Dale Weir's blog

Mario needs to be more careful with those stars. We could have wound up with a new series of games like Super Koopa 64, Super Koopa Kart, Dr. Koopa or Koopa Party.

Now they're recreating (sort of) operating systems in LittleBigPlanet 2? What's next? OS/2? Or maybe some productivity programs like MS Office or Adobe Photoshop? It doesn't sound that far-fetched.

Did you ask what Gearbox was thinking picking up the rights to Duke Nukem Forever—the game that as its name implies has taken forever to be released. I mean, who still cares about Duke Nukem after over a decade of being the butt of every joke? Well, the people behind this fan made trailer certainly do care and they are probably not alone.

This particular video really hits its mark. Part tribute to Super Mario Bros., part tribute to Grand Theft Auto and completely awesome. As an homage it captures some popular Nintendo catch phrases and mixes them in with altered non-Nintendo catch phrases. My favorite part of the video though is that frequent sad sack and third wheel, Luigi, is particularly badass. Though clearly the second in command in The Brothers Mario, he's not the pathetic, attention-seeking sibling we see in other fan videos.

The title says it all.

Call of Duty: Black Ops with Lego. A very productive use of free time. Seriously.

The Leicestershire Teenage Pregnancy Partnership has put together a PSA that borrows from Mega Man and Super Mario Bros. Why does the PSA end when they go into the house? I would think that's be when things were just getting started.

Whether it is the original Tron movie, its sequel (Tron Legacy) or video games based on the sequel (Tron: Evolution), the one thing movie goers and gamers always look forward to seeing are the Light Cycles. Those unrealistically aerodynamic and blisteringly fast quasi-motorcycles have not only cemented a place for themselves in science-fiction and video games, but popular culture in general. More than a few bike aficionados went home after seeing the first movie, to look disappointingly at their now obsolete motorcycles.

Now a company called Parker Brothers Choppers is making it possible for some of us to live out our childhood fantasies and actually ride a "recreation" of the virtual bike. However, fans of the original movie may be disappointed as these bikes are modeled after the new virtual machines from Tron Legacy.

But who cares? These models look sexy, powerful and extraordinarily cool looking, however impractical they may be to maneuver, maintain and own.

Four Light Cycles are available should you have $55K to spare.