Ok kiddies since Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I have absolutely nothing pertaining to that holiday and almost a week off of schoo, so I've decided to skip ahead to Christmas and bring you an early gift, ha ha I know what you’re thinking, "What is it Adam what is it" and since you're sooooo anxious to know I'll tell ya... it's... Koopa Claus!!




That's right people; this Christmas special is by far the... what’s that? Vertex already reviewed this one? Oh man sonofa... dang. Oh well I guess it's time for plan B. Prepare yourselves for something almost as good as Koopa Claus, ok so it's not even close, but hey I'm improvising here, give me some slack.

Mario Brothers Adventure Books!!



That's right people; this book collection is by far the greatest set of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books there are, and believe me there are more choose your own adventure books than there are pigeons in New York.



The books came out around 1990 I'm guessing since a lot of them have scenes on the cover from Super Mario Land, and there were two types, your bookstore supply and then the ones you got free when you bought 2 cans of Pringles, God help us if we ever discover time travel, I'd be making daily trips and getting large quantities of Blondie's sweet ass and Nintendo Adventure Books.



To be completely honest I haven't read all 10 of the books I have or even half of them for that matter, but if you've read one you've read 'me all. Some of you may own some of these books already, and to you I say "gimme gimme gimme" and to those of you who don't I urge you to join me in my quest to get the others' books or go blow 20 bucks to get one off ebay, yeah they're that good.

Let's review a basic premise of one of the books shall we? Ok here goes:

Mario is busy fixing his neighbor's plumbing, some nice old mushroom lady who just can't seem to keep her dentures out of the flusher, when he gets a page from Toad who briefly informs him that not only has Bowser kidnapped Princess Toadstool, but he's also somehow managed to conjure up an ancient spell that turns everybody into the Statue of David; now we have a choice, we can finish up the job and clean literal crap off of old lady teeth or we can sneak out the bathroom window and try to find a cure for the statue spell. Wanting to finish our job and not ruin our credentials we turn to page 12 to dislodge the teeth and shine 'em up right perdy, now it's time for some R&R the old lad gives you some pasta and chocolate milk, this has been a good day for Mario and he's already over the loss of of his beloved princess... the end. What you didn't like that ending, well my friends therein lies the beauty of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, the possibilities are endless, just start all over and make a different story, or be a big stupid cheater and start from the last decision page you turned from.



One really neat thing about them is that they gave you hints about where you should go next in form of simple puzzles and mazes that pretty much guide you to the next page of safety.

These books really have a way of grabbing you by the yarbles and pulling you into them, once you arm yourself with a pencil and pick one of these suckers up you can't put it down. Play your cards right and avoid following Wendy Koopa into a secluded back room and you can make these adventures last a considerable amount of time.



3'o'clock A.M. (2 A.M. central) rolls around and you still can't put it down, your getting so far in your quest you can smell the end is near, only a few pages left and... oh... back to page 15. Finally you reach the end of your quest, but somehow you wanna blow your brains out, somehow between pages 26 and 53 you got tricked into walking straight into a trash compactor with 1,000,000 disgruntled Koopa Troopa clones armed with , your fate is never portrayed but only implied and your left with only 2 words... The End.



There's only two ways to relieve the disappointment and pain of this horrific 7 hour waste, one way is to drink your miseries away with a bottle of pepto, and the other I won't mention cause it ain't pretty, but it involves a bag of pork rinds and half a gallon of kerosene.



Oh yeah let's not forget the Zelda Adventure books



There was only 2 of these babies made, the one I have and the "Dark Prince" or something of that nature, I was always a bigger fan of Mario so I'm not too big on reading these ones, and as you can see the fairy on the pages doesn't change my opinion much with her scowl and accompanying "I'm ready to turn you into a nutcracker" pose.



Kinda like those mean ass fairies' in that movie Labrynth, I don't know why girls like that movie so much, acting was pretty lame and every male character including Hobble (Hoggle?) wanted to make it with that girl, it had more sexual tension than a co-ed football team.


Oh what perils await our periless hero in the next book, the suspense is killing me, but so is my 4:00am fatigue.

So my friends that about wraps it up for my adventure book review, have a great Thanksgiving and save me a drumstick.