Fun Stuff 2005

Jun 30, 2006

(Finally got around to it - only six months late! -mh)

As we head to a holiday weekend here in the US, here is some summer fun to keep everyone entertained. Below is a list of every Fun Stuff entry from the Good Experience e-mail newsletter for the year 2005. Note that these come every week in e-mail only, not on the website - so if you don't already subscribe to Good Experience via e-mail, sign up here.

- - -

Side note: If you want more interactive fun, try Good Experience Games. If, on the other hand, you want something more serious and edifying, I highly recommend this must-see Charlie Rose interview of Warren Buffett.

If you want something of all of those - fun, edifying, and visual - watch the Gel 2005 videos online.

Now on with the Fun Stuff.

- - -

I'd like to congratulate the "Back Dorm Boys" from China for making, in my opinion, the best Fun Stuff entry of the year 2005.

Fun Stuff 2005 Winner:
From a dorm in China, an outstanding short film - the new video you'll forward to (and get forwarded by) all your friends. Somehow this reminds me why I love the Internet.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6739710473912337648

(The 2004 winner was I Love Egg - click "Egg Song" in the upper right. )

- - -

All 2005 Fun Stuff entries, from Jan. 10, 2005 through December 12, 2005:

Potter Potter Potter Potter...
http://thefifthdistrict.com/potter/

Bizarre lip-syncing:
http://movies26.enwhore.com/206373_numanuma.swf

Converting the first 10,000 digits of pi into a musical sequence:
http://www.avoision.com/experiments/pi10k/pi10k.html

Whoa... dude. (Large collection of art and animation.)
http://www.levitated.net/gravityIndex.html

Montage-a-Google (thanks to Aby Rao):
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage-a-google/

If you've ever had trouble opening a stuck door, here are some ideas:
http://gprime.net/images/gifanimation/9.php

Very cool sidewalk chalk art:
http://gprime.net/images/sidewalkchalkguy/

People who look like their dogs:
http://ganns.com/Humor/ILookLikeMyDog/

Meat-scented air fresheners. "Funky fresh!"
http://www.stupid.com/stat/METF.html

Cute animation plugging Hallmark's Shoebox brand, and explaining how
greeting cards are made:
http://chrisharding.net/animation/shoebox/playmovie.html

A bunch of links about bubble wrap:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/28/web_zen_bubble_wrap_.html

Interesting three-legged seal-dog. (Am I missing something?)
http://www.vectorpark.com/ball.html

For Lord of the Rings fans: One does not simply walk into Mortor.
http://waxy.org/random/images/weblog/mortor.gif

Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre Flash video chock-full with pop culture
references. (Who has time to make this stuff?)
http://www.drennor.com/flash/oddities/misc/chocolateNibletBeans.htm

Only a little less bizzare: M. B. Saulnier points us to 3-minute world
travelogues, starring a pair of fingers and a lot of paper.
http://www.finging.com

Still less bizarre, but cool - dancing Flash-dude movie.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/221483

Futurist Poetry (thanks to Geoff Ross):
http://www.futurism.org.uk/poetry/

I always like Matthew Baldwin's writing, but this is one of his funniest
recent stories:
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001174.html

These links have made the rounds, but... parodies of "The Gates":
http://www.not-rocket-science.com/gates-complete.htmhttp://www.smilinggoat.com/crackers.html

The Gates at night, in the snow (thanks to Iris Bell):
http://www.maryannerussell.com/images/gates/

Bizarre experiment with mixed nuts, run by nuts:
http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/nuts/nuts.html
"The adventures of Chad, the guy who was so into Super Monkey Ball that
he decided to live in a ball" (bizarre video game commercials):
http://www.mybigball.com/home.html

Absolutely bizarre music mixes. (Thanks to www.thirdcoastfestival.org)
Check out #3 (I've Got You) and #13 (Bier Bier Bier Downtown).
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_abridged.html

And this, uhhhh,... I don't know. But it's sort of fun.
http://www.whatwhat.co.uk/whatever.html

We could all learn from this. How to say thank you in most human
languages:
http://www.etailersdigest.com/resources/saythanks.htm

Someone has finally created a Web calculator for an equation I've been
promoting for years: half plus seven.
http://www.lura.net/03/romance/

Silly patents (what else?):
http://www.patentlysilly.com/

For kids: animals from the alphabet. Thanks to Cathy Cotter.
http://www.bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf

Strange origami:
http://www.nipponham.co.jp/winny/kazari/index.html

10x10 - up-to-the-moment grid of current events in pics and text
http://www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html

Extremely cool sound toy:
http://www.lecielestbleu.com/media/pateasonframe.htm

Lejo theater: click "filmpjes" and have a ball. OK, if you must, click GB
for English. (Thanks to Lee Humphreys.)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~lrvk/lejo/

