BNJMN

As published on N-Philes.com I hope that in Wii Music (or Wii Orchestra , whatever it’s called), if it is in fact an actual game slated to see the light of day, Nintendo lets me conduct or play music from Super Mario Galaxy . The themes from Good Egg Galaxy, Battlerock Galaxy, and Buoy Base Galaxy are specifically on my wish list. Despite being a more casual experience, gamers will perk up at the thought of interacting with fully orchestrated versions some of Nintendo’s best pieces of music. For the casual crowd, exploring the origins of these songs might be one of the side effects of putting original musical compositions beside Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Fur Elise. Nintendo using one of its games to advertise and leverage its other properties? It’s almost unheard of! I’m pretending that I haven’t heard of the likes of WarioWare , Smash Bros. , and Pikmin . Actually, Nintendo is very good at telling people about their own games. One particularly brilliant move Nintendo started wi...

Being off school has made me more susceptible to staying up late. Fortunately all the full times-esque hours is keeping me in a relatively healthy check. I'm learning that working retail around Christmas is pretty brutal. Friday was massively busy, but I wasn't on the sales floor. Not to mention keeping up with all the sales promotions! Yes, this is a skimpy update. I'll make more soon, though. Photos: Nightmare Before Christmas figurines, sunrise, icicles, bus station.

School is done for yet another term! I celebrated this crowning achievement by cleaning my room. It was in dire need of a garbage bag and a bottle of Febreeze, or something to freshen things up. It's almost the way I like to keep it. I can't wait until we have little robots that know how you like your room and their task is to keep it tidy for you. And if it encounters something it doesn't know, it sends you a text message asking you what to do. Kinda reminds me of Wall-e to some extent. Today, I used a fandangled piece of plastic to pay for things without money. I think young whippersnappers (wow, I love how my spell check knows what a whippersnapper is, but not fandangled) of today call a credit card. It doubles as a Student Price Card (Canadian retail discount card for students). At Yogen Früz, I saved 28 cents (10%) only to have to pay a 25-cent debit transaction fee. In a world of plastic, I need to learn to keep actual money on me. Actually, I find it interesting that...

As posed at N-Philes.com GoNintendo recently had a series entitled, "Casual vs. Hardcore: Opinions of the Gaming Industry," where a number of players in the industry were asked to comment on whether Nintendo’s influence on the emphasis on the casual gaming market is good for the industry. While it’s certainly a worthwhile feature that explores and exposes what the industry is thinking, it cements this dichotomic vision of gaming. Worse than that, it pits one group against the other, forcing everyone to take sides on the grand gaming battleground. Are you a casual gamer, or are you a hardcore gamer? Once you answer that question, you quickly discover that the other gamer is a threat. Causal games are taking over; I have less ‘real’ games to play because of cartridge wasters like Nintendogs and Brain Age . Games are so complex and violent when all I want to do is have some quick, clean fun. Casual gamers, hardcore gamers, non-gamers... they’re all terms that have become stand...

Building Christmas Shirley Temples Fried Art 1408. Scary. OooOOoOO. Long line of laptops. Creative foot positioning Guitar Hero is a game for "everyone"... but song on their slowest setting sound terrible. The snow is falling! A made a snowman in 2 minutes at Cat's suggestion. The random snow-dirt on the bus reminds me of Santa's sleigh. That is a sidewalk. William Shatner is everywhere... Pirates lamp. Expensive. Not for me. Naturally, light bulb is not included. Winter seems to be here. I was sceptical after the first bit of snow that we got, but since then, we've received a fair amount. Probably the same amount that we had by February last year. Then again, last year was a bit lacking in the whole frozen precipitation department. I just want the snow to be sticky enough to start sculpting! School-wise, I'm in the home stretch. By this time next week, this first term of the new program will be behind me. To prepare for exams, I'm not working from Saturda...