Nintendo DS Lite - How did I miss posting this?

Maybe I just assumed that I had posted it, but as I look back I see that I haven't made mention of the fact that I bought a Nintendo DS Lite. I have to believe that because I played the DS non-stop for the first two weeks or so that I had it I was unable to post about it. It's really not like me to not talk about gadgetry, especially new shiny nintendo gadgetry.

Here I am though, telling you that I own one and that you should too. Well, maybe you should just rent one. It depends on how you think the game selection will fare over the next few months. If you, like me, think that there aren't any more big blockbuster, must have games coming out, then you might want to just borrow a DS or steal one from a little, punk kid somewhere (they're already bitter, give them a reason to be).

For me, the 'reason for buying' game was 'The New Super Mario Bros.'. I still love the mario games... all of them. Even the mediocre super mario 2 where you yanked radishes or some nonsense out of the ground to throw at people. Almost every game that came out of the mario franchise, yoshi, some warios... most of them have been good too.

This game, however, just had mario and me like it used to be back in the day. Those were the days. Pick-a-card bonus levels, mushrooms, evil ducks (or whatever), 1-up sounds ringing in my ears... they're all back now. In addition, there are new moves and power-ups. From memory, which has been iffy of late, I'd like to outline the my favorite new-ities of the game.

• There's a butt-smash, as I call it. Jump in the air, hit down and you come crashing down... smashing blocks from the top, down.
• Nintendo has also added the wall jump. Hurl yourself against a wall, press the arrow keys in that direction and hit jump again to kick off the wall for a jump up in the opposite direction.
• Hugification mushroom - again, my name -. You get this mushroom and you grow to a screen filling size and smash through everything for a short time.
• Mini-games. The mini-games are great. I just wish I had some wireless competition to play against

In order to avoid turning this into a mushy Nintendo lovefest, I'd like to cut all the good things I have to say about the DS a little short, adding only that we have really enjoyed the DS, Mario, and the Big Brain Academy Game. Check out their reviews and find out more about them from the professionals (buy one, then play me... that's the main point here).