A thing I made, because reasons

(Click for larger)

I was playing the lovely game FTL and as my hopes and dreams were being sucked into the void through a horrifying number of hull breaches I remarked to a friend, "Space is full of jerks."

His fantastic reply was simply "- Carl Sagan." This led to us modifying a bunch of Sagan's quotes. Billions and billions of jerks, jerks making apple pies from scratch, and of course, "Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group... of jerks."

The above picture was a parting shot of sorts. I giggled all the way through making it, and while I'll admit it's not quite the same comedy gold now that I've had adequate sleep, I'm still quite fond of it. And now it's my gift to you, internet.

The humor (as it were) comes from the fact that Sagan was of course an immensely positive person. And so that I don't feel like I'm entirely besmirching the man's memory, I've included a positive alternative below the fold.

Gods forgive us

A friend asked me to help her with the visuals for a school assignment that involved making a Facebook page for Socrates, and here's what we came up with:

 

See the rest of it after the jump.

An Ode to Oddness

When I came across this video, it was presented in a way that made it seem like just another video of somebody showing off some dumb thing they'd invented. Because of that I almost passed it by, since the invention itself (a spring-loaded wrist mount for an iPhone) isn't terribly impressive. But I'm thankful to whatever tiny demon of whimsy prodded me to watch it, because while it starts off predictably enough—a diagram of the gadget, a demonstration of its use—it quickly veers off course to become something else entirely. The anticipated explanation of the invention and its creation never comes, and instead the video somehow shifts into a series of awkward and absurd vignettes that are only vaguely centered around the device. I've already yammered on about it too much, so just watch it for yourself:

It's a bit pathetic and borderline creepy at times, but I love pretty much everything about it: the pacing, the shots, the non sequitur acts of weirdness. The uploader on YouTube, morishowta, only has a handful of other videos, and after watching them I get the impression that he's self-aware and that he's being weird and pathetic on purpose. If I were to find out that wasn't the case then that would probably change my opinion of his videos drastically, but as it stands I think they're a queerly beautiful little ode to being an outcast.

Like I said, he only has a few videos so far, and it's well worth it to watch them all. After seeing this one I went to the beginning and watched from there, and in doing so you can see how they start off somewhat normal and then get progressively weirder, which I also think is great. I wish I understood Japanese so I could get the full picture, but I think there's also something to be said for the added sense of foreignness that the language barrier adds to his already-confounding antics. In addition to several iterations of his iPhone-deploying gadget, there are also a couple where he builds grotesque "girlfriends" out of junk, which manage not to come off as creepily as you might assume. :P

If he asks you to tickle him, don't.

"Launching little green idiots into space."

That was my reply when somebody asked me what I was doing the other day. And lo, I was telling the truth, because I was playing the alpha build of the fantastic game-in-progress Kerbal Space Program. Read on for all the details and pictures of things blowing up.

Space: as beautiful as it is pants-shittingly horrifying (notice 2/3 of the crew in the lower right). (Image Source)

Spread the infection!

This one's been around for a bit, but I just came across it again and decided to share it here. The good stuff's after the jump!

Shut up about Skyrim, Steam

Ya, I get it, everyone is.

Gah, just be quiet!

Invader Zim, a reprise

I think Invader Zim was one of the best cartoons out there. Unfortunately, being as creepy and deranged as it was, it was a poor fit for Nickelodeon, and was cancelled prematurely. It's a damn shame, since the show seemed to be really coming into its stride just as it was cancelled, with the seeds being sown for several story arcs involving things like the Resisty and Tak.

(image source)

Unfortunately I don't think the show will be able to pull a Family Guy or Futurama and come back after all these years (nearly ten! Christ!), but if you're a weirdo like me who misses it and what it could have been, the videos below might bring some warmth back into your icy, jaded heart.

I make faces

A promise is a promise (this one was made on Facebook), so here are a bunch of photos of me attempting to replicate meme faces: