Fun Stuff 2006

Dec 21, 2006

It's time again to review all of the Fun Stuff entries of 2006. (Note that these come every week, throughout the year, in e-mail only. If you don't already subscribe to Good Experience via e-mail, sign up here.)

Fun Stuff 2006 winner: I'm happy to announce my pick of the year:

Who let the cute-Japanese-dogs-with-afros-and-a-catchy-song out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIYMVaiHFs

(OK, I'm a sucker for catchy music and cute cartoons, just like "I Love Egg", which won Fun Stuff 2004.)

Honorable Mention: Brilliant start-and-stop funk dancing:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8906066569526344287

And now, on with the entire year of Fun Stuff.

- - -

All 2006 Fun Stuff entries, from January through December 2006:

World's largest ball of paint:
http://ballofpaint.freehosting.net/

Simulation of a bike ride at near-light speed:
http://www.spacetimetravel.org/tuebingen/tue0.html

Dayna A writes: "In a similar vein of www.cuteoverload.com ..."
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

Good Experience Games, my list of good online games:
http://goodexperience.com/games

Some of my favorite games...

- Doom Funnel Chasers:
http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/doom_funnel/

- Grow:
http://www.kiteretsu.jp/on/grow3/grow.swf

- Blix:
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/blix.jsp

- Fishy:
http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/fishyclassic

- Maxwell's Demon:
http://www.collegemix.com/content.php?q=2&id=592

...and now back to regular Fun Stuff entries:

"A game theoretic approach to the toilet seat problem":
http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/quarterly/?p=108

One family through the decades:
http://zonezero.com/magazine/essays/diegotime/time.html

Timeline of art history (especially interesting in that art history is the most popular major of all the employees we've ever hired):
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm

World's largest gumwrapper chain:
http://www.gumwrapper.com/

** Who let the cute-Japanese-dogs-with-afros-and-a-catchy-song out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIYMVaiHFs

Make an origami envelope:
http://flying-pig.com/pagesv/envelope.html

Not so much "fun" as important - kids under four foot nine inches (145 cm) need a booster seat. National Child Passenger Safety Week is on now, Feb 13 through 19:
http://www.boosterseat.gov/

An oldie but goodie - the Rube Goldberg-inspired Honda ad:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=W3tzgCX41uE

Draw one, get one. (They approve all entries before sharing them.)
http://www.sketchswap.com/

This makes cuteoverload.com look like C-SPAN:
http://cuppycake.ytmnd.com/

All aaaaa!, all the time. Aaaaa!
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/AAAAAAAAA!

Aaaaa, the chewing gum and the drooling brain sundae:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/aaaaaaaaaaaaahaha/

Of course, in Nethack, aaaaaaa is a line of ants:
http://nethack.org/

This has made the rounds, but go to
http://www.honda.co.uk/civic/ and once it's loaded, click on "Watch Civic".

A 4-D Rubik's Cube. Weird and neat.
http://www.superliminal.com/cube/applet.html

Brain teasers from Richard Feynman:
http://varatek.com/scott/feynman_problems.html

Two geeks' light sabre duel:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=672422470842718521

Two other geeks' race to finish Super Mario Brothers:
http://tinyurl.com/rqp5t

Untold film geeks recreate The Simpsons intro in real life:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw

Get your profile carved in the negative space of a wooden something:
http://tinyurl.com/r6swr

Two talking frogs review Home Depot (thanks, Ze Frank):
http://frogreview.com/m/06/0323homedepot/

Lip-syncs and others to vote on (thanks, Seth Godin)...
http://www.bopsta.com/

...I especially like this version of "Respect":
http://www.bopsta.com/video.php?VideoId=1736

Pictures of surprisingly overloaded vehicles (thanks, Boing Boing):
http://www.ezprezzo.com/crazypics/overloaded.html

Colorful and inventive coffins in Ghana (click the right arrow):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4215923.stm

Curious properties of the number 153:
http://www.shyamsundergupta.com/c153.htm

(Also see his "do you know?" section... so there, now you know:)
http://www.shyamsundergupta.com/doyouknow.htm

Fingers breakdance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIAjoNYgXHU

Mysterious number 6174 (and you thought 153 was cool):
http://www.plus.maths.org/issue38/features/nishiyama/index.html

History of a famous drum loop:
http://nkhstudio.com/pages/amen_mp4.html

Surreal game that doesn't play by "the rules": How Much?
http://www.rrrrthats5rs.com/games/how-much/

Gel conference videos:
http://gelconference.com/videos.php

Super cute kitty pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyc/sets/72057594097798552/

Speaking of super cute, here's a remix of an oldie but goodie - the original won my award for best fun stuff item of 2004:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/eggsong

Speaking of oldies-but-goodies... (Geek tip - double your fun by opening two browsers at once):
http://zombo.com/

A web-based iPod.. click a song, drag the volume up and down, etc.:
http://www.search-this.com/tools/webpod/

Einstein the bird:
http://www.killsometime.com/Video/video.asp?ID=103

Turducken with peeps. Man, I love the Web.
http://asteroid.divnull.com/?p=70

(If you don't know, Turducken is sausage stuffed in a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey.)

