Another excuse to play

The Nintendo Wii is gaining a whole new audience. Senior citizens are now bowling, batting and boxing as part of a new physical therapy trend.

Hospitals across the nation are prescribing “Wiihabilitation” instead of traditional physical therapy methods, which often are boring and painful, hospital officials said in an article in the Chicago Sun-Times.

One patient said that learning to play the system gave him something to do with his grandchildren.

Researcher Lars Oddsson, director of the Sister Kenny Research Center at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, is working with the University of Minnesota to study the effectiveness of “Wiihabilitation.”

Oddson said that more scientific evidence is needed to prove that the video game has an effect on flexibility, cardio and other physical activities. “You can certainly make a case that some form of endurance related to strength … would be challenged when you play the Wii,” he told Chicago newspapers.

Monkey see, monkey paint

Local artist Towan had two paintings for sale on eBay last week. The paintings are abstract, composed in mostly primarily colors and are fetching prices upwards of $800.

Towan is an orangutan living at the Woodland Park Zoo.

“All orangs like to paint,” said orangutan keeper Felicity Oram in The Seattle Times Thursday. “It’s an enrichment activity. They are very visual creatures and are higher apes and like to express themselves.”

According to zoo keepers, painting is the 40-year-old orangutan’s favorite activity. Unlike the other orangutan artists at the zoo, he slides his paintings under the door rather than ripping the pieces up and will often take up to two hours painting one piece.

Towan’s paintings have been sold before at local events for almost $1,000.

This is not the first time that a Woodland Park Zoo animal has taken up art. Two years ago, paintings by elephants featuring Seahawks colors green and blue sold for nearly $1,300 online.

Seattle sex shop robbed

Seattle sex toy store Babeland was broken into and vandalized in the early hours of Friday morning.

Vandals threw a rock through the display window and stole a heart-shaped window display that was filled with vibrators and red and pink dildos.

Babeland employees hope the theft was motivated by greed, as opposed to being a hate crime.

“The Valentine’s Day scrooges didn’t bother coming into the store to take anything else, which is good,” marketing coordinator Mae Schultz said in a press release. “But ‘boo’ on them for stealing sex toys before Valentine’s Day.”

[Reach columnist Erika Cederlind at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]