One of the fundamental, and mostly unmentioned, elements of “pick on someone your own size” is the idea that if you don’t there may in fact be a sibling or protector involved in the equation that you haven’t yet considered.
Tag: mario
Ate bit cakes
Mmm, nutritious, eight bit, and delicious. Just how I like my cakes.
This Mario Cupcake family (from Flickr) is beautiful.
But this Pacman cake (also from Flickr) really, well, takes the cake…
And for those who like arty cakes… I give you a Van Gogh (also from Flickr).
A question of gravity
In the spirit of pointless science here’s an exploration of the gravity of Super Mario’s world in each Mario release.
First, you must find the time it took Mario to fall from the edge of the ledge to the ground in each game. To do this, we opened each clip in Quicktime movie player, and using the frame by frame option, found the total number of frames it took Mario to fall. We then used the formula:
Time = (Number of Frames) / (Frame Rate)
To find the time of each of Mario’s falls. Once we knew the time, we needed to figure out the distance Mario fell in each game. We used a screen shot of Mario next to the ledge he fell from in each game, and found the height of Mario and the ledge in pixels. According to Wikipedia, Mario is “a little over five feet tall.”, so we used 5 feet, or 1.524 meters, as Mario’s height.
Turns out they’re getting closer and closer to real world conditions – which is a shame – because Mario’s success depends on his ability to leap tall pipes in a single bound. Read the rest of the study here.
“We determined that, generally speaking, the gravity in each Mario game, as game hardware has increased, is getting closer to the true value of gravity on earth of 9.8 m/s2. However, gravity, even on the newest consoles, is still extreme. According to Wikipedia, a typical person can withstand 5 g before losing consciousness, and all but the very latest of Mario games have gravity greater than this. Also, with gravity that great, it is a wonder Mario can perform such feats as leaping almost 5 times his own body height!”
Super Mario Clock
What time is it when the big hand points to Flower Power Mario and the little hand points to Mario64?
You can answer this question for your friends, countrymen or children if you purchase this clock from etsy.
Super Mario Art
I’ve probably used this heading before. But it seems fitting. You can generate your own Mario ending sequence here. They come out a little something like this:
YouTube Toosday: Mario Cart the movie
This joins a long list of old games being turned into movie trailers. And it’s amusing, if you like this sort of thing…
Pieces of eight bit
This video is rightly being hailed as the best lego stop motion 8-bit tribute of all time.
It’s a pretty small pool I guess – but all the typical post fodder is included – Pacman, Mario and Tetris make an appearance…
Piecing games together
Have you ever wondered where all the elements of a successful game come from? Well. They’re painstakingly put together in factories. Truly. Here’s proof. From Tetris, Mario, and Sonic.
Super Mario Art
There’s a whole lot of awesome Super Mario Bros stuff out there just waiting to be posted.
To save myself some of the trouble I’m going to compile it all into one post.
Found here.
This vibrating Mushroom Cushion ($US11.99) will give new life to your room.
This Etsy user has a whole stack of bed spreads and other 8 bit inspired manchester. 
A game is only as good as its collection of villains. Here’s someone’s take on how the bad guys were cast…
Obviously Super Mario Bros was a good game. And much more entertaining than that video. Good enough to inspire this sort of street art…
Or these sorts of incredibly painful tattoos…
And this sort of painstaking dedication to converting things into Japanese artwork…
This, for those not familiar with the whole Mario thing, is someone’s attempt to get everything turned into a handy graphical representation of a family tree – you can get a bigger version here.
And finally, this is a shirt laying down the life lessons learned from a life playing Mario games…
Cartoons in real life
Ben posts Peanuts comics on Thursdays. They’re a fun reminder of days flicking through Snoopy comics and playing the Snoopy Game on the Amiga.
Well, this post should excite him greatly – a real life Charlie Brown – courtesy of a Mr Tim O’Brien – who produced this for an exhibition entitled “Monsters”. It’s great.
Another artist name Pixeloo – or whose site is named Pixeloo – has put together a bunch of “real life” cartoon (and game) characters… they’re kind of freaky.
Luigo
Luigi is the forgotten Italian Plumber. Less cool because he wears green and was pretty much a lackey, or a bit player – an 8-bit player no less – in the Mario Bros saga – it’s not the Mario and Luigi bros is it… and Mario gets the girl…
Luckily someone out there is still holding a torch/flame/candle (whatever the expression is) for the green guy – because they produced this awesome Lego statue.
Cake that’ll fill the gaps
In honour of Tetris’s 25th birthday I give you this. A geeky Tetris wedding cake. Beautiful. No doubt my wife (and little sister number 1 – who made our cake) is thankful that we’re already married.
This is part of an article featuring geeky wedding cakes which also featured this Mario cake…
YouTube Tuesday: Super Smashing Pumpkins Brothers
The Smashing Pumpkins have been one of my favourite bands since Ben introduced me to them in grade 11. He incessantly talked about them. They were impossible to avoid.
Super Mario Brothers is one of my favourite games of all time. How can you not enjoy taking the guise of a plumber and running around a world full of walking fungus and drain pipes filled with treasure?
So combining the two is pure awesomeness.
Super Super Mario Kart Video
Remi Gaillard is a French prankster with some form for this sort of thing.