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The English language doesn't really have a lot of words that work well when you're trying to convey the feeling of a physical experience in absolutes. When we're dealing with long-time touchstones, the words allow us to associate our own memories with them in a new way, facilitated by those words. And yet, the top Google results that are suggested after an initial query of "description of" are intangibles, things that although people may have experienced, are generally indescribable to each person—love, heaven and hell, sexual gratification, and for some reason the guy from Fifty Shades of Grey.

Maybe the most surprising thing about New Super Mario Bros. 2's coin rush mode, in which you can compete with StreetPassed strangers by trying to maximize your coin total through a single-life gauntlet of three randomly selected levels, is that it's actually, in some sort of disgusting, twisted way, beneficial to tag people who have a score that is massively, impossibly unbeatable. Why would that be? Well, it's because the first time that you challenge a coin rush tag and finish it, you automatically receive coins equivalent to your rival's record.

I downloaded New Super Mario Bros. 2 on the eShop last night, at 11:02pm. Crazy! Now, scant hours later, I am like two-thirds of the way through the whole thing. Whups. I was a little worried about it beforehand, you know. Lots of impressions of this game have not been kind, writing it off as just a soulless retread that accomplishes nothing and serves only to dilute the Mario brand.

In a couple months like clockwork clickin' it will happen, the double-language sheet will magically appear on my desk to ask me if I'm sticking with My Life, if I wanna choose to stay here in for my last eligible year as a high-school teacher in this program, to become more of a Japanese citizen than I was a Pittsburgher, longer than I was a college student, longer than I've lived in any one place since I was eleven.

It's true, I did it, I bought a new TV. Well, technically it isn't new. Or wasn't, I mean. I mean, it was new at some point, but when I bought it, it wasn't new anymore. I think Gamestop calls this state "pre-owned," which is stupid since almost everything has been pre-owned even before anyone ever bought it, by the company and the store and stuff, just call it what it is, my TV is used, USED!

Anyone who's been around the gaming scene for long enough knows that the run-up period to console launches is always packed full of bizarre speculation. The Wii U has had its share so far, but what seems to be burning up the nets most lately are the hushed, secretive rumblings about the games we'll see from third parties at launch. Each minor revelation seems squeezed out over secret incantations, all bits of information parceled out replete with either public relations spin-control or braggadocio—and it's getting harder to know who's blowing smoke out their ass, who isn't, and what exactly these developers are allowed to tell us under their various non-disclosure agreements.

I haven't beat 3D Land yet, or I guess I mean really beat, with both dudes and all the coins and all the flagpoles, and it's not cause I haven't wanted to. But wait actually, that is exactly the reason. I've played this game basically in three chunks since getting it—has it really been almost an entire year since this came out? I think the reason I sorta started and stopped was that the game ended up feeling kind of samey to me as I went.

What's more fun than a plastic packet full of cardboard? A plastic packet full of cardboard with Mario pictures printed on it! Yes, New Super Mario Bros. Wii Stage Set Gum is simultaneously the worst and most awesome candy-related product I have ever savagely grabbed from the shelf with my teeth and spat into the shopping cart with a walrus-like emission of sound. This thing hearkens back to a time when we had to use our imaginations for entertainment, when we had to have fun with spartan paper products.

Video games are a commitment. I'm almost hesitant to sit down with a console game these days because to make any real progress—to travel from one save point to another—might take longer than the fifteen or so minutes I have available. This is one of the reasons I've grown to appreciate my handhelds. For those not aware, most handhelds these days have a pause feature that essentially creates a temporary save that you can return to at anytime.

I was casually sitting on my couch the other day, watching a scary movie with the lights dimmed, and I heard this strange growling sound. It started out with a slobbering grunt but the intensity grew. I thought for sure there was a velociraptor behind me waiting to sink its barbed claws into my face. With my eyes widened, I turned my head to see that it was just my lazy kitty producing a snore tsunami.