Do Not Disturb Any Further

Animated fun with Tim Minchin's "Pope Song"

Again, thanks to GeekDiva Herself for pointing me to this. Tim Minchin gets right to the point in his "Pope Song". And now it's animated. I do so enjoy the coming-together of fine language, music, and visual arts.

 

Fun with memes: Dot Dot Dot takes typographical Flash animations to glorious new heights

I love it when GeekDiva Herself memes me some memes. Check out the latest silliness: Dot Dot Dot, from RicePirate on the Flash animation site Newgrounds. It's a magnificent send-up of an amusingly misspelled review of a game on Newgrounds. Extra credit for the narrator hamming it up with the pronunciations. Triple extra credit for the Carmina Burana.

 

xkcd knows my TV Tropes pain

Seriously, I need some kind of lock-out timer or something to get me off that damn site.

Fun with linguistics: observations on "fucking" infixes

So there's this linguistic term infix, a middle-of-the-word version of an affix, which The Wiki tells us is "a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word". For some English words, you can insert an expletive infix for emphasis. Check out the discussion about using "fucking" as an infix, courtesy of Linguistics: an introduction to linguistic theory:

Every anime opening ever made

Montage fun with tropes. I. Will. Not. Go through this frame by frame to try to identify every single series I can figure out. Dammit.

 

College students parody K-pop video

I'm amused to see that college students in any country can do amazing things when both bored and inspired. Here's some very talented amateurs re-creating the music video for Korean pop sensation G-Dragon's HeartBreaker.

 

Recommended musical comedy: Tim Minchin

How in seven hells do I not already know about Tim Minchin? Musical comedy, deliciously politically incorrect, plus a bonus of Brit slang and topical humor. Check out "Inflatable You" for starters. Thanks, Dan Savage!

 

 

More Gintama fun: The Path of Takasugi

A casually illustrated fan video highlighting the troubled life of one Takasugi Shinsuke.

 

Getting my Gintama fix

I'm missing Gintama, so I hunted up a Katsura fix.

Also hosted locally since YouTube vids keep being deleted.

 

Short-film silliness: Horribly Slow Murderer with Extremely Inefficient Weapon

Following some snarky links from some people whose works I don't entirely approve of, I came across this hilarious independent short film, The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon by Richard Gale.

Check it out and laugh.

 

Nightmare in Nightwear

I don't know where the guys from Nightmare get all their energy, but they not only release nearly an album a year as Nightmare, but they've got a wacky alter-ego band called Sendai Kamotsu that loves to exclaim about how gay they are, and they've done a TV interview show called Nightmare in Nightwear, where they do interviews in... pajamas. There's nothing sweeter than Hitsugi in PJs. Nothing anywhere. Ever.

Image courtesy of Sammo6661Deth.

All the fun & funny news in one farking place

So I ran across Fark.com again, which reminded me how cool it is. Here's how they describe themselves:

Fark isn't an acronym. It doesn't mean anything. The idea was to have the word Fark come to symbolize news that is really Not News. Hence the slogan "It's not news, it's Fark." Fark was originally a word Drew became known for using online back in the early 1990s. He can't remember why, but his guess is that it was either to replace another F-word or that he was just drunk and mistyped something. He tells everyone it was the former since it's a better story that way.

And they're aware of the potential zombie threat to the world:

Q: Does Drew have a contingency plan for Fark in the event of zombies?
A: No plans in the event of zombies, we're just all screwed

I totally agree that a lot of what's labeled "news" doesn't really fit the label, and it's fun to see it called out on the Fark.com site. Check out the silliness they compile so you don't have to.

FML: sharing depressing stories with the world

So a recent meme is FML, short for Fuck My Life, allegedly from the movie Superbad (which I haven't watched). Some cynical soul created an FML site where people share some of the crappy things that have happened to them. I suppose there's some humor in there somewhere, but it mostly just makes me feel sad.

Nerd epitaphs

Taking inside jokes just about as far as they can go at Topless Robot. I may rethink my own disposal plans. Some of my favorites:

• If only I had collected all 108 Stars of Destiny, all of this could have been avoided.
• Was eaten by a grue.
• In case of zombification: aim for head, apply violence.
• This is not an exit.

Iggy Pop is cool even in contracts

The Smoking Gun has a delightfully entertaining collection of performers' backstage riders (the contracts that spell out what a venue has to provide). It's unusual to see so many varities of legalese in a single place. My inner word-geek had a blast with that part.

