Adobe Illustrator magic wand tool problems

I am trying to use Adobe Illustrator and I am just about ready to give up. This is my first time, so I have some patience but it is running thin.

I am trying to use the magic wand tool to select an area. As this video I made shows, it does nothing when I select on the magic wand. I try to use the lasso tool first, but that does nothing as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rFvPREmALU

On Adobe's web site, there is an idiot with a radio announcer's voice walking through the steps but I do not have any of the results that he has and I do not know why:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-ill...ol-to-select-colors-patterns-shapes-and-more/

He throws out "Adobe Illustrator is an Object Oriented software...." as if this is something new. Who is he trying to impress. Not me. The guy does not seem to be a real user of Adobe Illustrator and is only making the video to satisfy Adobe's desire to have a few tutorials in existence. It is disappointing. I think there are steps that this guy leaves off that clearly I need if you look at my video first.

Can you help?

 

I have never used the Magic Wand in Illustrator, but I use it from time to time in Photoshop, where it works well.

What controls the result of the Magic Wand in Photoshop is the Tolerance percentage. In Illustrator there are several Tolerance settings (when you double-click on the Magic Wand icon), but I do not understand how they work.

My suggestion is that you ask in the Adobe Illustrator forum http://forums.adobe.com/community/illustrator?view=discussions - there are some people there who know the product pretty well.