New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Before I can tell you about the terribly inconvenient story of Nintendo's, "New Super Mario Bros. Wii," I have to tell you about the last couple Mario adventures I've been on.

First we travel back to 1996, when the Nintendo 64 was the hottest gaming console out there and Super Mario 64 was breaking ground on the 3D platforming scene. The idea was simple, get stars to unlock doors, unlock enough doors to get to Bowser, and defeat bowser enough times to rescue the Princess. If memory serves me I think the magic number was 70 stars to get to the final level of the game (I could be wrong) and as a kid this was all that concerned me. Beating the final boss meant beating the game right?

NO! Even though I beat the game there was still one cannon outside the castle I couldn't access. I began to wonder how to open it, and heard rumors that if you opened it you could get to Yoshi on the castle roof. YOSHI?! Holy Awesomeness I had to do that.. but how? Collect all 120 stars of course. So I long jumped, butt stomped, wing capped, and backflipped till my thumbs were raw, but finally I did it. I was so excited.. the gate had opened, it was all worth it, I shot myself to the roof and sure enough there was Yoshi! YAY! I spoke to him, and he said...

"Here's 99 lives so you can continue to enjoy playing!" and then jumped away. What BULL****! Continue playing?? what else is there to do (spoiler alert: NOTHING) and extra lives? I believe the penalty for a game over is starting outside the castle instead of outside the level you were just in, its a matter of running back to the same spot. What a tease, I wanted my reward, I wanted my recognition!

Fast forward to three years ago, and I thought I had it. I was now playing Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii and wow was it fun. Once again, collect enough stars to beat Bowser and rescue Peach. Again the rumors rose around the game, if you get all 120 with Mario you can play as Luigi! True? YES! I collected every star in the game and had access to another character, to play the game again, a character who jumps higher but runs with a slippery step. But what happens if you beat the game with Luigi? What is the motivation to play through the whole game a 2nd time? Rumor says... SECRET LEVEL!

I knew I had to do it. I had to find this level and beat it, beat was had to be a simply chaotic area of insane difficulty for only the elite player. Before I go on I'll let you know that every level in the game offers a star if you collect 100 purple coins. Ok so 240 stars later, game complete with Mario and Luigi, the level is revealed....

...AND... It's a single road, with 100 purple coins lined up in a row that ends in front of the castle. WHAT?! all that work for nothing!? again?! Why would anyone want to get to this level? what is the reasoning here??

Ugh.. so anyway, fast forward again to the present, the newest Mario adventure is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. a return to the 2D platformer with new twists, better graphics, and an injection of awesome.

The idea was a little different, and more in line with the original Mario games. Get to the end of 8 worlds each made up of 8 levels, defeat Bowser and rescue the Princess. Well it wasn't the easiest game ever, but I got to that point pretty quickly and then what? world 9? Interesting..

Turns out you can't access any level in world 9 unless you collect all 3 star coins from each of the 8 levels in each world. (Collect the 24 star coins in world 1 to unlock the first level of world 9 etc.) Challenge Accepted game! I will go back to every level multiple times searching them in and out for every secret to beat this world 9 because I know that at the end of the journey, after I beat world 9 into a pulp must be waiting a boss fight, so legendary, that only the most dedicated will even face, only the most determined will know about and have the true right to say I beat the FINAL BOSS!

Well guess what? I was wrong.. again. After all that work all I got was a message confirming that I had completed everything in the game, and some stars next to my name on the title screen. Well woop-dee-friggin-doo. Ugh sorry for the length but has anyone else put this much effort into a game for no reward? I can def say that I'm a freaking master of the new age Mario games, but I wish Nintendo had enough courtesy to appropriately reward its dedicated players.

Maybe next time...

Yoga Jeans

Well I can't say I wasn't warned. On the first day of Intro to Acting our professor told us to wear comfy clothes to class, said specifically not to wear tight jeans and pointed out several people in the class who would need to change their attire.

I don't own any ultra skinny, skinny, or tight fitting jeans at all for that matter. Since the average temperature in Blacksburg is roughly 35 degrees right now and I don't think shorts or sweat pants would cut it, I didn't even give this another thought.

