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In her latest “Sex Drive” column, Wired’s sex reporter, Regina Lynn, tackles cybersex, those looking to mix it more heavily with another popular online activity, gaming, and those resistant to the whole idea, namely most gamers and most cybersex…ers. We’re apparently holding back the free spirits by laughing at their demands to put dongs on orcs.

From what I’ve seen in blogs and forums, “real” gamers scoff at sex games. “Go watch porn,” they say, sardonic and superior. Games are serious, cybersex is not, and combining the two is just another example of the entertainment industry not getting it.

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Etsy is the home of the knitted, the silkscreened, the beaded. Arts and crafts, straight from their moderately-gifted creator to you.

The genius of the site is that it gives a top-level category to “geekery”, so that you can bypass the candles-in-a-jar and the beanie baby storage racks that look like houses, and go straight for stuff like the pendant you see here.

The creator, who goes by 8bitnitwit, remixes clippings from his archive of Nintendo Power into cheap but unique trinkets. I also like his Gameboy fridge magnets.

8bitnitwit’s Collection [@Etsy]

It started out as a prank on a Legend of Zelda fanfic writer. The gentlemen responsible for this video approached the fanfic writer and asked him if they could use his “work” as the script for a production from DIC, the animation house that pumped out cartoons in the 80s like Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and of course The Legend of Zelda. Of course the writer agreed, and a couple of quick animations were thrown together as an “animation test” along with some DIC logos put in for authenticity.

When the video hit the internet, though, it was just good enough to be taken as an authentic DIC animation test— which is to say, it was very awful.
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“PlayStation Signature” is the brand name for this officially-licensed line of lifestyle products, and upscale PSP-owners are the target market. Somehow the PS3 is a mainstream item, though. Well, at least I’m sure Sony’s profit margin is better on this item though, in the sense that there is profit.

If saving up for the PS3 puts the watch out of your range, how about the more moderate $300 PSP designer carrying case, or the $130 long sleeve t-shirt?

Check out the full line at Game Watch Japan. You can multiply the numbers below each picture by .0089 to get an approximate price in U.S. dollars.

It’s a rule: any offbeat project must have a Mario component in its proof-of-concept if it is in any way possible, whether it’s a Roomba that responds to MIDI instructions, or making fun of wire-fu.

Speaking of, Wired reports on this real-time wire-fu adventure based on Super Mario Bros.. Sure, grad students from a smart school may have been Mariofying virtual reality years ago with real science stuff, but that doesn’t diminish the efforts taken by NYUers to take on real reality with nothing but some scaffolding, bungee cords, and a discount card for Jo-Ann’s Fabric Shop. I mean, who are you to dismiss the advanced post-graduate nature of 1980s Japanese game show technology?

Read – Strap Up and Jump Like Mario [Wired News]