Very old comic tour of New York City. (Thanks, boingboing.net)
http://tinyurl.com/mme9p

Offices from the old days, before all these new-fangled computers: (See links on top of page.)
http://www.earlyofficemuseum.com/exhibits.htm

Back to reality. Yikes - that senior chief cat is really creepy:
http://www.petsinuniform.com/gallery_of_pets.php

Compose a modern piano masterpiece by banging on the keyboard:
http://www.typorganism.com/visualcomposer/index.html

Vote for the world's ugliest dog:
http://www.sonoma-marinfair.org/uglydogvote.shtml

Sp.. well, I won't say it. Monty Python did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODshB09FQ8w

How to read the numbers on fruit stickers:
http://www.megnut.com/2006/03/read-the-numbers-on-your-fruit

Bizarre animation... actually, real plants:
http://www.1st-ave-machine.com/video/anime.htm

Thanks to my fabulous friend Dawn for the beautiful bulldog link:
http://petistic.blogspot.com/2006/04/beautiful-bulldog-contest.html

Unusually good origami:
http://www.langorigami.com/art/whatsnew/whatsnew.php4

Real-life Super Mario Bros re-enactment...
http://gorillamask.net/mariolive.shtml

...they might have used this Super Mario Brothers audio page:
http://redruth.greenbean.org/~ben/4CR/smb_super_synth.swf

TV in Japan:
http://tvinjapan.blogspot.com/

Total geek humor... Web browsers personified:
http://www.ariped.com/archives/001833.html

Funny Wes Anderson Amex commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spCknVcaSHg

Betty Boop cartoons:
http://drawn.ca/2006/05/10/vintage-cartoon-round-up/

62 optical illusions:
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

Random company-name generator:
http://www.noemata.net/nbng/

Stacked-can art:
http://www.compfused.com/directlink/1305/

Know your money (and counterfeit money):
http://www.secretservice.gov/know_your_money.shtml

The Internet Home of Weird Records:
http://franklarosa.com/vinyl/

Boss alert (the buttons up top work, too):
http://www.ezprezzo.com/worksheet.html

Sand animation (thanks, kottke):
http://sandfantasy.com/videoclips/videoclips.htm

"Ten Commandments" as an irreverent teen movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kqqMXWEFs

Cameron's experience at "The Price is Right":
http://www.camworld.com/archives/001369.html

Infinite photo-collage zoom - very cool (thanks, BoingBoing):
http://interact10ways.com/usa/information_interactive.htm

Spooky dancing rice (thanks to Douglas Campbell)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkox6niJ1Wc

...found via this interesting music-related site:
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/

All about "the Lohan wink":
http://www.posterwire.com/archives/2006/05/10/the-lohan-wink/

Remote-controlled plane video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gulv_bvZS94

Music for one apartment and six drummers (thanks, viaspire):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8000409016826512649

"First lines: a sort of literacy test":
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/jad22/plain/index.html

Watch the four-fingered DJ in action:
http://www.lejo.nu/dj.html

Watch the car-shredder in action:
http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/bmw.htm

Quickly create graphs (bar, line, area) and output them easily:
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

Time lapse of the first day of New York's new 5th Avenue Apple Store. Keep an eye out for the guy holding the sign.
http://www.apple.com/retail/fifthavenue/gallery/timelapse.html

Wedding vows based on mathematical constants:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/08/hackers_wedding_vows.html

Amazing sand sculptures:
http://www.greatervancouverparks.com/HARRISONSandCastles01.html

"Classic examples" printed at bottom are quite funny:
http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

Bizarre 1960s Indian version of a Beatles classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ky5ClIjL8

Stare at dot in the the weirdly colored photo for 30 seconds, then move the mouse into the frame.
http://johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.html

Diet Coke + Mentos = outrageous fountains.
http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

Cool cartoon panorama of Soho (in QTVR, for geeks):
http://www.kozyndan.com/_qt/nudabranch_love_large.mov

Huge flocks of spring birds in Denmark:
http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=309856

My friend Thomas, the Reboot founder, opens a beer in Denmark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG4ztixR2KM

Expensive coffee you might not want to drink:
http://tinyurl.com/nvarm

List of problems solved by MacGyver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver

Flaming tuba video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nd_gvR06j6s

Al Gore hits Bender the robot with a baseball bat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjrOi4vF24

