To my surprise, yesterday I came home to find a package from my online friend/pen pal Crap Artist who's over in Berlin, Germany. We last sent each other packages in the fall, so I suppose this is the new round of springtime exchanges. Mr. Artist contained his goodies in a lovely envelope with a map printed on the inside and lined with beautiful German postage stamps:

everything awesome

• [Fist Polaroid] Piotr Uklanski - Untitled (Fist), 2008 from 5th berlin biennial for contemporary art
• [Supermarket Polaroid] Urrr, a supermarket aisle.
• [Stickers] Korean stickers a friend gave me.
• [Muscle Men] Got these in NYC a couple of years ago.
• [Green Sticker] From a conference on Micronations in Berlin.
• [Caderno] Caderno from Portugal (but bought in Berlin, http://www.serrote.com/)
• [Thank You Card] Thank You card for the awesome package I got from .tiff a while ago.
  Bought in the Regional Assembly of Text, Vancouver
• [Paper Bag] A nice paper bag from a German pharmacy.
• [Super Illustration in 3-D] Stereoscopig viewer, made by my brother-in-law.

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spring cleaning

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Dear Xavier,

I'm sure you've neglected to notice that it has been a long time since I've publicly fawned over you. One could say that you and Justice were my summer romance of 2007, lingering long into the autumn months but eventually falling flat as winter came and went. I might as well admit that the raining sweat of scenesters and raver kids from your MySpace concert more or less washed any remaining sentiments of affection.

Nevertheless, I felt the need to write this note to you since recently you've been acting up the part of the obnoxious ex-boyfriend, what with your irrational and non-explanatory motions of whoring yourself out while trying to maintain that cool, composed, aura of a skinny jeaned deity. This is heavily pronounced by your newly released music video for the track Stress, which has caused much astir within the French community (as revealed to me by one hungry frenchman) and Justice fans alike. For context, I've provided the video below:

To start, I'll plain admit that Stress is my least favorite track on †, but I still have a lot of questions. How do you feel after watching that video, Xavier? Do you feel dignified that your video encapsulates a set of Justice flavored miscreants that truly define the 'edgier', converse-wearing, side of electronica? I'm sure their acts of chaotic, nonsensical chic-violence will truly define the real fans from the lesser strata of MySpace buffoons in a heart beat, while simultaneously convincing the confused parties to go ahead and purchase the conveniently 'Now for Sale!' Justice leather jacket with matching jeans.

All a matter of opinion, of course, but here are two tips that I think you should focus on:

1. Stop making shitty music videos for the sake of hype. (Your last two were fantastic, so find another way to express yourself cathartically)

2. Start making music. (Touring is no excuse. You need a new album. Pronto.)
 
I was going to include a third tip that involved you halting your habits of making out with cute french hipster ladies instead of me, but I've grown beyond such lofty dreams. I'll give you some points for clever employment of your group's name to the extent that you have crowds of fans chanting 'Justice! Justice!' during your concert, but if modern calls for 'Justice' elicit rather blazé acts of unmotivated violence, please count me out. For the sake of comparison, see Nima Nourizadeh's video for Jamie T.'s song Salvador Version 2(go here and click on the thumbnail under Music Videos with the skull-faced children in front of the fire) So, until that next album...

Bon voyage!
<3 .tiff

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this photo has everything

I Copy

Since first meeting Dan and off-handedly insulting his Castle Crasher figurines for including what I thought was a pizzacutter (which actually turned out to be a mace), we have become pretty close friends. This is demonstrated by the fact that we're top friends (on Myspace, of COURSE), but also from the one time we were chilling in the Hyatt hotel lobby during GDC and a drunk passerby asked if we were married. Hence the title: Top Friends with Marriage (we are not actually married, silly).

Dan means a lot more to me than MySpace or fake marriages, however, and a few months ago when he and the rest of The Behemoth team were up here for GDC and Wondercon, we hung out a lot and drew pictures together, one of which is displayed above. To commemorate our long-distant, convention-fueled friendship, I decided to turn this drawing into the following plush duo:

Tricks!

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Show us a picture of the pet you'd most like to have in your life.

There's my Chippy

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hate

There's no doubt that the twitterverse has a lot of fluff and stuff out there. While I tend to follow only the tweets from those who I know personally, as Twitter gains popularity it's hard not to occasionally stumble randomly on someone's inane tweet that elicits a *palm to forehead* kind of wonder of what the web is really made of.

This evening an intriguing screen shot of a new social experiment twitter site called twistori popped up in Laughing Squid's flickr stream. The shot itself convinced me that twistori was a site worth taking a look at, and what was to follow was a surprisingly beautiful and fascinating assemblage of social media.

wish

love

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The most overlooked YouTube meme that I had never seen. Until yesterday:

Colin's Bear Animation

Be sure to check out the video responses.

Expect to see a Colin's Bear Animation tribute by yours truly in the upcoming future. I'm thinking this is exactly what the bear hat was made for all along.

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The Cool Kids

What can I say. This is my jam:

Beeper

The Cool Kids

Hit me on my beeper. Hit me on my beeper. Hit me on my beeper. Hit me on my beeper.

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Taiko No Tatsujin Clay Anime 01 - The Birth of Don and Katsu

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The Destructoid community wins again.

There are two podcasts that Destructoid records weekly: Retroforce Go! (Retro Gaming News) and Podtoid (Gaming News and Criticisms, the one I am on). Be forewarned that both are as explicit (not necessarily from yours truly, but some pretty crass stuff is said) as they are intelligent, informative, and entertaining should you care to listen.

Retroforce Go! has managed to convince their fans to write game-related haikus, allotting many a chuckle-worthy 17-syllable poetic moments. Half joking, Anthony suggested that podtoid fans write Shakespearian sonnets to one up the Retroforce crew. Not joking, community member Brilliam wrote the following sonnet (along with other poems dedicated to the various members of Podtoid) for me.

Many harts for Mr. Brilliam! You made my evening!

DOT THE TIFFS BUT NEVER CROSS THEM

I found an image file the other day,
Dot-tiff, the file extension that it bore.
I smiled a bit, as I thought of the way
It always seems she really knows the score.

I'm jealous, I am saddened to admit,
Of how she gets to write on gaming's joys.
I'm also quite impressed by all the shit
She seems to put up with the podtoid boys.

And then she wrote that article on chicks
And how they're represented in this scene.
Despite most of the comments made by dicks
She highlighted a trend that's turned obscene.

Soft-spoken, but a font of poignant words,
She's like the El'nor Roosevelt of nerds.

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