago. Were those not sufficient in their restraint of the troubling and diabolical Wii Remote? As someone who likes to live dangerously, I still haven’t adopted the new straps and see little reason to bother — I know how to hold on to things. It’s difficult, but I manage. Actually, I haven’t really had the chance to push my luck with the Wii Remote’s tendency to take flight considering I haven’t turned my Wii on in months — but that’s another story. Getting back to the point, the saddest part about all of this is that it seems as though my fictional character, Johnny Astroglide — that sweaty palmed, weak-handed, greasy little gamer — still hasn’t managed to figure it out. It’s a simple matter of physics, really; and although perspiration plays a huge role in this frictional debacle, a little strength and dexterity should be all that is required to keep things in check. Methinks Johnny Astroglide needs a re-roll on his character sheet… but the more I think about it, the more I think… I’m sorry. I just can’t do this. I wrote about all of this a long time ago in a blog far, far away… and I just can’t muster up the energy to write about this AGAIN. Instead, I think I’d like to write about “Pushing Daisies”, a new show on ABC that debuted on Wednesday, October 3.

“Pushing Daisies” is about a guy who can bring people back from the dead… but only for 60 seconds. If he doesn’t touch them again, some random person within proximity dies. If he does touch the person again, they die. And get this: he doesn’t do it for altruistic purposes — he’s in it for the money. He finds someone who is recently deceased of nefarious causes and brings them back long enough to solve the case and collect the reward. It seems like a simple enough premise until you count in all the amazingly odd, quirky people who make up the cast of characters. A one-eyed, crazy aunt who’s a shut-in with her equally crazy sister and synchronized swimming partner, a detective who’s in on the whole thing and splits the reward money, and a woman who was killed while on vacation because she was, unwittingly, smuggling a pair of solid gold monkeys. How this show isn’t a Tim Burton production, I do not know. And it’s completely gorgeous; the production on “Pushing Daisies” is top-notch — this is the kind of show High-Definition was made for.

So, along with “House” on Tuesday nights, “Doctor Who” and “Stargate: Atlantis” on Friday nights, and the new season of “Battlestar Galactica”… my God! There’s compelling content on TV! What happened? After years of crappy reality shows, there’s finally something interesting and intelligent to watch on TV. Hmm, it’s like Nintendo knew that the Fall lineup this year was going to be all-aces and issued the Wii Remote Jacket just in the nick of time. After all, you can’t watch a broken TV.