GeekSugar

Nintendo Wall Decal: Love It or Leave It?

GeekSugar — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:45:33 -0700

How much geekery can you stand? Do you love your games so much that you would plaster them on your wall? If so, Blik has just introduced Nintendo wall decals, inspired by vintage games, which can make your lair just that much gamier.

Three kits - Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros., and Donkey Kong - can be arranged in a variety of ways on your wall (see the gallery below) and though I'd doubt I'd put this on my living room wall, these would be awesome in a game or kid's room. What do you think?

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Eighties Arcade Table: Totally Geeky or Geek Chic?

GeekSugar — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:11:29 -0800

All things old are becoming new again, and this '80s Arcade Table is no exception. Stocked with your favorites like Pac Man, Space Invaders, and forty-four other old-time classics, you just may feel like a little Marty McFly in Back to the Future II when you school your pals with your Donkey Kong skills! For the true retro-ist this is a bargain at $2,800, and you can even make some of that cash back by adding in the jam-resistant coin collector. Hey, not even fun comes for free anymore!

King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters Comes to DVD

GeekSugar — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:02:48 -0800

If you didn't get to see King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters when it came out in limited release in theaters last year, then I'm telling you, you have to see this movie when it comes out on DVD January 29th. An awesome documentary on gaming and perseverance, King of Kong follows humble high school teacher Steve Wiebe as he tries to get the world record for the highest score on Donkey Kong. He doesn't just face rolling barrels - Wiebe finds something much more challenging in the real world: Mulleted ego-maniac Billy Mitchell and his nerdy goons. Mitchell had captured the title of "Gamer of the Century" in the 1980s and was the world record holder for Centipede and Donkey Kong.

Hanging on to his glory days and unfortunate fashion choices 20 years later, Mitchell gets wind of Wiebe's attempts to overthrow him and the fun begins. King of Kong exposes you to a fascinating world of competition, and a host of characters that you would have thought were fictional if you didn't know it was a documentary. Even if you're not into gaming, you have no excuse, because this movie is amazing!

Donkey Kong Quiz: Test Your Kong Knowledge

GeekSugar — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:00:02 -0700

This morning's DK Jungle Climber review got me thinking about the beloved series that's inspired giant window installations, jokes and lots and lots of gaming. How well do you know Donkey Kong? Take my test and find out. Or, as they say: It's on like Donkey Kong. (Image from Wikipedia)

Take the quiz

DK Jungle Climber: Who Won't Go Bananas For It?

GeekSugar — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 03:30:20 -0700

Fresh off my mental high from playing too much Brain Age 2, I tested out DK Jungle Climber, which releases next week. Boy is it ever fun.

The game, which will be available for Nintendo DS, is the sequel to DK: King of Swing for the Game Boy Advance. To navigate the levels, you must hold down L and R to jump (alternating between L and R allows Donkey Kong to hold onto or let go of the pegs on the levels). Translation: This isn't necessarily a complicated gamer's game, but it is a fun pastime for those of us who have a certain fondness for Donkey Kong. And honestly, who doesn't?

Word in the geek world is simple games like DK Jungle Climber are becoming more common because they allow players to focus on fun instead of complicated tricks and controls. I have to admit I got sucked in and found myself "monkeying" around with the game for a good hour while waiting in the airport last week. My only issue was I started craving a banana and couldn't find one anywhere in the terminal. The game will be released Sept. 10.

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Screen shots from IGN.

Donkey Kong Puts the On Back in Education

GeekSugar — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:13:08 -0700

A group of 10 UC Santa Cruz engineering students spent five hours of prime reading and studying time to create a four-story post-it art piece inspired by everyone's favorite Nintendo classic video game Donkey Kong. And I must say, it was time well spent.

The piece, which stretched throughout the windows of a campus building, was created with 6,400 post-it notes; however, in order to get the colors right the crew actually purchased a whopping 14,000.

"Donkey Kong (Miyamoto, et. al.,1981) was the first appearance of the Italian plumber we now know as Mario," says the school website. "While this game's early '80s arcade popularity predates most of today's engineering students, it represents the amazing results that a small development team can produce. Today Donkey Kong is ranked as the 3rd most popular arcade game of all time, selling over 65,000 units."

You can see Mario attempt to save Pauline from Donkey Kong until May 1. Pictures from a geeksugar reader on campus are on their way!

For a gallery of the project, from start to finish, read more

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1-Up Your Life With Vintage Gaming Gear

GeekSugar — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:05:55 -0700

Sweet nostalgia floats over me whenever I remember playing Super Mario or Donkey Kong with my friends. It's that arcades-are-totally-awesome feeling. That Summer-should-never-end feeling. Retailers continue to bank on those fond memories with novelty, vintage-gaming gear designed to dress up your desktop, or turn your modern gaming console into a vintage classic so you can relive the gaming wins of your youth and love of NES. Stock up on these vintage geek toys to 1-Up your life.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite classic games in our Best Video Game Ever bracket!

