Pretend you're a hacker in two easy steps!

Step 1: go to http://www.hackertyper.com/

Step 2: Start typing anything. Anything at all. Just watch what happens.

Talk about the perfect prop for a movie, am I right?

Capture Creatures!

A cool year-long online art project based on Pokemon! 


"Capture Creatures is a showcase of 151 creatures hand-painted by Becky, with their stories adapted by her partner Frank Gibson."


The idea is that they are making their own set of 151 Pokemon-like creatures, the same number as the original number of Pokemon. Her creatures are adorable, and could totally pass for real Pokemon. I wish some of them were. Look at how cute they are:

PESKY [41 OF 151]

APRIL 9, 2012

Peskys body neither has the scales of an amphibious creature nor the fur of a feline, instead it is covered in downy feathers more akin to an avian infant. Despite its appearance as part fish, its tail acts more like a paddle than a rudder, limiting its movement. Peskys meows also act as sonar.

PALETILE [35 OF 151]

MARCH 23, 2012

Paletile communicate through art. Their brush is crafted from the shedded antlers of the Budu and the moulted hair of Scottness. A particularly social creature, Paletile often paints upon other creatures. When painted upon by a Paletile, the appearance of Capaphant alters dramatically and it’s believed they become more powerful.

TOVEADILE [22 OF 151]

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Toveadile is a compact and stout creature that thrives in damp environments, often cohabitating with other creatures of its kind on humid riverbanks and in swamps. The main offensive strategy of a Toveadile is confusing its opponents with bubbles that it expels from its troll-like snout.

BON BON FIRE [1 OF 151]

JANUARY 2, 2012

The most notable feature of the Bon Bon Fire is the flaming bamboo that resides atop its head. This allows it to stay warm in the winter months. Generally congregating in packs, their cheek markings vary from region to region and are used to identify unfamiliar creatures.

And those are just a few of them. As of the writing of this post, there are 41 Capture Creatures completed, but a new one is added every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If you want to see more, check out http://www.capturecreatures.com !

Wouldn't it be cool if someone could make a hacked Pokemon rom of FireRed or LeafGreen and replace the 151 Pokemon with these? 

I would do it if I had the means, but unfortunately my mac (with its horrible OS X Lion) does not support ANY of the programs necessary for rom-hacking. Grrr.

If anyone else agrees with me and decides they might want to do this as a project, let me know! I would love to help out in any way I could.

Plushie Procrastination: The Cube Monster

So, remember my plushie procrastination post from a little while ago? Well, I decided to go for it and make a stuffed animal--or, rather, a stuffed cube monster.

I'm using this tutorial I found online and the leftover fabric from the Cookie Monster Halloween costume I made a few years ago, and because I don't have a sewing machine at school I'm sewing it by hand. Which is taking forever.

Here are some pictures of what I've done so far (and it took me around two hours. . .sewing by hand = worst idea ever):

Body:

(notice the safety pins holding most of it together. . .only three squares are actually sewn together)

Face:

So I still need to finish sewing the body together, make horns, and stuff it, but so far so good!

Re: Typewriter Procrastination

My typewriter:

Thought I should include it since I made a whole typewriter appreciation post.

Finally, Pictures!

Finally took the time to photograph the stamps I made for letterboxing! 

The Results:

Personal Stamp:

   

 Blog Logo Stamp:

(forgive the blurriness--my camera refuses to focus, ever)

Stamp for a letterbox (still deciding which one):

Stamp for the "Knot Too Hard to Find" Letterbox:

I also registered a trail name on LbNA (Letterboxing North America): 

I am CuriosityKilledtheGPA. 

AND I finished my first letterbox--now I just need to plant it and post the clue online. Yay!

It's called the "Knot Too Hard to Find" Letterbox. As you can see.

 Ta da!

Toy Store Trouble

Sometimes, I wish I could be a little kid again. Then I would have an excuse to linger in toy stores and want to buy everything. I could play Pokemon Cards with people. I could fight with fake swords and want light-up laser guns without anyone judging me. But I'm not a little kid anymore. So when I absent-mindedly wandered into a local toy store on my way to CVS today, I'm pretty sure the women watching me from behind the counter either thought that I was buying a gift for a younger relative or that I was an awfully strange college student.

It just brought back so many memories to be in a toy store. Legos. Playmobile. Pokemon cards. Stuffed animals. Nerf guns. Laser guns. Lightsabers. Dinosaur figurines. Stuffed R2-D2s. Hot Wheels. Spy gear. I suddenly had this explosion of nostalgia and wanted to buy all of the things I couldn't when I was seven years old and had no money. They had Pokemon decks! Giant eggs that hatched into just-add-water dinosaurs! Nerf guns that glowed in the dark. Fluffy stuffed animals with giant eyes.

It was all too much. I couldn't take it. I had to leave. My inner child was clamoring too loudly for me to get all of these things I definitely did not need. So I made do with getting my friend a birthday present (can you say Star Wars plushie?) and then moving on to CVS and Starbucks, where I actually intended to go.

