Static Zombie

My Precious...

And so it begins. Again.

Gibbering Chocolates

These selections from H.P. Lovecraft's brief tenure as a Whitman's Sampler copywriter, courtesy of McSweeney's, are brilliant. Even more so because of the vision they conjure of a Victorian era where those who know the secrets of the world, That Which Should Not Be Known, toil in incongrously obscure and irrelevant occupations where the unyielding imperative of their dread knowledge seeps out.

Update: above links now work correctly.

Tables

Once upon a time, the Sultan game table would have replaced the pupils in my saucer-wide cartoon eyes. But that time was long ago, when ironically I couldn't have afforded it. I wonder who their demographic is. Are there enough adults with polyhedral dice bags and $10,000 to spend on a game table? Seems to me that most role players are young and poor. Then again, this isn't a mass market item, so even a few sales would probably make these folks happy.

The Sultan looks lovely and impressive, and if my tastes overlapped more with the miniatures-and-character-stats set I might be tempted. But for board gaming, that table misses the mark. I love the drop-down food trays and under-the-table cup holders, but the desks really don't add any value. Storage drawers are a great idea. The whiteboard inner surface, however, seems fraught with problems. Whiteboards can get persnickety with age and refuse to erase cleanly. When they do erase, they leave market residue behind-- residue that will happily stain any cards or other game components that get placed there. Over time that market dust will accumulate on the periphery of that horizontal surface, so cleaning is a real issue.

My ideal table-- assuming it's not a Surface, would, I think, be circular and expandable. It would have under-the-table cupholders and storage for pads, pencils, etc. It would have a button/LED built into each seating position, flush with the table, that functions as both a lockout buzzer and a first-player randomizer.

And it would cost less than $10,000.

These Aren't the Hammer

I have a lot of respect for Joss Whedon's work. I dug most of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, enjoyed his stint on Astonishing X-Men, and wish the people at Fox knew a good thing when they saw it and gave Firefly a better chance. So I'm somewhat predisposed to look upon the man's work with a favorable eye.

I'm rather mystified, however, at the unbounded waves of enthusiasm being directed towards his latest effort, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Once More, With Feeling, the musical episode of Buffy, was successful not just because of the novelty and the surprisingly decent songs, but because Whedon leveraged the tropes of the musical form to explore his characters. I like Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, both of whom feature prominently in Dr. Horrible. But Harris is miscast-- he's just too young-looking for the role and you never for a second believe any part of him is evil. The pacing and editing are off-- the blog sequences have too many beats and needed to be trimmed. The characters are too new to us to lend the musical numbers any real impact. And while I'm willing to believe that despite all the vampiric and demonic activity in Sunnydale the majority of the population lives in denial, I just can't buy that anyone-- much less seemingly everyone-- would worship such an obvious tool as Captain Hammer.

There are some good moments in Dr. Horrible. I thought the cowboys singing the letters from Bad Horse worked well, and there was one joke in part two, alluded to by the title to this post, that was delivered with beautiful timing. But much of Dr. Horrible feels unpolished and predictable, and I kept waiting for it to kick into gear and start hitting all the right beats, which never happened.

Perhaps my dismissiveness stems from having finished reading Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible, which covers similar ground-- a superhero story from the evil mastermind's point of view-- in a more interesting way. Recommended.

Pun-ishment

Photo list of 50 businesses with punny names. Remember, groaning is good for you.

The Da Vinci Apartment

Multiple people sent me a link to this story in The New York Times about an architect who, unbeknownst to his clients, incorporated an elaborate puzzle hunt into the very fabric of the apartment he remodelled for them. In the course of solving the hunt, the family had to crack codes, unmount decorative door knockers which became a crank used to open secret compartments, utilize a rod from the bed and a leather strap from another room decoration in a scytale cipher... the list goes on. Read the story, and be sure to go through the slide show to see some of the amazing custom-built components.

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

I despair of ever being so fortunate as to have someone create something so elaborate, delightful, intricate and unexpected for me-- embedded in the very home itself!-- but I am now absolutely inspired to do this for my future children. The idea of remodeling a room specifically to create a hidden adventure-- revealing everyday items they've been surrounded by for months-- years?-- to actually be quite extraordinary-- is positively enchanting.

The fact that stuff like this-- and people who create it-- exist in our world makes me happy.

Scavvy Dogs

The University of Chicago has been holding a mammoth scavenger hunt for the past 20 years, and this year's hunt was held last week. Check out the list of items, and be happy that, as an adult, you now have better things to do with your life. Like, say, spending your weekends huddled over puzzles with 3-5 friends in a tiny van.

Eli's Big Adventure

Bill Harris, author of the videogame-focused blog Dubious Quality, gets my Father of the Year award.

