Burn this book

(NOTE: As I wrote this, it occurred to me that I covered the same topic a year and two days ago. That means Marmoset and I missed our blog's first birthday. Oops. Happy birthday to us, two and a half months late.)

I probably should have mentioned it three days ago, but this is Banned Books Week. I have not stuck to my usual semi-tradition of reading a Banned Book this week, though the Frau is currently reading the Banned Book To End All Banned Books (literally!), Fahrenheit 451. So I figure that's good enough for the both of us.

Hovever, if you want to do your part to battle the evils of censorship, you can always try the ever-popular Banned Books Online or the new Explore Banned Books, courtesy of Google Books. In an age when Google is doing its best to scare the crap out of librarians with its digitization program, it's nice to see them helping out.

Speaking of which, if there are any brave librarians out there who REALLY want be scared with a good close look at evil, Guantanamo Bay is hiring.

Read a banned book sometime; they make the world a more interesting place. Just ask Dewey:

OK, so it really isn't about banned books, but I still love this one.

Speaking of making a more interesting universe, I thought this was great, in a dumb Ernie Kovacs sort of way:

An animated discussion, part 2

As part of yesterday's discussion about animation, I forgot to mention that Frau made her own self portrait with the Simpsomaker. With a little Photoshop magic, we now have a Simpso-Skippy family photo:


Some of our more sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that the picture includes three blank word baloons. That's because I added the baloons and was about to write some witty dialogue when I maxed out my daily supply of funny.

After half an hour of staring at blank baloons like a moron, I am proudly announcing the first annual Daily Marmoset contest. All our readers (i.e. both of you) are encouraged to write some clever banter between myself, my lovely wife, and Moe.

The prize, you ask? Umm, good question. If I can't fill in the baloons myself, what makes you think I can come up with a decent prize just now? Don't worry, I'll think of something later. Honest.

To help get your creative juices flowing (eew), take a look at one last piece of animation greatness: The Muppet Matrix. Be sure to stay for the ending. It crams more fun into 2 minutes than the sequels did in 4 1/2 hours.

an animated discussion

Cartoons are great. Good animation can be the coolest, most entertaining thing in the world, and despite being a grown man I'm not ashamed to say so.

What sort of loser would like cartoons past childhood? I'll tell you:

• Comic genius Mel Brooks, for one. He must, since he's remaking his 1980s masterpiece Spaceballs as an animated series. I can't wait for the continued adventures of Dark Helmet and Colonel Sanders, though sadly it just won't be the same without John Candy.

• Animator John Kricfalusi, godfather of Spumco animation and creator of Ren and Stimpy (not to mention Our Beloved Founder). Besides making some timeless cartoons of his own, john K. also maintains a blog called all kinds of stuff about animation, so he must think it's pretty cool.
  
• How about the JibJab guys? This blog was born on the day the Marmoset and I watched This Land and said, "Two dorky brothers getting famous from putting stupid stuff on the Web? Crap, why didn't we think of that?" Well, judge for yourself if that was a good thing...
• Even our own, beloved Marmoset was once an aspiring cartoonist. I haven't forgotten about Skippy the Yelling Bear, though he probably wishes I would.
  

Did you know anyone can be a cartoonist now? A new, open source (read: FREE) program called Monkeyjam lets anyone do their own animations. If only the Marmoset had enough free time to create further adventures of Herman the Alien Child... Of course, nowadays Stewie Griffin would probably sue and/or kill him, but I know who came first.

Portait of the Artist as a Springfieldian

I found an awesome new toy online: the Simpsomaker. It's an online game that lets you create your own Simpsons character. Brought to you by Flash-game bonanza called stopbeingbored.com

To test it out, I attempted a self portrait. It's not great, but between the available choices and my absolute lack of artistic ability, it's the best I can do.


Compare with the Marmoset's portrait of me to see how I did.

No food for me

After last week's post, in which I gleefully killed off the Marmoset with a nasty bout of dysentery, I feel it's only fair to post my own shame as well:



I have brought shame to my house. I am not even a real man.

Celebrities: is there anything they can't do?

Yahoo Picks last week featured a thought provoking website called 10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed. It was started by a small group of friends, but readers are now contributing reasons as the list steadily approaches the 10,000 mark (They're up to #3,844 as of this writing).

After reading through some of these, I have a confession to make: I may have nudged us a bit closer to Armageddon last night by watching part of Celebrity Duets, the show where people who used to sing pair up with people who never could.

ABOVE: Xena, Warrior Princess sings with
Smokey Robinson (or whatever's left of him).

It's not that I wanted to watch, but I just couldn't look away. It was like a car crashing into a train wreck. A few minutes later, after the Frau gave me a well-deserved smack upside the head and changed the channel, I came to a few conclusions about what I'd seen:

• There is a special place in Hell reserved for Simon Cowell.
• David Foster really should have learned his lesson after his first encounter with Reality TV.
• Regardless of time, place, or circumstances, Little Richard rules.
  

Anyway, I would like to apologize to the world at large for my part, however small, in causing its impending doom. In order to make it up to you, allow me to present a short film clip entitled "Weatherman Freaks Out When a Cockroach Crawls across His Leg":



That's good stuff.

In closing, I would like to call the following items to the Marmoset's attention:

1. Rocky Statue Returns to Art Museum Steps.

2. Uwe Boll Bests Pasty Film Critic in Boxing Match.

Any thoughts?

More homework as television

During a spare few minutes this afternoon, I checked on my favorite Youtube user, bmhcmc, to see if he had any new goodies of Mid-MO television. There were two that I wanted to share:

First, is the one entitled My Favorite TV Tech Error. While I might dispute that title, it is a fun one. Behold:



As for the second one, I'm posting it here because I have an unsettling feeling that the Frau will appreciate it on several levels. However, I can't honestly say that I recommend watching it. Let me just say this: it's a "Pepper and Friends" clip entitled "Nose Squirting Action".

Please do not play on a full stomach...

Now I feel dirty... Time to go home.

I killed 4,000 lbs of buffalo before lunch. What did you do?

Last week I found something spectacular, and now that the Marmoset is done with his exams I can post it with a clean conscience. I'd never have forgiven myself if he'd flunked out of grad school due to VirtualApple.org, an emulator that lets you play ancient Apple II games online (Internet Explorer only).

It takes you back to a simpler, more innocent time; when "color graphics" meant white, purple, AND green. A time of neverending load times and music that sounds like a cheap Casio being assaulted by a mentally disabled chimp. A time when I was young and stupid enough to think that Halls of Montezuma was a good game.

And of course, Yes Virginia, they have Oregon Trail (though for some reason it doesn't show on their list of games).

Oregon trail aficionados: please note the date on this one.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Good God, I'm funny.

It's been twenty long years since the last time I did that, and damn it feels good.

They also have, fresh from our childhood, Jeopardy (with only two games worth of questions), Paperboy (even slower and more annoying than I remembered), the original Pirates! by the great Sid Meier, and -- to the Marmoset's delight I'm sure -- the original Defender of the Crown.

Naturally, many of the games don't work, and most of them suck rather badly. At least one game, Gold Rush, is infected with the bane of pre-CD gaming: a copy-protection pop quiz. But hey, that's the "good old days" for you. They were probably crap even when they were new, and it's not like cutting-edge modern technology can prevent a game from being terrible.

If only they had a copy of "Discover the World"; not so much because I want to play it, but because I'm starting to wonder if Marmoset and I only imagined it.