The relatively out-of-shape person that I am, my ass was kicked a bit by the exercises. I felt it most when I did two days in a row, which I guess deserves a bit of explanation.

When you start the Six-Week Challenge, you have to pick out four workout days and three rest days a week. You change this from week to week if need be, which is pretty cool. Currently, I'm rocking Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

So let's recap from the past three workouts. The first exercise was the whole body, while the following three focused on specific parts. Day two was lower body and a bit of cardio, day four was upper body, and yesterday was cardio and a little lower body. From the long ago days when I used to work out on a semi-regular basis, this makes perfect sense and I'm impressed that they have this kind of setup, something that I felt was lacking from Wii Fit (I can't vouch for Wii Fit Plus).

You know it has gone too far when they don't even bother talking about their games. Instead they opt to go right to NWR's boss, Mr. Jon Lindemann, and butter him up with blind praise that will only bloat his already inflated opinion of himself.

In this way, Aksys Games will remind Jon every month just how totally awesome he is. Jon, I'll make sure to include this in the package with the next Aksys game I ship for you to blindly give a perfect 10 review.

When the game showed up, I realized I had no idea how to review a game that's main feature is a Six-Week Challenge. So, I decided to make a feature out of it (similar to Jonny's EA Sports Active Blog from right before E3), and thus, Six Weeks of Active is now commencing.

I picked an auspicious time to start this, as I'm likely to take about eight steps backwards when Thanksgiving hits on Thursday, but there's no time like the present to get fit.

The whole event had a family theme, and there were different kid-centric areas set up, such as a decorate-your-own-skateboard room and a table riddled with temporary tattoos. There was also this one kid that totally made Lauren and I feel like we sucked at the game as he managed to match our best scores with one epic, flailing trick.

Naturally, I didn't have a camera, but EasyCure from our lovely forums did, so special thanks to him for the pictures of the museum.

Also, for anyone curious about the tournament, I had no idea what in the hell was going on. I think something went on, but I'm not quite sure what or how. It was pretty chaotic, even more so with the rain.

The museum had a lot of odd and cool relics from Mario's history, including the following:

Unfortunately, the Space Station became the victim of encroaching shadiness in the surrounding community. The late 90's saw plenty of gang violence in that particular neighborhood, and wouldn't you know it, somebody was shot in the parking lot of the Space Station. The clientele, dwindling ever since the gang stuff started going down in the first place, abandoned it entirely, and the arcade shut down.

This was a shame for two reasons. First, the arcade was gone. Second, there was a great pool hall downstairs called Hawaiian Brian's, which had cheap rates and plenty of tables. My friends and I often frequented it.

The event, taking place a day before the game's launch, will consume Rockefeller Plaza and turn it into the Mushroom Kingdom for four hours. Fans will be able to play the game early, take part in a tournament, compete in trivia challenges, win prizes, and interact with costumed characters.

Best of all, attendees will be able to buy the game early.

So, are any readers going? Does anyone want teleport to New York City so they can get the game a day early?

MEDIA ALERT: NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII BRINGS THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM TO MANHATTAN

Many big things have happened in the last few years. In 2007, The Simpsons starred in their first movie ever, the show hit 400 episodes, various 7/11 stores turned into real life Kwik-E-Marts, and in the fall of that same year EA released The Simpsons Game across many platforms. In 2008, Universal Studios opened The Simpsons Ride. In 2009, the show received a brand new opening in High Definition. And if that wasn't enough, Marge Simpson posed semi nude in Playboy! So with the show being on what seems to be a pop culture high, why hasn't anyone ported or remade the Simpsons Arcade game?

My expectations for Academy of Champions are very high, like as high as my expectations for New Super Mario Bros. Wii (which are astronomical). I love me some arcade soccer games, and I love playing them with my friends even more. I love those two things so much I wrote a blog about it.

I've been let down by games I've highly anticipated a few times this year (MadWorld, The Conduit, Brutal Legend, etc.), and I hope that Academy of Champions isn't added to that list. Instead, I hope it joins the exclusive list of games that met my expectations and then some (Punch-Out!!, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and A Boy and His Blob).