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Alex and glo friend

Japanese Friendship Garden, San Jose

Cheap Multiplayer Tricks for New Super Mario Bros. Wii

The New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a great game. Its the fun of old school Mario with the addition of great graphics and the kind of multiplayer I've wanted for Mario since playing the original as a child: its got up to four player simultaneous cooperative multiplayer. I recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Mario in the past. Watch this amazing video of level 1-3 you can unlock in the game.

As noted elsewhere, multiple players attempting to navigate platforms, grab power ups, and throw turtle shells creates new challenges but along with that there's new ways to be incredibly cheap.

Jumping Higher

A second player means a head one can jump on to reach higher locations. Jump on your friend's head at the apex of their jump while holding down the jump button yourself for maximum jumping. In the game you can also grab other players and hold them over your head. This is useful for reaching the top of the flagpole at the end of levels. On that same line, if the player you grab has a flying cap you can now use them to fly in the same manner you would use a flying block which makes it easy to get two players to the top of the finish flagpole if only one of you has a flying cap.

Power-Ups

Normal power-up blocks now spawn enough power-ups for everyone. A mushroom is spawned for each small player and full power-ups for the rest, except in the case everyone is small: then one of the power-ups is a full power-up. If there's two players and you're both small, the full power-up always jumps out of the block to the right. Some hidden power-up blocks only give out one power-up and in that case its a mushroom or not based on the player who hits the block - so be sure that a big player hits that if you have one.

Death & Bubbles

When a player dies but at least one other player lives the dead player comes back in a limbo bubble from which they must be released before they may play again. Because of this, in a tough spot you can send one player in and leave a second behind. If the first dies you don't lose your place in the level and the first comes back in a bubble ready to try again. For instance, if you're trying to get the last star coin in 2-1 which sits just above the abyss, one player can just jump to their death for it and as long as another player lives you've collected the coin. However you need not sacrifice your life to do this: you can press down and 'a' to force yourself into a bubble saving yourself from death. This is true in general as long as you have enough time to see your death coming. This is also useful if one player runs ahead to the right. The screen will expand a bit but then it will just move to the right following the player in the lead. Players left behind walls or now forced into lava pits will die unless they use the bubble.

Misc.

• If all players hit the ground at the same time from a ground pound it acts like hitting a pow block, killing the enemies on the screen.
• If you hold a player who has a projectile power over your head they can still use their power.
• Bubbles can be popped by hitting them with your fire or ice projectiles as well as thrown shells or blocks.
• All players get the extra lives from anyone collecting 100 coins or finishing a level with more than 7 enemies on the screen.

Lessons Learned From Paintball

I played paintball for the first time at Eric's bachelor party a couple months ago. With the worst of my bruises fading I'm examining what I've learned:

• Wearing a big jacket was a good idea, but another layer for my legs would have been good too.
• In retrospect I'd rather have run out in the open and had the brief pain of getting shot than take my time crouching in wait and feeling sore in my legs for all the next day.
• If I don't want to be first against the wall when the revolution comes, I'm going to have to make friends with folks who can aim.

Kane at IKEA

sequelguy posted a photo:

Found this hat next to a giant mirror and so Kane put it on.

Parents, Carl, Jeannie on Roof

sequelguy posted a photo:

Mostly Moved Into New House

The weekend before the previous, Sarah and I moved our belongings into the new house and spent a lot of time packing and unpacking, and now we're officially living there (interested Facebook friends can find my new address or just ask me). The Saturday of the previous weekend Sarah's family came over for a half house warming and half Sarah's birthday celebration which was fun and served to force us to do more unpacking and forced me to take trips to Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. On Sunday, Sarah and I went out to her favorite restaurant and she opened her gifts that I had to hide to keep her from opening before her birthday. Happy Birthday Sarah!

While at Home Depot I had trouble finding what I was actually looking for, but I did find everything I needed to terminate the Cat5e cables that are wired in the house. Each room has a wall plate with two RJ45 sockets, both sockets wired to Cat5e cable. One of the cables per plate was already hooked up to a standard phone service punchdown board and the other cables per plate were all hanging unterminated next to the punchdown board. So now I've terminated them all with RJ45 connectors and hooked them up to my hub, wireless router, cable modem, etc. I had the same sort of fun setting all that up as I did playing with model train sets as a child. Hopefully no therapy will be required to figure out why that is.