Shirt mongering, romantic zombies, and wings.
My career as a fashion designer continues (if by "fashion" we mean "t-shirt") with the handsome tee seen to the left, guaranteed to be compatible with nearly every version of D&D and most RPGs. Now if I can only convince the major conventions that they'll get an insurance discount if attendees are required to wear them. I also put together this design for a charity organization that donates tabletop games to youth organizations. I'm trying to picture parents attending a PTA meeting wanting to know why their kids keep asking who has wood for sheep and yelling "FOR THE EMPEROR!" when asked to do chores around the house.
I knew this was going to happen. Once people saw how much money turning vampires into disco balls made, I said that some kind of zombie romance, as unappealing as that might sound, was inevitable. It's too late to stop it, it's happened. Forget shotguns to the head, this is what will wreck zombies for a generation. Zombies were fun because they were single-minded reanimated corpses that wanted to (in the best case scenario) kill you, if not make you one of them. But look at the stills from that film. That's not a zombie, that's a vampire that feeds on brains and has some kind of cognitive impairment. Yes, the original zombie was more of a drugged slave, and the brain-eating variant is a lot more recent, but the newer version is what they're messing with. Adding "rot-free" and "personality transference" to them is a choice only someone shooting for a Twilight franchise starter would make. I'm guessing it only happens to good-looking undead, though a film about a fat, old, and/or decomposing zombie looking for some lovin' would have made for an even more disturbing movie. :)
City of Heroes is what usually leaps to mind when the topic of relatively long-lived MMOs that keep putting out updates comes up. The one that always surprises me is EverQuest II, which makes me first think, "it's still around?" followed by "and it got something new added to it?" CoH players may think its old hat, but EQII just got wings. There's even a video of characters trying out their newfound status as creatures of the air. Any Wagner fans might want to turn down the volume, as the music doesn't rise to the quality level of the old Hooked on Classics tracks of the 80's.
In news concerning protests against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, it's amusing to note that not only could whitehouse.gov be taken down via a SOPA complaint, but so could the site of the bill's author. Then there's the point being raised that SOPA, as written, wouldn't affect The Pirate Bay, arguably one of the most commonly named targets of SOPA proponents. In support, all sites on the Cheezburger network will go dark on the 18th, which comprises over 75% of sites offering captioned photos of animals, I think. I'm hopeful it won't pass, but it really highlights the ignorance lawmakers have concerning things they're writing policy for, especially when it only occurs to one of them that it's "time to call the nerds in" after the bill has been written.
I've got all the raw audio/video for the first installment of Interrupt Request ready, I think, so other than assembling it, there's just one more hurdle I have to overcome. My voice. I've always hated how I sound, I know I mumble and tend to run my words together, so I made an effort to slow down, think about what I'm saying, and... I still hate how I sound, which to my ear comes off as a bad imitation of Ernie from Sesame Street. If nothing else, when I start putting full episodes up, you can rest assured it's not something I'm doing because I love to hear myself talk.
Maybe I need to build some robot pals to chat along with me? I'm sure I have a plastic gumball machine and other parts somewhere. And speaking of creating stuff (assuming you're not into Minecraft which just released its 1.1 update), check out some of the following:
- Science and art collide as iron filings are mixed with molten plastic to get grown/extruded furniture.
- Turning to biology, discoveries that humans aren't the only tool-using creature on Earth, we're now having to face that we're not the only species that participates in winter sports.
- In the ongoing look at how fantasy novel/comic art is usually pretty silly, a man tries to strike the poses of fantasy women depicted on book covers.
- Ive is one of those constant-run-jump-fight sidescrolling games that gives your mouse button a good wearing out. Jump between buildings, roll to safety, and cut down the enemies in your way. For a more cartoony version of the same concept, play Mad Samurai.
- I used to collect Alpha Flight comics back in the day, and while I remember them being entertaining, I didn't realize how hard they were on Canadian cities.
- Wall-E gets the creepy treatment via a trailer made in the vein of the Alien prequel, Prometheus.
- Back before the internet and places like Desktop Starships, if you wanted lots of starship porn, you had to buy hardcover books that collected (usually) the cover art from loads of sci-fi novels. This short CGI film, the Terran Trade Authority, renders a lot of those vessels and sets them to music.
- Now, a carbon fiber sofa. It's not a ground-shaking item, but it did remind me of the Enterprise-D bridge, it's made of high-tech material, and I found all the framework needed to build it to be on the impressive side.
- Science fiction in South Africa may be a trending part of genre film.
- Music time. They Might Be Giants have a 2012 tour on tap with opener Jonathan Coulton, and to celebrate here's their video for "When Will You Die?"
- Advice Lovecraft is ready to step in and replace that Magic 8-Ball you've been consulting for your problems.
- I forgot to mention an item shown off at CES last post: a laptop with a transparent touchpad. So you can see where you dropped your keys, I guess?
- Casio has some weird science magic that can make 3D sculptures out of 2D pictures. I'm hoping it also plays music when you hit the "demo" button.
- Disney is going to make a movie version of the musical Into the Woods. I eagerly await the Broadway adaptation of the film adaptation of the musical.
- I only have one question regarding this pop quiz: Which answer gets you the highest grade?
- Rolling Fall 2 is a chain-cutting physics game where you're trying to kill zombies (especially any romantic ones) and save civilians.
- From the "Most Amazing Lego Thing This Week" files comes something that will make you believe a Lego minifig can fly. Be sure to check out the video embed.
- Finally, a "heavier" game called Midas. Everything Midas touches turns to gold until he can get a drink from some magical blue blocks. Use his gold-making powers to his advantage so he can reach his lady-love without turning her into precious metal.