Articles written by Kevin Saucier

Wii Want to Play. Do you?: Trey Holland, left, a senior in marketing, and Parker Morris, a junior in civil engineering, play Nintendo Wii. A new game for the popular console, Wii Fit, is set to hit stores next month. Pete Riley / PHOTO EDITOR“Sweatin’ to the Oldies” and the infinite number of weight-loss and workout DVDs at electronics stores will soon have some new competition from an unexpected place: the video game industry.

A new product for Nintendo’s Wii gaming console will offer owners the opportunity to keep track of and, like Fergie, work on their fitness.

The device, to be released in the United States May 19, is called “Wii Fit,” and consists of a game disc and a Balance Board capable of weighing the user and locating their center of gravity for the game’s different activities.

When the user inputs information like their height and age, the game combines this with the weight information and calculates the player’s body mass index rating. Throughout the player’s use of the game, the game will keep track of the user’s weight loss or gain.

Activities the game allows the user to do include a ball-rolling mini-game, which uses the Balance Board to let the player act as if they’re standing on top of a ball and must roll it towards a target, like multi-directional log rolling.

Other games include ski jumping, snowboarding, tightrope walking, and hula hooping.

The game also includes activities users could do without the game, like push-ups, jogging, step aerobics and yoga exercises, but the game tries to present them in a manner that is viewed as more fun than work.

Shane McDonald, an employee at a local games retailer, said his store has been accepting preorders for the game for several months.

“It’s selling like crazy in Japan, something like 1.5 million units, and if it sells like that over here at the $89.99 price point, it’s going to be huge,” McDonald said.

‘Attack and Release’ The Black Keys

I always viewed The Black Keys, the guitar and drums duo from Akron, Ohio, as The White Stripes with a better drummer and no gimmicks. Not necessarily better, but a little more honest.

It’s like, “Hey, we’re white kids who like blues, too. No candy canes here.”

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Our Rating: **** 

I can’t remember who it was, whether I read it somewhere or it was a friend, that said “These guys take turns getting famous,” in reference to the clan of actors that have worked and grown up under the wing of producer-writer-director Judd Apatow, but they were definitely right.

And I hope Jason Segel, the actor in the movie whose character, Peter Bretter, is attempting to forget Sarah Marshall, stays famous, because he has long been a favorite of mine.

My favorite line in “Knocked Up” is when Segel and Jonah Hill are playing ping-pong and Segel’s character says “You know who I’d like to get pregnant? It’s that Felicity Huffman, man. Ever since ‘Transamerica’ I can’t get her out of my mind.”

Reading that it might not be so funny, but I’m about 80 percent sure that was improvised, his delivery made it, and as soon as I got home, I had to Google him to find out who that guy was.

And now he’s starring in a movie that he wrote, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Prom Night an expensive cliche collection

Our Rating: 2 Stars 

I have no qualms with spoiling the heck out of this movie for those who may read this, because there’s not much to spoil provided you’ve ever seen a horror movie before. There are no big words, it’s a remake of an ‘80s horror flick, and everyone the main character loves will die.

Auburn City Fest, the town’s largest, free outdoor festival, will take place April 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. City Fest will offer activities for citizens of all ages, including a lumberjack show, dogs catching frisbees, medieval reenactments and musical performances.

“We have a variety of activities for children and people of all ages,” said Ali Wilson, public relations specialist for the city of Auburn Parks and Recreation. “We’re anticipating a large crowd with the lumberjack show coming. They will probably be a large draw.”

Craig Millar: junior in biomedical sciences, performs a powerslide. Local skateboarders and their parents have been preparing a proposal for a skatepark for Auburn to be presented to the city April 15. Lindsay Davidson / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Students with a skateboard or pair of inline skates in their closet may be able to take them out and dust them off if a local group pushing for a skate park for Auburn gets its way.

The group has been meeting every other Tuesday night at the City Hall meeting room behind Cheeburger Cheeburger downtown since January. The local skateboarders and parents who comprise the group have been using the time to outline a plan of action to get a skate park for Auburn.

Dennis Golden, who has a son who skateboards, explained why he and many others think Auburn needs a skate park.

“I believe that skating is a popular sport, and I believe it’s a way more popular sport than it’s been given credit by our parks and recreation department,” Golden said. “It addresses the needs of what I think is a large group of kids that otherwise don’t participate in the more classic organized sports like soccer or football or basketball and those kinds of things. And so I think that while all of those other areas seem to be very well addressed in the city, there seems to be an almost obvious absence of any effort put toward addressing the needs of those kids in our community.”

There was once a skate park in Auburn, located behind the Frank Brown Recreation Center, but skaters not wearing their helmets and vandalism to the equipment provided by the city had been cited by City Manager Charlie Duggan as reasons for the park being closed.

Raconteurs

The White Stripes changed my life. Their third album, “Elephant,” specifically the track “Ball and Biscuit,” sent me on a path backwards in time and exposed me to the genre of music I most love today: blues.

Because of this, I’ve always felt like I owed Jack White something. He gave me this gift, so I will forever buy any album he’s involved with out of a bizarre sense of obligation.

The first Raconteurs album, “Broken Boy Soldiers,” was a solid work I enjoyed for a few days but never went back to. Their new disc, however, “Consolers of the Lonely” is going to be played in my apartment and car until the CD wears out. When that happens, I’ll buy another copy, and I’ll probably do it again after that. I’ll offer up some of my favorite songs.

The titular first track is like two catchy tunes in one package. It’s like a summary of all of the great aspects of this band: White’s screaming guitar is used to counter Brendan Benson’s beautiful harmonies, and the two different rhythms used in the two sections of the song perfectly highlight the band’s ridiculous rhythm section, drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence.

On a cold Friday night, two young men, each holding a folding table, walk out of an alley next to the bar called 17-16 in downtown Auburn. As they cross the street and walk past the line of people outside of another bar, In Italy, some people in line look at them suspiciously, but others appear to know exactly where the two young men are heading and what they have planned.

The surge of reality and game shows that recently hit the airwaves will soon subside when original programming returns to air.

The Writers Guild of America strike that began in November came to an end Feb. 12, when the WGA, having approved the deal the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers offered them, voted to stop picketing.

The strike not only caused an estimated $1.5 billion loss for the county of Los Angeles, but upset Auburn students missing out on “their stories.”

The annual collection drive for Toys for Tots, the nationwide organization that collects unwrapped toys and distributes them to needy children, has begun.