In a week, some of this mop of hair you see to your right might be going away.  Until then, I can enjoy moments like right now, where in an effort to control the uncontrollable, Angie goes with any hair configuration that works.  I’d say it looks like Chronomancer-era Bishop‘s hairstyle, but no one will get that reference. So I’ll just say that I love my wife, Predator-head and all.

Images courtesy of Mile High Comics and Unreality Magazine.

Don’t be in it for the success.  Be in it for the fun.  We have played Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Sluggers, and I am sure a few other Mario based games 4-player…..but nothing compares to having a whole team working on smashing goombas, koopas, and defeating Bowser.  Seriously – how could we ever make it to Bowser?  We spent most of the time trying to a.) figure out what character you are ACTUALLY moving, b.) not kill each other with shells when you jump on a koopa.

Favorite parts included:

• playing as a toad, but moving the wrong toad….I was yellow toad, and blue toad was doing what my hands were telling it to do…..BUT – yellow toad was on a different part of the screen….jumping right to his death.
• coin battles…simply run faster than everyone else….maybe you can push them off the screen to their death and claim all the coins for you.  OR  pick up other players and simply throw them to their death.  Watch out though – neither of these strategies actually result in a win (ok, so the first one did), but while you are fighting with your spouse to try to kill each other, Chris is racing around as Luigi getting ALL the coins.
• once or twice….all four players ended up in a bubble.  I understand when two of us do it  the game is STRESSFUL!  But all four of us?  You would think the odds would be in our favor.

There are many more things to talk about it – but this is a micro review – so go see for yourself.  And see our original review here.

One of my many distractions over the years has been photography.   And not just in a professional manner, but before that.  I liked to take pictures.  Didn’t matter what the camera was, or how the image actually turned out, I liked to take pictures.  A few years ago I purchased my first Digital SLR camera.  The most exciting thing to me about this was the idea of being able to use different lenses.  For the first year I owned it, I had the two lenses that came with it.  Then I bought a used 50mm.  Meaningless to many of you I am sure.  But anyway….

Last Winter, while at a photography convention for work, I discovered the coolest toy on earth for my camera.  The LENSBABY.  No, seriously, this little contraption it great!  There was previously a fad in photography of Tilt-Shift Lenses.  That is not what a Lensbaby is.  And thank goodness, because that sounds complicated and hard to use.  The Lensbaby is more of just a tilt lens.  What the best part was, not only could I make images have an entirely different look, it had swappable optics and accessories to transform a standard lens into a macro, a wide angle, a zoom, a holga (plastic lens), or a pinhole.  The pinhole was one of the most fascinating to me since I had loved making my own pinhole cameras out of oatmeal containers and making prints in my photography class in college.  I had looked up how to make a pinhole cover for my camera at one point but chickened out.  The Lensbaby was truly my all in one solution for my new photography toy.  It was able to give me everything I wanted…..for the time being.

Over the past 9 months, the company introduced new toys to go along with my Lensbaby.  I had known a few of them were a possibility, so I was excited on each launch day, but waited patiently.  Today, a Lensbaby package came in the mail.  My awesome husband purchased all of the new toys for me as a birthday gift.  There are 4 new accessories for my Lensbaby and we have 4 days until we leave for San Diego.  So we will experiment with one new toy a day.

Tonight, the first, and the biggest…..the fisheye lens.  This is an optic for the Lensbaby that is really the entire lens itself and then clicks into the shell that attaches to the camera.  I have wanted a fisheye for a long time, and what better way to have one than to pair it with my Lensbaby.  Not only is it WAY more affordable, it is smaller, and I can do a bit more with it.  The only downside is that everything with the Lensbaby is manual focus, and since I can’t focus anything….my whole life is a blur 🙂  But alas, I love it!  And now, when we get the focus right, we can take arms-length shots of us with the Lensbaby!  Cannot wait to explore San Diego with my new toy.

Tomorrow night…Super wide angle adapter.

