In the city of Guilin, China's state-own telecommunication company, China Telecom, has a novel way to fix a snapped telephone pole: tape.

According to reports out of China, city bureaucrats and China Telecom could not agree over how much should be spent to fix the pole. As a temporary measure, China Telecom wrapped the broken pole in tape and wire.

"The company's adhesive tapes were used only as a warning signal," a China Telecom rep is quoted as saying. "The pole won't fall down, because it is not overburdened and the cables above keep its balance too."

Um. I'm no telephone repairman, but this just might warrant more than wire and tape.

Broken pole repaired by China Telecom with adhesive tapes [China Buzz]

The International Tokyo Toy Show roars through, well, Tokyo this week. Sister site Kotaku Japan got a sneak peek at some of what visitors can expect—whether that be miniature game machine capsule toys, Ultraman transformers, Monster Hunter toys, Nanoblock, or even cosplay outfits—and more.

There was also a successful StickBomb Guinness Book World Record attempt, that sent 10,000 popsicle sticks flying into the air.

More pictures and more toys over at Kotaku Japan.

Toy Show 2012 [Kotaku Japan]

Square Enix, the folks behind Final Fantasy, are working on a new game engine. And hot damn, it looks fantastic.

Recently, Square Enix showed a real time demo of the tech in action. In the above gallery, you can see how a pre-rendered version stacks up with a real-time version. This shows just how stunning the real time visuals are.

次世代「ファイナルファンタジー」基準のリアルタイム表現力 [Game Watch Impress]

Dressed in smart business attire and glasses, she takes her seat behind a desk. She's here to explain a turn-based strategy game. Yet, online forums are buzzing in Japan that she is "way too erotic". She is Cepko Culd, Japanese gaming's newest sex symbol.

With Culdcept for 3DS, Nintendo is bringing Omiya Soft's classic fantasy strategy title Culdcept to its handheld. Not everyone is familiar with the card-based game, so if Japanese magazines like Famitsu (via Siliconera) say that Culdcept for the 3DS will be similar to 2001's Culdcept Second, not everyone knows what that means.

That's why Nintendo rolled out a campaign to explain Culdcept to the great unwashed. In the series of ads, a woman named Cepko Culd (カルド・セプ子) explains the rules and rattles off character names. Innocent enough, no? Yet, she's inspired a series of erotic fan art and has many Japanese gamers wondering who she really is.

Forgotten history and in-game vibrators aside, Nintendo is a family friendly company. Generally speaking, it doesn't deal much in innuendo. The character of Cepko flies on the radar. She is straight-laced, but there's a slight tinge of sexuality. For many in Japan, her appeal exists in that gap.

There's also an air of mystery. Who is Cepko? Cepko is similar to Sony's Kevin Butler character in that actors play both, and both do PR in an interesting or amusing way. Actor Jerry Lambert plays the Butler character, but for months now, the identity of Cepko's actress wasn't known. Nintendo typically uses famous celebrities to promote its games. But the identity of Cepko's actress was a big question mark, which added to the character's allure.

It wasn't until this week that it was discovered that a local actress is Osaka named Aya Shibata, who does primarily reporting, MC event work, and even modeling. Add to that, starring in one of the most memorable game campaigns in recent memory. With her Cepko character, she's likely to get legions of new fans.

So what's so sexy about Cepko? A casual look at Japanese pop culture leads some to believe that the country is only infatuated with young women. This is incorrect as the anchorwoman, or businesswoman, type has its fair share of admireres. Nintendo's Cepko character taps directly into that infatuation with this brainy-looking, prim and proper anchor lady. But, Cepko goes one step further.

While the character doesn't wear revealing clothing per se, her breathy voice sounds erotic in Japanese. It doesn't necessarily translate for non-speakers, but her delivery makes what would probably be a rather innocuous Culdcept walkthrough anything but.

What's more, her catchphrase is "gappori" (がっぽり), which is often translated as "bundle" or "wad". So you'd use it to maybe say a "wad of money". But to Japanese ears, it's an onomatopoeic word that sounds sexual—like people getting it on. So when Cepko says "futari de gappori", it could mean something innocent like "Let's do it together" or something that, like her delivery, is once again anything but. Ga~ppori, indeed.

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There's one hell of a dragon egg hidden in Game of Thrones season one. Turns out one of the many heads on a spike decorating King's Landing belonged to ex-president George Bush. Warning spoilers ahead.

If you keep your eyes peeled when King Joffrey takes Sansa Stark to gaze upon the spiked head of her dead father around 12 minutes in, you'll notice that one of the heads looks slightly familiar. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explained in their DVD commentary (from Season 1, episode 10) that the decapitated head is actually George Bush. This was discovered by redditor SidIncognito.

"The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."

We included the video for you to get a better look along with this close-up shot. Yep, that's him. Yikes. What do you think he did to piss off King Joffrey?

Update: We received a statement from HBO:

We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production.

And the producers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, also issued a statement:

What happened was this: we use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.

In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.

[SidIncognito on Reddit.]

You can modify the Wii's Smash Bros. to play differently, sure, but you can also mod it to look differently, using existing models as templates to introduce a whole range of new characters to the game.

Samba Di Amigo? He's there. Woody and Buzz from Toy Story? They're there. Carl from Up? Yup. There's even a Sackboy and a Stormtrooper rounding out the bootleg inclusions.

via Formerly NeoGohan [Tumblr]

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Microsoft released an update to its Xbox Live iPhone app yesterday that adds some basic remote functionality, letting you launch games and navigate menus from your iPhone. For some reason that good stuff is iPhone-only; the iPad version didn't get it, and the new Android edition doesn't have it either. [Microsoft]

We normally associate LEGO with childish things. Playful things. Which is exactly why artist Mike Doyle used it to craft this powerful piece on Iraq.

A staunch opponent of America's actions in the country, Doyle has taken material normally used for stuff like giant robots and turned it into a work that, while the politics may be debatable, is undeniably easy on the eye.

The Power of Freedom: Iraq [Snap]

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I liked the last Metal Gear figures Play Arts released, but I like the looks of this one a lot more.

Metal Gear Solid 2's Solidus Snake is the next character from the series to get the action figure treatment from Square Enix's toy division, and he's a beauty.

You'd think those arms would be a nightmare, but no, they're done perfectly. He's also packing two rifles and two swords, and will be out in November.

Square Enix 2012年11月發售: PLAY ARTS改 METAL GEAR SOLID2 SONS OF LIBERTY ソリダス・スネーク [Cybergundam, via Toyark]

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