Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening Painting

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This has been hanging on my wall for over a year now, it’s a painting by Green Castle Graphics of the final scene in Link’s Awakening. I’ve seen a couple of posts on Reddit that reminded me of it in particular a pearler bead rendition of a scene from Crono Trigger, which has to be my favourite game ever, so I figured I’d finally share this.

I saw this while walking past Green Castle Graphic’s stall at Sloan’s Market in Glasgow, and I had to buy it then and there. Here is the image in Green Castle’s Facebook Gallery before I bought it.

I’m sorely tempted to commission another image by Green Castle I just don’t know what… I have a couple of Ideas though.

FWIW here is the Pearler Bead Chronotrigger image that inspired me to post this:

After two years and 47,096 beads, my girlfriend and I finish this tribute to my favorite game of all time. (OC)

Nexus 7 Not an iPad Killer But It’s not Meant to Be

Right now people are probably composing millions of blog posts singing the praises of or deriding the Google Nexus 7 that was announced yesterday. Here is a summary of what you are likely to read:

Blah blah blah blah iPad, Blah Blah Blah Nexus 7 Blah Blah Blah Blah competition heating up Blah Blah Blah,  Blah Blah Blah Google Blah Blah Apple Blah Blah Mountain View, Blah Blah Cupertino Blah Blah Blah 7 Inches, Blah Blah Blah Steve Jobs said it’s too small. Blah Blah Blah Could this be an iPad Killer? Blah Blah Blah I’m a pundit I know what I’m talking about, Blah Blah Blah probably not an iPad Killer.

The thing is if you looks at the specs for the Nexus 7 there is no way it’s aimed at the iPad, sure it might eat into it’s market a little, but compare there is no way that a $199 device is going to compete with a $399 device, for one thing the iPad 3 is resolutionary, whatever that means (I really wish Apple would hire someone who spoke English).

People are making the wrong comparison though, the Nexus 7 is priced exactly like the Kindle Fire, it even comes with a gift certificate for Google Play store that is pretty much exactly what Amazon introduced to raise flagging Kindle Fire Sales  earlier this month. Just look:

It’s practically an upgrade to the Kindle Fire at the same price point! I’m not saying that it’s not going to eat into iPad sales, but that’s not what the intention is, Google want a device that people will use to consume it’s content, they sell books, movies, games and other crap, the Nexus 7 allows you to give Google money to view the content they sell, plus if you have big pockets it might just fit in there which the iPad doesn’t.