Comparing skylines around the world.
http://www.emporis.com/en/bu/sk/st/sr/

Bizarre kid-friendly fun (thanks to KP for the reminder):
http://www.boohbah.com/zone.html

Another oldie but goodie (note, it's sort of dark humor):
http://ml.hoogerbrugge.com/
"Transparent" computer backgrounds:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/w00kie/sets/180637/

How do you spell a raspberry?
http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000339.php

If you've been watching my numerous "numa numa" links, you'll want to
catch the latest installment... (click "Watch This Movie".)
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/227808

Dial Comes to Town: from the Internet Archive, a very old film about one
Grampa learning how to use one of them newfangled phones with dials on
'em. (Click "Stream" on the left.)
http://www.archive.org/details/DialComesToT

And "Moustache Dreams", a movie on beard champs, from India... (Click "Stream" on the left.)
http://www.archive.org/details/MoustacheDreams

Shaken faces: http://www.shakeskin.com/Shakeskin/Gallery/Shaken/
and...
http://www.jowlers.com/

Jason Black points out something similar to boohbah. Kids' games:
http://www.noggin.com/shows/oobi.php

Plaintext outline-summaries of pop songs - funny:
http://qwantz.livejournal.com/28155.html

Structures from pennies:
http://www.fincher.org/Misc/Pennies/

Older pranksters back a few years:
http://www.coyleandsharpe.com/

Some suggestions on how (not) to speak "Murr-kin":
http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/beastly/

Fun "greeking" machine:
http://www.duckisland.com/GreekMachine.asp

The view from Mt. Everest (thanks to David Teten):
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050306.html

A paper from computer scientists at my alma mater, MIT, got accepted for
presentation at an academic conference. Funny thing is, the entire paper
was generated automatically by a computer:

few hackers worldwide would disagree with the essential
unification of voice-over-IP and public/private key pair. In order to
solve this riddle, we confirm that SMPs can be made stochastic,
cacheable, and interposable...

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

Count the 12 guys. Watch carefully as, in a few seconds, they turn into
13 guys.
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/images/1213.gif

Matthew Baldwin explains where the 13th guy game from.
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001258.html

(More useful than fun...) Stevan Baird points us to another greeking tool:
http://ungreek.toolbot.com/

Barbershop signs from West Africa:
http://www.indigoarts.com/gallery_barbersign_main.html

Proximity - simple and engaging game. Nice work, Brian Cable!
http://www.koreus.com/media/proximity.html

Guess the Google: very attractive game, even if it's near-impossible to
guess the word right. Thanks to Amit Gupta.
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

MP3 downloads from Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/7mc7g

Worth reading: Are you in a race to the top? Or...?
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/04/race_for_the_to.html

Fun dog site: Click "game" in the left column:
http://www.gone2thedogs.com/

Ramayana cartoon:
http://tinyurl.com/b3aqe

Worst hairstyles of all time:
http://www.thephatphree.com/features.asp?StoryID=645&SectionID=1

Virtual stapler!
http://www.virtualstapler.com/

Science toys you can make with your kids:
http://www.scitoys.com/

While we're on the topic, tell your kid how light sabers work:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm

The comic strip FoxTrot, which I've loved for years, mentioned Wikipedia,
the brainchild of Gel 2005 speaker Jimmy Wales:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Foxtrot_wikipedia.jpg

Visually inventive films and ads:
http://www.globalmechanic.com/

This is a must-see: "Fair Enough", a sitcom spoof based on actual
tobacco-industry documents.
http://www.fairenough.com/

Silliness: click on the pig. (Thanks, Joyce!)
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/funny/piggy.swf

What 140-year-old technology, still in use, is a more efficient method of
wireless text messaging than SMS? Jay Leno explains.
http://tinyurl.com/cq7ml

Finally, the coolest site in Web history. Turn up the speakers.
http://www.zombo.com/

The Onion on Michael Beasley's gas bill:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39486

What geeks work on.. real screenshots of their computers:
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000208.html

Hint: press the space bar. Warning: addictive. My high score: 1031.
http://www.sunflat.net/en/games/sfcave3d.html

Defective Yeti on the latest Star Wars flick. Quote:

Conclusion:
Rather to my surprise, The Phantom Menace
was every bit as bad as I remembered. I thought that perhaps it had
gotten worse in my memory, but, nope: it's full-on travesty. The saddest
thing is that the first 10 minutes of the film are very promising, making
minutes 11-138 all the more tragic, like spotting a $100 bill on the
sidewalk, bending over to pick it up, and having a piano dropped on
you.

