Pranks Galore

Ah, some of the best kinds of humor is a good prank. In this case, I'm posting videos from the excellent comedy website JibJab (one should really check out their original videos; fantastic stuff).

This first is a prank of a nun with male pornography.


And this one is a compendium of various pranks on Japanese folks.



There are also quite a few excellent prank videos on Youtube, one of the more outstanding being this Japanese prank video. I highly recommend you check them out, if this sort of thing tickles your funnybone.

These [Stickers] Come From Trees

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

Glancing at the Blogger homepage, I could not help but notice this pile of dog crap. Apparently a featured blog, All I can do is roll my eyes and groan. This blog features a project that suggests, by putting stickers on various paper consummation devices, such as printers, one will save hundreds of pounds of paper. The stupidity of this, of course, is that sticker labels are, themselves, made from paper, as well as various types of organic plastics, rubbers, etc. that are taken from shrubs or trees (some without actually harming the plant, some with).


Really, if I care enough to conserve paper, I won't need a sticker on my printer to tell me.

Surrealism At Its Best

So, I was just browsing Youtube today, looking for something of interest to make a post about, when I stumbled upon a goldmine of videos. Specifically, the work of Jan Švankmajer, the Czech surrealist artist, which ranges from works of clay, to food, to rocks, to ordinary every-day items. I was stunned by the amazing videos. His attention to detail, expertise in animation, and ability to portray an emotional message is truly astounding. Now, folks, THIS is art. Some contains nudity, sexual suggestions, and other, darker themes, but all of it is genius, and all leaves one thinking, even if it is with a shudder down one's spine as the dark nature of his animations really seeps in.

Here is a compendium of those videos which I could find on Youtube. The final one, a "trailer" for Alice, Švankmajer's re-interpretation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the first of a series of surreal movies, also including Faust, Conspirators of Pleasure, Otesánek, and Šílení/Lunacy. I would highly recommend all these movies, and I know that I will personally be looking into purchasing all five, if I can find them. Like the Youtube videos, his movies often contain adult content, so be warned.



These videos are sorted from oldest, to newest, based on when he created them.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasy in G minor
A Game With Stones
Punch and Judy
Don Juan (pt 1)
Don Juan (pt 2)
Don Juan (pt 3)
Don Juan (pt 4)
Et Cetera
The Garden (pt 1)
The Garden (pt 2)
The Flat (pt 1)
The Flat (pt 2)
The Ossuary
Jabberwocky (pt 1)
Jabberwocky (pt 2)
Leondardo's Diary (pt 1)
Leonardo's Diary (pt 2)
The Castle of Otranto (pt 1)
The Castle of Otranto (pt 2)
The Fall of the House of Usher (pt 1)
The Fall of the House of Usher (pt 2)
Dimensions of Dialogue (pt 1)
Dimensions of Dialogue (pt 2)
The Pendulum, the Pit, and Hope (pt 1)
The Pendulum, the Pit, and Hope (pt 2)
Another Kind of Love
Meat Love
Darkness/Light/Darkness
Flora
The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner

The Sims: The Movie - If Bored, Select "Read a Book"

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

Hard to believe, but the film rights of The Sims have been sold by its creator company, Maxis, to FOX Entertainment for way too much, though I am not sure of the true price. What kind of an idiot would buy the movie rights to this? I am rather disappointed with Maxis founder, Will Wright, for letting this pass. I really figured that he had more understanding of what would pass. Of course, a movie of the Sims may well draw traffic simply from game fans, but what is there really to do in the movie? The game is about different characters living out their lives. How can that possibly be made into a blockbuster? As Scott Weinberg of Cinematical very expertly said,

Imagine a live-action 90-minute movie in which all the characters do is lounge around the house, take a few showers, pee a lot, cook food, call people, wash toilets, work out, buy furniture, pee some more, woo neighbors, put out fires, dance strangely, collect mail, pee once more, read a book, and then walk outside yelling Buuu-fwoobadooo-mWAH! to anyone within earshot. Sound like fun?

Unless one actually created a machinima using the Sims (which has been done, with mixed results), I can't see how one would tie anything game-related into a video. The Sims is so far removed from a movie, they are like James Bond and George Bush. The whole point of the game is that there are no goals, no plot, no real rules; you do what you want. In other words, you play out a life. How is that any different from what practically every movie has been doing since drama was first created? What will indicate that the movie has any relation to the game, unless it shows an entire family living out their individual lives with the camera switching between their different worlds depending on who has a selection diamond floating over their head?

Halo 2 Hot Coffee?