Being TSG, they've got lots of snarky fun comments about the riders that make one raise a brow at ridiculous or mysterious demands.

But for real fun, read the ones that TSG endorses. Their Iggy Pop example is priceless. Allegedly written by roadie Jos Grain, it contains gems like this:

About Iggy's vocal - we needs lots. The best thing is, make it strong and punchy, a bit like a boxing kangaroo. (Regarding the sound-output requirements.)

My insurance doesn't cover me for allowing rockstars to fall off the front of the stage. (Regarding keeping the front of the stage uncluttered.) [Actually, now that I re-read that, I wanna ask whether it covers them falling off the back of the stage.]

No Yamahas and no bleeding digital, or I will chop it into a hundred pieces, and each of those pieces I will chop into a hundred pieces... so that's like, er... tenty hundred? Anyway, then I will douse them in petrol and burn them. (Regarding the type of audio equipment desired.)

I'm downright inspired, now.

You rock more that you think

Here's another one of those pointless sites to kill some time with: Funny Facts. Make that "Facts". Type in a name, and learn some "facts". Like:

• Bullets dodge Chevenga.
• Chevenga is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
• Chevenga stared evil in the face, and it backed down.

These things are so much simpler, and with way more options, on teh interwebz than when we had to use paper.

More word play fun

Courtesy of the BBC, their web site hosts a section called Your Say.

Check out the page highlighting tongue-twisters from various languages. Here's some of my favorites:

Spanish: Poquito a poquito Paquito empaca poquitas copitas en pocos paquetes. (Bit by bit Paquito is packing some wine glasses in a few packages.)

German (Bavarian): Zwischen zwei Zwetschgenzweigen zwitschern zwei Zeisige. (In between two plum branches [Zwetschge = Bavarian for High German Pflaume, plum] twitter two siskins [siskin = a type of finch].)

Unexpectedly catchy: remix of Kabuto's "Ninja Info Cards"

Update 9 July 2010: For reasons unknown, the video I originally linked to has been set to "private". If I can't see it, you probably can't either. Here's a downloadable version, which is stored in a different place.

Or you could search YouTube for "ninja info cards" and "kaj". That way, you can enjoy the original plus a passel of related vids that are also quite entertaining.

----------

Original post:

After spending a pleasantly absurd amount of time poring over various abridged series on YouTube, I came across a link from one of the Naruto abridged series that took me to a fun and silly song about Kabuto's "Ninja Info Cards". It's totally stuck in my head, and now it can be stuck in yours too. Musical memes FTW!

Canned unicorn meat: Excellent source of sparkles!

Another delightful product from the guys at ThinkGeek.com: canned unicorn meat. Yay, sparkles!

"Let's Bible" puts Jesus on the short bus

And no, it doesn't make any more sense in context. Gotta love it when symbolism that heavy is imported from (and to, and back again) another culture. But it's damn funny when it's deconstructed by Read Right to Left.

I'm not labeling this entry as Philosophy & Religion because, well... yeah.

 

As described by InventorSpot:

The Devil comes from way down there... in, er, Mexico??

Karmic justice: killing the psion with your brain

Well, he did tempt fate by pointing out his preferred method...

Unskippable: mocking the "art" form that is video-game animations

Highly recommended: Unskippable, in which two cheeky guys deconstruct various video-game animations. Named "Unskippable" because a lot of earlier games (and an annoying percentage of current ones) would not let you skip the opening animations, so you were stuck watching them and wondering how you could possibly get back those 5 minutes of wasted life.

I suggest starting from the beginning, because the narrators frequently reference their earlier jokes.

Here's a recent example of Resonance of Fate:

Gantz, Berserk, and Escaflowne abridged

Since I'm not likely to get around to watching the actual anime versions of Gantz, Berserk, and The Vision of Escaflowne, what with plenty of more recent series still to be watched, I spent a few entertaining hours watching the abridged versions. Highly recommended, including the commentaries.

