Mysteriously, I found myself playing Super Smash Bros. Melee for about an hour late last night. I didn't really expect to play it for any length of time; I just wanted to unlock the hidden Captain Olimar trophy, since we recently picked up Pikmin. My SSBM skills have obviously languished a bit in the year or so since my last serious play... but then again I chose a rather tough measuring stick: the target test boards.

Each character has a uniquely designed target test level, but most involve lots of floating and/or moving platforms and randomly scattered targets to hit all hovering over a bottomless death pit. To tag all ten, you have to make use of each character's special abilities... resulting in difficult challenges like Young Link's level: trapped in a tall cylinder (wall jump to get out), targets surrounded by walls (use the boomerang or shoot arrows). I actually cleared quite a few of the screens - I had never given the mode much thought back when I first got the game - but I've lost the feather touch required to differentiate between a slow walk and a fast dash, so I wrecked a lot of attempts simply by jerking Ganondorf or Captain Falcon or whoever completely off the platform when I had intended to just inch closer to the edge.

Simpsons Hit & Run is the redemption of Simpsons Road Rage.

Road Rage was a Simpsonsized Crazy Taxi where you drive around Springfield ferrying characters from the show. Unfortunately (for Simpsons fans) Road Rage - on any console - came off a second rate rip off of a popular game that had already run its course. Which it was.

Hit & Run is another rip-off; this time it's Grand Theft Auto filtered through the yellow Simpsons lens. You are still driving around Springfield, but now your goals are mission-based, plus you can leave the car to enter buildings, kick generic passers-by, collect hidden items, and walk around town. Perhaps what H&R proves is that the GTA formula is so good that can't be totally destroyed, even by a license that simply can't spawn a good video game.

Played a bunch of new and new-to-us stuff this past weekend. So, a quick rundown...

Creepy Freaks. Our Origins Best of Show is finally available in stores. Expensive game though: $13 for a starter set of four figures and $5 for booster packs of two figures. Counting the freebies we netted from Origins, we have about 20 figures, plenty for good-sized multiplayer battles. As Mike pointed out, it's definitely a game of attrition; if you lose figures faster than your opponent it's tough to catch up. One rule we tossed was the concession rule, where you're supposed to admit defeat once you're down to one figure left. Since you roll dice to move, your paths are unpredictable... so it's entirely possible (but difficult) to have one figure simply roll better and out-maneuver three enemy figures. However, I think the game lacks balance at this stage of release. The figures themselves do not have any kind of numerical point value, so why not leave out the weak and only play with a team of figures with full life dials and Queen-like movement choices? Without a pre-agreed figure point limit, any Mr. Suitcase could own the field.

My time count below isn't going to accurately reflect the lost hours to Pokemon Sapphire for this update. I've been doing a lot of quitting and restarting in my attempts to catch Rayquaza. I also made a few fresh runs at the League with a new team but the spirit just isn't there yet.

Before catching Rayquaza, the most exciting news for my Sapphire game is that I'm now playing it on a onyx-colored GBA SP. Now - except for the two hidden pokemon - the only super-rare legendary asskicking monster I need is Groudon. I haven't done any trading with Ruby yet, so the Ruby-exclusives (like Groudon) and the trade-evolutions now account for a big portion of my missing pokedex members.

Hopefully my second year of Animal Crossing will be the year I complete the catalog. To that end I am aggressively recording what items I need - although many are Crazy Redd items, which leaves me at the mercy of A) randomly generated Redd events or B) online trading. Then there's the Station Models, which I'll have to hunt down on the eCard games.

I have started keeping track of the weekly turnip prices in hopes of discovering a trend. I read somewhere that good turnip prices are the same over the life of your town. Meaning that if the turnip selling price spikes when you buy for 80 bells, then the price will always go high when you buy for 80. Could be true, could be crappy internet rumor, like the one I started about flying your Arwing. If this pattern is true, it will make the uber-rare $$$ post office items a reachable goal.

But the really good news is that Bitty is gone. I've always hated her. I have a low tolerance for the snobby personality types, and when that rudeness is combined with a fat pink monster I am even less affable. (Although I don't mind the attitude on sexy villagers like Olivia.)

The "special edition" of The Lion King is awfully underwhelming. Not the film itself, you understand, but the supposed additions to the original. What's strange is that this is a film that stands on its own and doesn't need some kind of crazy special edition 2 disc DVD to sell it. But we've become accustomed to seeing big films get a big DVD treatment, so Disney is happy to oblige.

You get the original theatrical version as well as the special edition. The only difference I noted between the two is a new song, "Morning Report." Sounds like a great bullet point for the marketing team - especially since Lion King is kinda light on songs - except that "Morning Report" isn't really a song. It's Zazu singing his report on the kingdom (which you'll remember from the original) instead of saying it... and most of the singing is muffled by the bit where Mufasa teaches young Simba to pounce. I think Zazu gets about two whole lines out before he gets relegated to the background. Simba himself wraps up the song by singing the chorus you barely heard Zazu sing, but he has to sing it through clenched teeth because he's eating Zazu's tail! All in all, a very weird addition.

In a single month I have had two opportunities to punctuate a diatribe with the beginning phrase "at what point do you abandon your demagoguery and..."

A couple weeks ago our local news did a story on a food drive. Lots of well-meaning white people were collecting canned goods and monetary donations to be sent to somewhere in Africa. That's all fine, but it's essentially boring. It made the news because some area Catholic churches were telling their members to boycott the food drive because some of the money collected ends up buying condoms. Condoms that are carpet-bombed across the continent to stop the rampant spread of HIV.

Safari Zone: caught a Phanpy, Heracross and a Girafirag, which I believe ends my list of Safari Zone exclusives. I forget if you can catch a Donphan in there, so I just plan on evolving up the Phanpy.

Finally did some trading with Rhon's Pokemon Ruby: Alakazam, Machamp, Golem and Huntail. One nice thing about trade evolutions is that the receiver gets pokedex credit for both monsters. So by giving Rhonda a Kadabra that immediately evolved into Alakazam she got a +2 to her 'dex. Then trading it right back to me rounded out my list. The Huntail evolves from trading a Clamperl equipped with the Deepseatooth. The Deepseatooth is one of the Ruby/Sapphire "choice" items. You get to choose either the Deepseatooth or the Deepseascale and the other disappears forever (like the Root/Claw Fossils.) Note to self: choose the scale in Ruby. Also scored a Mawile and a Seedot, two monsters found only in Ruby.