Charlie Todd's latest MP3 Experiment:
http://www.vimeo.com/clip=84812

The misguided investment I love to hate: expensive new logos with lots of swooshes!
http://tinyurl.com/ebbzj

The mother of all complex, info-rich diagrams. Beat that, Tufte!
http://www.linkoln.net/complex/

Bananaphone: don't miss watching this one.
http://www.allmedia.com.au/bananana/

The size of our world - a bit like Powers of Ten for planets:
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

Awesome 80s videos (don't miss "A-HA: take on me"). Thanks, Doug!
http://www.dvdsmusicvideos.com/

Reality dot appreciation - watch the dots disappear:
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/rotating-dot.html

Speaking of disappearing acts, can you change clothes this fast?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-wUgnyGv0

"Tin foil hats, for the discriminating lunatic":
http://www.ericisgreat.com/tinfoilhats/index.html

The long-awaited sequel starring Moofeus the cow, viewable online:
http://www.meatrix2.com/

Along the same lines: hybrid cars are "bettah":
http://www.calcars.org/bettah/

Human Tetris:
http://videos.somethingawful.com/mega64/tetris.mpg

A score of old-timey songs to download:
http://tinyurl.com/nt2sn

Inventive images of everyday items mashed up with unusual materials:
http://tinyurl.com/l33a4

Old Pole Position commercial: ahh, the carefree 80s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om84Zc4-KcQ

Beloit, Wisconsin is officially cool. (Live remake of Seurat)
http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2006/07/first_impressio.html

Just what it promises.
http://www.strangenewproducts.com/

Paint like Pollock.
http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

Weirdo Music (thanks, manhattanusersguide.com):
http://www.weirdomusic.com/downloads.htm

Click "The Supercomputers" (just above the Books heading, about 2/3 down the page), then click "photographs". It's worth the trip.
http://www.simonnorfolk.com/ All the photos here are good, actually.

Classic Canadian animated short films:
http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/index.php

Grinning gremlins:
http://tinyurl.com/f84m4
http://tinyurl.com/gbk8u

Human space invaders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzStoxnTKs

Insects waaaaay up close:
http://pishmo.com/macro/

Robo-kitty:
http://www.necoro.com/theater/broad/vp.mov

Here's some shimmering ear candy: Lux Aeterna, by György Ligeti. (Click Menu for many other musical options.)
http://www.wwnorton.com/enjoy/shared/jukebox/ligeti_lux.swf

Eye candy you didn't even know you wanted to see: circle packings:
http://www.josleys.com/show_gallery.php?galid=281

787 clip arts, rapidly shown, make one neat movie. Sort of an overview of all the different things people can do.
http://oliverlaric.com/787cliparts.htm

How the Death Star works...
http://science.howstuffworks.com/death-star.htm

...and "On the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor":
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2002/01/10deathstar.html

Darth Vader working the day shift:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CiW838wNiM

Seth Godin's Gel 2006 talk, in its entirety:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101280286098310645&hl=en

Cute animation with an actual conversation about a snail (thanks, JD):
http://www.mikeadair.com/David%27sNewSnail.swf

Music composed by volcanoes:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/08/volcano_music_m.html

Llama llama... llama llama... make it stop!
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

If Microsoft designed the iPod packaging. (Yes, this has made the rounds.. I meant to show it at Gel '06 but ran out of time. Ahh.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0

History of speech balloons in comics:
http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html

Big Lego creations:
http://brickartist.com/largegallery.html

Wikipedia fans, please help expand the Gel conference entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gel_conference

Great treadmill choreography:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI

House for sale with a subterranean fortress:
http://www.oneofakindhouse.com/fortress.html

Panorama of suburban CA sprawl:
http://www.exuberance.com/photos/panos/Sprawl-SanRamonCA.html

Animated vs. animator:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34244097/

I'm shocked anyone would say this about the "Web 2.0" trend:
http://tinyurl.com/prvu9

Sam Brown's elegy for his late PowerBook (he draws all our Gel conference logos, btw - thanks, Sam!):
http://www.explodingdog.com/powerbookg4/

40 minutes with Richard Feynman:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6586235597476141009

Translate anything into "pirate speak":
http://www.talklikeapirateday.com/translate/index.php

Great anime mashup movie (thanks, boingboing.net):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7381049223766054715

Child drummer prodigy (thanks, boingboing.net):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_PFpWPQ5Y

Amazing papercraft:
http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/28261/Amazing_Paper_Images_

Unusual clouds (thanks, kottke.org):
http://pic1.funtigo.com/valuca?g=25544746&cr=1

Margaret Thatcher like you've never seen her before:
http://tinyurl.com/ga34m

Bizarre project: screen captures of CNN, Fox, etc. reporters:
http://www.reportercaps.com/

