The 3-minute animation that opens The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has leaked, and you can watch the whole thing right here. It’s a beautiful, watercolor-on-parchment style animation, though the English translation of this Japanese version is typically broken — and kinda cute.

Skyward Sword drops on November 20th in America for Nintendo Wii, while Europeans get it on the 18th. The story, a prequel to Ocarina of Time, finds Link a native of the floating islands of Skyloft, where he grew up with childhood friend Zelda (who’s not a princess this time out). One day young Link discovers the Skyward Sword, which takes him to a second land beneath Skyloft that’s ruled by the Demon Lord Ghirahim. Using the sword, Link travels back and forth between the two lands, to solve the mystery of why the two worlds were separated. Per usual, Zelda will also disappear, forcing Link to have to find and save her.

You know, again. For something like the 15th time, in fact.

Expect a significantly more refined Wii Remote control scheme than what was used in Twilight Princess.

Check out these time-lapse videos of Bashir Sultani’s salt art interpretations of Link and Mario. The Mario one is in color, but I think the Link one is by far the better piece.

"URL Link" T-Shirt by Threadless

UPDATE: This contest is now closed. All five winners have been selected and notified (via Twitter). Thanks for participating, and watch for more contests here at ForeverGeek.com!

Our good friends at Threadless are giving away 5 of these brand-new, geektastic t-shirts exclusively to ForeverGeek readers! The design is called “URL LINK,” and it depicts Legend of Zelda‘s hero drawn using website URLs. Winning one is easy — here’s how to enter.

"URL Link" T-Shirt by Threadless

This is a patented ForeverGeek “Tweet + Link” contest.

Step 1: Copy & paste the following, and then Tweet it:

I just entered to win a #Link (from Zelda) t-shirt from @threadless & @geekforever! Enter here: http://spm.me/threadlesslink #WinURLLink #contests

Step 2: Leave us a Comment on this page (below) to let us know you Tweeted, and paste the link to your Tweet in your Comment. (Note that our Comments are moderated, so it won’t show up immediately after you click the “Post Comment” button.)

In case you don’t know how to find a Tweet’s individual URL, you can find it at Twitter.com. It’s the date just below your Tweet, as seen here:

That’s it. 5 winners will be selected at random from the Commenters on or around 5:pm EST on Friday, August 26th. Winners will be notified via Twitter, after which you’ll send your mailing address to the good folks at Threadless so they can send you your t-shirt.

Important: You can enter the contest once per day between now and the 26th — but no more. (That’s 8 total Tweets + Comments if you enter every day.) Enter more than once daily and all your entries will be disqualified. Gotta keep it fair.

Happy Tweeting + Linking!

Close-up view of the t-shirt design

Here are some of the coolest mouse pads you’ll see this week. Heck, maybe this month. I know for sure they’re way better than the knockoffs I saw at the bazaars.

Minecraft Mouse Pad

Perfect for use when playing Minecraft or what?

Zelda Mouse Pad

The tag line says it all!

Pac-Man Mouse Pad

We can’t have mouse pads without a Pac-Man-inspired one, can we?

Mario Bros Mouse Pads

That scene is ever so familiar to anyone who has played Mario. It’s even more familiar for those who have to keep going back to the start. ;)

Here’s another Mario-inspired mouse pad if World 1-1 is not your thing.

All the mouse pads are cloth-topped with a non-slip, non-marking rubber base. They measure in at approximately 9-1/4″ x 7-3/4″ and are 1/4 of an inch thick. If you don’t feel like using a mouse pad – or you have no need of them – you’ll always have some space on your fridge door.

Space Invaders Magnets

This set of Space Invaders Magnets will do the trick to liven up your kitchen.

Pac-Man Magnets

Need I say more?

Via Frankylicious

There are tons of untooned images out there, so I used the following criteria for selection:

1. They must be high quality, high-res images.
2. The depiction must match or come close to the true proportions of the cartoon character.
3. It must be photo-realistic. Nothing too cartoony.
4. With one or two noteworthy exceptions, no video game characters or anime. Cartoons only.

With no further ado…

Agent P (Phineas & Ferb)

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Alfred E. Newman (Mad Magazine)

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Barney Rubble

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Bart Simpson

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Beavis

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Brain (Pinky & the Brain)

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Bugs Bunny

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Butthead

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Charlie Brown

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Fred Flinstone

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Hans Moleman (The Simpsons)

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Homer Simpson

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Jessica Rabbit

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Link

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Mario

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Mr. Burns

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Moe Szyslak (The Simpsons)

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Mr. Natural (by Robert Crumb)

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Naruto

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Patrick Star (Spongebob Squarepants)

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Peter Griffin

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Pikachu

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Popeye (old)

Sideshow Bob (The Simpsons)

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Snoopy & Woodstock

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Spongebob Squarepants

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Squidward Tentacles

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Stan Smith (American Dad)

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Stewie Griffin

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Timmy Turner (Fairly Oddparents)

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Wimpy (Popeye)

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Wolverine

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Zoidbergg & Bender

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Legend of Zelda fans: you can’t live without this absolutely killer map of Hyrule.

Nintendo’s bestselling fictional fantasy world has never looked better (or been taken more seriously) than it is in this ingenious, high-quality map. In honor of the game’s 25th anniversary, artist Bill Mudron spent who-knows-how-many hours pouring an insane amount of detail into this one giant image, which shows the versions of Hyrule depicted in the first Legend of Zelda game and The Adventure of Link. A close-up view of the map reveals that items, palaces, and dungeons are all marked on the map.

For $40 plus shipping, a 24″ x 36″ print of Mudron’s amazing Hyrule map (on “archival premium matte stock”) can be yours.

If they had gone the extra mile to remove some of the less polished scenes, like the ones with Ganondorf for instance, I could have certainly passed as the “real deal”.

The idea is great, and I’m certain that the fan-base alone would be alone to support this idea.Let’s hope Nintendo takes the hint and brings this to the next (real) level. If they did it, although terribly, for Mario, it shouldn’t be much harder to do it for Zelda. They can probably even get some of the old props from Lord of the Rings on discount.