Pauline Accepts Her Fate

In conjunction with the March 19 screening of 8 Bit — a documentary about art and video games — at the Austin's Alamo Drafthouse, Ain't It Cool News sponsored an i am 8 bit-style art contest. Five submissions were honored, among them one that smartly focused on the plight of the forgotten female lead from the original Donkey Kong.

May I please present "Pauline Accepts Her Fate," by Terrence Molnar.

kindly click the image for a larger, more glorious version

I love this. Not just for its technical prowess — the ape man himself looks downright real — but for giving dimension to Pauline, who despite initial prominence during Mario's arcade days has tragically become one of the more obscure characters in the extended Marioverse. How clever: to re-imagine Pauline as someone who has resigned herself to the fact that she's Kong property as long as Mario keeps getting plowed over by barrels.

Sweetie, Take it Hot

It was found inadvertantly.

And then another was found.

And a third, easily the best of the bunch.

Sex Flowers

Mostly at the suggestion of Ethan's cover story in this week's Independent, I dropped by Earl Warren for the Santa Barbara Orchid Show. The article actually made flowers I've otherwise associated with over-attendant housewives seem exciting. Besides, since I've lived here, I've let six previous ones go by, so I figured this Sunday would be the day where I would go look at the evolutionary freaks.

The evidence:

The grand-prize winner, which I found oddly turnip-like.

And the last one — the only photo that I felt had any artistic merit.

I liked it to much I was tempted to fiddle with it, hopefully for the better.

Mii-ness

The introduction of the Nintendo Wii to my life has effectively divided my life into two parts — B.W. (Before Wii) and A.W. (Anno Wii-i). In preparation to buy the system, I knew I’d be looking forward to the next generation of Nintendo software, but the added benefit of access to old Nintendo, Sega and TurboGrafx-16 has allowed me to also relive my otherwise squandered childhood. I like that.

What’s struck me most about the Wii, however, is the Mii component, which lets players cobble together little representations of themselves from an available selection of facial features, hairstyles, skin tones and such. Mere moments after Spencer, Aly and I had transformed ourselves into Miis — Spiincer, Alii and Driiw, respectively — we went overboard creating a host of Miis for other people we know — some flattering, some not so much and none to be mentioned here. And that’s not mentioning are vast collection of celebri-Miis, including Cosbii, Jiisus, Lii-Lo, Britnii (bald version), Bowii, Iiman, Niicole, Padma Lakshmii, Anna Wiintour and a host of others that don’t readily jump to mind. (Yes, Anna Wintour was Mii-ified. And I’d wager my house is the only one in the Wii-enabled universe to performed such a feat. Though, for the record, she could be easily switched to “Joan Diidion” and I don’t think anybody would notice.) Aside from functioning as your virtual Wii-vatars for functions like the Everybody Votes Channel — a Wii function I have yet to really understand — or sending and receiving email, the Miis also appear in games. In Wii Sports, the Miis are the ones running around and hitting balls, despite their notable lack of hands and legs. In the Wii version of WarioWare, the Miis also occasionally appear in the various mini-games, sometimes in surprising ways. (My head on a jack-in-the-box spring, for example. It’s neat.)

the mii me

Nintendo guru Shigeru Miyamoto — the man responsible for creating Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong, among others — has apparently been toying with the idea since the days of the original Nintendo system but hadn’t had a means to do anything useful with them. Finally, when Nintendo designers began work on Wii Sports — a game which initially was going to utilize Mario characters — they realized the possibility to give the world Miis.

I’m not the only person who’s hyped on Miis, it seems. A simple Google News search for “mii” gets a lot more results than I would have expected. First off, Nintendo has noted the popularity of Miis and has decided to expand what people can do with them. For example, they’ve announced a new Mii Popularity Channel, which I imagine would work like a Mii Hot-or-Not or something. Nintendo’s not the only one. Nintendo also recently Mii-ified two popular Japanese comedians and made them available to be downloaded by the general public. (The comedy stylings of famed jokesters Shuzo Matsuoka and Sanma Akashiya — on your Wii!) T-shirt company Mr. Cloud is now offering a shirt with your Mii’s face printed onto it.

Some whole websites have been created around Miis — specifically Mii Station, a site which functions only to help the Wii-tarded who can’t seem to create a Mii that resembles them. For a mere $5 charge, you send Mii Station a digital photo of yourself and they send you a finely crafted Mii in your image, which you can then add to you stable of ready-to-play Miis.

Most shocking of all: an article headlined “Can Nintendo’s Mii Concept Kill MySpace?” The article discusses how Miis could allow for third party constructions that could build an actual social network around them.

Gaming industry analyst Richard Doherty, research director for Envisioneering Group, said that it is a smart move by Nintendo. "Absolutely. Within a year, the Wii may be the most successful and valuable social-networking community on the Web," Doherty said.

"Nintendo is creating a framework for an open environment that will allow other developers to add value," he explained.

So very weird. And I just want people to be friends with Cosbii.

Speaking of which, anybody Wii-powered reading this now should become my Wii friend. Wii?

Kongs, Tiny and Candied

One of the more striking aspects of the newly released remake Diddy Kong Racing DS: bit player Tiny Kong's transformation from the extended Kong family's kid sister to a full-grown sexpot. Given Nintendo's split with Rare, it's odd to me that Rare would have still developed this title, but they did. And it's also notable that Rare excised non-Nintendo properties Banjo and Conker from the cast of playable characters in favor of Dixie Kong and her once-younger sister Tiny Kong.

What's even weirder, however, is Tiny's apparent growth spurt. Here's Tiny Kong as of her Donkey Kong 64 days, looking every bit Dixie's little sister.


