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Fun Stuff 2009
Here's my annual roundup of all the Fun Stuff items I linked to in the email newsletter in the past year.
(Also see past annual roundups: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.)
Finally, remember that Good Experience Games has a lot more to explore, which I don't include on this list.
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2009 Fun Stuff Winner:
Star Wars as the Magnum, PI opening. (After that, watch the side-by-side comparison.)
Ten Runners-up:
• De Niro auditions as Darth Vader
• Star Wars retold by someone who hasn't seen it
• The seven dwarfs know how to rock!
• The Sound of Music in Antwerp's central train station
• Music composed by the arrangement of birds on wires:
• The mother of all funk chords
• Two entertaining videos showing the iPhone as musical accompaniment
• Monty Python's Spamalot set to Star Trek clips
• Fred Astaire plays golf... while dancing
Nine Honorable Mentions:
• People spliced together into an eternal moonwalk
• Amazing crowdsourced music video
• Subway stairs turn into a piano ("Behavior can be changed by making things fun")
• From The Onion (heads-up, spicy language) "Struggling museum now allowing patrons to touch paintings"
• "Welcome to our branding house" - great sendup of ironic hipster agencies
• Great video of Neil deGrasse Tyson on whether UFOs exist, and the value of evidence
• Nicely designed powers-of-ten animation showing the sizes of extremely small things
• Funny video with SNL's Andy Samberg - "I threw it on the ground!"
• A little Conan roast. He's a good sport.
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All other Fun Stuff entries in 2009 (posted throughout the year in the email newsletter):
Live action re-enactment of Super Mario Bros:
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User-submitted re-enactments of old Far Side cartoons:
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Fun animation re-enacting an old Internet sound:
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In 1983, a man named Cliff Young showed up at the start of Melbourne's ultra-endurance race, 543.7 miles long, wearing overalls and work boots. He was 61 years old. Read the story:
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Apple introduces revolutionary new laptop with no keyboard:
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National Film Board of Canada's new site, nfb.ca - has tons of animations and other films available for your viewing pleasure. Standout picks here:
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Near-perfect run of Marble Madness:
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NYC scenes reimagined in Legos:
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Aretha Franklin's inaugural hat is popping up everywhere:
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Juvenile place-name humor from the NYTimes, uhhh huh huh huh:
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Settlers of Catan cookies (thanks, Gary):
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A new way to save cash. I don't recommend it.
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Chewbacca in a nightstand:
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Cat vs printer:
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Awesome inaugural string music, yearrghhhh!
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(See also, from 2007 - best Clapton guitar solo EVER:)
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Wince-inducing Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman:
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Automating what shouldn't be automated - Microsoft Songsmith:
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Who needs a movie? Shockingly, it appears this is for real:
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Onion - "Recession-plagued nation demands new bubble to invest in":
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Bruce Lee playing ping-pong (ain't for real, but very fun video):
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Comics multiplication table - very clever:
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The equivalent of "it's Greek to me," in other languages.
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Earth Observed (cool photos from space):
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ImprovEverywhere turned an NYC subway platform into an art gallery. I especially like the pretentious captions they wrote for the "art."
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Pitch-perfect send-up of Twitter - a must-see for all Twitter users (tx, vahe):
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Inside the Harry Potter pitch meeting:
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Le Grand Sommeil (charming video):
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Weird chocolate commersh (tx, jared)
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Video of funny/typical TimeWarner customer experience (probably available to Facebook users only, sorry):
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Someone at Google requested a holodeck and got one - sort of:
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Funny fake NYC subway announcement (tx, andy s)
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The Onion's 10 tips for a greener house (see all 3 pages):
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Bohemian Rhapsody played on old computer peripherals:
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Classic film misquotes (thanks, GH):
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Broken signage:
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A photo of the sun... with a surprise:
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"Eye of the Tiger" sung by schoolkids - nicely done:
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Misspelled presidential bobblehead - ironically, available in DC:
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Books that people proselytize about. Entertaining, if a bit cynical.
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"Image is everything" - so says the slogan printed on ripped card stock, w/scotch tape holding everything together:
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From The Onion, "Microsoft ad campaign crashing nation's televisions":
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Hamster runs obstacle course. The soundtrack makes the video:
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On vendor-client relationships:
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Speaking of the NYT Book Review, a spoof on the bestseller list:
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Charlie Todd on the Today Show:
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The Onion - 90% of waking hours spent staring at glowing rectangles:
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Weird Al does The Doors' Jim Morrison doing Craigslist:
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Bert & Ernie on drums. First 30 seconds covers it - but fun:
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One more Muppet video - more stylish than the drums above:
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Music from my adolescence. Ohhh yeahhhh.