Gantz Abridged

Berserk Abridged 

Vision of Escaflowne Abridged

And don't miss out on other fun abridged series:

Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden

Yu-Gi-Oh

Dragonball Z

Pokemon

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Sailor Moon

D.Gray-Man

Game-geek fun: Things Mr. Welch can no longer do in an RPG

While the rules provided by the game designer are sufficient for most situations, play any game long enough (especially a complex RPG) and you'll encounter situations where you've got to get specific and make your own rules. Here's one guy's extensive take on rules developed over years of gaming experience:

Things Mr. Welch can no longer do in an RPG

Examples:

521. I will not convince the entire party to play Amish for the cyberpunk campaign.

540. A full minute of stunned silence means "My God what did you do?" not "Please continue."

601. If we run out of cannonballs armadillos will not do in a pinch.

651. My alignment is not Sarcastic Good.

912. Droogie is not a starting language.

817. Cannot challenge anyone to a dance off. To the death.

999. I can't train squirrel mobs to abuse the grapple rules.

1207. There is no such thing as ‘ambiguously elven’

1370. Halflings are not used as currency.

1410. Bleaching the drow won't help.

1646. I am not Wombatman. [[from the Captain N: The Game Master cartoon; who knew? I learn the funnest stuff just from researching geek lore]]

More fan-made gaming fun: machinima

Machinima - making videos using existing CG properties, like video-game footage - has been around for a while, but there's tons more of it than I ever knew before. I've mostly only seen Red vs. Blue, which is delightful. So I'm looking forward to exploring more of it. Courtesy of http://www.machinima.com, these look like an excellent place to start:

Bright Falls: the prequel to Alan Wake

Arby 'n' the Chief (more Halo fun)

P.A.N.I.C.S. (F.E.A.R. fun)

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Really, the blog name says it all. Enjoy.

Gintama anime hiatus = small tragedy

Oh, noes! The Gintama anime has caught up with the manga after 4 years. Rather than a year of filler, the anime is on hiatus until there's enough new manga material to create more. (And given the quirky nature of the series, no filler is a very good thing.)

I love Gintama, and I'm gonna miss getting my weekly fix of ball and butt jokes, absurd pop-culture references, and better music (both the openings/endings and the show's themes) than just about any anime out there.

The movie of the Benizakura arc (the first truly serious arc of the anime) opens this month in Japan, and I'm hoping that it will be out on DVD within a few months so I can see it too.

In celebration of 201+ episodes of kick-ass samurai silliness, here's some of the Gintama fun and music.

Benizakura movie trailer

Does "Shura"

Ambiance "Mr. Raindrop"

Does "Donten" to Bleach images from "Diamond Dust Rebellion"

Captain Straydum "Fuusen Gamu"

And my favorite running gag, Katsura reminding people what his name is

More fun with words

So I came across a couple of fun sites where the authors explore word-y stuff, which I love. One discussion about how language, particularly spoken language, isn't "logical" like math includes this statement:

Language is something that we as a community of speakers collectively create and reinvent each time we speak.

A simple statement that covers the whole point of the article: Spoken language can be different in every conversation, but it still works even if it doesn't follow a particular predefined "logical" structure.

Go read more about words here:

Motivated Grammar, featuring unexpectedly down-to-earth commentary from linguists (What poor linguists' work have I been reading, anyway, that makes me surprised that a freakin' language expert writes something down-to-earth?)

Literal Minded, more fun with linguist commentary

"Hey Guys", a discussion about "guys" being a gender-neutral term (the use of which I wholeheartedly embrace) (Oh, but I can't bear not to point out that it's funny that the title of an article about word peeves suffers from a grammatical error. It should be "Hey, Guys".)

Everything You Know About English Is Wrong, kinda old but entertaining

I really should have squeezed a linguistics class or two into my decade of higher education.

Ambiguous character alignment

As always, TV Tropes provides much entertainment in its exploration of character alignment. An amusing percentage of the discussion has been dedicated to pointing out that alignment is an ambiguous, sometimes poorly defined categorization.

While reading the alignment articles, I decided that I was Chaotic Good. However, since I'm now disappointed in myself, I may just aim more for Chaotic Neutral in the future. Or at least in the future in video games. I have standards to hold myself to, after all. (Is it possible for one to read about these sorts of things and not try to categorize oneself to bypass this whole problem?)

The ambiguous definition of alignment allows for situation-appropriate adjustments, especially for long-running characters who would become stale if they always stuck firmly to one alignment.

Like Batman.

This image explores some of Batman's variations in alignment over the years.

Badass of the Week

Check out the exploits of famous and infamous people, critters, mythological figures, gods, and other interesting folks at Badass of the Week. There's Cuchulainn, Rasputin, Race Bannon, Saladin, and the Marquis de Lafayette, for starters. The historical accuracy is iffy, but the anecdotes are hilarious. Enjoy!