As it turns out, "don't wear tight jeans" was great advice, but not complete advice. Complete advice would sound like this. "Don't wear jeans to this class at all. Ever."

I consider myself pretty mobile in my jeans, but then I've never tried to yoga in them (or at any time in my past) which is conveniently how she likes to start class. Started out fine: hand above head, down to toes, downward facing dog, slide into cobra, and then FAIL.

I should mention that I am out of my element talking about this, and feel a little silly typing out the names of these positions, so forgive me if I am incorrect.

If you don't know what, "downward facing dog," is, it's basically holding your self up with hand and toes and you butt way up in the air. The slide into cobra from there basically lowers your but to the ground and raises your head to the sky, kinda like a seal. FAIL is when you then bring one foot up to line up with your fingertips.

Now I don't know how this would feel for a girl, but guys I can only say, DONT WEAR JEANS. The amount of.. hmm friction? pinching? and squeezing? that occurs is simply awful, not to mention there is a definite possibility that even loose jeans could rip.

Fortunately my jeans remained intact, but I could feel some threads getting awful thin. Overall I think this is probably the most basic Yoga anyone could ever do, and I think the real purpose is just to wake us up, but to be honest it works pretty well. I don't imagine I'll be attending an actual class anytime soon, but it's definitely a different way to move around... just don't wear jeans.

Parking

I don't think of myself as a quick tempered person, but there is one thing that will ALWAYS put me bad mood: parking.

There are two very ugly faces of parking:

1. Finding a spot.

2. Parking Tickets.

The inability to find a parking spot in a timely manner will drive me to anger, and frustration faster than just about anything else. Let me break down my situation for you. Every morning I wake up and drive to my college campus and start hunting for a spot. Naturally I try to keep morning classes out of my schedule so I can sleep in. Unfortunately this means when I arrive at the commuter parking lot at 11:30 (for a 2:00 p.m. class) every spot is taken, and I mean EVERY spot.

I should mention that our commuter lot is broken up into three large sections and until this year I have not had to much trouble finding a spot to park. Sometimes my spot may be far away, but I don't mind walking as long as I can park. This year however there is LESS parking because the whole middle section is closed off so, ironically, they can build a parking garage.

(Actually they are building a new academic building, and a parking garage, so whenever the project is done there wont really be any more spots than there used to be, just spots that have been relocated up several flights of stairs.)

In the mean time there are about 100 spots fewer than normal, which has created a piranha like mentality amongst everyone looking for a spot. Everyone circling around waiting to converge on the next student returning to their car. Well after 45 MINUTES of circling I finally found someone leaving their spot, or what looked like a spot.

This bring us to ugly face #2. Since construction has begun on the middle section a large gate has been built around it to keep people out of the construction zone. The gate crosses right over the section of road that connects one parking lot to the other. Conveniently enough it leaves the entrance to this road unblocked, in fact there is just over a car lengths worth of road left ungated creating room for two cars to park next to one another and be 100% out of the way of traffic passing behind them. If you park there you're actually in line with with the cars on either side of you in the parking lot. (Just to clarify, this road is like the doorway between 2 lots, it is not near any street. All traffic passing behind you is parking lot traffic, not street traffic.)

Now I'm sure you can see where this is going, I got a ticket for parking here, the official reason being that this was "not a space." I would be willing to accept this reason if not for a few things. First I have seen people parking in these spots for over a semester, second, parking there does not block or hinder anyone in anyway, third the spots are in the commuter section of the lot which I have a paid pass for, and lastly THERE IS NO SIGN SAYING PARKING THERE ISN'T ALLOWED.

I can understand if originally they didn't put a sign up and assumed people wouldn't park there. I think it stands to reason however, that if this has been happening for over a semester, than obviously there is there is some confusion or miscommunication about whether you can park there.

I mean how hard would it be to put up a sign or some cones, or anything that lets you know you'll get a ticket? Sure maybe originally parking services are not at fault for not realizing there would be any confusion, but at this point in the game they are being irresponsible and simply taking advantage of students who have paid for commuter passes and are unknowingly parking illegally in a clearly marked commuter zone.

With parking as limited as it is anyway it seems like adding two additional spots for a limited time would actually be very helpful, but then why be helpful when you could squeeze an extra few bucks out of unknowing students everyday?