• 5Jul 09

  Super Mario Galaxy review up!

  Hey everyone! I just put up a Super Mario Galaxy review! You can find it here. I gave it a perfect 10. I loved the game so much! It's the first of the modern Marios where I've gotten all 120 stars, or even wanted to. My sister and I had a great time with it, as you'll find in the review!

  I hope you enjoy reading it. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. As I've said before, I write the reviews for myself primarily just to get some good writing practice in a format that I rarely use. I like to experiment with style. Galaxy was, for me, a way for me to spend time with my little sister, so I approached the review in a personal, experience driven manner. It's not going to read as a product review so much as a "this is what the game means to me."

  In other news, I got Left 4 Dead this week! Unfortunately I'm having trouble with my Xbox and live doesn't exactly work. At least I can play it local multiplayer, which I've done quite a bit since I picked it up.

  Next blog will be a continuation of travel tales. Hope everyone had a happy 4th and enjoyed celebrating Palin's resignation! Haha!

  • Posted Jul 5, 2009 3:21 pm PT
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• 22Jun 09

  Flying the World with SkylinePigeon, part 1

  Hey all! As I said in my previous blog, I've now landed safely back in the US and have honestly LOVED being home. I had so much fun in England, but being home has been wonderful as well. It's been great to see my family and best friends again, most of all, but I've also enjoyed eating my favorite foods, basking in the warm Southern heat, working on a tan, and eating pizza at the best pizza restaurant in the world.

  My university in the UK gave students the entire semester of April off, and I used that time to backpack around the UK, Ireland, and France. It was an incredible time in my life, and I am so thankful I had that experience! I'm going to use my next few blogs to share the trip and pictures with you guys.

  Before I get into that, I just want to say that if you're still in college or younger, take the opportunity to study abroad! It will change your life. Not only did I get the chance to travel the world, I learned so much about myself and have come out a stronger person. If money is tight, like it is in my family, look into scholarships--I financed this experience in its entirety with scholarships. There are also loans you can take out. It's an experience you can't really get any other time in your life and I highly recommend it.

  This blog will focus on my first few days of backpacking. My best friend from home came up and stayed for nine days, and we went to Liverpool, London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.

  First off, Liverpool! I had been before, and if you are interested you can check out that trip and some of my pictures here. Chrystle is a huge Beatles fan, so we did the same taxi tour I had already done. We had less than 24 hours there, so it was a rushed trip, but we enjoyed it. The Fab Four Taxi Tour is fantastic and well-priced; I highly recommend it to anyone who visits the city. The hostel we stayed in that night was extremely sketchy, but thankfully it was just one night. We also hit up the Cavern Club, the place where the Beatles got their start and countless other amazing bands have played. A band from Japan played that night, and opened their set with a great quote: "The Beatles is our hero!" Love it!

  After Liverpool we took a 5 hour bus ride to London. It may seem like it would be long and obnoxious, but the English countryside is so lovely, you don't mind it. This was my third trip to London. My first was when I first touched down in the UK, before I went to school (you can read about it and see more pictures here). The second was in March, two weeks before this trip, when I went down for four days to see Animal Collective in concert and James McAvoy in a play. Lots of fun. I tried to take Chrystle to my favorite London places. We stayed in a B&B out in the suburbs, which was nice. Our first night was quite an adventure. We went out to the Troubador, a club where Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan all played when first starting out. We had a great time there, and the band that was playing (The Jacks) were great live and a lot of fun. That night we got incredibly lost on the way home! The tube was shut so we had to take the buses, which neither of us were used to. After we finally found our bus, we got off a stop too early in the most sketch-ass area of London and waited forty five minutes for the bus to come get us... this was at 1:30 in the morning! After an extremely long ride we FINALLY made it out to the Golders Green suburb we were staying in around 3:30 that morning!

  After sleeping in a bit the next day, we started with pictures at Platform 9 3/4 and then went to see the illuminated manuscripts at the nearby British Library. Unexpected treats at the library included handwritten Beatles lyrics on the backs of envelopes, journals from people like Sylvia Plath and Lewis Carroll, and a random run in with one of my professors at Keele. After that Chrystle and I hit the Portobello Road market--one of the famous markets in London that has everything from handmade jewelry to paintings to antiques to vegetables filling the streets and boutique stores. I got a great pair of earrings: pink crocheted flowers with blue buttons in the center. Chrystle loves cupcakes, so I took her to the Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road, which specializes in adorable and delicious cupcakes. We carried them to Hyde Park and ate them on the grass among the flowers. That night we enjoyed our front row tickets to Spring Awakening, a modern musical about the sexual awakening of teenagers in 1800s Germany. It's an amazing show--I saw it before in New York, but Chrystle hadn't seen it before. I was happy to go again. The girl who played Wendla was amazing. Great show; see it if you have the opportunity!