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Daily Tech: Gmail and Other Google Apps Finally Out of Beta!

GeekSugar — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:55:19 -0700

Gmail and other Google apps (like Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Talk) are finally out of beta! - GoogleBlog
Use a kitchen bowl to amp up your speakerphone calls. - Unpluggd
A look at low-tech computers throughout history. - Wired
The world's oldest Bible gets digitized. - Switched
Sprint sells Netbook for a buck. What's the catch? - Crave
Donkey Kong Easter egg cracked 26 years late. - Joystiq
Why just two seconds of Transformers 2 took three months to complete. - Gizmodo
Log in and enter for a chance to win the new iPhone 3GS! - geeksugar

NYU to Start Offering Degrees in Video Games

GeekSugar — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:02:10 -0800

And your parents said all that video game playing would get you nowhere! If you really take your gaming seriously, you could take it to college - New York University is going to start offering degrees in video game design, research, and development.

Higher education has never seemed more appealing; gaming doesn't just have to be something you do in between classes.

Next Fall, NYU's course load will increase to add classes like The History of Donkey Kong and Feminist Theory: Princess Peach's Resistance. Just kidding about those course titles, but a girl can dream.

In the meantime, would you major in video games?

Source

Love 2.0: Pete Mortensen and Kimra McPherson

GeekSugar — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:00:59 -0800

As part of our Geeks We Love series, I caught up with a few couples that, through the beauty of the internet and technology have influenced both our lives and each other.

If loving the internet, pop culture and Macs is wrong, Pete Mortensen and Kimra McPherson don’t want to be right. He’s an innovation strategy consultant, and renowned Cult of Mac blogger and she is an editor on the world famous BuzzSugar team. When the couple isn’t playing Wii sports or hiking Half Dome they can be found in their San Francisco apartment making messes while learning to cook, building up their netflix queue and keeping their two cats off their keyboards. And of course blogging, lots and lots of blogging. What geeky things do these two love about each other and life? read more

Geek-ground
Peter has spent the last two years covering Apple freelance for Wired and on the Cult of Mac blog. He also works for Jump Associates, a firm that helps clients unlock growth and create cultures of innovation. "I broke into blogging by sending Wired a blind cover letter with pitches," says Peter. "I’d been a Mac obsessive for about a decade before-hand, though, so I had a few things on my mind in advance." Kimra made her first Web site when she was 15 and has been on the Internet in various ways ever since, most recently as an editor for Buzzsugar.

Geeksugar: Let's start simple. What’s the geekiest thing about yourself:
He says: I was complaining just the other night that my experiment to learn twice as much on my morning train commute by listening to podcasts while reading books seemed to be failing, because I wasn’t retaining information from either source. Read that sentence again. Then get me some help.
She says: I’m currently chronicling the year between my 25th birthday and my 26th birthday by taking a photo every day and posting them all on flickr. If you ever wanted to know what the inside of my purse looked like on January 26, well, now you can.

Geeksugar: What’s the geekiest thing about your significant other:
He says: I think Kimra has actually got every personal blog on the internet as part of her RSS roll. I like to believe I get a pretty rich survey of everything the web has to offer, but then I see what she’s reading and recognize how small my world can be.
She says: The amount of information he knows about Apple is, frankly, a little scary. He might not remember shopping lists or flight departure times, but I’m sure he could tell you the names and personal histories of every key person who worked on the original Macintosh. He also “accidentally” impulse-bought a Nintendo Wii on eBay, so that’s a close second.

Geeksugar: How and when did you meet your significant other?
She says: We met in college, when he was my editor at our weekly campus magazine. We were also both college radio DJs, which is geeky enough in itself.
He says: This is 100 percent true. Though we didn’t start dating until well after we were both out of school.

Geeksugar: What are your top 5 favorite gadgets:
He says: My iPod shuffle (clip style, of course! I really want an orange one, now). My HDTV. Its picture is great, and it’s a Westinghouse, which makes me feel like it’s 1956 in the living room. My Nintendo DS Lite. My Powerbook G4 12”. His name is Malimikigio, which is Esperanto for “You are the enemy.” I got the name from liner notes of Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” Hmm… that might actually be the geekiest thing about me. Except that my iPod shuffle is named “L’il Malky.” That could be. Kimra’s dustbuster Scorpion with the extender nozzle. It almost makes cleaning up kitty litter fun. Almost.
She says: My 80 gig iPod, my iDog, my Blackberry Pearl, Pete’s Nintendo DS Lite (Brain Age has the best Sudoku game ever) and my iMic, for transferring my old high school mix tapes to mp3.