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001316.html

The funniest little video clip I've seen in months:
http://waxy.org/random/video/Tom_Cruise_Kills_Oprah.mov

A little "spicy", but funny as all get-out: a full-on parody of the
latest Star Wars debacle.
http://www.sequentialpictures.com/moviestarwarsepisode3.html

One more Star Wars-related video: several readers pointed me to...
http://www.storewars.org/

Gel 2004/2005 speaker Digital Dan Dubno goes two miles under the sea, in
the Galapagos (see right-hand column for the link to video):
http://tinyurl.com/agu57
"Experience the experience":
http://www.monochrom.at/experiences/party.htm

When bad bands dress up.
http://www.nyheter.nu/kultur/

Oldie but goodie - bridal fashion embarrassments:
http://www.visi.com/~dheaton/bride/the_bride_wore.html

How to build R2-D2:
http://www.astromech.net/Lists/Tutorials/Default.htm

Logo trends 2005. I still say that most logos I see include either a
swoosh or a stylized person-figure:
http://www.gdusa.com/issue_2005/04_apr/feature/feat_01.php

360-degree views of NYC:
http://www.nycpov.com/

Fun experimental Flash stuff:
http://www.actionscript.cl/

Surrealist Stella Artois ad:
http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/1774/

Creepy Robocop-like ad, I think from South Africa:
http://www.compfused.com/directlink/670/

Another robot video, this one funny, not creepy:
http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=voltron20

Here's Vienna without ads:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8233615

And this is the artists' conception of Manhattan without ads:
http://www.steinbrener-dempf.com/

Lots to explore on these three sites...
http://www.dontclick.it/http://www.boardsofcanada.com/http://www.gorillaz.com/

20 things that happen only in movies:
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/features/20moviethings.htm

Everyone's favorite words.
http://www.myfavoriteword.com/

Make your own pizza:
http://www.billyreisinger.com/pizza.php

Online generators of nearly everything:
http://uzful.org/generators_online/on_line_generators.php

Writing tips for geeks (more useful than fun, I guess):
http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn_files/frame.htm

A pro-Mac rant about programming and entrepreneurship that's well worth
reading:
http://wilshipley.com/blog/WWDC_Student_Talk.pdf

Good special FX in the Portfolio section of this design shop:
http://www.theembassyvfx.com/

If you missed them, (perhaps) consider yourself lucky: the top ten Web
fads over the past ten years.
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html

Another ten-year retrospective, this one by Kevin Kelly:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

The perfect gift for the person who has everything except a full-sized
working Star Wars-themed desert tank:
http://tinyurl.com/9y9jm

This TGIFriday's menu prank would make Charlie Todd proud:
http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/menu/menu01.html

Excellent interface for a fun flipbook app:
http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/

The 2005 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest shows awful first lines:
http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2005.htm

The power of simplicity: how Stonehenge could have been built by one
man:
http://www.fungod.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=15&pos=46

Logo-making app:
http://logo54.com/

Interesting tool - convert any units - thanks to Bryan Mazzarello.
http://www.megaconverter.com/mega2/

Ever wonder who does the voiceovers during movie trailers?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=imwl0Be0Y38&search=voiceover

Well, maybe it's fun now, years later: top 10 dotcom flops.
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6278387-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd

I had a quick quote in this New York Times column:
http://tinyurl.com/9qq7e

Brian freeze and "The Final Countdown":
http://thebrainfreeze.com/

Stare at the plus.
http://photos32.flickr.com/37017144_072d69c441_o.gif

Poorly selling t-shirts (thanks, kottke):
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/19JoshKnisely.html

The faces in everyday things:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimwich/sets/796304/

A very creative billboard:
http://archives.canneslions.com/images/p_p/high/2005/01799.jpg

The international database of corporate commands:
http://www.ikatun.com/institute/infinitelysmallthings/corporatecommands/

Good party game: telephone pictionary. Only pen and paper needed!
http://www.mbinde.com/games/telephone-pictionary/

Dogs in bee costumes:
http://beedogs.com/index_files/page0001.htm

A must-see... the retro-encabulator! (Thanks to Ron Lichty.)
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/retro.wmv

Matthew Baldwin scores again:
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001428.html

A must see: Shining Redux. An example of how a clever edit can
dramatically change the promise of a movie trailer. This has a good
chance to top the Fun Stuff of the Year list...
http://www.ps260.com/molly/SHINING%20FINAL.mov

...and the NYTimes story about the creator:
http://tinyurl.com/dkgxt

A real Webcam on a real African watering hole... live.
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/wildcam.html

Thanks to Ron Lichty for this Sony Revolution demo pointer:
http://gprime.net/video.php/sonyrevolution

