Over the holiday season I had a chance to play the New Super Mario Brothers game for the Nintendo Wii. My goodness it was awesome! It looks and feels a lot like Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, and Super Mario World all combined.
So what makes this one so awesome? Well, of course there is a whole new group of worlds and levels, but there are all kinds of new things as well. If you play multi-player, you get to play at the same time. When I played, it was two of us playing together. You can pick up and throw each other to help get through parts of the level. We found, however, that it was more fun to pick each other up and then proceed to throw the player into a bad guy or down a hole. Good fun!
There are new costumes for the players, and you can play as the traditional Mario and Luigi as well as a couple differently colored Toadstool characters. The fun really doesn’t end. And if you’re like me and would rather play using your thumbs than swinging the controller around, don’t worry, this is played with the classic style controller. There is a bit of shaking involved, but it isn’t extraneous.
You may have seen all the commercials. Well, it’s true, the new Playstation 3 is only $299. I still don’t have one for myself, and really need to take advantage of this price.
Of course, the games are all in the neighborhood of $60, but that’s OK because its main purpose for many is as a Blu-Ray DVD player. Hot diggity dog!
So really, there’s not much reason to not get somebody a PS3 as a gift this year, really. It plays movies in 1080p, so if you have a nice new LCD or Plasma TV, hook this puppy up and you’ll be in HD heaven. Merry HD Christmas time!
Now this is quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever posted about here on the good old gift idea blog that this is. Who doesn’t love magnets? I love those things! Here, you get 216 tiny spheres of magnetic fun!
These things look like so much fun. I have yet to get mine (you’d better believe I’m getting some for myself), but I can’t wait for the endless fun they’ll provide. You can magically make all kinds of well structured…structures with these little things. If you don’t believe me, or just want to get super excited about getting some of these for you and all of your friends, check out this little demonstration video:
Here’s a weird one for ya! This little box has different digital characters who live inside. You get to stick your gigantic (in proportion to them) finger in a hole on the side of the box and mess with the little creatures! Why not?
Being one of the weirdest things I’ve posted on this blog, I feel it appropriate to include a little video demonstration of said weirdness. Here’s a little clip of this Virtual Finger Game I found on YouTube.
The clip starts out with a tiny stick man being terrorized by the huge finger. Then at the push of a real button on the housing of the box, a menu appears. That menu, apparently, cycles through the characters with the touch of a digital button. The finger goes on to play with a blob and then an adorable panda who is clinging onto a tire swing. Just precious. Bonus: The song is mesmerizing.
The classic Princess Leia poster. For all Star Wars fans, and anybody who appreciates good old beauty…circa 1970’s George Lucas future style…or something.
You really can’t go wrong getting this poster for any guy who is into Star Wars, or movies, or just plain old interested in attractive women! Carrie Fisher was at her best as Princess Leia, and there really isn’t a whole lot more to say about it. If you don’t know who Princess Leia is, I’m sorry, you’ve obviously been in seclusion for a few decades. Welcome to the world, go watch Star Wars.
The poster measures 36″ x 24″ and will put a smile on the face of a cubicle slave every day. I categorized this as “Tech Stuff” because any techie will appreciate Leia watching him do his thing.
Give somebody a gift that looks like you stole from a giant! These gigantic ipod-style earbud speakers are claimed to be 500 times the size of the headphones that come with ipods. 500 times!
The speakers connect to the non-giant’s computer via USB cable and have their own built-in amplifier. There’s no fancy stand or anything, but they will lay there on a desk looking great. Sure to start up a conversation anytime somebody glances at them for the first time.
So if you know a mac lover who would love to have their earbuds in all day, but can’t due to work regulations, get them the oversized earbuds so they can get their fix.
Time to give your phone a friend…or maybe somebody else’s phone! These little dudes are kind of cool. As you can see in the little picture there, the MoPod critters start spinning when they are within a meter of a phone receiving a call or text message.
I’m not sure how they work, but if this is hung on the outside of your bag, and your phone is left on silent, this little guy will help you see the call coming in. How handy! There are at least 7 of these guys to choose from, including a penguin and a monkey!
This is a new product from Amazon called the Kindle. It’s a portable reader basically, but it’s oh so much more.
The Kindle has wireless connectivity similar to a cell phone, only you don’t need the contract and service agreement to make it work. The display actually uses ink and is called Electronic Paper. So that means that your eyes will feel like they are reading paper instead of an electronic screen, and the best part is that you can read it in the daylight with no problem. It claims to reflect light just like paper, awesome.
You can download books, newspapers, and blogs to the Kindle and store them on it so you can read them anytime. It has a bookmark system so it will remember where you left off in your reading last time you finished. All in all, if you know a book reader who travels frequently, this could be the best gift they ever receive. Even somebody who just loves a good book will enjoy the Kindle. The book download feature sounds great, of course the books aren’t free, but you can get them almost as soon as you think you’d like to read that book…pretty sweet.
Okay, so I got a little lazy for today’s post. I haven’t blogged about an iPod yet, so here it is.
I got a new iPod Classic recently because my old 2nd generation one died on me. I really like it. I’m no Apple user, but I’ve got to say, they make a pretty good little media player. Now they’ve got the Nano, Classic, and Touch models from which to choose. I’ve got the 80 gig Classic in black. It’s been great for traveling and even for showing friends videos at times where I didn’t want to take the time to get the video on the TV or computer.
I really don’t think I need to talk the iPod up any more, as most people know what they are. So with that, I’ll throw the link down there and be done with it!
This one comes to you in the middle of my cross-country trip to Florida to start my new job as a wakeboard coach! Today we saw some cool stuff, one was Meteor Crater in Arizona. It was awesome, and of course got us thinking about things in space. So that brings me to this cool telescope.
I didn’t know that telescopes came with GPS, but this thing does. Apparently it figures out where in the world it is operating, then, according to that, it will locate cool stuff in space for you to look at! That’s crazy! I’d love to see one of these in action, but it’s quite spendy, so I’ll have to luck out and meet somebody with one I suppose.
Anyway, this could be a pretty fun gift to give to somebody. Just make sure they’ll let you come over and join in on the fun.
Over the holiday season I had a chance to play the New Super Mario Brothers game for the Nintendo Wii. My goodness it was awesome! It looks and feels a lot like Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, and Super Mario World all combined.
