What better way to celebrate Independence Day than by putting the faces of governmental figures on a sticker? The real story behind the above isn't quite that hilarious, actually. Late last month at the G8 foreign ministers' meeting in Kyoto, this beautifully redone DS was spotted, alongside stickers bearing the faces of the ministers. All that's missing is a sticker on the DS, though frankly, that Lite is way too pretty to muck up with stickers.

We'd probably do it anyway, though, for the lulz.

The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handheld and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.

As a rule, we don't trust any politicians, especially the ones we want to trust, so it's rare that you'll ever see us championing the merits of any particular presidential candidate. Besides, the electioneering scene just isn't something we want to be a part of, like the straight-edge scene or the liking-music-that-no-sensible-person-should-ever-enjoy scene. We're too laid back and cynical to involve ourselves in the passionate debates these conversations often require.

Still, when one gamer goes to the extreme to express his devotion towards his favored statesman by decorating a Nintendo DS Lite with the politician's face, we take notice ...

Octillery, a Gold/Silver-era Pokémon who we had to look up just now (because we've never seen or heard of it) is the focus of a new promotion at Japan's Pokémon Centers. Between November 23 and December 9th, Diamond/Pearl players can bring in their level 65+ Octilleries (called "Okutan" in Japan) and receive a special Octillery sticker, seen above. It's a pretty nice promotion and a nice piece of art for this octopus-thing, we think.

This isn't the first limited-edition Octillery item. The Tokyo store gave away Octillery headbands to high-level Octillery owners in July. Is this a popular Pokémon or something? Is it the jaunty headband?

We were looking wistfully at this phantom Phoenix Wright decal set, as we are prone to do in unguarded moments, and we realized that despite the fact that this particular set was too beautiful for this world, we still have a desire to skin our DS.

But we thought we'd check with you before we did anything hasty. What's your opinion on skinning? Is it universally tacky (er, in the style sense-- we'd kind of hope they were a little sticky) or a way to make your system unique? And if you're all for it, what do you go for? Bling? Anime tie-in? Or something from one of the online stores like Decalgirl that specializes in skins?

Considering the unadulterated Phoenix Wright lust that oozes from DS Fanboy's collective pores, we're pretty sure Play-Asia's quarterly profits are about to double now that we've seen this super-mega sweet DS sticker. And that's just from us buying up all the stock for our special Phoenix Wright wall.

These are the three stages of discovering Phoenix Wright DS decor:

1. The audible sound of jaws dropping.
2. The full-armed swipe to take care of the drool.
3. The frantic scrabbling for credit cards -- anything between you and the wallet be damned.

Try not to harm friends, animals and/or grandparents on your way to stage three. And just remember to soak everything a little while to get rid of those pesky drool stains. But be warned -- it's not just a sticker free-for-all over there. You have to actually order something else (like that matters; bring on the My Little Pony), but we got lucky. It happens to be the sequel to our beloved Phoenix Wright that we're preordering to get our sticker love. The title is import-friendly (with English and all), and the content is reportedly the same as the US version. You've got nothing to lose and a sticker to gain, and there's no objecting to that!

[Thanks to the Siliconera staff!]