And here's the notably more mature Tiny, looking more like Dixie's babysitter.


Nice bared midriff, Tiny. Very strange, if for no other reason than it makes me uncomfortable to watch an anthropomorphic animal become womanized, if not outright sexualized. (It's also got to be strange for Nintendo purists, especially because Dixie has yet to age a day since being introduced to video gamedom back in 1995.) Tiny's transformation reminds me of what happened to Candy Kong, Donkey's girlfriend and notably the one recurring simian in the Donkey Kong Country universe yet to appear as a playable character. Note the original version, looking all blonde and pink and more-or-less a Kong analogue to Mario's Princess Peach.


And note what she's evolved into: a bikini-clad monkey babe with visible cleavage, as evidenced by this bit of promotional art for Candy in DK: King of Swing.


It... makes me uncomfortable. Not just the boobs, but the idea that Rare would create a Tiny and have her first ape Dixie and now ape Candy.

Ha. "Aping."

The Backpack

As the seven hours of war protest activities scheduled for tomorrow have rendered my Saturday into a work day, I took today off and went to the zoo. It's my third trip. The zoo has animals. See?

I'm happy to report that this zoo trip afforded me my first-ever opportunity to photograph the Santa Barbara's famed crooked neck giraffe, who, as its description implies, has a crooked neck. See?

As anybody who's read this blog beyond this past year knows, I was, for a brief period, obsessed with anteaters. The psychosis has subsided, for the most part. But that hasn't stopped me from spending a good half-hour at the anteater pen, waiting and anticipating the moment Momma and Baby Wobbly Nose would wake up and entertain me. You see, I've been aware of the anteater born at Santa Barbara Zoo since October of 2004, when I found that my friend Val worked there and had ready access to the pair. The zoo staff was in the process of selecting a name for Baby Anteater. (Val suggested "Little Lafawnduh.") Eventually, someone came up with "Mochila" — Spanish for "backpack," as the newborn little freak had a habit of riding on his mother's back. Cute, huh?

Like I said, that first awareness of the anteater happened more than two years ago. You'd think that Mochila would have outgrown the need — or at least the habit — of riding everywhere piggyback.

Not so.

It turns out that anteaters don't stop doing that, as I learned today. What initially looked like horrendous mother-son humping soon revealed itself to be mere affectionate piggybacking in spite of Momma's nearly buckling legs. Mochila, after all, looks to be close to full-grown. My take: Momma needs to say "no."

See Mochila's arrested development in action.

Tongue and all. I'm seriously so impressed with myself.

Momma and Baby in action, courtesy of YouTube:

The Warios

This cover for +N, a Swedish gaming magazine, has already been well-circulated online, but I haven't yet heard anyone discuss something odd the artist implemented in the image. And I'm not talking about the lady Wario in the front row or the too-cool amalgam of The Warriors and Smash Bros.

Whether it's wishful thinking or a case of someone knowing more than I do about upcoming releases, artist Kamekichi made some interesting choices regarding who he included in this Nintendo all-star line-up. At first glance, it would seem to be a take-off on Smash Bros., but take a second a closely look at exactly who's here. (And try taking that close look here, since the above image is so small. And while you zoomed in, by the way, just try not to notice that the Wario at the front-left is sporting a raging hard-on. Ha.)

Anyway, start with Wario — make him six o'clock — and move clockwise.

• The Luigis directly above and behind the Warios
• The Links
• The Captain Falcons
• The Waluigis
• The Pikachus
• The Marios
• The Toads
• The Koopa Troopas
• Some shirtless guys in the back-left that I can't identify — possibly Kirby, by process of elimination, or maybe even someone from Punch-Out!!
  
• The Samuses
• The Ice Climberses
• The Captain Olimars (form Pikmin)
  
• The Balloon Fighters
• The Pits (from Kid Icarus)
• The Marths
• The Zeldas
• The Fox McClouds
• One great, big ROB
• The Yoshis
• The Nesses (from Earthbound)
• The Donkey Kongs
• The Peaches
• Conspicuously missing: Bowser and Jigglypuff
  

Just very odd that the artist managed to capture most of the actual Smash Bros. line-up, but would also include randoms like Balloon Fighter, Waluigi, Toad and Koopa Troopa. Probably wishful thinking in my part, but I have to admit they do all look good together.

Kamekichi's site is in Japanese, so I have little-to-no idea what anything on it means. However, there's more cool video game-based art available that you don't have to be multilingual to understand. For example, he has a Star Wars parody up involving various Nintendo folk.

"you're my only home... to find me in another castle."

There's also "Setting Sun," a take-off on Super Mario Sunshine, featuring Mario embarrassing Luigi.


And then there's an image of Luigi, theoretically embarrassing Mario if Mario was around to see him.


Kamekichi apparently has a thing for making the Mario Bros. inappropriately display their bulges. I tried Google-translating his site for some insight into his artistic method. What resulted was the following text, which accompanies the above image of Luigi.

There being a your strange edge, the Swedish game magazine “+N” you drew the cover of the March 6th sale number. The news item picture which with the sight “morning eye newspaper” which you have taken care usually is announced is opportunity.

Never, like this it is and can receive fish story with we did not think even in dream, but because it is the with special care opportunity, shaking the arm, you drew. Some kind of picture it cannot show here, but if perhaps the Nintendo Co. game fan, rejoicing, you think that it has become something which it can receive. Various news items (?)It is trained, die (laughing.)

Lastly, giving this kind of opportunity, as “+N” the people of the editorial staff, been the morning eye newspaper curator giving opportunity desk vessel cat, in those which in addition I draw thought gratitude is said to the people and everyone who are the [ku] from heart.

Thank you truly very much.

In short, not a clue.