It's-a-Me!

My family and I had lunch at a Qdoba yesterday, and I strongly urge anyone who has one in their vicinity to do the same as soon as possible. The food is terrific, the price is excellent, and the portion size is so great that a single burrito is typically enough to stuff even the most peckish of patrons.
And the people who make your meals are so efficient about it. The lady who served us whipped up our burritos at a speed too great to be perceived by the human eye. One second she was starting things off with the rice, and the next thing I knew she was topping everything off with a bunch of cheese. I spend much of my meal wondering what exactly happened in between those two points. It's the food-service equivalent of a night in Vegas.

I've been playing a borrowed copy of Super Mario 64 DS a good deal lately, and so far my experience with it has been somewhat mixed. On one hand, it's got a bunch of nice added features- multiple playable characters, mini-games, and thirty new stars to collect (raising the total to an awe-inspiring 150). And, I mean, it's Super Mario 64!
Problem is, it's Super Mario 64 on the DS. The original game's greatest triumph is the way it's controlled. The N64's game pad was practically designed for SM64 alone, and as such is an absolute joy to use- a comfortably positioned joystick sits right above the unseen trigger button (used for crouching), easily manipulated by the same hand, while the jump and punch buttons follow the natural angle of one's thumb. To perform my favorite move, the long jump, all I have to do is run forward with the control stick, then crouch with the trigger and immediately jump- simplicity itself.
With the DS game, performing the same move requires a good deal more finesse; press the direction you want to go on the + control pad in conjunction with the Y button to run, then press the R button (crouch), immediately followed by the B button (jump). This is certainly not impossible to pull off, but it, with all of the other control limitations, takes away much of the wonderful, flowing freedom the original had in abundance. You can use the touch screen as a makeshift control stick, tapping in the direction you want to go in much the same way you do in Animal Crossing: Wild World, but the fact that you need to press buttons at the same time leaves this control scheme nearly unmanageable to anyone who isn't a multitasking master- and I'm not.
It's not a bad game by a long shot- indeed, it's one of the best on the DS-, but when it comes down to it, even with all of it's extra features, it just can't match the original in terms of pure, unrestricted fun.

-Smashing Brother