May the Post be With You

So apparently the USPS is teaming up with George Lucas for some mysterious reason on March 28th. Be on the lookout for R2D2 shaped mailboxes across the land (from sea to shining sea). My guess is that we'll finally get a stamp with Jar Jar on it, but then again, we always knew the USPS was a powerful force for evil in the world.

Walken for President

We've long been fans of Christopher Walken, but who would of thought we'd see him in the 2008 presidential election? At Walken2008.com, you can find about Mr. Walken's bid for the highest office in the land. Honestly, we'd rather watch him dance!

Traffic Light Wars

And you thought traffic lights were boring! Traffic Light Wars has over 100 of these little animations - and they're always good for a little laugh. Traffic lights will never seem the same again!

Barkeater Lake

Barkeater Lake is one of my favorite web-comics and now that Corey Pandolph has gone independent, there is a full archive on the website (The first issue is Feb 24, 2004). Like a lot of comics there are a lot of inside jokes and the comic's just overall more funny if you have read the storyline from the beginning, so having the full archives available is super cool.

The one that kicked it all off:

Will it Blend?

Will it blend is a site that tests the prowess of the Blendtec blenders. Besides being brilliant viral marketing, I think it's just a good excuse to crush stuff up, and who doesn't love that?

Anyways, without further ado I give you 12 light-sticks in a blender:

Top 10 Lego Creations

TechEBlog has a list of their “Top 10 Strangest (or Coolest…) Lego Creations” which I'm all geekin' out over. My fave has definitlely got to be the life-size Han Solo in carbonite.

Lost in Translation II

Lost in Translation lets you translate English to a handful of languages and right back to English. The result is both awful and hilarious at the same time - making their usual ads of translation services seem like worthwhile expenses.

For example:

Original English Text:
Roses are red, violets are blue,
you are so sweet, and I love you.

Translated to Italian:
È il colore rosa blu del colore è rosso, la viola, esso è
estremamente morbido, I gradisce.

And the resulting re-translation to English:

It is the color blue rose of the color it is red, viola it, it is
extremely soft, appreciate.

Like the site says - it reminds you of the game of "telephone" where the message usually loses (or gains) something in translation. "It is extremely soft, appreciate" indeed!

Lost in Translation

Sometimes it pays to proofread your work before completing it. Sometimes it really pays to know what the heck you're getting yourself into. Hanzismatter chronicles the hilarity that ensues when westerners misuse Chinese characters. For example, the young lady below might have picked differently had she known that her chosen body art means "excrement".

3D Stereograms

Can you see the image below in 3D or does this just give you a migraine? 3D Wonderstuff has pages of amazing headache material like this - they honestly have some of the best ones (as far as really "popping" online. Their animations take a little more effort, but are very cool

If you're more interested in photo-realism, Ledametrix uses special mountings of identical cameras to produce 3D images that are quite 3D. Check out his galleries and you might just want to be picking up a second camera.

Cute Overload

We're not all geekery and puns here at Fun Distractions. Under our hard exterior we have a soft side as well - making us totally gush for the cuteness over at Cute Overload. What with all the kittens and ferrets and gerbils it's hard not to find something to bring a smile to your face - or a smirk when you think of the poor parents who had to witness this:
Thanks Cute Overload!

Star Wars the ASCII way

Enjoy the Star Wars saga, rendered entirely in ASCII animation. I only wish I had this much time on my hands - perhaps I can do the Clone Wars when I retire.

                                                             
                                   /~\                         
                                  |oo )                        
                                  _\=/_                        
                  ___            /  _  \                       
                 / ()\          //|/.\|\\                      
               _|_____|_        \\ \_/  ||                     
              | | === | |        \|\ /| ||                     
              |_|  O  |_|        # _ _/ #                      
               ||  O  ||          | | |                        
               ||__*__||          | | |                        
              |~ \___/ ~|         []|[]                        
              /=\ /=\ /=\         | | |                        
______________[_]_[_]_[_]________/_]_[_\_________________________

Sweep the Leg!

I have no idea how they got so many people to do cameos, but this is my favorite video of the year. Now I've just got to rent a video of the Karate Kid and see who else is from the original cast.

You can also catch the high-def version at sweeptheleg.com. You can check out No More Kings on their website or on MySpace. I'm also digging their song Zombie Me - with lines like "I've got the fever for the human brain", how can you go wrong?

UPDATE: Just read a fun interview with Billy Zabka (Johnny from the movie) over at Retro Crush giving some fun background on the making of the video. Sounds like he was key in pulling the whole thing together.

Smurfs' Christmas Special

My favorite find this Holiday Season:

All I Want for Christmas.....

The Dungeons & Dragons Complete Cartoon Series will be out December 5th, making it the perfect present for the geek (or ex-geek) on your list.

Get your 80's fix at Retrojunk.com

I haven't thought of or seen Zack the Lego Maniac in decades, but I had no problem recognizing him when I saw his commercial on Retrojunk.com

Get your fix for the best of the 70s and 80s culture from retrojunk, or just use it as a handy guide to explain to your children why you are so messed up!

Coin Stacking

Mitch Fincher describes coin stacking as "a fun hobby for kids, college students and adults."

He included tutorials on how to get started, allowing you to get up to speed on building cantilevered structures with Pennies.

Most amazing are the pictures others have submitted of their coin based creations. I'm amazed that some of these creations stand at all - they seem to defy gravity.

BrickQuest

Take the two geekiest things you can think of, D&D and Legos.

Combine them together
and shake vigorously - the result is BrickQuest. Just remember, I get to be the BrickMaster, OK?

Do not press the big red button!

It's true. They don't want you to press the bug red button. For real, they're not kdding. But if you need to find out for yourself, you can press the big red button here.
It's true. They don't want you to press the bug red button. For real, they're not kdding. But if you need to find out for yourself, you can press the big red button here.

What's that Bug?

So, you have found a weird looking critter around the house, and once you stop screaming want to know if it will eat your children. Who ya gonna call? Whatsthatbug.com, of course. These guys will tell you what you have found, if it is dangerous, etc. If your picture is creepy enough, you might even make Bug of the Month!

Warning: There are truly a ton of picture of creepy-crawlies on this site. if you are squeamish of bugs you'll probably want to stay away. If you have a braver constitution, go ahead and check it out.

Flags of the World

How well do you know the flags of the world? This game allows you to put you knowledge to the test, giving you hints including: maps, neighbors, contenents and national alntems (big help that is!). But be careful - each hint takes points away from your overall score.