I had to resist so hard just to leave the Pokemon cards on the shelf. Talk about ridiculous.

Letterboxing Update: Tupperware, Paper, and Pens, oh my!

Bought some little pads of paper and a bulk bag of cheap pens today. Couple those with the tupperware containers I got a week or two ago and I almost have everything I need to finally plant the letterboxes around campus! Now all I need to get are a couple of small ink pads and the letterboxes will finally be done!

Real-Life Legos

There is a machine out there. That makes giant lego blocks. Out of mud.

Lego blocks you can build houses with. Houses you can live in. 

HOW COOL IS THAT??

Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to crank out a house in just a few hours? 

Of course, mud can melt in the rain, so it might need some extra ingredients mixed in, but as a temporary fix it could be revolutionary, and for desert climates with little precipitation it could be a wonderful new technique for quickly building shelters, houses, sheds, etc. Whatever is needed. 

But look at that. Just look at that. Real-life legos. Spectacular.

Plushie Procrastination

Have you ever had the inexplicable urge to make stuffed animals?

Well, I have. More specifically, I did yesterday and do today. I don't know how I manage to get from my email to instructions on how to make adorable plush critters, but there you have it.

I found a whole bunch of adorable plushies on Etsy, especially video-game-themed ones, like Pokemon and creatures/characters from Zelda games, and I also found a few instructions for various stuffed animals. Now I just want to make so many plushies, it's ridiculous.  

LOOK AT THIS KIKWI from Skyward Sword!!!! SO CUTE!!!!

And this adorable Korok plushie from Wind Waker!!! 

And this tadtone plushie from Skyward Sword!

I'm on a Zelda kick here, huh? Man, Etsy is a dangerous place.

This, on the other hand, is a tare panda pillow. A pillow that I want.

DO YOU SEE THIS MEW PLUSHIE??!!! I CAN'T TAKE THE CUTENESS!!!

Unfortunately, it's a bit expensive for such a small stuffed animal ($15 and it's only 5 inches tall)

so I found this tutorial for making a Mew plushie. 

The finished product of the tutorial looks like this:

Not QUITE as cute, but still pretty damn adorable. It looks like a sort of time-consuming project, though, so who knows if I'll ever get to it. Maybe this summer, once the semester has ended. Once it's too hot for stuffed animals. . . :(

I think I want to try making this plushie first:

It's a "Cube Monster", so it's basically just a stuffed cube with buttons for eyes, a yarn line for a mouth, and little ears. It seems like a good beginner project, and look at how cute the final product is!

Unfortunately, it would still require buying fabric and stuffing, either finding and using a sewing machine or sewing by hand, and actually setting out the time to do it. Which I don't really have right now, what with all of my papers and things. 

So instead I read through these tutorials and look at these adorable fuzzy things and imagine making them. But that doesn't really help me write any scholarly papers either, so. . .

Hmmm. . .

This one I want to make for one of my friends, who loves pandas. 

How could you not love pandas, if they look like this?

There's even a tutorial for it.

And, some more tutorials can be found here:

General:

How to Make Plush Toys

How to Make a 3D Plush Pattern from a 2D Drawing

Specific:
Monster Plushie
Mushroom Plushie
Bunny Plushie
Humanoid Plushies
Humanoid Plushies

And this can be used to print out a pattern the exact size you want it.

If only I could take a crack at this now.
Maybe you can do it for me?

Procrastination: Typewriter Edition

So today, instead of getting started on my homework, I looked at pictures of typewriters on the internet.


Why, you ask? How did I get there? 

Well, I started out somehow finding Script Frenzy, the script-writing version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Apparently it starts today, and lasts for the month of April, and you have to write 100 pages total of a script or screenplay (or multiple scripts or screenplays) within that time limit in order to "win". There's no prize, and no one actually has to read your script if you don't want them to. It's just a way to motivate writers to actually get writing.


So. I thought maybe I should do it. 


Especially since I have two unfinished scripts cooking in the back of my brain--one for a radio play, one for a movie (length TBD), that I really need to finish. The radio play needs to be done before the school year ends, because it needs to air before the school year ends. 


In other words, Script Frenzy is the perfect excuse for me to finish this radio play ASAP. And to possibly also work on the more long-term movie project.


So I registered for Script Frenzy. The website has a picture of a typewriter on it. That reminded me of how cool typewriters are. Which made me try to find a picture of mine on Google, because I don't actually have a picture of my own typewriter. And then I got lost in the magical and infinite land of the internet.


Some of the gems I found:

Girls with Typewriters:

A Typewriter Girl:

People with Typewriters for Faces:

Typewriters with Their Own Faces:

A Monster Typewriter:

A Typewriter Monster:

Typewriters in Modern Settings:

A Typewriter Pillow (of all things):

This lovely graphic of a typewriter typing fish:

And this rather fantastic vintage advertisement for typewriters as emancipators of slaves to the pen: