As someone who planned and enjoyed a wedding less than a year ago (actually, my wife organized it all, as I was busy blogging), I can tell you this -- it is a difficult thing to find a good wedding photographer.
It's tempting to hire anyone local who seems the least bit adequate with a camera, so long as they're cheap. Even worse, you might consider relying on that friend of yours with a fancy digital camera, or on some dude videotaping the ceremony.
But if you manage to fight off that rational part of you that keeps begging you to hire a photographer for a sensible price, the next time your friends pull out their bland wedding photo album, you'll be able to smugly think to yourself, "Ha, our wedding totally kicked their wedding's ass."
Midas wasn't sure what he should do when the phone, which sat unattended across from him, began to beep. His father left the handset on the chair before stepping away for a moment, and Midas was too young to know what the appropriate action would be for situations such as these.
Would it be rude if he answered the phone? How would he explain to the caller that his father was currently indisposed? What exactly does "indisposed" mean, anyway?
Children aren't known for their patience, so it was only a few seconds before Midas hopped off his chair, peeked at the mobile's screen to see if it was a number he recognized, and lifted the phone to his ear.
We guess the incident at Black Mesa opened up more portals than the crowbar-wielding scientist could have known. One of which clearly led to Animal Crossing: Wild World, as evidenced by the image to the right. Along with Gordan, you can see a Combine soldier standing about. Why that Combine soldier is probably waiting to knock over a can and force Gordon to dispose of it in the nearest receptacle!
Other cool dress-up scenes include Call of Duty 4, Brokeback Mountain and the Mario brothers' kitchen. Oh, and Hitler. You can't have customization in a video game without creating the world's most evil dude.
Even we were surprised to learn that, after a year of running this pictorial column every week, we've yet to cheaply resort to exploiting cat photos. Dogs and babies, however, are common fodder.
Never one to let a good thing last, we've packed this week's edition of The DS Life with no less than nine kittens! The images all have two things in common, felines and DSes. It's your job to find that missing component -- lulz!
Another benefit to being one of the lucky few to attend the Square Enix DKΣ3713 event, besides getting to play new games and see trailers and be surrounded by journalists (what do you mean that's no benefit?) is that awesome exclusive merchandise is available for purchase.
Seen above: two strangely fashion-backward shirts for the very fashionable The World Ends with You. They feature the date of the event and the TWEWY skull logo on the back, and an assertion that "I PARTICIPATE IN THIS GAME" on the front. We must admit that we're charmed by the boldness of the shirt. Sometimes you want to wear art, and sometimes you just want to be a huge nerd.
Kaseo's Yellow Mouse Orchestra is a cacophonous array of circuit-bent Pikachu toys wired up to a MIDI controller, allowing Kaseo to turn the critter's trademark self-namechecking to create musical compositions. The result sounds oddly chiptune-like, despite being made from voice samples. The video above is a pretty listenable rendition of another Y.M.O. (Yellow Magic Orchestra) song. Hit the "source" link to hear a live performance, which is a lot less coherent.
The Y.M.O. is just one of the components of Kaseo's army of cyborg Pikachus. He also has a spikey Bent Pikachu Limited Edition, whose squeals have been turned into reasonably evil-sounding industrial-esque noise.
The Brainy Gamer has an interesting op/ed piece, in which the author states that youths of today aren't interested in the puzzles that come along with adventure games. While crotchety old veterans like ourselves (who were actually alive when games like Monkey Island flooded shelves) still enjoy the genre, younger gamers don't have the patience and just don't see the point.
We're inclined to agree a bit, as adventure gaming has become a lot more niche than it was in the past. We would argue, however, that the DS has been doing a good job of reviving such puzzlers, even for younger fans craving more action. With the touchscreen making point-and-click (or point-and-touch, if you will) much more accessible, not to mention the added bonus of portability, we think adventure games reach more than just a veteran gamer demographic. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on our part, but we wouldn't be surprised to see young teens popping in a copy of Phoenix Wright or Professor Layton.
What do you think, though? Are we just too oldschool and stubborn to let the genre lay to rest? Maybe those of you with younger siblings might have more insight when it comes to the patience of the younger set of gamers.
You would think DS, no? That's exactly what we thought, as the handheld is home to more amazing third-party games than any other console in recent memory, but that is not the case. It turns out, the SNES was the best Nintendo console for third-party publishers. Who would've known?
Keep in mind, though, that this is merely based on Aeropause's own evaluation and may not be representative of how much money publishers made on each system, or the quality of the titles they released on said platform. It's more or less based on an article in the latest Nintendo Power where the staff ranked their top 20 games for each Nintendo system.
What do you all think? Which Nintendo system had the greatest batch of stellar third-party titles in your eyes? We're going to stick with DS. It seems like a no-brainer to us.
Talented video game baker Hello Naomi is at it again, this time using our favorite theme to make delicious cupcakes -- Space Invaders, of course.
We really wish we could eat these tasty treats, but only so that we could help save the world from an alien invasion. Not because they look incredibly yummy or anything, really.
To see more pictures of the cupcakes in question, just head on over to Hello Naomi's Flickr set.
This just in: if any of you were curious enough to import Nintendo's Slide Adventure: Mag Kid, complete with its unusual "slide sensor" peripheral, then do not play it while resting your DS on top of your cinder block. We are deadly serious here: as far as we can ascertain, playing the game on your other individual masonry units is safe.
This advice is brought to you by the Slide Adventure: Mag Kid instruction manual, which also recommends you don't play the game atop a grand piano, and avoid pointing the slide sensor's laser directly at your eyeballs. Head to Aeropause for more hilarious scans of the manual (which totally reminded us of the ker-razy Japanese Wii safety pamphlet).
The above video proves the old saying -- where there's a will, there's a Rickroll. With the release of Korg's DS-10 synthesizer software in Japan, naturally, someone has composed a track recreating Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," the meme that launched a thousand prank Youtube links.
Half of the hilarity is missing with the singer's sunglasses and dance moves absent, just as any rendition of Europe's "Final Countdown" suffers without Gob, but that's what homebrew application RickRollDS is for!
Some people are just gifted, like the Japanese mother who is responsible for these brilliant Pokémon-themed lunches. We've seen some neat Nintendo-themed bento before, but comparing those to today's specimens is a bit like holding up a Monet next to the scuffed chalk drawings on the sidewalk out front. They're just in different leagues.
Hit the break to see the tastiest Pikachu ever. There's another of these, and tons that aren't made of Pokemans, at the source.
The Duke Nukem Trilogy trailer handily won E3 with its intoxicating combination of flying logos, stock images of dudes in gas masks, and slow-motion crotch closeups. Now Data East's arcade classic Burgertime has been given the same expert treatment. Peter Pepper's struggle to make giant hamburgers with his feet while being assaulted by sentient food has never looked so badass.
Unlike Duke Nukem Trilogy, we have reason to believe that Burgertime will actually come out (the reason being that it was already released hundreds of times), which makes it that much easier to get hyped.
The Japanese iTunes Music Store is haunted -- by a five-track EP. Specifically, the Nanashi no Game Sound EP, a collection of music from Square Enix's DS horror game Nanashi no Game, about a student who gets caught up playing an 8-bit RPG that kills its players.
The collection sells for 600 yen ($5.60) is only available through the Music Store, and only in Japan. Should Square Enix decide to release the game in the U.S. (an announcement whose absence at E3 was felt), the tracks will no doubt show up on our iTunes store as well. Square Enix has several Final Fantasy soundtracks available on iTunes.
It's times like these that we wish we had $250 to burn on a quilt.
Even if we can't buy this, though, we can sure admire it (along with many other Space Invadersthemed items). The quilt might not have the same explosive color as Space Invaders Extreme, but it sure makes the classic icons look all warm and cozy. Who wouldn't want to snuggle with these alienoids?
Made by Emily from the Etsy shop CarolinaPatchworks (who you might remember as the craftster behind this 8-bit Zelda quilt), you can buy this blanket if you have some extra green lying around. You also might want to check out her other gaming items -- she even takes recommendations.
We guess the incident at Black Mesa opened up more portals than the crowbar-wielding scientist could have known. One of which clearly led to 
The Brainy Gamer has an interesting op/ed piece, in which the author states that youths of today aren't interested in the puzzles that come along with adventure games. While crotchety old veterans like ourselves (who were actually alive when games like Monkey Island flooded shelves) still enjoy the genre, younger gamers don't have the patience and just don't see the point.
Talented video game baker Hello Naomi 
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