His 6.7-year-old son Eli mentioned off-handedly one day that he wished he could go on a big adventure. So Bill created one. He created a fake will from a fake pirate describing how to get to his buried treasure. He put the will on heavy, weathered paper, had it delivered "from an old friend" via FedEx, and led his son on a grand adventure that culminated with Eli digging up a buried treasure chest with authentic-looking pirate coins inside.

That alone is fantastic. But the coda to the story is what happened afterwards, as Eli's enthusiasm and joy made Bill feel guilty for selling his son a lie. He handled it beautifully, and I find the whole story enchanting and inspirational. Eli himself sounds like a great kid-- I should be so lucky when my time comes. The way Bill manufactured not just a single experience for his son, but a whole future relationship based on creativity and shared play fills me with warmth, and the hope that I can accomplish the same thing with my own future children.

Perhaps those years behind the Dungeon Master's screen will turn out to be more valuable than I thought.

Someone Deserves an Award for This

Best... headline... ever...

Courtesy of Chris Lemon.

Found: I Can't Read!

Thanks to Amos, who posted a link to the classic Beggin' Strips commercial on You Tube in the comments to my original post on the subject.

Only one thing smells like bacon, and that's BACON!

"Awesome Blog"

I'd like to think that it's not anal-retentive to expect people to use proper grammar and punctuation, especially on professionally printed materials-- signs, packaging, etc. Improper use is one of my pet peeves.

Yes, anal-retentive. Already covered that.

Turns out I'm not the only one. This is a brilliant blog.

From the Funny Because It's True Dept.

This has been making the rounds lately, but if you're one of the 8 Jews who haven't yet seen this video about the Jewish Christmas experience, consider this my holiday gift to you.

The rest of you are free to regift.

Thanks to Mark Engelberg for popping this to the top of my memory stack today

Kitchen Porn

Honestly, as an amateur chef I can't imagine using any of the cravetastic pro gadgets in Popular Science's photo gallery of kitchen tech, but that doesn't make me want them any less.

Titles

A pair of YouTube videos (part 1, part 2) offers up a montage of the creator's picks for the top 25 title sequences of all time. I think he really missed the boat-- many of them don't rate at all for me. He did get 2 of the 3 I thought of off the top of my head before watching-- Superman and Catch Me If You Can, but he missed Spider-Man 2 whose comic book recap of the first movie was brilliant. I agree with Panic Room, but also have the sense (though I can't remember it at all, so perhaps I'm wrong) that Fight Club, also by Fincher, merits inclusion.

What other cool titles am I forgetting?

Surface

Microsoft today announced Surface, its surface-based computing initiative. I had some hands-on time with this when it was called the PlayTable, and it's very, very cool. Click on that link and watch the demo videos to see a taste of what it can do. I immediately knew I wanted one-- no, needed one-- for my home. But the home market isn't a priority at the moment, so I'll have to wait. Just as well, since if the thing doesn't fizzle out completely prices will come down substantially from its current $5K-$10K price tag, and I've never been much of an early adopter.

The current model also has form factor issues for the home. The base is solid on all four sides to house its projector, and the acrylic surface doesn't overhang very far-- which means chaps like me with long legs aren't getting up close and personal with the table. With luck, by the time it reaches the home market they'll figure out a way to design one so that people can sit at it comfortably.

Why do I need one? Board games. They rock on this thing. The developers coded up a bunch during prototyping, and they spoil you for playing with physical pieces. You get all the convenience of a computer game, but maintain most of the pleasure of a board game. You still sit across the table from your opponents. You can manipulate physical pieces if you like-- the table can recognize dice patterns, for example-- or you can forego that and opt for the convenience of digital pieces. Hidden information can be preserved by using plastic shields, and since the table can recognize objects, when the shield is removed the private information can vanish. Slick. Clean-up's a snap, as is saving a game for later. Best of all, from my perspective, the whole shebang is based on Windos Presentation Foundation, the product I've been working on for the past umpteen years. So I'd be able to program new content easily. Some kind of multiplayer game show would be high on my list, but also generic tools for game playing. Lock-out buzzers, secret bid entry, start player selection, etc-- all of that could be encapsulated into the Surface. And just imagine the joys of playing Puerto Rico without having to set everything up and sort it all away afterward!

Microsoft's approach to surface computing-- camera-based recognition and rear projection-- feels inherently more limiting than Philips' Entertaible approach that encapsulates everything into the display itself. It's bulky, hot, and consumes a lot of power. That worries me. But a year and a half after Entertaible's announcement, we still haven't seen it deployed anywhere. MIcrosoft has real partners lined up for Surface this year.

I just have to hope Surface doesn't go the way of Ultimate TV before I can get one.

The Making of Perplex City

Adrian Hon, director of play for Mind Candy, talks at Google about the creation of their alternate reality game Perplex City.