Cool designs in espresso:
http://www.roytawan.com/artgallery.php

My brother pointed me to these home improvement tutorials - they're easy
to understand for non-handymen like yours truly:
http://www.easy2diy.com/

For example, see this description of how to unclog a sink drain:
http://www.easy2.com/tutorials/diy0247/index.asp

Photoshop + frogs = a lot of very creative, froggy images:
http://tinyurl.com/8dmrg

Great shot of the NYC skyline:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/Skyline-New-York-City.jpg

MIT lecturer extraordinaire Walter Lewin, my old 8.01 professor,
on "the mystery of light":
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/291/

MP3s of classic New Orleans music:
http://aurgasm.us/2005/09/music-of-new-orleans.html

(Did you know there are MP3s of blog posts now? Example below.)
http://www.talkr.com/audio/s/o/m/e/392738.mp3

Interesting performance with sand.
http://extra.waag.org/users/aske/moviez/sicaf_sand.wmv

Jello San Francisco:
http://www.lizhickok.com/assets/portfolio/pages/01city.html

From a dorm in China, an outstanding short film - the new video you'll
forward to (and get forwarded by) all your friends. Somehow this reminds
me why I love the Internet.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6739710473912337648

Napoleon Dynamite sound clips. (Thanks, boingboing.net)
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/napoleondynamite.html

Photoshopped corporate logos on famous and unusual places:
http://tinyurl.com/87lfe

Nice interface to explore old Mad Magazine covers:
http://www.coverpop.com/index.php?pop=mad

The original "Star Wars" in a tiny animated graphic:
http://x2.putfile.com/10/29405035849.gif

And "The Empire Strikes Back":
http://x2.putfile.com/10/29700173131.gif

Several nice panoramic pics from American national parks - drag the mouse
to see the scene swivel:
http://www.virtualparks.org/html/gallery.html

Lots of purty pictures of Iceland:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigempty/sets/1126474/

And finally, the expressionless girl:
http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/05/expressionless-girl.html

Meatscapes! (Landscapes of meat, of course.)
http://machineanimalcollages.com/Menus/MeatScapesMenu.html

Singing with no visuals: aye aye aye aye!
http://www.iiiiiiii.com/

Visuals with no singing: all the "Back Dorm Boys" acts:
http://www.tian.cc/2005/10/asian-backstreet-boys.html

And both... I'm a hippopotamus with noodles on my back:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/hipponoodles.html

History of "dazzle painting" on old Navy ships:
http://www.gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html

Hats of meat, the Japanese girl band Morning Musume, and a large lizard:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4vfNiPa54_8&search=musume%20lizard

Hats of tinfoil, at MIT (thanks to several readers):
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

And here is the beanie version:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Blue ball machine at work:
http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

Just what it says. (Thanks, Dayna)
http://www.cryingwhileeating.com

How to make a river rock doormat. (Or you can buy them in New Zealand
pre-made.)
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=37218.0

Horrible corporate theme song (thanks, Danny):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/28/drupa_country.mp3

All Super Mario fans need to watch this:
http://tinyurl.com/ddjyn

Talking frogs review Ticketmaster:
http://www.frogreview.com/m/05/11/ticketmaster/

Video of Panama Canal locks:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9040875966564826702

Good picture-taking tips from Kodak:
http://tinyurl.com/eyxrb

Nice big pictures of Wyoming:
http://www.atpm.com/11.12/wyoming/

Funny picture of huge SpongeBob absorbing puny humans:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhurst/68391237/

Speaking of huge, here's a science-oriented "powers of ten" look at scale
(thanks, Mark C):
http://www.falstad.com/scale/

This is the Christmas-light display everyone should have...
http://www.houseblinger.com/bling-rock.php

...and here's the scoop on the guy who did it (thanks, Cheryl Cross):
http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/xmaslights.asp

Oh, but this one... this is without a doubt the best holiday light
display I've ever seen:
http://www.msftlabrat.com/funstuff/jingle.wmv

Exactly what it sounds like. Nicely done.
http://cuteoverload.com/

More than swirls in the Latte Art Championships:
http://www.latteart.nl/fotos_etching.asp

Here's what may happen if you keep pouring your lunch in the cracks of
your keyboard:
http://www.nada.kth.se/~hjorth/krasse/english.html

Best online children's books, with full texts online:
http://www.mainlesson.com/displaybooksbytitle.php

Pretty amazing paper creations
http://oncotton.co.uk/peter/paper/paper.html
All my picks on Good Experience Games:
http://www.goodexperience.com/games

If you missed it, a roundup of all the Fun Stuff from 2004:
http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000090.php

Remember, if you're planning a meeting or party, use...
http://www.goovite.com

---

• IN: Column Archive
• #