Bizarre but attractive urinal sculptures (take that, Duchamp):
http://www.clarkmade.com/urinals.html

Which superhero are you?
http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/

Downloadable classical music from the great ISG Museum:
http://www.gardnermuseum.org/music/library.asp

Bananas vs. cats:
http://gprime.net/video.php/bananasvs

Weatherman vs. cockroach:
http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=2232

Very well designed animated map:
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

Info-visualization winners:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5794/1730

Neat tool - search Google via cell phone text messages:
http://www.google.com/sms/

** Brilliant start-and-stop funk dancing:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8906066569526344287

Catchy dance video, "Tunak tunak tun":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5995556455415798282

I couldn't possibly omit Napoleon...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5349997277616358646

...or the inevitable Numa Numa/Napoleon mashup (surprisingly good):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3479565620590917298

Sing along while the leek spins:
http://leekspin.info
(see also the Wikipedia entry)

Cool down by creating your *own* chill-out tune with this:
http://pickledonion.com/phase/index.htm

Funny rant on naming suburban developments:
http://tinyurl.com/hoyky

Online instrument museum - see videos of even the obscure ones:
http://learningobjects.wesleyan.edu/vim/

Interesting ads: some creative and cute, some a bit risque, and some "crying wolf" in a harmful way, in my opinion (thanks, KL):
http://tinyurl.com/ye3aem

A hugger's story (thanks, Michael M)
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/free-hugs-p1.php

For everyone who loves spirals:
http://spiral.gallery.sytes.org/

Volare, karaoke (thanks, manhattanusersguide.com):
http://www.capitalemocional.com/Sonidos/volare-karaoke.swf

Just in time for Halloween... handbags of horror:
http://tinyurl.com/yabw55

Texas's own Skidboot, the fine canine Einstein:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4VMntSUskg

The reality of fashion photography:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6915842737034217262

Map of Springfield, the Simpsons' home town:
http://www.mapofspringfield.com/map/index.html

Outstanding site teaching knots (thanks, Kevin Kelly):
http://www.animatedknots.com

Solve your e-mail overload problem, right now - useful and yes, fun:
http://goodexperience.com/blog/archives/001019.php

Romance novels with their cover titles rewritten:
http://www.worldoflongmire.com/features/romance_novels/

"The first programming riddle on the Net":
http://www.pythonchallenge.com/

What it looks like under New York City streets:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/nymain.html

Visual examples of the golden ratio:
http://tinyurl.com/jkcly

The Mario theme song on electric guitar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH2JX32l9Uo

The longest Mozart music box in the world, with rollerblades:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePjkCySBCs

Is it just me, or does this diagram negate itself?
http://www.idiagram.com/CP/cpprocess.html

Birth of an island (thanks, Patrick):
http://tinyurl.com/ydoaze

Palindromes and anagrams:
http://palindromes.hobby-site.org

Penn & Teller take on recycling:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7734998370503499886

Steve Jobs saying "boom"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8L39UwOS-Y

...and Sammy Davis, Jr., too:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/CM/Embraceable_Boom.mp3

Mix your own music. (Thanks, Ji)
http://infinitewheel.com

Animator vs Animation II: the rematch.
http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/animator_vs_animation_2

Jack Black, Gollum, Grease, and scat singing, all in one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG2FzHjzJj8

Interesting clock (thanks, Michelle R):
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf

Silly pool tricks done on the street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw4bQKiLkQ4

Silly card tricks done in the pool:
http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=66

Octopus, escape artist:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4007016107763801953

Great movie footage of "the Wilhelm scream":
http://www.panopticist.com/archives/215.html

Classical music that you can download right now:
http://www.musopen.com

Silly game: Asteroid's revenge:
http://www.gamescheatcodes.co.uk/newgames/asteroidsrevenge.htm

Very cool - make your own dot-to-dot puzzle (nice work, Mark C!):
http://www.picturedots.com

Best wedding dance ever:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=r7oCDbDebDA

An unusual Japanese drum machine:
http://newathens.org/files/drummachine.swf

Finally, a way to tell palladium from rhodium:
http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Posters/Poster2.2000.low.JPG

Not really "fun", but interesting - an Implicit Association Test:
http://implicit.harvard.edu

Scared of Santa:
http://tinyurl.com/3nlf3

- - -

You still want more?? OK, here are past years:

Fun Stuff 2005:
http://goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000819.php

Fun Stuff 2004:
http://goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000090.php

- - -

And I also recommend my...

- Online game picks:
http://goodexperience.com/games

- Gel conference videos:
http://gelconference.com/videos.php

- Uncle Mark Gift Guide & Almanac:
http://unclemark.org/unclemark2007.pdf

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