Radio Gaga

Today I'll be appearing as a contestant on a little internet radio quiz show called Anyone Can Play, which you can hear at 6PM Eastern time all week long via Shokus Radio. If I'm the champion of the day, I'll take home the grand prize of $25-- enough to pay for my current obsession. Curse you, Matthew Baldwin!

Take It Easy, et al

A number of years ago I wrote an online version of Take It Easy, a bingo-like board game with no player interaction but plenty of difficult decisions-- perfect for a solo game. I was surprised this week when Actor Dave (hmm, I guess he's a blog character now) revealed he didn't know/remember my version existed. Taking that as a cue, you can find it here.

I'll also remind you that you can find an active Lost Cities and Schotten Totten community, where you can play online against other people, at Flexgames, and a somewhat clunky but serviceable incarnation of Acquire at Get Hostile.

Deal, or No Deal?

Amazon currently has the KitchenAid 12 cup food processor on sale for $130, with a $25 discount code (CLEAROUT) and a $20 rebate, for a total of $94 with free super-saver shipping ($85 outside of Washington, thanks to tax). And you can have it in any color you want, as long as it's black.

The regular price on this elsewhere is $200, so this is a steal. I just bought one. Feel free to use the link above to get one for yourself (and a tiny commission for me!). It feels like I should buy a dozen more and then resell them all on Ebay for a profit. I know there are people who do that-- buy a ton of units when something goes on deep discount like this, then resell them on Ebay. Have any SZ readers done that successfully?

Target Me

A while back, Static Zombie members helped me get a free iPod. Here's a chance to help me out again!

This time, I'm gunning for a free $250 Target gift card. How can you help? By clicking this link, validating your email, and purchasing an Entertainment coupon book (at a $10 discount!). You know the ones-- loaded with buy 1 get 1 free offers for restaurants you already go to, cheap movie tickets, and other discounts. You already want one of these anyway, so why not buy one through the above link and help me out? They pay for themselves in just a couple of meals. Best of all, by doing so you'll get your own referral link and you could get your own $250 gift card. Unless all your friends help me first.

NOTE: To buy the books at $10 off and get free shipping, when you're on the page that lets you choose which book to buy, change the end of the URL from POPFALL to MEM_DEC06 and refresh. You should now see a message on the page saying you'll get $10 off and free shipping. Also, it's crucial that you don't just buy a book, but also validate your email so that I get credit for your referral.

When I have the 5 referrals I need for the free card, I'll update this entry and pass on the next person's link so we can pay the love forward.

Waste of Time

And this guy is way more into time travel fiction than I am...

My Taco Is So Itchy

If this doesn't delight you, you're dead to me.

Yes, the Dilbert Guy

After reading this thanks to a link from Ken Jennings' blog, I'm speechless. The human brain's operating system is in bad need of an upgrade.

Funny Farm

It's 3 AM, and I'm still awake. I should be soundly asleep by now, as I probably will be tomorrow at 10 when I should be in a meeting at work. And it's all because of the clunkily-implemented yet maddeningly compelling word association game/puzzle, Funny Farm. Just guess at words that are related to the ones already visible.

There. Now I've infected you, too.

My work here is done.

"Wawwiahs..."

Sometimes, being in the relative boonies of the Pacific Northwest really bites. For one thing, we have no decent amusements parks anywhere in the state. For proof, you need look no further than Wild Waves / Enchanted Village. When a deep-pocket outfit like Six Flags decides they want to buy their way into your state and the best they can find is The Theme Park that Time Forgot, you know you're living in an entertainment backwater.

New York City, on the other hand, is an entire amusement park in and of itself. All the more so this past weekend, when it hosted Come Out and Play, a festival devoted to so-called "street games." Yeah, it's a lousy moniker conjuring images of three card monte and full-contact monkey ball. In this case, though, it refers to games played outside in public spaces, using the city as the game board. I participate regularly in one style of such games, so this is a topic of keen interest.

Some observations from browsing the list of games:

This American Archive

Enjoy NPR's This American Life? Got an hour-long commute or workout, and an MP3 player? You may enjoy this archive of downloadable This American Life programs. I recommend episode 178, "Superpowers".

Fr'ak!

Battlestar Galactica characters drawn in the style of The Simpsons. Brilliant.

Da Vinci Contest

Google is running a contest to promote the upcoming Da Vinci Code film. I haven't read the book yet-- I should really get around to it soon before the film hype ruins it for me-- but the contest promises to be fun anyway. Designed by multiple-time World Puzzle Championship winner Wei-Hwa Huang and other puzzlemakers at Google and within the Game community, the contest offers 24 puzzles over the course of as many days. Perhaps best of all, this is not a sweepstakes. The first 10,000 people to complete all the puzzles will receive a "cryptex" replica-- I assume this has meaning to people familiar with the book-- and will be eligible for the final 5-puzzle challenge. The first person to solve that challenge will win the grand prize package worth over $100,000 (none of that as cash, so prepare for a hefty tax hit). The puzzles are targeted at a mass audience, so don't feel like you have to be an expert to try it out. Sign up, play, and help make the promotion a success so we might see more of this type of thing in the future.

