Our very own Jimmy is live-blogging his entire day. Follow his wild and woolly adventures over at his pop culture site, fjetsam.

Now THIS is the kind of gaming story you want to hear in the news more often. A physical rehabilitation centre in Edmonton (Canada represent, yo!) is using the Wii to help restore motion and balance to patients in need. The Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital is the only one reportedly incorporating the console into it’s patients therapy, but considering the results I’d be surprised if we don’t see this spring up again.

If you ask me, Nintendo’s missing a great PR opportunity by not donating consoles to every rehab centre in the country.

[CBC via WiiHealthy]

Last week the wife and I took our little one out to Niagara Falls for the first time. It’s only one town out, so it’s not really that special a thing for us. But still - when you’re two, it’s magical. We parked on Clifton Hill - the tourist strip that runs right into the Falls. On our walk down we passed a number of arcades that offered some surprisingly cool things I hadn’t seen. Hit the jump to join us on our brief photo journey of cool stuff in Canadian arcades, won’t you?

Continue Reading »

Like the Daily Show? Love the Colbert Report? Good news - Microsoft’s got you covered. Starting last night, new episodes of both shows will be available for download within hours of their original airings. They’ll be 160 points each - roughly the equivilant of iTunes $1.99 pricing for these shows.

It’s nice to see Microsoft continue to improve their already excellent TV & Movies Marketplace — now if only they’d make it available outside of the United States. Same goes for the Zune. It’s been six months people, when can us Canucks get our download on?

[via GamaSutra]

Bumbling my way through the Xbox Canada site looking at those sweet “Badge of Honour” buttons I found this comic in the “Friends of Jade” section… whoever that is.

[360 Prophecy on Xbox.com Canada]

I was in my local Shopper’s Drug Mart the other day picking up hair detangler for my daughter and an pope-granted annulment for my wife when I noticed some familiar falling blocks on the counter. It turns out that the OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation for those of you living outside of my own personal Shangri-La) has released Tetris branded Scratch and Win tickets! I’m not a lottery person by nature - as a matter of fact, I’m the kind of guy who usually ridicules ticket buyers for their poor decision making skills. I have two casino’s ten minutes from my front door, so if I’m going to gamble I’m going to play with the big boys at the $5 War table and drink free soda ’til my bladder explodes. Still - you can’t see something like this and not grab at least one.

I’m going to scratch it shortly after this post goes up, so I’ll make sure to update you on my misfortunes. In case you’re interested in some other great video game scratchers, flickr has pictures of Pac-Man tickets from Arizona and Illinois, and you can see Pac-Man on a Michigan ticket here.

UPDATE: Fuck Tetris. The ticket was a loser, and so is Pajitnov. I want my three dollars back, you filthy red dog!

The other week our fearless leader danzuke asked me “Jim, what’s Boxing Day?” It felt an awful lot like a 3 year old asking you what Christmas is - not because danzuke’s mental age has been stunted by years of mixing Twinkies and red wine, but because up here in Canada it’s as standard a holiday as Easter and Hallowe’en. So for those of you not in the know, Boxing Day is December 26th, and it’s the day we Canadians spend like brain-damaged primates.

Why you ask? Because everything is on sale. EVERYTHING. We’re talking brand name 42″ plasmas half-off kinda sales. And before you get jealous, I should tell you that we don’t have a Canadian equivilant to Black Friday, so we don’t really get a break on holiday shopping before hand.

To be honest - I’ve known people who celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 26th and do all their shopping that day. Can’t say that I blame them, but then again, we’re talking trailer folk. Wise, wise trailer folk.

So back to what really matters - the deals. There are two stores up in Canada offering the 360 for $100 off the regular price next week. Want to find out which ones? Hit the jump. (sneaky, I know - but every Canadian reader here can benefit a hell of a lot from reading SmartCanucks!)

Find out about where to find $399 360’s in Canada here.