  On our last full day I took Chrystle to the British Museum, probably my favorite in London. After three trips, I've finally seen the whole thing! After that, we went to the Imperial War Museum. I'd heard it was amazing, but the subject matter didn't seem like it would be interesting. I was very wrong--it's a fascinating museum that really gets to the heart of the British war experience. My favorite exhibit was called "The Children's War," and it was about the lives of children during World War II. Some of you may be familiar with the evacuation concept, but I was not. During WWII, children were evacuated out of major cities and sent to live in the countryside, separated from their families, where they would be safer. The exhibit was fascinating and heartbreaking. Reading some of the letters they displayed between families or soldiers and their children brought real tears to my eyes. Other great parts of the museum include the film on modern genocide and the Holocaust exhibit. I highly recommend going to visit here, even if it seems like something you wouldn't normally enjoy... I bet you would be pleasantly surprised. After that, we headed out to Abbey Road studios and got our picture taken going across the street, made famous on the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. We ended that night by spending entirely too much money at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum, but we had a lot of fun and took lots of stupid pictures, so I don't regret it. Before we caught our flight to scotland the next day we saw the changing of the guard and got burritos at this great place on Fleet St. I wanted burritos really badly, so I put research into finding this place. Success!! Mexican food is basically non-existant in the UK, but I really enjoyed these. Yum!This is getting long, so I'll end it with some pictures here.

  Up next we head to that mysterious land in the North... Scotland!

  
  Clamps used to castrate priests--found in the British Museum. Oh boy!

  
  Resting in Hyde Park. Check out my awesome Companion Cube earrings! Be jealous.

  
  Visiting Ben.

  
  Sunset in Hyde Park.

  • Posted Jun 22, 2009 2:56 pm PT
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• 17Jun 09

  SkylinePigeon's E3 2009 awards!

  So I know what you all are thinking. E3 was 2 weeks ago... this blog... IRRELEVANT! Well I was super busy transitioning back to the US from the UK, so I just finished watching the press conferences. I know, I know. Well, let's get to it.

  Jack Tretton Makeover 2009: HE'S A GINGER!!

  

  Last year, someone scheduled him a tanning appointment. This year, he got his hair dyed! Now I'm sure Mr. Tretton was a lovely ginger in his youth, but last year he was definitely a duller shade with a little gray around the temples. Instead of succumbing to silver fox-dom, Tretton went red. What will we see next year??

  Best Beard of GS Live Show:

  

  Dan from Take10 - Forza 3 Demo

  Best Sideburns: Mechberg

  Worst Outfits: Nintendo Press Conference (Bill Trinnen's shirt was too small and an awful color, Cammie's jacket needed fitting, and the pastel shirts and the defeated looks on the NSMBW demo team were just emasculating)

  Most Exciting GS Chat Feature 2009: xxx chat

  Worst Grammar: Nintendo press conference. Cammie: "Nintendo DS equals diverse." No one says that out loud. Reggie: "play more real." How about realistically? And don't get me started on the wii slogan: "Everyone's game." They used it wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME.

  Coming to TVs and Wiis in 2010: Lost~WooHoo Island (courtesy of Wii Sports Resort)

  Person Most Likely to Replace T.R. Knight as George on Grey's Anatomy Next Season:

  

  This guy from Scibblenauts.

  Funniest Chat Member: Hungry_Bunny

  Most Likely Reason Cammie Dunaway Looked Pissed During the Nintendo Press Conference: "I think Reggie nailed her and forgot to cuddle." (courtesy of N3MO)

  Best 'Are you ****ing kidding me?' moment: When Cammie announced that $ty|e Savvy was being targeted at twentysomething females. Good luck with that.

  Biggest Jerk of E3: Person who asked Miyamoto mean questions in the roundtable... go pick on Iwata the buisness guy. Leave Miyamoto alone so he can continue to dress up like Link and garden and be cute and make awesome games.

  'Finally Coming Into It's Own' Award: Playstation 3

  Biggest Surprise: New Metroid being developed by Team Ninja

  Best Press Conference: Sony

  Game I'm Most Looking Forward To: Scribblenauts

  Game of Show: Assassin's Creed 2

  My heart said Scribblenauts for game of show, but I've been looking forward to it since I heard about it on 1up FM way back when there was a 1up FM. As nothing about the Scribblenauts showing made me more excited for the game, I'll give it to AC2, which did hype me up big time.

  SkylinePigeon's E3 2008 Awards

  • Posted Jun 17, 2009 9:11 am PT
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