What is a Contestant Test?

Want to try out for Jeopardy! but can't get to an audition location? Don't really care about being on the show, but think it'd be fun to see what the contestant test is like? You're in luck. Sony is running an online contestant search this week. For those of you on the west coast, the 50-question test will be administered at 8 PM Thursday. Good luck!

Entros II?

Wired has an article about a new Spanish facility that sounds a lot like Break In, one of the games from the restaurant/game facility called Entros where I used to be a gamemaker, but on steroids. Photos here. And they're building one in Manhattan early next year. Pencil me in around Thanksgiving...

72 Bands

Speaking of puzzles, here's one of the sort I love to create. Only someone else did. Can you identify all the bands?

Lost Cities Online

Lost Cities is a simple little 2-player card game, with a heck of a lot of luck. But the oversize cards are very pleasing to handle, the illustrations are attractive, and the game is addictive in that potato chip kind of way. And so it is with evil glee that I invite you to get sucked in as I have to Lost Cities online. The site presents a very faithful version of the game, complete with scans of the cards. The site also hosts a version of Schotten Totten, a game similar to Lost Cities but with perhaps more scope for strategy. It's a bit harder to get a ST game going, however-- most of the players are there for Lost Cities.

The nail in the coffin is that it maintains rankings, so with every game your rating rises and falls. I've always been a sucker for games with high score boards-- that carrot of inching up the list and trying to achieve a meta-goal is hard to resist. Someday I'll reach number one on the leader board. Someday...

Extravaganzine

A while back I commended The Puzzle Boat to your attention. About 100 puzzles in length, it's a great way for teams of puzzlers to get some practice between live events but is a bit much for just one or two people to bite off (not that that's stopped some individuals from doing it all themselves).

Thanks to the strong response to The Puzzle Boat, its creator has started a bimonthly "extravangazine" (in the National Puzzlers' League what I call a puzzle hunt is called an Extravaganza) offering more of the same on a lesser scale. Each issue promises in the neighborhood of a dozen puzzles, each resolving to a word or phrase which link together via a metapuzzle to reach an overall answer for the entire set. It plays very much like a single ring of The Puzzle Boat, and the puzzles are of the same high quality (although the first issue's puzzles were unfortunately riddled with minor errors, most of which have since been corrected). It's a great way for one or two people to enjoy a puzzle hunt experience at their own pace.

The first issue includes a diagramless fill-in, a color paint by numbers with a nice final flourish, a clever two-layered soduku, a variety cryptic, a puzzle involving cryptograms, some fun miscellaneous word puzzles, and more.

Each issue is distributed as a PDF file download for $4.95-- a trivial sum for the hours of enjoyment it will provide. I'm already eager for issue #2.

The Puzzle Boat

My latest obsession is The Island, aka The Puzzle Boat, an online solve-at-your-own-pace puzzle extravaganza. It's free, was created by a National Puzzlers' League member, and supports team play by allowing multiple players to use the same login and leave notes for each other about the puzzles. Solving a puzzle unlocks more, so while there are hundreds of puzzles on The Island you're only ever faced with a handful of them at one time. They're formatted as PDFs, so often you need to print them to solve them. While on the one hand it's a drag to not be able to solve them interactively online, you can take them with you and solve them at lunch or on the road. Many of the puzzles are GAMES Magazine-style word puzzles, which puts them right up my alley. I'm working on this with some people from my MS Puzzle Hunt team (Cracking Good Toast), and any nose-dive in work productivity is purely coincidental.

GeekSpeak

The latest episode of GeekSpeak is an absurdly long interview with me, featuring me being self-indulgent. Because you don't get enough of that here.

Lost Explained!

This is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. But then, some of my fondest childhood memories involve Infocom text adventures.

No, I didn't date much.

No, I still don't.

Not Even Wensleydale?

Forget Sith. Forget the Chocolate Factory. This is my most-anticipated film of the year.

The Politics of Contraband

I've talked in this space about various short and long Game events in which I've participated. Late this summer, as part of a cabal with a bunch of friends, I will be running one. We're trying to kickstart the Seattle Game community out of slumber, and expect a number of first-time teams to express interest. If this kind of thing has sounded fun to you, now's your chance to experience it first-hand. For details, including an informative FAQ, check out www.galacticconsortium.com. And be sure to drop me a note if you apply!

C is for Correctness

Scott Kurtz gets it exactly right in this PvP strip.

