Of course, the Mario Bros. aren’t particularly great plumbers, really — as I recall they seem to think it mostly involves murdering turtles, crabs and flies. Still, at least now we know how much actual U.S. money a coin in the Mushroom Kingdom is worth, although that makes Mario’s money-grabbing antics in New Super Mario Bros. 2 even more crass. Go ahead, you bastard, flaunt your wealth while I can’t afford to put a goddamn Portobello mushroom in a question mark box. MARIO IS THE 1%. Thanks to Brian F. for the tip.
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.