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

According to various articles permeating the web like cancer in the blood, Halo 2 is being delayed for its release on PC (Vista-only, while the console-whores are all basking in the glow of Halo 3's Beta), due to a glitch that can cause the ass of a (male) soldier to become visible, thus earning it a "partial nudity" rating from ESRB, much to Microsoft and Bungee's horror. Although I cannot be sure, my guess is that each model is a simple mannequin with the models of clothing superposed over the top of the body model, thus this error occurring when the buttocks of the mannequin below is somehow pushed out past the clothing model and thus made visible (or so would be my assumption). I cannot help but roll my eyes at this, since it's not like cartoons haven't been displaying bare asses for at least a decade, and who would want to tweak this patch in order to see more man ass, anyway? Seeing as it is a bug, the body below is obviously without textured or graphic detail, so it would only be the existence of the buns that would be controversial. True, it's an annoying and, perhaps, amusing bug, but not something to get all anal about, if you'll forgive the pun.

Quote from a Microsoft spokesperson from 1Up:

It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of Halo 2 for Windows Vista. As such, we have updated the initial game packaging at retailers with a label, so customers are aware before purchasing the game. Additionally, we've developed an online update which can be downloaded from www.halo2.com to remove the content.

Yes, indeed; let us get away from this horrid show of the buttocks so that we can get back to the oh-so-moral game of slaughtering mercilessly. As South Park once so truthfully stated, people only worry about violence until there's something sexual for them to complain about.

Ironically, VG Cats may have been more right than they knew when this comic about the Hot Coffee mod was made.

UPDATE: Apparently, the partial nudity wasn't an error, but intentionally added in jest, according to this article. Really, someone should fire whoever did that for being a total moron. Aside from the sake of making Halo 2 the butt end of jokes such as this, the humor has cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars in complication control.

On a side note, I never knew before that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had an issue with this partial nudity thing as well. Maybe now game companies will quit sloppily leaving crap like that around in the game files.

Grabbag

What can I say? Well, little, seeing as I haven't found much of particular interest over the past couple of days, as well as being quite busy playing through Starcraft (for the first time without cheat codes) after hearing the exciting news of a Starcraft II. After having looked back, I have to say that I hope the change to a 3D graphics engine, what with all the over-saturated colors and bloom effects, doesn't distract from the game itself. As for the interface, it seems about the same, though it is a bit of a disappointment that the Protoss GUI looks as drab as ever, at least compared to what detail the Terran GUI has (though, admittedly, they have spiced it up quite a bit).
Aside from the obvious reordering of buttons to allow for more, probably done in a large part to make room for the individual building icons, the menu has been moved, becoming tabs on the upper-left hand corner, as opposed to a single button just above the unit portrait. Now, I obviously have not had a chance to try this out, but at first glance, I'm not so hot on the idea, primarily because the labels on the buttons, as well as the buttons themselves, are rather difficult to read in front of the bright background. On the other hand, all three minimap toggles, including terrain on/off, team on/off, and another one that I can't identify off-hand, are right there, as opposed to just the single terrain toggle, with all others having to be done via hotkeys.

Getting off Starcraft, Youtube has given an award to one FinserSteele for the Lejo DJ video (seen below) that he posted. I cannot help but snort, since I have seen Lejo long before this, and then the guy who posted the video isn't even Lejo's creator, nor did he give true credits. Whiny of me? Perhaps, since I got chewed out for reposting some French videos explaining two 18th century automatons.



I was very pleased to find that Comedy Central had a full (or at least nearly-full) listing of Colbert Report's Better Know a District episodes (link), though I must say that their video flashware is crap; I had to watch a 32-second commercial about some new car, and not even a good commercial, at that. It only took five views to make me groan at the annoying song playing, and by the twentieth time I heard it, my brains were leaking from the corners of my mouth as I stared at the screen in a stupefied half-coma. Of course, for this comedy gold, it's more than worth it. Who needs those extra few pints of gray matter, anyway?

Pb-Free Processors at Last!

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.


That's right, Intel has finally answered the world's problems by creating new, lead-free processors. Now, when you find yourself particularly hungry for chips after your local convenience store's closing time, you can simply munch on a Xeon, and still feel safe in know that, although the silicon will cut up your intestines like Jack the Ripper on a good day, you won't become (more) retarded from lead poisoning. Thanks, Intel, for being environmentally-friendly!

On a totally unrelated note, evil IBM has used some lead to make a chip twice as fast as anything else out there, without using more energy. Burn, IBM; your chips aren't edible.

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