April Fools

The good folks at TeeVee have posted their annual April Fools parody, and at least one TV site has fallen for it. I encourage you to check it out, especially the section on Rob and Amber. The comments are open for pointers to other good April Fools pages that have appeared today.

Never Again

As a Jew-- even an atheistic one-- it's impossible to remain unmoved by stories of the Holocaust. So black was that darkest time of the modern era that the smallest acts of kindness, bravery, or nobility, when we hear of them today, blaze like suns in the heavens. In recent years the common refrain, "Never again," has lost some of its power over me as genocide continues to be wrought around the globe-- in Serbia, in Rwanda, in the Congo-- while the world's Jewish community fails to rise up and stop it. It's hard to fight another nation's battles when Israel itself is besieged, but Jews in America and Europe-- particularly the wealthy and powerful ones-- have no excuses.

But I digress.

This story moved me. It moved me with its demonstration of man's capacity for noble sacrifice. It moved me with its demonstration of the Internet's power to bring people together. And it moved me with its awesome illustration of serendipity.

Spinnin' in the Grave

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-video/Media/video/2005/01/27/golfgti.mov is super freaky. Even weirder, MovableType won't let me include a link to it, or to a TinyUrl (http://tinyurl.com/5v6fc) I made of it. It's like some mystic spell is blocking me from directing you to this link. I blame Dug for pointing it out to me.

Hot Reality Rumor

From E! Online comes this hot little nugget:

And from the rumor mill, buzz is that Survivor: All Stars winner Amber Brkich and her fianc, All-Stars runner-up Rob Mariano, are among the couples in competition on the upcoming seventh installment of CBS' The Amazing Race, which is scheduled to air next spring.

And y'know, I think I might actually root for them.

Hot Laptop Deal

If you're in the market for a laptop, tomorrow Dell will offer a one-day special of $750 off any Inspiron laptop of $1,500 or more. That's an even sweeter deal than what I got (the bastards!). Here's the skinny from Slick Deals.

Call Me Late to Dinner

I don't recall what corner of the Web I was trolling-- was it really just a couple of days ago?-- when a link brought me to The Julie/Julia Project, but since then I've fallen headlong down the rabbit hole. In 2002-2003, New Yorker Julie Powell decided to work her way through Julia Child's seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking, jumping among chapters but cooking through each recipe in each chapter front-to-back. 536 recipes in 365 days. And more butter than humans were meant to consume in a year.

What a fabulous concept.

Many of us have picked up a cookbook and, enchanted by the delights it promised, thought about how great it would be to cook through it cover to cover. But to actually do it-- and on such a harrowing timetable-- is madness. Sheer madness. To do it and blog about it is genius. Our good fortune is that Julie Powell knows her way around Strunk and White. Her record of her year cooking in the shadow of Julia Child is turning out to be a great read, and I'm only a few weeks in. Granted, the project ended a while ago and calling your attention to it now is a bit like, in �ber-geeky game show parlance, breathlessly reporting that Chuck Woolery has left his hosting gig on Wheel of Fortune. Old news. But like me many of you are foodies, and for foodies the Julie/Julia project is inspirational.

So many sauces... so little time...

Forget Free iPods, How About 100 Grand?

The guys who founded Hot or Not are offering up a $100,000 sweepstakes. Ostensibly, it's to get people to vote in the upcoming election. But due to federal laws making it illegal to pay someone else to vote, the sweepstakes itself has nothing to do with voting and is open to any U.S. citizen 18 or older.

The twist is that there are actually two prizes. The first goes to the person who gets picked at random. The second $100,000 goes to whoever referred that person to the sweepstakes. Wired News did a write-up on the contest earlier this month.

Frankly, the whole concept seems lame-brained to me. Since it's not connected to voter registration or the actual voting process, I can't see how this sweepstakes will make one iota of difference in voter turnout. But hey, it's their money.

Naturally, if you'd like to toss your name into the ring, I'd love for you to do so via this link to credit me as your referrer so we can win together. Good luck!

iPod Update

You guys are the bestest. Enough people have signed up with my link that, if all of them complete their offers, I'll have enough for the iPod. So please, if you signed up but don't intend to complete the deal, let me know so I don't count on you.

Even though the Blockbuster deal says you only get credit at the end of the 2 weeks, Craig signed up for it and got credited the same day. So that may be the easiest offer to go for, since you could then cancel before your 2 free weeks are up.

Assuming everyone will come through, that means the conga line advances. Anyone new should please use this link to help Chris get his iPod. Thanks, everyone! I'll keep you posted.

iPod Me

You may have heard about the web sites that have popped up offering free iPods. I did some research, and according to everything I've found, they're not a scam. Wired even did a positive write-up on them. So I decided to try it out. That's where you come in.

