Mr. Zero Punctuation

I was a little late in catching onto Mr. Zero Punctuation [Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw], an English video game reviewer for The Escapist magazine. A few scant months back, a co-worker of mine played Croshaw’s review of The Orange Box for me (knowing that I was a huge fan of the game) – and I found myself really not only bowled over by the quality of the review itself, but in the funny and unique presentation. Obviously, the guy gets his moniker from his verbal delivery… he snarkilytalksreallyfastandgetsinalotinaveryshortamountoftime – but the accompanying minimalist / information graphics-style animations are so simple, subversive, and friggin’ fast that you NEED to be paying very close attention to be getting all the jokes, cross-references, jabs, and barbs.

Hell, I’m even not the world’s biggest gamer (in fact, I remain blissfully unaware of most of the games he reviews), but whatever… I could watch this guy review breakfast cereal.

Check him out either via The Escapist or his blog.

The Politically Incorrect Alphabet

Inspired by Dick Bruna’s Miffy, The Politically Incorrect Alphabet was supposed to just be a cute little one-off creative joke created by one Mark Jones to taunt his wife (who just happens to be a kindergarten teacher). Of course, ‘project creep’ sunk in and the effort snowballed.

As an online alphabetic flash-card set, it’s equally offensive, cute, fun, inspiring, stupid, useless, awesome, and completely politically incorrect (hence the name, duh). Most of the illustrations were inspired by suggestions culled from the site’s various forums (one for each letter).

It doesn’t look like it’s been updated in about a year, but I guess that’s what happens to weird stuff like this on the web – sooner or later, anyone can discover and ‘explode’ it.

Be sure to check out the additional downloads and look for animated easter eggs.

Kids Tote Machineguns at Canadian Summer Camp

A brilliant viral marketing campaign for War Child Canada, a charity which provides aid to war-affected children, raises awareness of the estimated 250,000 child-soldiers worldwide. Welcome to Camp Okutta, a friendly Canadian kids camp where counselors train kids how to throw grenades, shook AK-47s, and look-out for landmines.

(via trendhunter)

Connect The Dates

DADADUM has the most beautiful Gregory Calendars for sale for 25 Euros. Every day you wake up and connect one date to the next. At the end of the month, you have a pretty picture. The chalky white lines on black paper, and graphic design, make this appealing to both adults and children. These appear to work regardless of the year (although I’m not sure how they deal with leap year).