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The church organist, playing Michael Jackson (link requires Facebook):
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George Washington transcribed these civility and manners rules from an old Jesuit handbook (tx, jason fried):
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Only four phone booths left in NYC, all in my 'hood on West End Avenue:
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MC D. Vader, as you've never seen him before.
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Esther Dyson has over 4 billion emails in her inbox? My head just exploded.
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Easy science quiz - only 10% of Americans who took the test actually got all 12 answers:
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Here's the cool trailer for a "Tron" sequel, slated for 2010.
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Fun with verbal tics (heard on podcasts and radio all the time):
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Bob Mankoff on humor & Jewish humor - good stuff (thanks, PT):
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Funny gotta-be-a-hoax about an airport in Central Park:
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How Ben Franklin started his day:
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Today's Blondie quote, with some visual strangeness:
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A wall of fluff, different each time you load (tx, m. frauenfelder):
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Fun Addams cartoons:
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Neat chalkboard animation:
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Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the pentatonic scale:
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Roller-babies - not sure if it's funny or creepy:
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Funny Garrison Keillor quote on golf:
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A peek at Yamaha's strategy, via The Onion:
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Factory where Mario's shrooms & other videogame items are made. (Scroll RIGHT to see all images.)
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Animated short from Gel '04 special appearance Joey Mcintosh:
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Search, interrupted:
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Start watching at 24:40... entertaining look at 12 types of engineering failures.
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Christoph Niemann's brilliant depiction of his "complicated" sleep:
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Nicely packaged, handpicked garbage off of NYC streets (tx, noah):
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NYC fire hydrants with lots of personality, drawn by cartoonist Zina Saunders (who spoke at Gel'09):
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Photos of beautiful libraries across the world:
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(Warning, a bit spicy...) Funny Onion piece on the "living nightmare" of Reading Rainbow - did Levar Burton actually write it?
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Why Charlie Brooker won't switch to a Mac (funny Windows rant):
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Why Chicago should celebrate losing the Olympic bid:
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In Liberia, this daily newspaper goes up on a blackboard:
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From Zina Saunders, another hydrant portrait:
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The New Yorker nails book publicity:
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Han Bennink, euroGel06 presenter - amazing drum solo on Dutch TV:
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Exactly right: the relationship between confusion and information.
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My favorite Star Wars characters:
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This is getting lots of play, but still - Louis CK on how we take modern technology for granted:
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Fun slo-mo video (tx, scott heiferman)
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Fun web toy - mouse over to create ever-smaller colorful dots.
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Shoppers in the plaza have fun with augmented reality (tx, waxy.org):
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Fun mashup of pop culture references:
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A bottle of wine, a shoe, and a brick wall:
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Turbo boost of creativity applied to ordinary fall leaves:
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Fun wheelbarrow race video (tx, ze frank):
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Amazing paper sculptures (thx, kirstin b):
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A rendition of one person's out-of-body experience:
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Unbelievable halftime marching band show, from Penn State:
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Quick summary of the first decade of the new century:
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Possibly the worst graphic design I've ever seen on a billboard:
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The game is Grammatically Correct Rock Songs. My entry: "I stiiiill haven't foooound, that for which I'm loookiiiing."
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Photographic results of the long-awaited contest - NYC garbage truck vs. trash can:
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Video of how it would look from different cities if the earth had rings like Saturn - beautiful.
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The UK's best handheld device - funny defense of newspapers:
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Clever use of simultaneous YouTube videos. All four at once combine into a single video.
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Also see this collaborative music project, "in B flat":
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A bell choir brings a welcome holiday surprise to the bell ringer outside Bloomingdale's:
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A carefully compiled photo collection of seasonal goodies:
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Beautiful 3-minute animation - The Lighthouse Keeper:
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Around the world, unusually designed subway stations:
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Clever fake trailer of a Harry Potter spinoff - Hermione teaches magic at an inner-city magic school (heads-up, brief language):
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Make your name sound just a bit more mighty:
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See also:
• My list of good iPhone games
• Dozens of Gel Videos, showing fun and inspiring presentations from the Gel conference
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That's it for 2009... what, you're still reading? You still want more? MORE?! OK, try these:
• Past years of Fun Stuff: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
• Get these every week by signing up for the email newsletter.