Follow this link to sign up, then complete one of the sponsor offers. I chose the Infone offer, which requires a credit card but the card will never get charged if you don't use the service, and just for signing up with Infone you get a $10 Amazon gift certificate. Sweet.

If 5 people do this, I'll get a free iPod. And those 5 people can in turn recruit 5 people of their own to get their own iPod. And so on. Sounds pyramidal, but there's no cost to you. And people really are getting iPods.

If you use the above link to help me out (which means going all the way through the process and completing the sponsor offer), feel free to post your own referrer link in the comments and we'll get a conga line going. Free iPods for everyone!

The Only Thing That Matters

I only wish this trailer was for real. Brilliant. The "Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo" sequence is hilarious.

Justice Unlimited Photos

Thanks to Wesley Chan of team Mystic Fish, here are some photos from Justice Unlimited:

Best costumes: the 2-player(!) team of Red 5 who played the game in a black Boxter instead of a van (and yes, that's me all the way on the left)
The DRUID electronic gizmo each team received
Game Control addressing the teams at the SF Municipal Pier kickoff
A tiny fraction of the Bay Model site
The Bat Blinker in action
The Scooby Doobies and the Mystery Machine
The immense wall chart at Game Control tracking each team's progress

Call Off the Hounds!

Restoration Hardware is once again selling dice plates, and they've added a companion set of dice coasters to go along with them. I ordered mine today. And while I was at it, I figured I'd pick up a set of ace plates too. Retro poker night, here I come!

Many thanks to Janet Powers for tipping me off.

Comicopia

Before anyone asks... no, the unnamed $250,000 buy-it-now purchaser of this auction isn't me. But... wow. Makes the paltry few boxes from my childhood that are gathering dust in my attic look mighty feeble.

It Hurts So Good

"Those Europeans have a crappy particle accelerator," said Tom discerningly.
"Ms. Blanchett is once again totally immune to anthrax!" Tom reciprocated.

Yes, it's Tom Swifties. A whole heck of a lot of them. And amazingly, many of them are really good. In a please-pump-molten-plutonium-up-my-rectum kind of way.

Brain-Dead Slobs Uncounted

According to the U.S. Census, Seattle is the most educated city in the nation. And while my breast swells with civic pride, I must nevertheless offer one word in rebuttal.

Monorail.

As If There Were Any Doubt

If you're a disbeliever, I'd like to point out that both www.google.com and www.tivo.com are 99% good. QED.

Bovine Envy

For those who were unsure, I can now offer some supporting evidence that I am not, in fact, a cow.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's milking time and I'm udderly exhausted.

Oh, yes-- Wyoming!

Loath though I am to be a shill for American Express, I'd be remiss if I did not direct your attention to The Adventures of Jerry and Superman. This will be a series of 5-minute web shorts, the first of which is available now. And if this one's any indicator of what's to come, they're gonna be high-larious.

Be sure to move your mouse over the projection screen while the page loads.

Fun with Audio

April Winchell is an L.A.(?) radio personality with an impressive collection of funky audio clips. Among my favorites:

Love Me Do by The Brady Bunch.
You're So Vain by... Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Oh, the exquisite pain!
Mission Impossible / Norwegian Wood. No, not a medley-- they're merged into one. And apparently, it won a Grammy.
Yellow Submarine by Milton Berle. Oh. My. God.
Stairway to Gilligan's Island

and this one, especially for Dana. Who am I kidding, this'll be on my answering machine soon enough too.

Update: Apparently April's host doesn't allow deep-linking, so to visit these links you must copy them into your address bar (for Internet Explorer users, right-click on the link, select Copy Shortcut, then right-click in your address bar and select Paste).

Marquee Power

How many movie titles can you identify? How about these? Oh, think you're good, eh? Well then... suck on these!

Note: You can fill in multiple boxes and then hit submit once for all of them.

Faceless Idiots

There are many fascinating things about The ESP Game-- how it uses a game structure to construct an index of images on the web, what words become taboo from frequent use, how utterly uninteresting most of the images pulled randomly from the web really are. But by far the most intriguing aspect of the game is how often your random, unknown partner is a complete idiot. Like when a picture shows a large mountain in the background, and your partner never says MOUNTAIN. And worse, he asks to pass and move on to the next picture! Here's one that just happened to me-- the game actually gave us the same picture twice in a row, but the 2nd version was smaller and had fewer taboo words. The obvious thing, which I did, would be to type in the same answer we just matched on. But my partner didn't.

The unrelenting anonymity means there's no catharsis when it's all over, no way to yell at your partner and ask what the heck they were thinking when they passed on such a no-brainer. And yet that element of frustration makes the thing oddly compelling. I find myself actually hoping for an "idiot" on the other end of the line-- someone on such a completely different wavelength that I have to step outside of myself to get a match.

Technolust

The game show I run at next year's Gathering could be so cool with these...