Geeksugar: What are the top 5 luxury gadgets you really want:
He says: The iPhone. Someone else can handle the service charges. A MacBook Pro, though I probably want the next generation of processors to roll through before that. If you’re paying, though, the current version’s fine. Noise-canceling headphones. Sennheiser makes some good ones. A Toyota Prius. Though what I really want is a hybrid Mini Cooper, if they’d ever get around to making it. A USB Missile Launcher. For attacks. Stealthy ones.
She says: Some really nice earphones, the iPhone, the Nike+iPod kit. I know the kit’s cheap, but I count it as a luxury because I don’t already have a Nano. I also don’t run, but that’s beside the point, right? Clocky! I can’t really justify spending $50 on an alarm clock that doesn’t also play music, except that it would run away from me when I hit snooze. A Nabaztag rabbit. Maybe my iDog’s lonely, OK?

Geeksugar: Your first computer was a…
He says: A Kaypro II. I swear I didn’t make that name up. It had a built-in green screen and couldn’t render graphics other than letters and numbers. We had an awesome fake Donkey Kong game called Ladder for it where you were a capital P that ran away from lower-case o’s and hopped over vertical carrot characters. My brother was way better at it than me. Thanks to the internet, I can play it again now. Check it out!
She says: An Apple IIe that my family kept many, many years past its prime.

Geeksugar: What are some of your favorite websites?
He says: yourmomsbasement.com, thevhive.com, daringfireball.net, core77.com, track50.com, crooksandliars.com, www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html
She says: televisionwithoutpity.com, shelterrific.com, flickr.com, 43things.com, tomatonation.com, track50.com, catsinsinks.com, postsecret.blogspot.com

Geeksugar: What is your Valentine’s Day plan?
He says: We’ve got a reservation at one of our favorite restaurants, Sauce. They’re doing a pretty amazing price-fixed four-course menu for the occasion. It’s awesome. It’s a Wednesday. Then, on a weekend not too much later, we’ll head down on Saturday to Big Sur – site of one of our earliest really significant dates, and an area we haven’t visited in almost two years.
She says: All of that is completely true.

Geeksugar: Who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?
She says: We pretty much decide together while braving the piles of merchandise in Best Buy.
He says:Yep.

Geeksugar: Who solves tech problems at home?
She says: Oh, he does. Definitely. He networked everything and thus must deal with my phone calls asking inane questions about how to work the VCR.
He says: It’s cute that she calls the AV set-up a network. It’s not, but the fact that I could explain why it isn’t is way too geeky to even cover here.

Geeksugar: Are you going to buy an iPhone?
He says: If I start making a lot more money, I’d love one. HINT. I also would need to leave T-Mobile, which I’m not actually eager to do.
She says: If I can ever get out of my Sprint contract, I would; they own my soul for several more years.

Geeksugar: How do you feel about people calling you a “geek”?
He says: It’s fine. I think I bristle a little bit at nerd, though. I could be wrong. I have a close friend who thinks geek is more insulting than nerd. But then, he’s not really a geek. I think the only reason he uses a computer instead of a typewriter is that I tricked him into it.
She says: I definitely embrace it. Life just wouldn’t be the same without my Dashboard widgets and my Wired magazine subscription.

Geeksugar: What has been your better half's greatest contribution to the tech/blog industry – don’t be modest
He says: “She helped bring the BuzzReel into the world.”
She says: He, his Cult of Mac readers and Claire Danes raised $15,000 through Donors Choose so teachers could fund Mac-related classroom projects. He also put his body on the line to taste-test the Jones Soda Holiday Collection so we don’t have to.

Geeksugar: How many hours do you spend online a day?
He says: I’m not even sure how to measure this anymore. Even when I’m not online, I have GMail open, and I read each message as it comes in. Let’s call it a good 10 hours and not probe too much more.
She says: All of my working hours, and a large number of my leisure hours. Probably 12? Wow, I feel kind of dirty now.

Geeksugar: How many hours does your partner spend online a day?
He says: As much as I do. Possibly more. My day job sometimes requires me to put the computer down, which is both a blessing and a curse.
She says: He uses the computer as much as I do at home but slightly less at work. So 10 hours sounds about right, I suppose.

Geeksugar: What is one geeky habit you’re trying to quit?
He says: Hitting refresh on sites I like that are just not actually going to update in the next five seconds. I probably waste a good hour a day just revisiting sites and message boards I’ve already skimmed in hopes they’ll offer me something new. It’s sad.
She says: I’m way too easily distracted on the Internet. For example, I started answering this question 15 minutes ago, but then I decided I needed to go see if some of my old favorite Web sites that I hadn’t visited in a while had RSS feeds, and then I started following the links on their blogrolls, and suddenly I was reading the entire archives of a blog I’d never heard of before. So yeah, that.

Geeksugar: Are you the “Beauty” or the “Geek” in the relationship?
He says: I’m totally the geek. Kimra’s really beautiful, and, crucially, is nowhere near as dorky as I am when it comes to understanding how technology works, not just what it can do for her. Plus, I know the name of the woman who created all the icons for the original Mac. (Susan Kare! She’s great!) Um…yeah.
She says: Not that Pete’s not attractive, but I’m going to have to claim the title of Beauty here – I can only dream of someday reaching his level of Geekiness.