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Librarian: I'm So NOT Wii Fit Girl
Posted by Owen Good at 11:00 AM on June 15, 2008
Those naughty librarian eyeglasses might say say yes-yes, but a New York City woman says, no-no, they're not hers. You see, there's Lauren Bernat, aka Wii Fit Girl, who hulaed her way to 2 million YouTube views about three weeks ago, and then vowed it was not a viral marketing scheme. And then there's Lauren Bernat, mild-mannered librarian, who's been deluged with Facebook requests from cretinous pic collectors admirers who'd like to better know Wii Fit Girl. Non-Wii Fit Lauren wants everyone to know she's trying to get a job, and the attention isn't good for that.
Librarian Lauren says she does resemble Wii Fit Girl Lauren, enough that an employer who Googles her might have second thoughts about her temperament for a serious job. "If someone has my business card, and doesn't know what I look like, and they Google me, it looks like it's me, and that's my whole career down the tubes", she said.
Halo Wars Addict got an interview with Graham Somers, Ensemble Studios' community manager. Naturally, this outreach is in his job description, and a blog titled "Halo Wars Addict" will probably deliver a positive piece. But it's still worth a look if you're interested in the real-time strategy version of the Halo universe, due out sometime this year, hopefully, or early next year.
Our disturbed friends at Retro Sabotage are all suspender-popping about their 20th sabotage since the site launched shortly before New Year's Eve. Remember, these are flash games that play normally (or close to it) before something goes horribly, comically wrong and beyond your control.
Reader maxax caught an interview with Hideo Kojima in Spiegel Online, the website for German-language Der Speigel, one of Europe's leading mainstream news magazines. Maxax translated it to English on his blog and so we offer up to you here, too.
If you have a hi-res shot of yourself and can think up a reason that amuses Capcom, you can get yourself in Street Fighter IV as a background spectator. You have to do it fast though. Capcom extended this offer on Friday and it runs through Wednesday.
Apparently, using anything other than disposable "crap-arsed gas station batteries" turns a Wii Wheel driving experience into that of a 1978 Datsun heading down to the shore. And no, that's not a desirable mod. Not for Don at videolamer, anyway. He swears that using the battery packs from the React Recharge Dock for the Wiimote reduces the 'Mote's weight and makes it drive off centre when placed in the Wii Wheel.
One of the benefits of teaching on a collegiate level is that "fun" can frequently go out the window (as one of my professors routinely told a class full of students regarding the silent films the class watched, "I don't care if you like the film, that's not the point".); still, most of us don't want to bore the pants off students and try reasonably hard to make things interesting. It seems "fun" of the educational variety is even more important at the elementary and secondary levels, where I vaguely recall masses of activities designed to get us "engaged" and "interested". 
The plan was to have a Spore Creature Creator Demo, containing about 25 percent of the full library of creature pieces parts, going out to the public around June 17, around the same time as the full version, which costs $AU 10.63.
Gamasutra has an interesting piece up that celebrates the art of thoughtful thievery — based around the idea that there are "no new ideas," so picking and choosing your sources wisely can at least lead to interesting new creations. Going off the recent release of the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Tom Smith looks at a couple of areas where game designers could take some lessons:
Wednesday, a UK judge threw out 26 charges against the self-styled "No. 1 name in console modifications," leaving MrModChips, as Neil Higgs is known, to freely do his business (from his parents' home.) More broadly, some are hailing the decision as effectively legalising console modifications in Great Britain, six years after a similar decision in Australia.
Via Shacknews late Friday, Atari reported $AU 25.12 million net loss in its fiscal year ending March 31, 2008, the last FY on its books before it starts getting a monthly allowance from Infogrames, and a lecture on the value of money.
Brian's repeated use of "Fruit Fucker" in headlines -- Kotaku Originals, no less! -- this week will be a watershed moment in my development here. Sort of like the time my father made the mistake of laying down guidelines for "acceptable" swearing when I was 11. Yeah. No putting the genie back in the toothpaste tube once your pre-pubescent son launches his first parentally guided F-missile (I claimed the "under duress" exemption). With that example of permissive child rearing, thank God there were no M-rated games in 1984. I might have grown up to be something truly reprehensible, like a boxing promoter or a congressman.