... but not at $200 a pop.

Why My Local McDonalds Razed Its Building

Winner of this week's I Can't Believe Someone Actually Cares Enough About This to Make a Web Site award, for sites and topics that-- while inconsequential-- nevertheless have a certain coolness factor.

Productivity? What Productivity?

Forgive me for what I'm about to do to you.

I'm addicted.

PVP

If you've ever been a gamer, a comic book junkie, or a fantasy/science fiction geek-- and chances are that if you're reading this, you hit the trifecta-- you should be reading PVP. There are other geek comic strips out there, but PVP stands alone. For starters, Scott Kurtz is an honest-to-goodness cartoonist, not just some shlub with Illustrator and a web site. He's got a sure line and an obvious understanding of the medium.

Even better, the guy's funny. The jokes in PVP touch on all things geeky, but the humor isn't dependent on them. The humor is usually quite mainstream, actually, but coming from an oblique angle hobbyists will appreciate even more. See for yourself-- a complete archive of the strip is available online.

Excelsior!

Feed Me

For years, there have been only two applications I use day in, day out, every day: my email client and my web browser. Recently I've added a third, which is almost to the Web what Tivo is to television. Now I can't imagine being without an RSS aggregator.

"A whaaaaaaaaaa?" I hear you grunt. Increasingly, web sites are offering their content in two distinct flavors. HTML is what we see when we visit with our browser, and it's all most people know about. XML is the wizard behind the curtain. It often doesn't contain a site's content per se, but rather a description of that content. Big deal, you say? Actually, it is. Those descriptions-- offered in a consistent format-- are called RSS feeds. And where your web browser can understand and display HTML pages, other applications can understand and display these RSS feeds.

An RSS aggregator collects these feeds into one convenient interface, notifying you when something new is published on the feed. If you read a bunch of news sites or blogs, this means instead of visiting each one individually to see if there's anything new, your RSS aggregator will automatically tell you when anything happens on any of them. Then you just click on the feed to see what's there. It's kind of like having news stories or blog entries getting emailed directly to you, except they don't clutter up your mailbox.

I use SharpReader. I don't know if it's the best or fullest-featured, but it's free and I'm satisfied with it. I use it not just for news (Wired, Yahoo Entertainment) and blogs (Defective Yeti, Metafilter), but also for the latest comic strips (FoxTrot, PVP) and bargains (Slick Deals). Using an RSS aggregator makes it easy to bring the best of the web directly to you.

Anyone have other feeds to recommend?

Checking It Twice

I know as the holidays approach, the thoughts of many Static Zombie readers have been troubled. "Peace on Earth and good will to men is all well and good," they worry, "but however am I going to decide what gift to get for Peter?" And so, as a service to you, I present my wishlist. Consider it my gift to you during this troubled holiday season. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some orphans to visit.

Eightysomething

Metafilter turned me on to this nifty 80's lyrics quiz, and now I'll pay it forward to you. Tip: to get your score unmodified by lame bonuses/penalties for your age, choose "Just Say No" to the generation drop-down at the bottom of the page. Oh, and spelling counts, so be careful.

My score: 113

Fame

You may remember Wil Wheaton fondly as Gordie in the sublime Stand By Me, or somewhat less fondly as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But it's been over ten years since he left the Enterprise, and today Wheaton is a minor celebrity in the blogosphere thanks to his pioneering web log. That's "pioneering" as in "one of the first." He's got a lot of readers-- not just because of his fame (although I'm sure that doesn't hurt), but because he writes with a strong personal voice and has interesting stuff to say. Nevertheless, don't underestimate the fanboy/girl factor. I submit this for your consideration-- an entry, quoted in its entirety, titled "garrgh":

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, but I can't write. I've started and stopped so many times this morning, I lost count.

I want to write. I need to write, but I can't get my words to work. I've grown so frustrated, I want to scream.

I mean, it took me several minutes just to write that, for fuck's sake.

That little entry generated 105 comments.

105!

Now I want to scream.

Scrabble Coming to ESPN

According to this article from The Gainesville Sun, Scrabble is coming to ESPN. Inspired by the success of the World Series of Poker broadcasts, ESPN will bring the 2003 Scrabble All-Stars to TV later this year. Taped Aug. 15-18, the top 24 players in North America competed for over $100,000 in prizes. If ratings are good, future Scrabble events may follow.

I, of course, predicted it all.

Merl Reagle Profile

If you're at all intrigued by crossword puzzles or the creative process behind constructing them, I commend to you this profile of ace constructor Merl Reagle. Most gratifying was the following tidbit:

He makes the bulk of his money, a handsome six-figure income, by leveraging his name and, nearly alone in the industry, retaining the rights to his puzzles, which he resells in book form under his own imprint, PuzzleWorks.

