Get your Pokemon Diamond and Pearl carts ready

Final summary of NYCC is coming up, I have a lot of pictures to upload before I make such posts.
Before that, though, correction: Konami DID have a booth there, it just wasn't as huge and epic as its booth last year. My apologies to Konami and anyone whose feelings were hurt by my exclusion of them from my coverage. My opinion: it's hard to top back-to-back Metal Gear Solid 4 - Metal Gear Online 2 two years in a row.

This week, as of yesterday, starts the Toys R Us Shaymin giveaway event. Shaymin is one of the new event-only Legendaries from Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, much like Mew, Celebi and Jirachi in previous generations (this generation, we're gifted with two base-100 event Legends, the second of which is Manaphy). The Shaymin has the additional benefit of activating the Gracedia event in Florma Town in Pokemon Platinum (available 3/22, zomg) that transforms your Shaymin into its Sky Form(e), where its stats, typing and learnable moves change. If that's all jargon to you, lrn2playPkmn,bro.

The event ends 2/14 (nothing like catching an event-only Pokemon for your sweetie on Valentine's Day) and requires no purchase. Just be sure to activate Mystery Gift on your Pokemon cart by talking to the guy on the third floor of the Jublife TV building and inputting the phrase "EVERYONE HAPPY" and "WI-FI Connection." If you have 5+driving minutes and love Pokemon, you could do worse with your time.