MIss Video Game Award

Just when I thought I found a pageant that I might be able to qualify for (no bathing suit required), I catch a glimpse of the competition for the Miss Video Game Award and am crestfallen.

Apparently, there are lot of hot girl gamers out there and they're all applying for this award. 15 games, 5 platforms, no holds barred.

I know I'm not cut out for this because 1. I don't know what platform I'll be required to play and there are several platforms I've never played before (Atari, Genesis, ColecoVision, possibly even the freakin' NGage, etc.), so it's tough to practice for this, and 2. I'm so not hot enough. I'm just not. I can pull off innocent, cute (on my best days), and sweet, but words like "hot" or "sexy" will never be adjectives next to my name. I know my limit.

Before the gaming starts, you first need to qualify through the first round, which is basically a popularity contest. This is more proof that no matter how old you get, people can always make you feel like the unpopular geek you thought you left behind in junior high school. Yuck and yuck.

As soon as I discovered this, I didn't even bother. People will obviously only vote for the hot girls and whether you're a good gamer or not doesn't even matter if you can't make it through this round of qualifications.

Screw that. Let's rise up and vote for the not-so hot girls who list their favorite games to be ones like Zelda OOT or Mario 64. Power to the average looking girl!

My (Future) Wedding Cake

My interest in planning my wedding is officially renewed! Why, you ask? It's because I found this beauty and am determined to find a skilled baker/gamer who can make the Zelda version for me and the Bear.

The detail! The color! The cake toppers! I'm in love with this cake. See more detailed photos here.

Any baker/gamers out there willing to take on this artistic challenge and living in the New York tristate area, please feel free to woo me with your business.

Also, I'm really happy to hear any ideas anyone has for geeking out my wedding to the extreme.

[via Digg]

This Modern Love

Best. Wedding Present. Ever.

When two hardcore gamers (Dave and Elly) were getting married, their many programmer friends decided to put their skills to excellent use and create--you guessed it--a videogame for and of the couple, unveiled at their wedding reception. I present to you, the Tokyopia Wedding Game.

The storyline is incredibly cute: Donkey Kong stumbles across a newspaper with the couple's wedding announcment, mistaking Elly for Princess Peach and Dave for Mario. Determined to foil the wedding, Donkey Kong breaks into the couple's house, steals their wedding ring, and takes off for Tokyo.

And that's when the game begins with a display of a classic start screen. The couple's realization that this video presentation was an actual playable videogame is my favorite moment. Wireless controls were passed out and the fun began!

The game is Wario Ware-esque with mini games that both Dave and Elly needed to complete, stage-by-stage, in order to defeat Donkey Kong and finally get married. This is going down in the books as, by far, the best wedding present I've ever seen. I could only dream of being able to add this to my wedding registry!

[via Kotaku & via Hugguh Bear]

Week of Wii

Holy Mother of God! This boy is living the great American (more likely Japanese) dream and I may stay up for too many hours tonight voyeuristically living my life through him. (Aforementioned TV-watching problem.) Someone is playing the Wii everyday straight for a week, taking breaks only to sleep for 4 hours (2am-6am), and run to the potty. Oh, and did I mention...he's filming the whole thing live via webcam!!

Seriously, this is like geek porn and it's so getting bumped up to #1 in defense of unemployment. Lucky bastard!

Please excuse me while I go throw a hissy fit.

Triforce

In a beautiful gesture by the MIT Hackers, here's this:

Seriously, moisture built up around the corners of my eyes when I saw this. Just gorgeous!

(via)

The wait is over

I have successfully procured my very own Nintendo Wii and I am ecstatic. Well, technically the wait isn't over because I have sworn my better half that I will not dive into The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess until we are together. So, I'm actually less ecstatic because of that. Plus, I've been on the most frustrating wild goose chase today looking for a component video cable (only composite cables are included with the Wii) and it turns out that brick and mortar stores didn't even have the fuckers in stock. I've been to Best Buy, Circuit City, Toys R Us, several GameStops and EB Games, and I even went to a CompUSA. (Who knew they carried games?) Ugh, what a lovely waste of my time today. Clearly, I would've rather been at my computer sooner so I could bitch about the whole experience to you all.

Plus, there was a huge line at Toys R Us to get in the R-Zone and buy a Wii. Mind you, I was one of the proud few who waited 18 hours outside of my local Toys R Us three weeks ago, in damn cold windy weather, and pre-ordered the Wii. You'd think that I'd be treated like friggin' Nintendo Royalty when I walked into Toys R Us with my very rare presale ticket. But no, they told me to get in the back of the line and wait with everyone else.

God bless my mom for complaining to the employees running the shots in the line and asked why I should wait since I preordered my Wii. An hour and a half into my wait, it turns out that I was "misinformed" by an employee and that I could bypass the line. It saved me an extra hour of waiting, but I was already planning to swiftly dispatch that damn Toys R Us Red Shirt for tossing me to the back of the line with the rabble.

Let me tell you, much like when you've got an oil and water solution, after a while the liquids settle into their proper place. My proper place was in the front of line with the hard cores, not in the back of the line with the painfully sweet Jewish mothers who said things like "PSP3" and "Super Nintendo." I couldn't have a conversation without looking desperately ahead to the front of the line, at the loners in Kevin Smith sweatshirts and wool coats and Shiggy t-shirts. The people who were buying the Wii selfishly for themselves and not for their 13-year olds who had to wait for Hanumas or Chrismakah. I wanted to talk to them and be able to connect with someone who would giggle and cry with me when I said words like "triforce" and "master sword."

Really though, I was just bitter that I was doing yet another console release without my better half. It's like going to a New Year's party and not having someone to kiss at midnight. It's like winning without the celebration. I'm sick of being apart and days like this serve as a painful reminder that 200 miles and change is enough to make you lonely. Very lonely.

18 hours feels like cake in hindsight. I could've steeled myself to wait in the cold for days because it wasn't just a selfish endeavor: it was for "us." I like being an "us" and I don't really care about delayed releases of component cables, as long as wii [sic] can be an "us" over the holidays. That's what counts.