It's wonderful to see someone making a very healthy living from puzzlemaking, something I hope to achieve myself someday.

This... is... Jeopardy!

This... is... tempting!

'Tis a Silly Play

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is coming to Broadway as Spamelot, a musical written by Eric Idle adapted from the original screenplay. Hopefully the audiences won't be full of annoying gits who insist on reciting the dialogue throughout the play. Yes, delightful, you can squeal "Ni!" and insult people in French accents. You're very clever. Now shut up and let me watch in peace.

Will Contestants Get the Shaft?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you... Lapdance Island. The only thing I can imagine that would be more uncomfortable than being sexually frustrated is being sexually frustrated on television. I can't imagine who'd actually sign up for this, but the application is pretty funny.

I Know You're Out There Somewhere

From Match.com's "12 tips to perfect profiles":

11. Be an individual
Nobody � seriously, nobody � will read your profile and say, "Finally! Someone else who likes walks on the beach and is comfortable in jeans or evening wear!"

The Claw!

I've lost hope that space travel will ever become available to the masses in my lifetime. I'll never have a chance to see the Earth from orbit, or visit alien worlds with spectacular sights and bizarre local attractions.

Fortunately, the next best thing is just a plane ticket away: Japan. Give 'em props for considering animation to be as viable a medium as any other for adult storytelling, but their country is full of a lot of weird crap. This site documents some of it. Don't miss the section on Japanese TV and videos, or the one on bizarre stuff sold in vending machines. My favorite of the latter is a machine from a video arcade-- one of those Claw games, where you maneuver a mechanical grabber to try to pick up a prize. But in this Sapporo arcade, the prizes that you're trying to grab are live lobsters!

Limit Order on Ichiro?

Topps runs a virtual trading floor for sports cards. Cards are offered in "IPOs", demand dictates how many are printed, and no more are ever made. Scarcity dictates value, and these cards are bought and sold online. But the cards themselves never leave a climate-controlled Delaware warehouse. Genius. All the profiteering of Ebay (which operates the site), but none of the packaging and shipping hassles. You can read more about this here.

Play Money

The fact that there are people out there who actually earn a living by selling virtual stuff in online games fascinates me. And I'm not the only one. The guy who wrote a story about it in Wired was so fascinated, he got sucked in. Play Money is his weblog documenting his quest to, as he puts it, "get rich selling castles in the air." What a world.

Games as Art

It doesn't really matter which of the dozens of games you pick at Orisinal-- they're all beautiful. The games themselves are simplistic and won't hold your interest for more than a minute or two. But the concepts, artwork, music, and overall presentation are fabulous. I particularly liked Rainmaker-- the combination of art and music really works for me.

Geek Test, You Passed

Speaking of geekiness, see how much you have with this geek test. It turns out I am merely a "Total Geek" with a scant 29.38856% of geekiness. Who knew?

The 606th Take

This is probably going to make it's way around the Net in one of those infuriating email-forwarding chains, but it's too good to resist. Here is the best car commerical ever. And it's 100% real, filmed without trick photography in one long, extended shot. On the 606th take.

Rubber Duck of Many Things

Well whaddya know, Wizards of the Coast has a sense of humor. Check out the new Dungeons & Dragons supplement released just in time for April first. I'm sure you parents out there could come up with many appropriate additions. Personally, I think the 2nd level Silence spell is all you really need...

Riddle Me This

So you want to score some cash by signing up for pay-per-impression ad services, but you need eyeballs? Offer a cash prize for whomever first reaches the end of a riddle trail you set up, where the prize amount depends on the ad income and each page of the trail brings up... more ads! Free to play, and the more people who play, the bigger the prize becomes. Brilliant.

Now screw things up by using bare-bones HTML, ads with viruses, hideous formatting, typos galore, old chestnut riddles, lousy grammar and sentence structure, and a cumbersome answer format. Presto, you've got Net Riddle, an embarrassing train-wreck of a site guaranteed to frustrate and annoy you while returning no pleasure whatsoever.

I'm on stage 1.7.

In the Air Tonight

With all the billions of research funding that's been funneled into the malodorous gas sector, it's about time somebody solved the problem of untimely flatulence. But this product from Dairiair (I kid you not) doesn't go far enough. The company offers an industrial-strength version for clients with more powerful blast furnaces, but that only helps the sedentary cheese-cutters. A cushion offers no security for the walk down the hall to the mail room or the casual water-cooler chat. What about wind-passers on the go? Until this technology is refined enough to be incorporated directly into undergarments, the gastointestinally challenged will remain ostracized and isolated from society.

There But For the Grace of God

Let he who is without 500 board games cast the first stone, but where exactly is the line between academic analysis and irredeemable geekiness? Because from where I sit, this site has catapulted beyond it. I'm just not quite sure in which direction.