Look—you're awesome, Joystiq's Kyle Orland. Really. You're smart, you're entertaining, and sometimes, after seven or eight beers, you kinda look like MSNBC's Chris Matthews. But, in the mighty words of Martin's Shanaenae: Oh no you diiint.

Arriving on our entertainment editor's unsuspecting desk was this: Wii for Dummies. Clad in the now world-famous black and yellow design template, the book covers all of the basics of unboxing, hooking up, and playing Nintendo's popular console.

The thing is, well, there's already a book for Wii owners: the instruction manual. If you've got $21.99 to withhold throwing into a fireplace, you can find out how to create a Mii character, look at photos, use the Internet, and two pages—I shit you not—on how to point your Wii controller at your TV. To think that they cleared forests somewhere to make this book has me almost caring about the environment!

The more puzzling thing is that the console is a popular staple among the five-year-old crowd (yes, I said it, live with it), so a book geared toward humans with intelligence below that threshold leaves us facepalmingly stupefied. Case in point, an excerpt from page 207 that explains how to play Wii Baseball:

"For the pitcher, the goal is to strike out the batter by throwing the ball over the plate in a way that's hard to hit. For the batter, the goal is to hit the ball, putting it in play in fair territory (inside the angled white lines) so that it lands safely in the outfield (the grassy area) without getting caught in mid-air. This is a base hit, which puts a runner on base."

No child left behind, indeed.

EDIT: We've clarified the attribution of the book to Kyle Orland, who writes for Joystiq and has written the book independent from his work on the site. If there's anyone who can tell you how to turn your WIi on, it's him.