This may be overdue, but I felt I needed all the facts before writing this review. No – I did not already beat the game, but we (ptb and I) are close. Overall, the NSMB Wii is awesome. Some great throwbacks to older Nintendo and Super Nintendo gaming.  And seriously – finally some great multiplayer options on a Mario side-scrolling adventure.  And not just two player….up to four players!  Play as Toads!!!  Sorry girls – you cannot play as Peach, you are trying to SAVE Peach.  You can’t save yourself.

MultiPlayer Game
Truly a new challenge in a Mario game.  Not only do you have to make sure you don’t die, you have to coordinate to make sure your partner does not die or worse yet, go so far ahead of you that you get pushed off a ledge and die.  This can be a challenge all on its own.  With four players however, this was kind of humorous.  There are 20 total lives among the four of you.  Really – does it matter if someone dies?

Back to two player.  Player One, you must be Mario.  Player Two, you have the choice of Luigi, Yellow Toad, or Blue Toad.  I personally think the Toads are the cutest, and once the Blue Toad has a propellorhead on, he kind of looks like me.  But alas, I am Player One in our game.  This game mode is a challenge to our marriage.  Coordinating jumps to achieve a common goal however, makes me think we are going to make it  🙂

The maps in the Worlds – AWESOME.  What was it SMB3?  Those maps were my favorite.  Trying to get the best of the map to find warp zones, even better.  In our first hour of playing, we were able to warp to World 5.  After that, we didn’t manage to successfully find a warp until a week later.  And we have played non-stop for the past week….so it has been a lot of time.

The Mushroom Houses – PRIZES!  LOVE!  Enough said.  Starting a level at the halfway point with a Penguin suit….even better!

The Outfits – Yes – A Penguin Suit.  Walking perfectly on ice.  Swimming without tapping ‘2’.  Oh and spitting ice!  It’s like the fireball of Captain Cold.  There is also an Iceman Mario that results from a blue flower.  You can use frozen enemies to attack more enemies, reach higher places, or just to ground pound a nasty enemy you wouldn’t be able to touch otherwise.  The Penguin is really an upgraded Iceman, but the little penguin suit that comes out of the ? block is so cute!  It even waddles!

Lastly – “BUBBLE!!!”  Fall off?  Your buddy is still safe?  Hit ‘A’ and you go into a bubble, shake and go towards your mate, and they can save you.  Both of you desperate?  If everyone bubbles, you exit the level…..and the music slows down to make you feel bad.

I am sure I have left out a TON but moving on…..

Free-For-All
This is pretty awesome.  You can select any level from a world you have beaten, or there is a selection of recommended levels.  The recommended levels can give you a fun sneak peek to worlds you may not have seen.  At first you just think this is going through a single level with no commitment, but don’t help your brother or toad comrade just yet.  You are competing!  WaHoooooo!

Coin Battle
Same as free for all, but there are also some special coin battle levels.  And you are only competing for coin points, not overall points.  This includes the giant star coins.  A little competition never hurt anyone.

Overall
I say this game is super.   We are going to play through it way too fast, but we also have 3 save files.  One that we play together, and one for each of us alone.  With so many things to explore, I am sure we will be playing beyond just trying to get to World 8-Castle.  We like things to be complete.  We are also really excited about the prospect of playing with our friends.  Once everyone gets used to having Nintendo Thumb again, there should be some fun nights.

Final Points

• side-scrolling rules
  
• I <3 Mario
• I look like a Toad wearing a propellor hat
• Way better than Mario Party 8
• Still totally looking forward to Galaxy 2
• When will we have Double Dash style racing again?
• I could talk about this game all day and it wouldn’t resemble anything near a review

As 2009 speeds to its conclusion, the final Marvel’s 70th Anniversary variant covers have been revealed.  These are part of a set of monthly covers we’ve posted about previously in January and June.  While they’ve been difficult to find, I still think these are amazing images that Marvel should have made more readily available.